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- $Unique_ID{SSP01425}
- $Title{Macbeth: Act V, Scene V}
- $Author{Shakespeare, William}
- $Subject{}
- $Log{Dramatis Personae*01400.txt}
-
- Portions copyright (c) CMC ReSearch, Inc., 1989
-
- The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
-
- MACBETH
-
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- ACT V
- ................................................................................
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- SCENE V: Dunsinane. Within the castle.
- . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
-
- {Enter MACBETH, SEYTON, and Soldiers, with drum
- and colors.}
-
- MACBETH: 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 forced with those that should be ours,
- We might have met them dareful, beard to beard,
- And beat them backward home.
-
- [A cry of women within.]
-
- What is that noise?
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- SEYTON: It is the cry of women, my good lord.
-
- [Exit.]
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- MACBETH: I have almost forgot the taste of fears;
- The time has been, my senses would have cool'd 10
- 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 slaughterous thoughts
- Cannot once start me.
-
- {Re-enter SEYTON.}
-
- Wherefore was that cry?
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- SEYTON: The queen, my lord, is dead.
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- MACBETH: 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 20
- 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 comest to use thy tongue; thy story quickly.
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- Messenger: Gracious my lord, 30
- I should report that which I say I saw,
- But know not how to do it.
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- 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.
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- MACBETH: Liar and slave!
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- 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.
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- MACBETH: If thou speak'st false,
- Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive,
- Till famine cling thee: if thy speech be sooth, 40
- 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 aweary of the sun,
- And wish the estate o' the world were now undone. 50
- Ring the alarum-bell! Blow, wind! come, wrack!
- At least we'll die with harness on our back.
-
- [Exeunt.]
-