Yo. Siw. No; though thou call'st thyself a hotter name, Than any is in hell. Macb. My name's Macbeth. Yo. Siw. The devil himself could not pronounce a title More hateful to mine ear. Macb. 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. But swords I smile at, weapons laugh to scorn, [Exit. Macd. That way the noise is.-Tyrant, show thy face! My wife and children's ghosts will haunt me still. I sheathe again undeeded. There thou shouldst be; Seems bruited. Let me find him, fortune! [Exit. Alarum. 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 your's, Macb. Why should I play the Roman fool, and die 5 wretched KERNES,] The word "kernes seems here used with greater licence than usual, viz. as mercenaries. We have already had the word twice in this tragedy, pp. 386, 387. 6 Seems BRUITED.] i. e. Noised or reported. See this Vol. p. 284, &c. On mine own sword? whiles I see lives, the gashes Do better upon them. Re-enter MACDUFF. Macd. Turn, hell-hound, turn. Macb. Of all men else I have avoided thee: But get thee back; my soul is too much charg'd Macd. My voice is in my sword: thou bloodier villain Than terms can give thee out! Macb. I have no words; [They fight. 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, Macb. Accursed be that tongue that tells me so, 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: We'll have thee, as our rarer monsters are, Painted upon a pole, and underwrit, "Here may you see the tyrant." Macb. I will not yield, To kiss the ground before young Malcolm's feet, 7 And thou oppos'd, BE of no woman born,] The usual lection is being for "be," but surely there can be no reasonable doubt as to the fitness of the change made in the corr. fo. 1632, seeing the construction of the line immediately preceding. In the last line of this speech the old annotator cures a grammatical error by changing "him" to he, but as "him" was perhaps considered right in Shakespeare's time, and as he probably used the word, we make no alteration. 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, Thanes, and Soldiers. Mal. I would, the friends we miss were safe arriv'd. Mal. Macduff is missing, and your noble son. The which no sooner had his prowess confirm'd, In the unshrinking station where he fought, Siw. Then he is dead? Rosse. Ay, and brought off the field. sorrow Must not be measur'd by his worth, for then Siw. Your cause of Had he his hurts before? Why then, God's soldier be he! Rosse. Ay, on the front. Siw. 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. And that I'll spend for him. Siw. He's worth more sorrow, He's worth no more: They say, he parted well, and paid his score, Re-enter MACDUFF, with MACBETH's head upon a pike. Macd. Hail, king! for so thou art. Behold, where stands [Sticking the pike in the ground'. 8 Exeunt, fighting.] According to the stage-direction of the folio, Macbeth and Macduff re-enter fighting, and Macbeth is slain before the audience. This seems hardly consistent with what afterwards occurs, when, according to the old copies, Macduff returns to the stage with Macbeth's head: perhaps the audience of that day delighted in a combat, and were gratified; but it seems nevertheless evident that Macbeth was "slain" out of sight. 9 Sticking the pike in the ground.] This stage-direction, and the previous in The usurper's cursed head: the time is free. Hail, king of Scotland! All. Hail, king of Scotland! [Flourish. And make us even with you. My thanes and kinsmen, Of this dead butcher, and his fiend-like queen, [Flourish. Exeunt. formation that Macduff entered with Macbeth's head upon a pike, are obtained from the margin of the corr. fo. 1632. They show the way in which the action of the tragedy was of old terminated; and without it the words, are hardly intelligible: they imply, however, that Macduff did not carry the head in his hand, and shake it before the spectators, as Richard is represented to have done with the head of Somerset, in Henry VI., Part III," A. i. sc. 1, Vol. iv. p. 116. |