Cath. Well, march we on,

To give obedience where 'tis truly owed:
Meet we the medecin of the sickly weal;

And with him pour we, in our country's purge,
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. [Exeunt marching.

SCENE III.-DUNSINANE. A Room in the Castle.

Enter MACBETH, Doctor, and Attendants. Mach. 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?
Was he not born of woman? The spirits that know
All mortal consequents pronounced me thus,-
"Fear not, Macbeth; no man that's born of woman,
Shall e'er have power on thee."-Then fly, false thanes,
And mingle with the English epicures:

The mind I sway by, and the heart I bear,
Shall never sag with doubt, nor shake with fear.

Enter a Servant.

The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon! Where gott'st thou that goose look?

Serv. There is ten thousand-

Macb. Geese, villain?

Serv. Soldiers, Sir.

Mach. 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. What soldiers, whey-face?
Serv. The English force, so please you.

Macb. Take thy face hence.-[Exit Serv.] Seyton!-
I am sick at heart

When I behold-Seyton, I say!—This push
Will cheer me ever, or disseat me now.
I have lived long enough: my way of life
Is fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf:

And that which should accompany old age,

As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,

I must not look to have; but, in their stead,

Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath, Which the poor heart would fain deny, but dare not.Seyton!

Doct. Not so sick, my lord,

As she is troubled with thick-coming fancies, That keep her from her rest.

Macb. Cure her of that:

Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased;
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow;
Raze out the written troubles of the brain;
And, with some sweet oblivious antidote,
Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff,
Which weighs upon the heart?

Doct. Therein the patient

Must minister to himself.

Mach. 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 couldst, doctor, cast The water of my land, find her disease, And purge it to a sound and pristine health, I would applaud thee to the very echo, That should applaud again.-Pull't off, I say.What rhubarb, senna, or what purgative drug, [them? Would scour these English hence? Hearest thou of Doct. 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,

Till Birnam forest come to Dunsinane.

[Exit.

Doct. Were I from Dunsinane away and clear, Profit again should hardly draw me here.

[Exit.

SCENE IV.-Country near DUNSINANE: a Wood in view. Enter, with drum and colours, MALCOLM, Old SIWARD

and his Son, MACDUFF, MENTETH, CATHNESS, ANGUS, LENOX, ROSSE, and Soldiers marching. Mal. Cousins, I hope the days are near at hand

SCENE V.-DUNSINANE. Within the Castle.

Enter, with drum 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 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, 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 cool'd
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 supp'd full with horrors;
Direness, familiar to my slaught'rous 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.

[Striking him.

Mess. Let me endure your wrath, if 't be not so: Within this three mile you may see it coming; I say, a moving grove.

Macb. If thou speak'st false,

Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive
Till famine cling thee: if thy speech be sooth,

I care not if thou dost for me as much.

I pull in resolution; and begin

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 a-weary 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.

[Exeunt

Macd. That way the noise is.-Tyrant, shew thy face! If thou be'st slain, and with no stroke of mine, My wife and children's ghosts will haunt me still. I cannot strike at wretched kernes, whose arms

Are hired to bear their staves; either thou, Macbeth,
Or else my sword, with an unbatter'd 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. Alarum.

I bear a charmed life, which must not yield
To one of woman born.

Macd. Despair thy charm;

And let the angel whom thou still hast served Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother's womb Untimely ripp'd.

Macb. Accursèd 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.
Macd. Then yield thee, coward,

And live to be the show and gaze o' the time.
We'll have thee, as our rarer monsters are,
Painted upon a pole, and underwrit,
"Here may you see the tyrant."

Macb. I'll 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 he that first cries, "Hold, enough!"
[Exeunt, fighting.

Retreat. Flourish. Re-enter, with drum 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;

The which no sooner had his prowess confirm'd
In the unshrinking station where he fought,
But like a man he died.

Siw. Then he is dead?

Rosse. Ay, and brought off the field: your cause of Must not be measured by his worth, for then [sorrow

It hath no end.

Siw Had he his hurts before?

Rosse. Ay, on the front.

Siw. Why then, God's soldier be hel 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.

Mal. He's worth more sorrow,

And that I'll spend for him.

Siw. He's worth no more:

They say he parted well, and paid his score:
So, God be with him!-Here comes newer comfort.

Re-enter MACDUFF, with MACBETH's head on a pole.
Macd. Hail, king! for so thou art: behold, where
The usurper's cursed head: the time is free: [stands
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!

All. King of Scotland, hail!

[Flourish.

Mal. 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 Scotland
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. Exzeu nt.

Ber. Welcome, Horatio; welcome, good Marcellus.
Hor. What, has this thing appear'd again to-night?
Ber. I have seen nothing.

Mar. Horatio says 'tis but our fantasy;
And will not let belief take hold of him,
Touching this dreaded sight, twice seen of us:
Therefore I have entreated him along
With us to watch the minutes of this night;
That, if again this apparition come,
He may approve our eyes, and speak to it.
Hor. Tush! tush! 'twill not appear.

Ber. Sit down awhile;

And let us once again assail your ears, That are so fortified against our story,

What we two nights have seen.

Hor. Well, sit we down,

And let us hear Bernardo speak of this.

Hor. What art thou, that usurp'st this time of night, Together with that fair and warlike form,

In which the majesty of buried Denmark

Did sometimes march? by heaven I charge thee, speak. Mar. It is offended.

Ber. See! it stalks away.

Hor. Stay; speak, speak! I charge thee, speak!

[Exit Ghost.

Mar. 'Tis gone, and will not answer. Ber. How now, Horatio! you tremble, and look pale: Is not this something more than fantasy? What think you of it?

Hor. Before my God, I might not this believe Without the sensible and true avouch

Of mine own eyes.

Mar. Is it not like the king?

Hor. As thou art to thyself:

Such was the very armour he had on

When he the ambitious Norway combated;

So frown'd he once, when, in an angry parle,

He smote the sledded Polack on the ice. 'Tis strange.

Mar. Thus, twice before, and jump at this dead hour, With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.

Hor. In what particular thought to work, I know not; But, in the gross and scope of mine opinion, This bodes some strange eruption to our state.

Mar. Good now, sit down, and tell me, he that knows,
Why this same strict and most observant watch
So nightly toils the subject of the land?

Any why such daily cast of brazen cannon,
And foreign mart for implements of war;

Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task

Does not divide the Sunday from the week:
What might be toward, that this sweaty haste
Doth make the night joint labourer with the day;
Who is't that can inform me?

Hor. Than can I;

At least, the whisper goes so. Our last king,
Whose image even but now appear'd to us,
Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,
Thereto prick'd on by a most emulate pride,
Dared to the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet
(For so this side of our known world esteem'd him)
Did slay this Fortinbras; who, by a seal'd compact,
Well ratified by law and heraldry,

Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands
Which he stood seized of, to the conqueror:
Against the which, a moiety competent
Was gaged by our king; which had return'd

To the inheritance of Fortinbras,

Had he been vanquisher; as, by the same co-mart,

And carriage of the article designed,

His fell to Hamlet: now, Sir, young Fortinbras,
Of unimproved mettle hot and full,

Hath in the skirts of Norway, here and there,
Shark'd up a list of landless resolutes,
For food and diet, to some enterprise
That hath a stomach in't: which is no other
!(As it doth well appear unto our state)
But to recover of us, by strong hand
And terms compulsatory, those 'foresaid lands
So by his father lost and this, I take it,
Is the main motive of our preparations;

The source of this our watch; and the chief head
Of this post-haste and romage in the land.

We do it wrong, being so majestical,
To offer it the show of violence;
For it is, as the air, invulnerable,
And our vain blows malicious mockery.

Exit Ghost.

Ber. It was about to speak, when the cock crew.
Hor. And then it started, like a guilty thing
Upon a fearful summons. I have heard,
The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,
Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat
Awake the god of day; and, at his warning,
Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,
The extravagant and erring spirit hies
To his confine: and of the truth herein
This present object made probation.

Mar. It faded on the crowing of the cock.
Some say, that ever 'gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
This bird of dawning singeth all night long:
And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.

Hor. So have I heard, and do in part believe it.
But, look, the morn, in russet mantle clad,
Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill:
Break we our watch up; and, by my advice,
Let us impart what we have seen to-night
Unto young Hamlet; for, upon my life,
This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him.
Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it,
As needful in our loves, fitting our duty?
Mar. Let's do't, I pray; and I this morning know
Where we shall find him most convenient. [Exeunt.

SCENE II.-The same. A Room of State in the Castle.
Enter the KING, QUEEN, HAMLET, POLONIUS, LAERTES,
VOLTIMAND, CORNELIUS, Lords, and Attendants.
King. Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death
The memory be green; and that it us befitted
To bear our hearts in grief, and our whole kingdom
To be contracted in one brow of woe;
Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature,
That we with wisest sorrow think on him,
Together with remembrance of ourselves.
Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen,
The imperial jointress of this warlike state,
Have we, as 'twere with a defeated joy,—
With one auspicious, and one dropping eye;
With mirth in funeral, and with dirge in marriage,
In equal scale weighing delight and dole,-

Taken to wife: nor have we herein barr'd
Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone
With this affair along :--for all, our thanks.
Now follows, that you know, young Fortinbras,
Holding a weak supposal of our worth,
Or thinking, by our late dear brother's death,
Our state to be disjoint and out of frame,
Colleagued with this dream of his advantage,
He hath not failed to pester us with message,
Importing the surrender of those lands
Lost by his father, with all bands of law,

To our most valiant brother.--So much for him.-
Now for ourself, and for this time of meeting.
Thus much the business is: we have here writ
To Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras,-
Who, impotent and bed-rid, scarcely hears
Of this his nephew's purpose,-to suppress
His further gait herein; in that the levies,
The lists, and full proportions, are all made
Out of his subject--and we here despatch
You, good Cornelius, and you, Voltimand,
For bearers of this greeting to old Norway;
Giving to you no further personal power
To business with the king, more than the scope
Of these dilated articles allow.

Farewell; and let your haste commend your duty.
Cor. Vol. In that, and all things, will we shew our
King. We doubt it nothing; heartily farewell. [duty.
[Exeunt VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS.
And now, Laertes, "what's the news with you?
You told us of some suit, what is 't, Laertes?
You cannot speak of reason to the Dane,
And lose your voice: what wouldst thou beg, Laertes,
That shall not be my offer, not thy asking?
The head is not more native to the heart,

The hand more instrumental to the mouth,

Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father.
What wouldst thou have, Laertes?

Pol. He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave, By laboursome petition; and, at last, Upon his will I seal'd my hard consent:

I do beseech you, give him leave to go.

[kind.

King. Take thy fair hour, Laertes; time be thine, And thy best graces: spend it at thy will.But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son,Ham. [Aside.] A little more than kin, and less than King. How is it that the clouds still hang on you? Ham. Not so, my lord; I am too much i' the sun. Queen. Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour où, And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark. Do not, for ever, with thy vailed lids

Seek for thy noble father in the dust:

Thou know'st 'tis common,-all that live must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.

Ham. Ay, Madam, it is common.

Queen. If it be,

Why seems it so particular with thee?

Ham. Seems, Madam! nay, it is; I know not seems. 'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,

Nor customary suits of solemn black,

Nor windy suspiration of forced breath,

No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected haviour of the visage,
Together with all forms, modes, shows of grief,
That can denote me truly: these, indeed, seem,
But I have that within which passeth show;
For they are actions that a man might play:
These, but the trappings and the suits of woe.

King. 'Tis sweet and commendable in your nature,
To give these mourning duties to your father: [Hamlet,
But, you must know, your father lost a father;
That father lost, lost his; and the survivor bound
In filial obligation, for some term

To do obsequious sorrow; but to perséver
In obstinate condolement is a course

Of impious stubbornness; 'tis unmanly grief:
It shews a will most incorrect to heaven;

A heart unfortified, or mind impatient;
An understanding simple and unschool'd:
For what we know must be, and is as common
As any the most vulgar thing to sense,
Why should we, in our peevish opposition,

Take it to heart? Fie! 'tis a fault to heaven,
A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,
To reason most absurd; whose common theme
Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried,
From the first corse till he that died to-day,
"This must be so." We pray you, throw to earth
This unprevailing woe; and think of us
As of a father: for let the world take note,
You are the most immediate to our throne;
And, with no less nobility of love

Than that which dearest father bears his son,
Do I impart toward you. For your intent
In going back to school in Wittenberg,
It is most retrograde to our desire:
And we beseech you, bend you to remain
Here, in the cheer and comfort of our eye,
Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.

Queen. Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet;
I pray thee stay with us, go not to Wittenberg.
Ham. I shall in all my best obey you, Madam.
King. Why, 'tis a loving and a fair reply;
Be as ourself in Denmark.-Madam, come;
This gentle and unforced accord of Hamlet
Sits smiling to my heart: in grace whereof,
No jocund health that Denmark drinks to-day,
But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell,
And the king's rouse the heavens shall bruit again,
Respeaking earthly thunder. Come away.

[Exeunt KING, QUEEN, Lords, dc., POL, and LAERTES.

Ham. O, that this too too solid flesh would melt, Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!

Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd

His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God!
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!

Fie on't! O fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,

That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
But two months dead!--nay, not so much, not two:
So excellent a king; that was, to this,
Hyperion to a satyr: so loving to my mother,
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!
Must I remember? why, she would hang on him,
As if increase of appetite had grown

By what it fed on; and yet, within a month,--

Let me not think on 't,-Frailty, thy name is woman !---
A little month; or ere those shoes were old

With which she follow'd my poor father's body,
Like Niobe, all tears;-why she, even she,-

O heaven! a beast, that wants discourse of reason,
Would have mourn'd longer,-married with my uncle,
My father's brother; but no more like my father

Than I to Hercules: within a month;

Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears

Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,

She married:-O, most wicked speed, to post

With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!

It is not, nor it cannot come to, good;

But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue!

Enter HORATIO, BERNARDO, and MARCELI US.
Hor. Hail to your lordship!

Ham. I am glad to see you well:
Horatio, or I do forget myself.

Hor. The same, my lord, and your poor servant

Mar. My good lord,-

Ham. I am very glad to see you.-Good even, Sir.-
But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg?
Hor. A truant disposition, good my lord.
Ham. I would not hear your enemy say so:
Nor shall you do mine ear that violence
To make it truster of your own report
Against yourself: I know you are no truant.
But what is your affair in Elsinore?

We'll teach you to drink deep ere you depart.
Hor. My lord, I came to see your father's funeral.
Ham. I pray thee, do not mock me, fellow-student;

I think it was to see my mother's wedding.
Hor. Indeed, my lord, it follow'd hard upon.
Ham. Thrift, thrift, Horatio! the funeral baked meats
Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.
Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven

Or ever I had seen that day, Horatio!-
My father, methinks I see my father.

Hor. Where, My lord?

Ham. In my mind's eye, Horatio.

Hor. I saw him once; he was a goodly king. Ham. He was a man, take him for all in all,

I shall not look upon his like again.

Hor. My lord, I think I saw him yesternight.

Ham. Saw who?

Hor. My lord, the king your father.

Ham. The king my father!

Hor. Season your admiration for a while
With an attent ear; till I may deliver,
Upon the witness of these gentlemen,
This marvel to you.

Ham. For God's love, let me hear.

Hor. Two nights together had these gentlemen, Marcellus and Bernardo, on their watch,

In the dead waist and middle of the night,
Been thus encounter'd. A figure like your father,
Armed at point, exactly cap-à-pé,

This to me

Appears before them, and with solemn march
Goes slow and stately by them: thrice he walk'd
By their oppress'd and fear-surprised eyes,
Within his truncheon's length; whilst they, distill'd
Almost to jelly with the act of fear,
Stand dumb, and speak not to him.
In dreadful secrecy impart they did;
And I with them the third night kept the watch:
Where, as they had deliver'd, both in time,
Form of the thing, each word made true and good,
The apparition comes. I knew your father;
These hands are not more like.

Ham. But where was this?

Hor. My lord, upon the platform where we watch'd Ham. Did you not speak to it?

Hor. My lord, I did;

But answer made it none: yet once, methought, It lifted up its head, and did address

Itself to motion, like as it would speak:

But, even then, the morning cock crew loud:
And at the sound it shrunk in haste away,

And vanish'd from our sight.

Ham. 'Tis very strange.

Hor. As I do live, my honour'd lord, 'tis true: And we did think it writ down in our duty

To let you know of it.

Ham. Indeed, indeed, Sirs, but this troubles ine. Hold you the watch to-night?

All. We do, my lord.

Ham. Arm'd, say you?

All. Arm'd, my lord.

Ham. From top to toe?

All. My lord, from head to foot.

Ham. Then saw you not

His face?

Hor. O yes, my lord; he wore his beaver up.

Ham. What, look'd he frowningly?

Hor. A countenance more

In sorrow than in anger.

Ham. Pale, or red?

Hor. Nay, very pale.

Ham. And fix'd his eyes upon you?

Hor. Most constantly.

Ham. I would I had been there.

Hor. It would have much amaz'd you.

Ham. If it assume my noble father's person,
I'll speak to it, though hell itself should gaps,
And bid me hold my peace. I pray you all,
If you have hitherto conceal'd this sight,
Let it be tenable in your silence still;
And whatsoever else shall hap to-night,
Give it an understanding, but no tongue;
I will requite your loves: so, fare you well:
Upon the platform, 'twixt eleven and twelve,
I'll visit you.

All. Our duty to your honour.
Ham. Your loves, as mine to you: farewell.

[Exeunt HORATIO, MARCELLUS, and BERNARDO. My father's spirit in arms! all is not well;

I doubt some foul play: would the night were come!