Were they not forced with those that should be ours, We might have met them dareful, beard to beard, And beat them backward home. What is that noise? [A cry within, of women. Sey. It is the cry of women, my good lord. Macb. I have almost forgot the taste of fears : The time has been, my senses would have cooled 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 supped full with hor rors; Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts, Cannot once start me.-Wherefore was that cry? Sey. The queen, my lord, is dead. Mach. 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. Do we but find the tyrant's power to-night, Macd. Make all our trumpets speak; give them all breath, Those clamorous harbingers of blood and death. [Exeunt. Alarums continued. SCENE VII.-The same. Another part of the Plain. Enter MACBETH. Macb. They have tied me to a stake; I can not 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. Than any is in hell. Macb. My name's Macbeth. Yo. Siw. The devil himself could not pronounce a title More hateful to mine ear. 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. Retreat. Flourish. Re-enter, with drums and colours, MALCOLM, Old SIWARD, Rosse, Lenox, ANGUS, CATHNESS, MENTETH, and Soldiers. Mal. I would the friends we miss were safe arrived. Siw. Some must go off: and yet, by these I see, So great a day as this is cheaply bought. Mal. Macduff is missing, and your noble son. Rosse. Your son, my lord, has paid a soldier's debt: He only lived but till he was a man; |