The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Macbeth: Dramatis Personæ.
• Act I.
• Scene I.—: a Desert Heath.
• Scene Ii.—: a Camp Near Forres.
• Scene Iii.—: a Heath.
• Scene Iv.—: Forres. a Room In the Palace.
• Scene V.—: Inverness.macbeth’scastle.
• Scene Vi.—: the Same. Before the Castle.
• Scene Vii.—: the Same. a Room In the Castle.
• Act II.
• Scene I.—: Inverness. Court Within the Castle.
• Scene Ii.—: the Same.
• Scene Iii.—: the Same.
• Scene Iv.—: the Same. Without the Castle.
• Act III.
• Scene I.—: Forres. a Room In the Palace.
• Scene Ii.—: the Same. Another Room In the Palace.
• Scene Iii —: the Same. a Park, With a Road Leading to the Palace.
• Scene Iv.—: the Same. a Room of State In the Palace.
• Scene V.—: a Heath.
• Scene Vi.—: Forres. a Room In the Palace.
• Act IV.
• Scene I.—: a Cavern. In the Middle, a Boiling Cauldron.
• Scene Ii.—: Fife.macduff’scastle.
• Scene Iii.—: England. Before Theking’spalace.
• Act V.
• Scene I.—: Dunsinane. a Room In the Castle.
• Scene Ii.—: the Country Near Dunsinane.
• Scene Iii.—: Dunsinane. a Room In the Castle.
• Scene Iv.—: Country Near Birnam Wood.
• Scene V.—: Dunsinane. Within the Castle.
• Scene Vi.—: the Same. a Plain Before the Castle.
• Scene Vii.—: the Same. Another Part of the Plain.

Scene V.—

Dunsinane. Within the Castle.

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 forc’d 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?

Sey.

It is the cry of women, my good lord.

[Exit.

Macb.

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 slaughterous thoughts,

Cannot once start me.

Re-enterSeyton.

Wherefore was that cry?

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 towards 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,

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 aweary 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.