Malcolm's army reaches Birnam Wood and learns that Macbeth is fortified at Dunsinane. Malcolm orders every soldier to cut a branch and carry it to conceal the army's numbers. The disguised forces advance toward the castle.
SCENE V. Dunsinane. Within the castle.
Enter with drum and colours, Macbeth, Seyton and Soldiers.
MACBETH
Hang out our banners on the outward walls;The cry is still, “They come!” Our castle’s strengthWill laugh a siege to scorn: here let them lieTill famine and the ague eat them up.Were they not forc’d with those that should be ours,We might have met them dareful, beard to beard,And beat them backward home.
A cry of women within.
MACBETH
What is that noise?
SEYTON
It is the cry of women, my good lord.
Exit.
MACBETH
I have almost forgot the taste of fears.The time has been, my senses would have cool’dTo hear a night-shriek; and my fell of hairWould at a dismal treatise rouse and stirAs life were in’t. I have supp’d full with horrors;Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts,Cannot once start me.
Enter Seyton.
MACBETH
Wherefore was that cry?
SEYTON
The Queen, my lord, is dead.
MACBETH
She should have died hereafter.There would have been a time for such a word.Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,To the last syllable of recorded time;And all our yesterdays have lighted foolsThe 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 taleTold by an idiot, full of sound and fury,Signifying nothing.
Enter a Messenger.
MACBETH
Thou com’st to use thy tongue; thy story quickly.
MESSENGER
Gracious my lord,I should report that which I say I saw,But know not how to do’t.
MACBETH
Well, say, sir.
MESSENGER
As I did stand my watch upon the hill,I look’d toward Birnam, and anon, methought,The wood began to move.
MACBETH
Liar, and slave!
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.
MACBETH
If thou speak’st false,Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive,Till famine clingTo shrivel or waste away through hunger. thee: if thy speech be sooth,I care not if thou dost for me as much.—I pull in resolution; and beginTo doubt th’ equivocation of the fiend,That lies like truth. “Fear not, till Birnam woodDo come to Dunsinane;” and now a woodComes 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 th’ estate o’ th’ world were now undone.—Ring the alarum bell!—Blow, wind! come, wrack!At least we’ll die with harness on our back.
Exeunta stage direction indicating that two or more characters leave the stage..