And show like those you are.
They throw down the boughs
You, worthy uncle,
Shall with my cousin, your right noble son,
Lead our first battle. Worthy Macduff and we
Shall take upon’s what else remains to do
According to our order.
SIWARD
Fare you well.
Do we but find the tyrant’s power tonight,
Let us be beaten if we cannot fight.
MACDUFF
Make all our trumpets speak, give them all breath,
Those clamorous harbingers of blood and death.
Exeunt. Alarums continued
5.7 Enter Macbeth
MACBETH
They have tied me to a stake. I cannot fly,
But bear-like I must fight the course. What’s he
That was not born of woman? Such a one
Am I to fear, or none.
Enter Young Siward
YOUNG SIWARD What is thy name?
MACBETH Thou’lt be afraid to hear it.
YOUNG SIWARD
No, though thou call’st thyself a hotter name
Than any is in hell.
MACBETH
My name’s Macbeth.
YOUNG SIWARD
The devil himself could not pronounce a title
More hateful to mine ear.
MACBETH
No, nor more fearful.
YOUNG SIWARD
Thou liest, abhorred tyrant. With my sword
I’ll prove the lie thou speak’st.
They fight, and Young Siward is slain
MACBETH
Thou wast born of woman,
But swords I smile at, weapons laugh to scorn,
Brandished by man that’s of a woman born.
Exit ⌈with the body ⌉
5.8 Alarums. Enter Macduff
MACDUFF
That way the noise is. Tyrant, show thy face!
If thou beest slain and with no stroke of mine,
My wife and children’s ghosts will haunt me still.
I cannot strike at wretched kerns, whose arms
Are hired to bear their staves. Either thou, Macbeth, 5
Or else my sword with an unbattered edge
I sheathe again undeeded. There thou shouldst be;
By this great clatter one of greatest note
Seems bruited. Let me find him, fortune,
And more I beg not.
Exit. Alarums
5.9 Enter Malcolm and Siward
SIWARD
This way, my lord. The castle’s gently rendered.
The tyrant’s people on both sides do fight.
The noble thanes do bravely in the war.
The day almost itself professes yours,
And little is to do.
MALCOLM
We have met with foes
That strike beside us.
SIWARD
Enter, sir, the castle.
Exeunt. Alarum
5.10 Enter Macbeth
MACBETH
Why should I play the Roman fool, and die
On mine own sword? Whiles I see lives, the gashes
Do better upon them.
Enter Macduff
MACDUFF
Turn, hell-hound, turn.
MACBETH
Of all men else I have avoided thee.
But get thee back. My soul is too much charged
With blood of thine already.
MACDUFF
I have no words;
My voice is in my sword, thou bloodier villain
Than terms can give thee out.
They fight; alarum
MACBETH
Thou losest labour.
As easy mayst thou the intrenchant air
With thy keen sword impress as make me bleed.
Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests;
I bear a charmed life, which must not yield
To one of woman born.
MACDUFF
Despair thy charm,
And let the angel whom thou still hast served
Tell thee Macduff was from his mother’s womb 15
Untimely ripped.
MACBETH
Accursèd be that tongue that tells me so,
For it hath cowed my better part of man;
And be these juggling fiends no more believed,
That palter with us in a double sense,
That keep the word of promise to our ear
And break it to our hope. I’ll not fight with thee.
MACDUFF
Then yield thee, coward,
And live to be the show and gaze o‘th’ time.
We’ll have thee as our rarer monsters are,
Painted upon a pole, and underwrit
‘Here may you see the tyrant.’
MACBETH
I will not yield
To kiss the ground before young Malcolm’s feet,
And to be baited with the rabble’s curse.
Though Birnam Wood be come to Dunsinane,
And thou opposed being of no woman born,
Yet I will try the last. Before my body
I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff,
And damned be him that first cries ‘Hold, enough!’
Exeunt fighting. Alarums
They enter fighting, and Macbeth is slain. Exit
Macduff with Macbeth’s body
5.11 Retreat and flourish. Enter with a drummer and colours Malcolm, Siward, Ross, thanes, and soldiers
MALCOLM
I would the friends we miss were safe arrived.
SIWARD
Some must go off; and yet by these I see
So great a day as this is cheaply bought.
MALCOLM
Macduff is missing, and your noble son.
ROSS (to Siward)
Your son, my lord, has paid a soldier’s debt.
He only lived but till he was a man,
The which no sooner had his prowess confirmed
In the unshrinking station where he fought,
But like a man he died.
SIWARD
Then he is dead?
ROSS
Ay, and brought off the field. Your cause of sorrow