9

I have liv'd long enough: my May of life
Is fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf;
And that which should accompany old age,
As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,
I must not look to have; but, in their stead,
Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath,
Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not.-
Seyton!-

Enter SEYTON.

Sey. What is your gracious pleasure?
Macb.

What news more?

Sey. All is confirm'd, my lord, which was reported. Macb. I'll fight, till from my bones my flesh be hack'd. Give me my armour.

Sey.

'Tis not needed yet.

Macb. I'll put it on.

Send out more horses, skirr the country round;

Hang those that talk of fear.-Give me mine armour.-
How does your patient, doctor?

Doct.

Not so sick, my lord,

As she is troubled with thick-coming fancies,

That keep her from her rest.

Macb.

Cure her of that.

Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas'd,
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,

Raze out the written troubles of the brain,

And, with some sweet oblivious antidote,

9

-my MAY of life] Johnson suggested that we ought to read May for way; and so the Corr. fol. 1632.

Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous grief,1

Which weighs upon the heart?

Doct.

Must minister to himself.

Therein the patient

Macb. Throw physic to the dogs; I'll none of it.Come, put mine armour on; give me my staff.Seyton, send out.-Doctor, the thanes fly from me.Come, sir, despatch.—If thou couldst, doctor, cast The water of my land, find her disease,

And purge it to a sound and pristine health,

I would applaud thee to the very echo,

That should applaud again.-Pull 't off, I say.—

What rhubarb, senna,2 or what purgative drug,

Would scour these English hence? Hear'st thou of them?
Doct. Ay, my good lord: your royal preparation
Makes us hear something.

Macb.

Bring it after me.—

I will not be afraid of death and bane,

Till Birnam forest come to Dunsinane.

[Exit, with his armourer and other followers.

Doct. Were I from Dunsinane away and clear, Profit again should hardly draw me here.

[Exit.

1 --of that perilous GRIEF,] So the Corr. fol. 1632, for stuff of the old copies. It can hardly be doubted that the old compositor confounded the word stuff (spelt with a long s) and grief. Editors in general agree in condemning stuff.

2 —SENNA,] The old copies read, cyme. No such drug appears to be known, and Rowe judiciously corrected it to senna.

SCENE IV. The Country near Dunsinane. Birnam Wood

in sight.

Enter, with drum and colours, MALCOLM, old SIWARD, his Son, MACDUFF, MENTEITH, CAITHNESS, Angus, LenNOX, ROSSE, and Soldiers marching.

Mal. Cousins, I hope the days are near at hand,

That chambers will be safe.

Ment.

We doubt it nothing.

Siw. What wood is this before us?
Ment.

The wood of Birnam.

Mal. Let every soldier hew him down a bough,
And bear't before him thereby shall we shadow
The numbers of our host, and make discovery
Err in report of us.

Siw. We learn no other but the confident tyrant Keeps still in Dunsinane, and will endure

Our setting down before 't.

Mal.

'Tis his main hope;

For where there is advantage to be gotten,

Both more and less have given him the revolt;
And none serve with him but constrained things,
Whose hearts are absent too.

Macd.

Attend the true event, and put we on

Industrious soldiership.

Siw.

Let our just censures

The time approaches,

That will with due decision make us know

What we shall say we have, and what we owe.

Thoughts speculative their unsure hopes relate,

But certain issue strokes must arbitrate:

Towards which advance the war.

[Exeunt, marching.

SCENE V.-Dunsinane.

Within the Castle walls.

Enter, with drum and colours, MACBETH, SEYTON, and
Soldiers.

Macb. Hang out our banners on the outward walls!
The cry is still, They come ! Our castle's strength
Will laugh a siege to scorn: here let them lie,
Till famine and the ague eat them up.

Were they not farc'd with those that should be ours,
We might have met them dareful, beard to beard,
And beat them backward home. What is that noise?
[A cry of Women, within.

Sey. It is the cry of women, my good lord.
Macb. I have almost forgot the taste of fears.
The time has been, my senses would have quail'd3
To hear a night-shriek; and my fell of hair1
Would at a dismal treatise rouse, and stir,

As life were in't. I have supp'd full with horrors:
Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts,
Cannot once start me.-

[Exit.

Re-enter SEYTON.

Wherefore was that cry?

3 -my senses would have QUAIL'D] It is cool'd in the folios, and indisputably amended to quail'd in the Corr. fol. 1632.

-and my FELL of hair] Fell is skin, and is still in use in the word fellmonger: "my fell of hair" is the skin of the hair.

Sey. The queen, my lord, is dead."

Macb. She should have died hereafter:

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

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
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.

Mess. Gracious my lord,

I should report that which I say I saw,

But know not how to do it.

Macb.

Well, say, sir.

Mess. As I did stand my watch upon the hill, I look'd toward Birnam ; and anon, methought, The wood began to move.

Macb.

Liar, and slave!

Mess. Let me endure your wrath, if 't be not so: Within this three mile may you see it coming;

I say, a moving grove.

Macb.

If thou speak'st false,

The queen, my lord, is dead.] It is, we think, quite right that Seyton should return to the scene with this information, though we formerly held a contrary opinion.