ness

Be like our warranted quarrel! Why are you silent? Macd. Such welcome and unwelcome things at once,

'Tis hard to reconcile.

Enter a DOCTOR.

Mal. Well; more anon.-Comes the king forth, I pray you?

Doct. Ay, Sir: there are a crew of wretched souls,

That stay his cure their malady convinces »
The great assay of art: but, at his touch,
Such sanctity hath heaven given his hand,
They presently amend.

Mal. I thank you, doctor. [Exit DOCTOR.
Macd. What is the disease he means?
Mal. 'Tis call'd the evil :

A most miraculous work in this good king; Which often, since my here-remain in Eugland,

I have seen him do. How he solicits heaven, Himself best knows : but strangely-visited

Now is the time of help; your eye in Scotland Would create soldiers, make our women fight, To doff their dire distresses.

Mal. Be it their comfort,

We are coming thither; gracious England hath
Lent us good Siward and ten thousand men ;
An older and a better soldier none
That Christendom gives out.

Rosse. 'Would I could answer
This comfort with the like! But I have words,
That would be howl'd out in the desert air,
Where hearing should not latch † them.

Macd. What concern they ?

The general cause? or is it a fee-grief, t
Due to some single breast?

Rosse. No mind, that's honest,

But in it shares some woe; though the main part Pertains to you alone.

Whispers the o'er-fraught heart, and bids it, break.

Macd. My children too?

Rosse. Wife, children, servants, all That could be found.

Macd. And I must be from thence I My wife kill'd too?

Rosse. I have said.

Mal. Be comforted;

Let's make us med'cines of our great revenge, To cure this deadly grief,

Macd. He has no children.--All my pretty ones?

Did you say, all ?-O hell-kite !-All?
What, all my pretty chickens, and their dam,
At one fell swoop?

Mal. Dispute it like a man.
Macd. I shall do so;

But I must also feel it as a man:

I cannot but remember such things were,
That were not precious to me.-Did heaven
look on,

And would not take their part? Sinful Macduff,
They were all struck for thee! naught that I am,
Not for their own demerits, but for mine,
Fell slaughter on their souls: Heaven rest them

ACT V.

the gate. Come, come, come, come, give me your hand; What's done, cannot be undone : To

tle.

Enter a DOCTOR of Physic, and a waiting

GENTLEWOMAN.

Doct. Will she go now to bed?
Gent. Directly.

Doct. Foul whisperings are abroad: Unnatural deeds

Gent. Since his majesty went into the field, I have seen her rise from her bed, throw her night-gown upon her, unlock her closet, take forth paper, fold it, write upon it, read it, afterwards seal it, and again return to bed; yet all this while in a most fast sleep.

Doct. A great perturbation in nature! to receive at once the benefit of sleep, and do the effects of watching. In this slumbry agitation, besides her walking, and other actual performances, what, at any time, have you heard her say?

Gent. That, Sir, which I will not report after

her.

Doct. You may, to me; and 'tis most meet you should.

Gent. Neither to you, nor any one; having no witness to confirm my speech.

Enter Lady MACBETH, with a Taper.

Lo you, here she comes! This is her very guise; and, upon my life, fast asleep. Observe her; stand close.

Doct. How came she by that light?

Gent. Why, it stood by her she has light by her continually; 'tis her command.

Doct. You see, her eyes are open.
Gent. Ay, but their sense is shut.

Doct. What is it she does now? Look, how she rubs her bands.

Gent. It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thus washing her hands; I have known her continue in this a quarter of an hour.

Lady M. Yet here's a spot.

Doct. Hark, she speaks: I will set down what comes from her, to satisfy my remembrance the more strongly.

Lady M. Out, damned spot! out, I say!One; Two; Why, then 'tis time to do't:Hell is murky!-Fie, my lord, fie! a soldier, and afear'd? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account!-Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?

Doct. Do you mark that?

Lady M. The thane of Fife had a wife; Where is she now?What, will these hands ne'er be clean ?-No mor o'that, my lord, no more o'that you mat d with this starting.

Doct. Go to, go to; you have known what you should not.

Gent. She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of that: Heaven knows what she has known.

Lady M. Here's the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh! oh! oh!

Doct. What a sight is there! The heart is sorely charged.

Gent. I would not have such a heart in my bosom, for the dignity of the whole body. Doct. Well, well, well,

Gent. 'Pray God, it be, Sir.

Doct. This disease is beyond my practice: Yet I have known those which have walked in their sleep, who have died holily in their beds. Lady M. Wash your hands, put on your night gown; look not so pale -1 tell you yet again Banquo's buried; he cannot come out of bis grave.

Doct. Even so?

Lady M. To bed, to bed; there's knocking at

• Dark.

think, but dare not speak.

Gent. Good night, good doctor. [Exeunt. SCENE II.-The Country near Dunsinane. Enter with Drum and Colours, MENTETH, CATHNESS, ANGUS, LENOX, and Soldiers. Ment. The English power is near, led on by Malcolm,

His uncle Siward, and the good Macduff. Revenges burn in them: for their dear causes Would, to the bleeding, and the grim alarm, Excite the mortified man. +

Ang. Near Birnam wood

Shall we well meet them; that way are they coming.

Cuth. Who knows, if Donalbain be with his brother?

Len. For certain, Sir, he is not: I have a file

Of all the gentry; there is Siward's son,
And many unrough youths, but even now
Protest their first of manhood.

Ment. What does the tyrant?

Cath. Great Dunsinane he strongly fortifies : Some say, he's mad; others, that lesser hat him,

Do call it valiant fury: but, for certain,
He cannot buckle his distemper'd cause
Within the belt of rule.

Ang. Now does he feel
His secret murders sticking on his hands:
Now minutely revolts upbraid his faith-breach;
Those he commands, move only in command,
Nothing in love: now does he feel the title
Hang loose about him, like a giant's robe
Upon a dwarfish thief.

Ment. Who then shall blame
His pester'd senses to recoil and start,
When all that is within him does condemn
Itself, for being there?

Cath. Well, march we on,

To give obedience where 'tis truly ow'd :
Meet we the medecin of the sickly weal;
And with him pour we, in our country's purge,
Each drop of us.

Len. Or so much as it needs,
To dew the sovereign flower, and drown the

weeds.

fear,

Thou lily-liver'd boy. What soldiers, patch? Death of thy soul! those linen cheeks of thine Are counsellors to fear. What soldiers, wheyface?

Serv. The English force, so please you.
Macb. Take thy face hence.-Seyton !-I am
sick at heart,

When I behold-Seyton, I say !-This push
Will cheer me ever, or disseat me now.
I have liv'd long enough: my way 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, but
dare not.
Seyton!-

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,
Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff,
Which weighs upon the heart?

Doct. Therein the patient
Must minister to himself.

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:

Wood in view.

Enter, with Drum and Colours, MALCOLM, old SIWARD and his SON, MACDUFF, MENTETH, CATHNESS, ANGUS, LENOX, 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, aud make discovery Err in report of us.

Sold. It shall be done.

Siw. We learn no other, but the confident
tyrant

Keeps still in Dunsinane, and will endure
Our setting down befor❜t.

Mal. 'Tis his main hope :

For where there is advantage to be given, Both more and less have given him the revolt;

And none serve with him, but constrained things,

Whose hearts are absent too.

Macd. Let our just censures

Attend the true event, and put we on
Industrious soldiership.

Siw. 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. Castle.

Within the

Enter, with Drums 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 forc'd with those that should be our's,

We might have met them dareful, beard to beard,

And beat them backward home. What is that noise ? [A cry within, of Women. 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

cool'd