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Macbeth: Act V, Scene 5

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Macbeth
Act V, Scene 5

Dunsinane. Within the castle.

I look’d toward Birnan, and anon methought the wood began to move.

Moritz Retzsch, circa 1850

  1. Enter Macbeth, Seyton, and Soldiers, with Drum and Colors.

Macbeth

1 - 8
  1. Hang out our banners on the outward walls,
  2. The cry is still, “They come!” Our castle’s strength
  3. Will laugh a siege to scorn; here let them lie
  4. Till famine and the ague eat them up.
  5. Were they not forc’d with those that should be ours,
  6. We might have met them dareful, beard to beard,
  7. And beat them backward home.
  8. A cry within of women.
  9.                              What is that noise?

Seyton

9
  1. It is the cry of women, my good lord.
  1. Exit.

Macbeth

10 - 17
  1. I have almost forgot the taste of fears.
  2. The time has been, my senses would have cool’d
  3. To hear a night-shriek, and my fell of hair
  4. Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir
  5. As life were in’t. I have supp’d full with horrors;
  6. Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts,
  7. Cannot once start me.
  8. Enter Seyton.
  9.                       Wherefore was that cry?

Seyton

18
  1. The Queen, my lord, is dead.

Macbeth

19 - 32
  1. She should have died hereafter;
  2. There would have been a time for such a word.
  3. Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
  4. Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
  5. To the last syllable of recorded time;
  6. And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
  7. The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
  8. Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
  9. That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
  10. And then is heard no more. It is a tale
  11. Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
  12. Signifying nothing.
  13. Enter Macbeth’s Messenger.
  14.                     Thou com’st to use thy tongue;
  15. Thy story quickly.

Macbeth’s Messenger

33 - 35
  1.                    Gracious my lord,
  2. I should report that which I say I saw,
  3. But know not how to do’t.

Macbeth

36
  1.                           Well, say, sir.

Macbeth’s Messenger

37 - 39
  1. As I did stand my watch upon the hill,
  2. I look’d toward Birnan, and anon methought
  3. The wood began to move.

Macbeth

40
  1.                         Liar and slave!

Macbeth’s Messenger

41 - 43
  1. Let me endure your wrath, if’t be not so.
  2. Within this three mile may you see it coming;
  3. I say, a moving grove.

Macbeth

44 - 58
  1.                        If thou speak’st false,
  2. Upon the next tree shall thou hang alive,
  3. Till famine cling thee; if thy speech be sooth,
  4. I care not if thou dost for me as much.
  5. I pull in resolution, and begin
  6. To doubt th’ equivocation of the fiend
  7. That lies like truth. “Fear not, till Birnan wood
  8. Do come to Dunsinane,” and now a wood
  9. Comes toward Dunsinane. Arm, arm, and out!
  10. If this which he avouches does appear,
  11. There is nor flying hence, nor tarrying here.
  12. I gin to be a-weary of the sun,
  13. And wish th’ estate o’ th’ world were now undone.
  14. Ring the alarum-bell! Blow wind, come wrack,
  15. At least we’ll die with harness on our back.
  1. Exeunt.
Costume design for Macbeth

Costume design for Macbeth

circa 1875

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