Alarum within. Enter DUNCAN, MALCOLM, DONALBAIN, LENNOX,
with Attendants, meeting a bleeding Sergeant
What bloody man is that? He can report,
As seemeth by his plight, of the revolt (1)
The newest state.
This is the sergeant
Who like a good and hardy soldier fought
'Gainst my captivity. Hail, brave friend!
Say to the king the knowledge of the broil
As thou didst leave it.
Doubtful it stood;
As two spent swimmers, that do cling together
And choke their art. The merciless Macdonwald--
Worthy to be a rebel, for to that
The multiplying villanies of nature
Do swarm upon him--from the western isles
Of kerns and gallowglasses is supplied;
And fortune, on his damned quarrel smiling, (2)
Show'd like a rebel's whore: but all's too weak:
For brave Macbeth--well he deserves that name--
Disdaining fortune, with his brandish'd
steel,
Which smoked with bloody execution,
Like valour's minion carved out his passage
Till he faced the slave;
Which ne'er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him,
Till he unseam'd him from the nave to the chaps,
And fix'd his head upon our battlements.
|
The Tragedy of
Macbeth |
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Shakespeare homepage | Macbeth | Act 5,
Scene 8 |
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.
I have no words:
My voice is in my sword: thou bloodier villain
Than terms can give thee out!
They fight
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.
Despair thy charm;
And let the angel whom thou still hast served
Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother's womb
Untimely ripp'd.
Accursed be that tongue that tells me so,
For it hath cow'd 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.
Then yield thee, coward,
And live to be the show and gaze o' the time:
We'll have thee, as our rarer monsters are, (3)
Painted on a pole, and underwrit,
'Here may you see the tyrant.'
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 damn'd be him that first cries, 'Hold, enough!'
Exeunt, fighting. Alarums
Retreat. Flourish. Enter, with drum and colours, MALCOLM, SIWARD, ROSS, the other Thanes, and
Soldiers
I would the friends we miss were safe arrived.
Some must go off: and yet, by these I see,
So great a day as this is cheaply bought.
Macduff is missing, and your
noble son.
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 confirm'd
In the unshrinking station where he fought,
But like a man he died.
Ay, and brought off the field: your cause of
sorrow
Must not be measured by his worth, for then
It hath no end.
Why then, God's soldier be he!
Had I as many sons as I have hairs,
I would not wish them to a fairer death:
And so, his knell is knoll'd.
He's worth more sorrow,
And that I'll spend for him.
He's worth no more
They say he parted well, and paid his score:
And so, God be with him! Here comes newer comfort.
Re-enter MACDUFF, with MACBETH's head (4)
Hail, king! for so thou art: behold, where stands
(5)
The usurper's cursed head: the time is free:
I see thee compass'd with thy kingdom's pearl,
That speak my salutation in their minds;
Whose voices I desire aloud with mine:
Hail, King of Scotland!
Hail, King of
Flourish
We shall not spend a large expense of time
Before we reckon with your several loves,
And make us even with you. My thanes and kinsmen,
Henceforth be earls, the first that ever
In such an honour named. What's more to do,
Which would be planted newly with the time,
As calling home our exiled friends abroad
That fled the snares of watchful tyranny;
Producing forth the cruel ministers
Of this dead butcher and his fiend-like queen,
Who, as 'tis thought, by self and violent hands
Took off her life; this, and what needful else
That calls upon us, by the grace of Grace,
We will perform in measure, time and place:
So, thanks to all at once and to each one,
Whom we invite to see us crown'd at
Scone.
Flourish. Exeunt