Macbeth Act 5 Scene 5
Dunsinane. Within the castle.
The Original
Plain Modern English
Enter Macbeth, Seyton, and Soldiers, with drum 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,
We might have met them dareful, beard to beard,
And beat them backward home.
Macbeth
Hang our banners on the outer walls.
The shout is still 'They're coming!' — but this castle's strength
laughs at a siege. Let them camp out there
until starvation and fever eat them alive.
If they weren't padded out with the deserters who should be ours,
we'd have met them head-on, beard to beard,
and beaten them all the way back home.
A cry of women within.
Macbeth
What is that noise?
Macbeth
What is that noise?
Seyton
It is the cry of women, my good lord.
Seyton
It's women crying, my good lord.
Exit Seyton.
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
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.
Macbeth
I've almost forgotten what fear tastes like.
There was a time a shriek in the night
would have chilled me through, and a horror story
would have made the hair on my skin stand up
as if it were alive. I've dined so full on horrors
that dreadfulness — an old friend of my murderous mind —
can't even make me flinch.
Re-enter Seyton.
Macbeth
Wherefore was that cry?
Macbeth
What was the crying for?
Seyton
The queen, my lord, is dead.
Seyton
The queen, my lord, is dead.
Macbeth
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.
Macbeth
She should have died later —
there would have been time for a word like that.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
creeps along at this small, petty pace, day after day,
to the last syllable of recorded time;
and all our yesterdays have only lit the way for fools
to their dusty deaths. Out, out, brief candle!
Life is nothing but a walking shadow — a bad actor
who struts and frets his one hour on the stage
and then is never heard again. It's a story
told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
meaning nothing at all.
Enter a Messenger.
Macbeth
Thou comest to use thy tongue; thy story quickly.
Macbeth
You've come to use that tongue — so use it. Quickly.
Messenger
Gracious my lord,
I should report that which I say I saw,
But know not how to do it.
Messenger
Gracious my lord,
I should report what I swear I saw —
but I don't know how to say it.
Macbeth
Well, say, sir.
Macbeth
Just say it, man.
Messenger
As I did stand my watch upon the hill,
I look'd toward Birnam, and anon, methought,
The wood began to move.
Messenger
As I stood my watch up on the hill,
I looked toward Birnam, and — I could swear —
the forest started to move.
Macbeth
Liar and slave!
Macbeth
Liar! Dog!
Messenger
Let me endure your wrath, if't be not so:
Within this three mile may you see it coming;
I say, a moving grove.
Messenger
Punish me all you want if it isn't true:
within three miles of here you can watch it coming —
I'm telling you, a walking forest.
Macbeth
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 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.
Macbeth
If you're lying,
you'll hang alive from the nearest tree
until hunger shrivels you. If you're telling the truth —
you're welcome to do the same to me.
My confidence is buckling. I'm starting
to see the double-dealing of the devil,
who lies in the shape of truth. 'Fear nothing, till Birnam Wood
comes to Dunsinane' — and now a wood
IS coming to Dunsinane. To arms, to arms, and out!
If what this man swears to is really out there,
there's no fleeing this place and no staying in it either.
I'm starting to grow weary of the sun itself,
and wish the whole world would come apart at the seams.
Ring the alarm bell! Blow, wind! Come, ruin!
At least we'll die with our armor on.
Exeunt.