I shall report that which I say I saw, Macb. Well, say, sir. Mess. As I did stand my watch upon the hill, I look'd toward Birnam, and anon, methought, The wood began to move. Macb. Liar and slave 4! Mess. Let me endure your wrath, if't be not so: Within this three mile may you see it coming; I say, a moving grove. Macb. If thou speak'st false, Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive, I pull in resolution; and begin To doubt the equivocation of the fiend, That lies like truth: Fear not, till Birnam wood And wish the estate o'the world were now undone. - [Exeunt. 4 [Striking him]' says the stage direction in the margin of all the modern editions; but this stage direction is not in the old copies: it was first interpolated by Rowe; and is now omitted on the suggestion of the late Mr. Kemble. See his Essay on Macbeth and King Richard III. Lond. 1817, p. 111. 5 To cling, in the northern counties, signifies to shrivel, wither, or dry up. Clung-wood is wood of which the sap is entirely dried or spent. The same idea is well expressed by Pope in his version of the nineteenth Iliad, 166 : 'Clung with dry famine, and with toils declin'd. 6 Harness, armour. SCENE VI. The same. A Plain before the Castle. Enter, with Drums and Colours, MALCOLM, old SIWARD, MACDUFF, &c. and their Army, with Boughs. Mal. Now near enough; your leavy screens throw down, And show like those you are: -You, worthy uncle, Siw. Fare you well.Do we but find the tyrant's power to-night, Let us be beaten, if we cannot fight. Macd. Make all our trumpets speak; give them all breath, Those clamorous harbingers of blood and death. The same. [Exeunt. Alarums continued. SCENE VII. Another Part of the Plain. Enter MACВЕТН. Macb. They have tied me to a stake; I cannot fly, But, bearlike, I must fight the course 1.- What's he, That was not born of woman? Such a one Am I to fear, or none. Enter young SIWARD. Yo. Siw. What is thy name? Thou'lt be afraid to hear it. Macb. 7 The first folio reads upon's. 1 But, bearlike, I must fight the course.' This was a phrase at bear-baiting. Also you shall see two ten dog courses at the great bear.'-Antipodes, by Brome. Yo. Siw. No; though thou call'st thyself a hotter name Than any is in hell. My name's Macbeth. Yo. Siw. The devil himself could not pronounce a title More hateful to mine ear. No, nor more fearful. Yo. Siw. Thou liest, abhorred tyrant; with my sword I'll prove the lie thou speak'st. Macb. [They fight, and young Siward is slain. Thou wast born of woman. But swords I smile at, weapons laugh to scorn, Brandish'd by man that's of a woman born. [Exit. Alarums. Enter MACDUFF. Macd. That way the noise is:-Tyrant, show thy face: If thou be'st slain, and with no stroke of mine, [Exit. Alarum. 2 Bruited is reported, noised abroad; from bruit, Fr. So in King Henry IV. Part II. : Being bruited once,' &c. Any noise or report is called a brute by the writers of Shakspeare's age. Thus Baret:- False brutes or reportes. Falsæ voculæ. The brute or common reporte was in old time,' &c. Enter MALCOLM and old SIWARD. Siw. This way, my lord; -the castle's gently render'd: The tyrant's people on both sides do fight; The noble thanes do bravely in the war; The day almost itself professes yours, And little is to do. Macb. Why should I play the Roman fool, and die3 On mine own sword? whiles I see lives, the gashes Do better upon them. Macd. Re-enter MACDUFF. Turn, hell-hound, turn. Macb. Of all men else I have avoided thee: But get thee back, my soul is too much charg'd With blood of thine already. Macd. I have no words, My voice is in my sword; thou bloodier villain Than terms can give thee out! [They fight. Thou losest labour: Macb. As easy mayst thou the intrenchant air5 3 Why should I play the Roman fool, and die.' Alluding probably to the suicide of Cato of Utica. The circumstance is mentioned again in Julius Cæsar: 'I did blame Cato for the death Which he did give himself.' 4 My voice is in my sword.' Thus Casca, in Julius Cæsar :Speak, hands, for me.' 5 The intrenchant air,' the air which cannot be cut. So in Hamlet : For it is as the air invulnerable.' With thy keen sword impress, as make me bleed : Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests; I bear a charmed life, which must not yield To one of woman born. Despair thy charm; Macd. And let the angel, whom thou still hast serv'd, Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother's womb Untimely ripp'd. Macb. Accursed be that tongue that tells me so, For it hath cow'd my better part of man: And be these juggling fiends no more believ'd, 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. And live to be the show and gaze o'the time. 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, 6 I bear a charmed life.' In the days of chivalry, the champion's arms being ceremoniously blessed, each took an oath that he used no charmed weapons. Macbeth, in allusion to this custom, tells Macduff of the security he had in the prediction of the spirit. To this likewise Posthumus alludes in Cymbeline, Act v.: Again in Spenser's Faerie Queene, b. i. c. 4 : And eke enchanted arms, that none can pierce.' 7 That palter with us in a double sense.' That shuffle with ambiguous expressions. |