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,

That chambers will be safe.

Ment. We doubt it nothing.
Siw. What wood is this before us?
Ment. The wood of Birnam.

Mal. Let every soldier hew him down a bough,

And bear't before him; thereby shall we shadow The numbers of our host, and make discovery Err in report of us.

Sold. It shall be done.

Siw. We learn no other, but the confident tyrant

Keeps still in Dunsinane, and will endure
Our setting down before't.

Mal. 'Tis his main hope:

For where there is advantage to be given,
Both more and less hath given him the revolt;
And none serve with him but constrained things,
Whose hearts are absent too.

Macd. Let our just censures
Attend the true event, and put we on
Industrious soldiership.

Siw. The time approaches,

That will with due decision make us know What we shall say we have, and what we owe. Thoughts speculative their unsure hopes relate; But certain issue strokes must arbitrate: Towards which, advance the war.

SCENE V.-Dunsinane.

[Exeunt, marching.

Within the castle.

Sey. It is the cry of women, my good lord. Mach. 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.

Macb. 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.

Enter a Messenger.

Thou com'st to use thy tongue; thy story quickly.

Mess. Gracious my lord,

I shall report that which I say I saw,

But know not how to do it.
Mach. Well, say, sir.

Mess. As I did stand my watch upon

I look'd toward Birnam, and anon, methought, The wood began to move.

the hill,

[Striking him.

Macb. Liar, and slave! 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.

Mach. 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 of the world were now undone :

Ring the alarum bell:-Blow, wind! come, wrack!

At least we'll die with harness on our back.

Than any is in hell.

Mach. My name's Macbeth.

Re-enter MACDUFF.

Macd. Turn, hell-hound, turn.

Mach. 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.

Mach. Thou losest labour:
As easy may'st thou the intrenchant air
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.

Macd. Despair thy charm;

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

nounce a title

More hateful to mine ear.

Mach. No, nor more fearful.

sword

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.

Mach. 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 oppos'd, 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 him that first cries, Hold, enough.
[Exeunt, fighting.

Retreat. Flourish. Re-enter, with drum and
colours, MALCOLM, old SIWARD, ROSSE, LE-
NOX, ANGUS, CATHNESS, MENTETH, and
Soldiers.

Mal. I would, the friends we miss were safe arriv'd.

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.

debt:

He only liv'd 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 sorrow

Must not be measur'd by his worth, for then
It hath no end.

Siw. Had he his hurts before?
Rosse. Ay, on the front.

Siw. Why, then God's soldier be he!
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 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 expence 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 nam'd. What's more to do, Which would be planted newly with the time,As calling home our exil'd 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

King JOHN:

Prince HENRY, his son; afterwards king Henry III.

ARTHUR, duke of Bretagne, son of Geffrey, late duke of Bretagne, the elder brother of King John. WILLIAM MARESHALL, earl of Pembroke. GEFFREY FITZ-PETER, earl of Essex, chief justiciary of England.

WILLIAM LONGSWORD, earl of Salisbury.
ROBERT BIGOT, earl of Norfolk.

HUBERT DE BURGH, chamberlain to the king.
ROBERT FAULCONBRIDGE, Son of Sir Robert
Faulconbridge:

PHILIP FAULCONBRIDGE, his half-brother, bas-
tard son to king Richard the first.
JAMES GURNEY, servant to lady Faulconbridge.
PETER of Pomfret, a prophet.

PHILIP, king of France.

the palace.

Enter King JOHN, Queen ELINOR, PEMBROKE, ESSEX, SALISBURY, and others, with CHA

TILLON.

K. John. Now, say, Chatillon, what would France with us?

Chat. Thus, after greeting, speaks the king of France,

The borrow'd majesty of England here.
Eli. A strange beginning;-borrow'd majesty!
K. John. Silence, good mother; hear the em-

Desiring thee to lay aside the sword,
Which sways usurpingly these several titles;
And put the same into young Arthur's hand,
Thy nephew, and right royal sovereign.

K. John. What follows, if we disallow of this?
Chat. The proud controul of fierce and bloody

war,

To enforce these rights, so forcibly withheld. K. John. Here have we war for war, and blood for blood,

Controlment for controlment: so answer France. Chat. Then take my king's defiance from my mouth,

The furthest limit of my embassy.

K. John. Bear mine to him, and so depart in
peace:

Be thou as lightning in the eyes of France;
For ere thou canst report I will be there,
The thunder of my cannon shall be heard:
So, hence! Be thou the trumpet of our wrath,
And sullen presage of your own decay.—
An honourable conduct let him have :-
Pembroke, look to't: Farewell, Chatillon.

[Exeunt Chatillon and Pembroke.
Eli. What now, my son? have I not ever said,
How that ambitious Constance would not cease,
Till she had kindled France, and all the world,
Upon the right and party of her son?
This might have been prevented, and made whole,
With very easy arguments of love;
Which now the manage of two kingdoms must
With fearful bloody issue arbitrate.

K. John. Our strong possession, and our right,

for us.

Eli. Your strong possession, much more than

your right;

Or else it must go wrong with you, and me :
So much my conscience whispers in your ear;
Which none but heaven, and you, and I, shall hear.

Enter the Sheriff of Northamptonshire, who whispers Essex.

Essex. My liege, here is the strangest controversy,

Come from the country to be judg'd by you, That e'er I heard: shall I produce the men?

K. John. Let them approach.-[Exit Sheriff.
Our abbies, and our priories, shall pay
Re-enter Sheriff, with ROBERT FAULCONBRIDGE,
and PHILIP, his bastard brother.

This expedition's charge.-What men are you?
Bast. Your faithful subject I, a gentleman,
Born in Northamptonshire; and eldest son,
As I suppose, to Robert Faulconbridge;
A soldier, by the honour-giving hand
Of Coeur-de-lion knighted in the field.
K. John. What art thou ?

Rob. The son and heir to that same Faulconbridge.

K. John. Is that the elder, and art thou the

heir?

You came not of one mother then, it seems.

Bast. Most certain of one mother, mighty king, That is well known; and, as I think, one father: But, for the certain knowledge of that truth, I put you o'er to heaven, and to my mother: Of that I doubt, as all men's children may.

Eli. Out on thee, rude man! thou dost shame thy mother,

And wound her honour with this diffidence.

Bast. I, madam ? no, I have no reason for it; That is my brother's plea, and none of mine ; The which if he can prove, 'a pops me out At least from fair five hundred pounds a-year: Heaven guard my mother's honour, and my land! K. John. A good blunt fellow :-Why, being younger born,

Doth he lay claim to thine inheritance?

Bast. I know not why, except to get the land. But once he slander'd me with bastardy: But whe'r I be as true begot, or no, That still I lay upon my mother's head; But, that I am as well begot, my liege, (Fair fall the bones that took the pains for me!) Compare our faces, and be judge yourself. If old sir Robert did beget us both, And were our father, and this son like him ;-. O old sir Robert, father, on my knee I give heaven thanks, I was not like to thee. K. John. Why, what a madcap hath heaven lent us here!

Eli. He hath a trick of Coeur-de-lion's face, The accent of his tongue affecteth him: Do you not read some tokens of my son In the large composition of this man?

K. John. Mine eye hath well examined his