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SCENE V
Dunsinane. Within the castle.

Enter MACBETH, SEYTON, and Soldiers, with drum and colours

MACBETH
Hang out our banners on the outward walls;
The cry is still 'They come:' our castle's strength
Will laugh a siege to scorn: here let them lie
Till famine and the ague eat them up:
Were they not forced 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

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'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 slaughterous thoughts
Cannot once start me.¹

Re-enter SEYTON

Wherefore was that cry?

SEYTON
The queen, my lord, is dead.

MACBETH
She should have died hereafter;²
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 comest 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 it.³

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:⁴
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 cling thee: if thy speech be sooth,
I care not if thou dost for me as much.⁵
I pull in resolution, and begin
To doubt the equivocation of the fiend
That lies like truth:⁶ '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 aweary of the sun,
And wish the estate o' the world were now undone.
Ring the alarum-bell! Blow, wind! come, wrack!
At least we'll die with harness on our back.⁷

Exeunt


FOOTNOTES

¹ I almost forgot what fear is like. Before I would have been scared by a shriek in the night, and the hair on my skin would stand if I heard a ghost story. But now that I've experienced real horror, it has become so familiar that these things can't scare me.
² She would have died later anyway.
³ I should tell you what I saw, but I don't know how to say it.
⁴ You can punish me if it's not true.
⁵ If you're lying, I'll hang you from the nearest tree until you starve. If you're true, then you can hang me.
⁶ My confidence is failing. I'm starting to doubt the lies the devil told me which sounded like truth.
⁷ At least we'll die with our armour on.

SUMMARY
Macbeth orders for banners to be hung and boasts that his castle will repel the enemy. A woman's cry is heard and Seyton appears to tell Macbeth that the queen is dead. Macbeth is shocked, talking about time and how life is "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing". A messenger enters, saying trees from Birnam Wood are advancing toward Dunsinane. Macbeth is terrified and recalls the prophecy that said he could not die till Birnam Wood moved to Dunsinane. His confidence is failing, but he says at least he will die fighting.