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SCENE V. Dunsinane. Within the castle. (Photograph shows entrance to the dungeon at Glamis Castle).
Enter MACBETH, SEYTON, and Soldiers, with drum... Continued Below Added: 21st Jun 2005 by Administrator
Unique Id: 58027 |
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Continued from above
and colours 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, (note 32) We might have met them dareful, beard to beard, And beat them backward home. A cry of women within What is that noise? SEYTON It is the cry of women, my good lord. Exit MACBETH 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 (note 33) 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? SEYTON The queen, my lord, is dead. MACBETH She should have died hereafter; There would have been a time for such a word. (note 34) 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 comest to use thy tongue; thy story quickly. Messenger Gracious my lord, I should report that which I say I saw, But know not how to do it. 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. MACBETH Liar and slave! Messenger Let me endure your wrath, if't be not so: Within this three mile may you see it coming; (note 35) I say, a moving grove. MACBETH If thou speak'st false, Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive, Till famine cling thee: if thy speech be sooth, (notes 36, 37) I care not if thou dost for me as much. I pull in resolution, and begin (note 38) 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. (note 39) Exeunt (32) Forc'd. ' Reinforced;' 'provided with forces.' One of those vigorous words framed by Shakespeare, of which his emendators would deprive us by proposing various substitutions. (33) Fell. The portion of the skin which produces hair. A dealer in hides is called a fell-monger. (34) A word. Here used for 'a sentence.' "Nothing could have served more fully to show the utter frustration and despairing apathy of Macbeth's mind after all his miserably fulfilled ambition, than the manner In which he receives the tidings of his wife's death. His first few words have almost the dullness of insensibility upon them; and he follows them up with a gloomy acquiescence in the universal poorness and nothingness of all things that belongs to the utterly disappointed man. No more pregnant lesson upon the worthlessness of fruition in unholy desires was ever penned than Shakespeare's "Macbeth." (35) Within this three mile. A familiar colloquial idiom, something similar to the one pointed out in Note 77, Act III., "Henry VIII." It is an ellipsis for 'within this space of three miles,' 'within this distance of three miles.' (36) Cling. A North country word, signifying 'shrivel,' 'shrink,' 'wither,' 'dry up.' (37) Sooth. 'Truth.' See Note 12, Act I. (38) Pull in. Here used in the sense of 'draw back,' 'rein in.' (39) Harness. 'Armour.'
Subjects: English
Key Stages: KS2, KS3, KS4, KS4+ |
