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.
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.

Macd. That way the noise is.-Tyrant, show thy face!
If thou be'st slain, and with no stroke of mine,

My wife and children's ghosts will haunt me still.
I cannot strike at wretched kernes', whose arms
Are hir'd to bear their staves: either thou, Macbeth,
Or else my sword, with an unbatter'd edge,

I sheathe again undeeded. There thou shouldst be;
By this great clatter one of greatest note

Seems bruited. Let me find him, fortune!
And more I beg not.

[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
With blood of thine already.

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,
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.
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."

Macb.

I will 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, be of no woman born',

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.
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.
Rosse. Your son, my lord, has paid a soldier's 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.

sorrow

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

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,
And so, God be with him!-Here comes newer comfort.

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.
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.

Hail, king of Scotland! [Flourish.
Mal. We shall not spend a large expense 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 watehful 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 else
That calls upon us, by the grace of Grace,
We will perform in measure, time, and place.
So, thanks to all at once, and to each one,
Whom we invite to see us crown'd at Scone.

[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.