Macbeth (Including The Biography of the Infamous Author). William Shakespeare

What is that noise?

       SEYTON.

       It is the cry of women, my good lord.

       [Exit.]

       MACBETH.

       I have almost forgot the taste of fears:

       The time has been, my senses would have cool’d

       To hear a night-shriek; and my fell of hair

       Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir

       As life were in’t: I have supp’d full with horrors;

       Direness, familiar to my slaught’rous thoughts,

       Cannot once start me.

       [Re-enter Seyton.]

       Wherefore was that cry?

       SEYTON.

       The queen, my lord, is dead.

       MACBETH.

       She should have died hereafter;

       There would have been a time for such a word.—

       Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

       Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

       To the last syllable of recorded time;

       And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

       The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

       Life’s but a walking shadow; a poor player,

       That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

       And then is heard no more: it is a tale

       Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

       Signifying nothing.

       [Enter a Messenger.]

       Thou com’st to use thy tongue; thy story quickly.

       MESSENGER.

       Gracious my lord,

       I should report that which I say I saw,

       But know not how to do it.

       MACBETH.

       Well, say, sir.

       MESSENGER.

       As I did stand my watch upon the hill,

       I look’d toward Birnam, and anon, methought,

       The wood began to move.

       MACBETH.

       Liar, and slave!

       [Strikimg him.]

       MESSENGER.

       Let me endure your wrath, if’t be not so.

       Within this three mile may you see it coming;

       I say, a moving grove.

       MACBETH.

       If thou speak’st false,

       Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive,

       Till famine cling thee: if thy speech be sooth,

       I care not if thou dost for me as much.—

       I pull in resolution; and begin

       To doubt the equivocation of the fiend

       That lies like truth. “Fear not, till Birnam wood

       Do come to Dunsinane;” and now a wood

       Comes toward Dunsinane.—Arm, arm, and out!—

       If this which he avouches does appear,

       There is nor flying hence nor tarrying here.

       I ‘gin to be a-weary of the sun,

       And wish the estate o’ the world were now undone.—

       Ring the alarum bell!—Blow, wind! come, wrack!

       At least we’ll die with harness on our back.

       [Exeunt.]

       SCENE VI. The same. A Plain before the Castle.

       [Enter, with drum and colours, Malcolm, old Siward, Macduff, &c., and their Army, with boughs.]

       MALCOLM.

       Now near enough; your leafy screens throw down,

       And show like those you are.—You, worthy uncle,

       Shall with my cousin, your right-noble son,

       Lead our first battle: worthy Macduff and we

       Shall take upon’s what else remains to do,

       According to our order.

       SIWARD.

       Fare you well.—

       Do we but find the tyrant’s power tonight,

       Let us be beaten, if we cannot fight.

       MACDUFF.

       Make all our trumpets speak; give them all breath,

       Those clamorous harbingers of blood and death.

       [Exeunt.]

       SCENE VII. The same. Another part of the Plain.

       [Alarums. Enter Macbeth.]

       MACBETH.

       They have tied me to a stake; I cannot fly,

       But, bear-like I must fight the course.—What’s he

       That was not born of woman? Such a one

       Am I to fear, or none.

       [Enter young Siward.]

       YOUNG SIWARD.

       What is thy name?

       MACBETH.

       Thou’lt be afraid to hear it.

       YOUNG SIWARD.

       No; though thou call’st thyself a hotter name

       Than any is in hell.

       MACBETH.

       My name’s Macbeth.

       YOUNG SIWARD.

       The devil himself could not pronounce a title

       More hateful to mine ear.

       MACBETH.

       No, nor more fearful.

       YOUNG SIWARD.

       Thou liest, abhorred tyrant; with my sword

       I’ll prove the lie thou speak’st.

       [They fight, and young Seward is slain.]

       MACBETH.

       Thou wast born of woman.—

       But swords I smile at, weapons laugh to scorn,

       Brandish’d by man that’s of a woman born.

       [Exit.]

       [Alarums. Enter Macduff.]

       MACDUFF.

       That way the noise is.—Tyrant, show thy face!

       If thou be’st slain and with no stroke of mine,

       My wife and children’s ghosts will haunt me still.

       I cannot strike at wretched kerns, whose arms

       Are hired to bear their staves; either thou, Macbeth,

       Or else my sword, with an unbatter’d edge,

       I sheathe again undeeded. There thou shouldst be;

       By this great clatter, one of greatest note

       Seems bruited. Let me find him, fortune!

       And more I beg not.

       [Exit. Alarums.]

       [Enter Malcolm and old Siward.]

       SIWARD.

       This way, my lord;—the castle’s