Doc. This disease is beyond my practice: Yet I have known those which have walked in their sleep, who have died holily in their beds. Lady M. Wash your hands, put on your night-gown ; look not so pale :-I tell you yet again, Banquo's buried; he cannot come out of his grave. Doc. Even so ? Lady M. To bed, to bed; there's knocking at the gate. Come, come, come, come, give me your hand; What's done, cannot be undone : To bed, to bed, to bed. [Exit. Doc. Will she go now to bed? Gent. Directly. Doc. Foul whisperings are abroad: Unnatural deed's Do breed unnatural troubles: Infected minds To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets. Gent. Good night, good doctor. SCENE II. [Exeunt. The Country near Dunsinane. Enter with Drum and Colours, MENTETH, CATHNESS, ANGUS, LENOX, and Soldiers. Ment. The English power is near, led on by Malcolm, His uncle Siward, and the good Macduff. Revenges burn in them: for their dear causes Ang. Near Birnam wood Shall we well meet them; that way are they coming. Cath. Who knows, if Donalbain be with his brother? Len. For certain, sir, he is not: I have a file Of all the gentry; there is Siward's son, And many unrough youths, that even now Ment. What does the tyrant? [3] By the mortified man, is meant a religious; one who has subdued his passions, is dead to the world, has abandoned it, and all the affairs of it: an Ascetic. WARB. Cath. Great Dunsinane he strongly fortifies : He cannot buckle his distemper'd cause Ang. Now does he feel His secret murders sticking on his hands; Ment. Who then shall blame His pester'd senses to recoil, and start, Cath. Well, march we on, To give obedience where 'tis truly ow'd : Each drop of us. Len. Or so much as it needs, To dew the sovereign flower, and drown the weeds. Make we our march towards Birnam. [Exe. marching. SCENE III. Dunsinane. A Room in the Castle. Enter MACBETH, Doctor, and Attendants. Macb. Bring me no more reports; let them fly all ; Till Birnam wood remove to Dunsinane, I cannot taint with fear. What's the boy Malcolm? [4] That is, when all the faculties of the mind are employed in self-condemnation. JOHNS. [5] i. e. physician. Shakspeare uses this word in the feminine gender, where Lafeu speaks of Helen in All's well that ends well; and Florizel, in The Winter's Tale, calls Camillo "the medecin of our house." STEEV. [6] Shakspeare took the thought from Holinshed, p 179 and 180, of his History of Scotland: "-For manie of the people abhorring the riotous man ners and superstitious gormandizing brought in among them by the Englyshe The mind I sway by, and the heart I bear, Shall never sagg" with doubt, nor shake with fear. Enter a Servant. -The devil damn thee black, thou cream-fac'd loon! Where gott'st thou that goose-look? Ser. There is ten thousand Macb. Geese, villain? Ser. Soldiers, sir. Macb. Go, prick thy face, and over-red thy fear, Thou lily-liver'd boy. What soldiers, patch? Death of thy soul! those linen cheeks of thine Are counsellors to fear. 8 What soldiers, whey-face? Ser. The English force, so please you. Macb. Take thy face hence.-Seyton !- When I behold-Seyton, I say!This push -I am I must not look to have; but, in their stead, Enter SEYTON. Sey. What is your gracious pleasure? Macb. What news more? Sey. All is confirm'd, my lord, which was reported. Macb. I'll fight, till from my bones my flesh be hack'd. Give me my armour. Sey. 'Tis not needed yet. men, were willing inough to receive this Donald for their king, trusting (besause he had beene brought up in the Isles with the old customes and manners of their antient nations, without tast of English likerous delicats,) they should by his seuere order in gouernement recouer againe the former temperance of their old progenitors." The same historian informs us, that in those ages the Scots eat but once a day, and even then very sparingly. It appears from Dr. Johnson's Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland, that the natives had neither kail nor brogues, till they were taught the art of planting the one, and making the other, by the soldiers of Cromwell. STEEV. [7] To sag, or swag, is to sink down by its own weight, or by an overload. It is common in Staffordshire to say, "a beam in a building sags, or has sagged." TOLLET. WARE [8] The meaning is, they infect others who see them, with cowardice. [9] Sear is dry. STEEV. Macb. I'll put it on. Send out more horses, skirr the country round; ' Doc. Not so sick, my lord, As she is troubled with thick-coming fancies, Macb. Cure her of that: Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas'd; Doc. Therein the patient Macb. Throw physic to the dogs, I'll none of it.Come, put mine armour on; give me my staff:Seyton, send out.-Doctor, the thanes fly from me :Come, sir, despatch :-If thou could'st, doctor, cast The water of my land, find her disease, And purge it to a sound and pristine health, That should applaud again.-Pull't off, I say.- Would scour these English hence?-Hearest thou of them? Doc. Ay, my good lord; your royal preparation Makes us hear something. Macb. Bring it after me. I will not be afraid of death and bane, Doc. Were I from Dunsinane away and clear, Profit again should hardly draw me here. [Exit. [Exeunt. [1] To skirr, I belleve, signifies to scour, to ride hastily. STEEV. [2] To cast the water was the phrase in use for finding out disorders by the inspection of urine. STEEVENS. SCENE IV. Country near Dunsinane. A Wood in view. Enter, with Drum and Colours, MALCOLM, old SIWARD, and his Son, MACDUFE, MENTETH, CATHNESS, ANGUS, LENOX, ROSSE, and Soldiers, marching. Mal. Cousins, I hope the days are near at hand, That chambers will be safe. Ment. We doubt it nothing. Siw. What wood is this before us? Mal. Let every soldier hew him down a bough, Sold. It shall be done. Siw. We learn no other, but the confident tyrant Mal. 'Tis his main hope: For where there is advantage to be given, Both more and less have given him the revolt ;3 Macd. Let our just censures Attend the true event, and put we on Siw. The time approaches, That will with due decision make us know What we shall say we have, and what we owe.4 Towards which, advance the war. [Exeunt, marching. SCENE V. Dunsinane. Within the Castle. Enter, with Drums 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 [3] Advantage or 'vantage, in the time of Shakspeare, signified opportunity. He shut up himself and his soldiers (says Malcolm) in the castle, because when there is an opportunity to be gone, they all desert him. JOHNS. |