Macbeth by William Shakespeare
Act 5 - Scene 5
Dunsinane. Within the castle.
Macbeth : Hang out our banners on the outward walls;
[p]The cry is still 'They
come:' our castle's strength
[p]Will laugh a siege to scorn: here let
them lie
[p]Till famine and the ague eat them up:
[p]Were they not
forced with those that should be ours,
[p]We might have met them
dareful, beard to beard,
[p]And beat them backward home.
[p][A cry of
women within]
[p]What is that noise?
Seyton : It is the cry of women, my good lord.
Macbeth : I have almost forgot the taste of fears;
[p]The time has been, my
senses would have cool'd
[p]To hear a night-shriek; and my fell of
hair
[p]Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir
[p]As life were
in't: I have supp'd full with horrors;
[p]Direness, familiar to my
slaughterous thoughts
[p]Cannot once start me.
[p][Re-enter
SEYTON]
[p]Wherefore was that cry?
Seyton : The queen, my lord, is dead.
Macbeth : She should have died hereafter;
[p]There would have been a time for
such a word.
[p]To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
[p]Creeps in
this petty pace from day to day
[p]To the last syllable of recorded
time,
[p]And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
[p]The way to dusty
death. Out, out, brief candle!
[p]Life's but a walking shadow, a poor
player
[p]That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
[p]And then is
heard no more: it is a tale
[p]Told by an idiot, full of sound and
fury,
[p]Signifying nothing.
[p][Enter a Messenger]
[p]Thou comest to
use thy tongue; thy story quickly.
Messenger : Gracious my lord,
[p]I should report that which I say I saw,
[p]But
know not how to do it.
Macbeth : Well, say, sir.
Messenger : As I did stand my watch upon the hill,
[p]I look'd toward Birnam, and
anon, methought,
[p]The wood began to move.
Macbeth : Liar and slave!
Messenger : Let me endure your wrath, if't be not so:
[p]Within this three mile
may you see it coming;
[p]I say, a moving grove.
Macbeth : If thou speak'st false,
[p]Upon the next tree shalt thou hang
alive,
[p]Till famine cling thee: if thy speech be sooth,
[p]I care
not if thou dost for me as much.
[p]I pull in resolution, and
begin
[p]To doubt the equivocation of the fiend
[p]That lies like
truth: 'Fear not, till Birnam wood
[p]Do come to Dunsinane:' and now a
wood
[p]Comes toward Dunsinane. Arm, arm, and out!
[p]If this which he
avouches does appear,
[p]There is nor flying hence nor tarrying
here.
[p]I gin to be aweary of the sun,
[p]And wish the estate o' the
world were now undone.
[p]Ring the alarum-bell! Blow, wind! come,
wrack!
[p]At least we'll die with harness on our back.
Previous: Act 5 - Scene 4
Next: Act 5 - Scene 6
