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Ross. Your castle is surprised; your wife and babes
Savagely slaughter'd: to relate the manner,

Were, on the quarry of these murder'd deer,
To add the death of you.

Merciful heaven!

Malcolm.
What, man! ne'er pull your hat upon your brows;
Give sorrow words: the grief that does not speak
Whispers the o'er-fraught heart and bids it break.
Macduff. My children too?

Ross.

That could be found.

Macduff.

My wife kill'd too?

Ross.

Malcolm.

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Wife, children, servants, all

And I must be from thence!

I have said.

Be comforted:

Let's make us medicines of our great revenge,

To cure this deadly grief.

Macduff. He has no children. All my pretty ones? Did you say all? O hell-kite! All?

What, all my pretty chickens and their dam

At one fell swoop?

Malcolm. Dispute it like a man.
Macduff.

But I must also feel it as a man:

I shall do so;

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I cannot but remember such things were,
That were most precious to me.

Did heaven look on, Sinful Macduff,

And would not take their part?
They were all struck for thee! naught that I am,
Not for their own demerits, but for mine,

Fell slaughter on their souls. Heaven rest them now!
Malcolm. Be this the whetstone of your sword: let grief
Convert to anger; blunt not the heart, enrage it.

Macduff. O, I could play the woman with mine eyes, 230 And braggart with my tongue! But, gentle heavens, Cut short all intermission; front to front Bring thou this fiend of Scotland and myself;

Within my sword's length set him; if he 'scape,
Heaven forgive him too!

Malcolm.

This tune goes manly..

Come, go we to the king; our power is ready;

Our lack is nothing but our leave. Macbeth

Is ripe for shaking, and the powers. above

Put on their instruments. Receive what cheer you may : The night is long that never finds the day.

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[Exeunt.

ACT V.

SCENE I. Dunsinane.

Ante-room in the castle..

Enter a Doctor of Physic and a Waiting-Gentlewoman.

Doctor. I have two nights watched with you, but can perceive no truth in your report. When was it she last walked ?

Gentlewoman. Since his majesty went into the field, I have seen her rise from her bed, throw her nightgown upon her, unlock her closet, take forth paper, fold it, write upon't, read it, afterwards seal' it, and again return to bed; yet all this while in a most fast sleep..

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Doctor . A great perturbation in nature, to receive at once the benefit of sleep and do the effects of watching! In this slumbery agitation, besides her walking and other actual performances, what, at any time, have you heard her say?

Gentlewoman. That, sir, which I will not report after

her.

Doctor. You may to me,, and 'tis most meet you should. Gentlewoman. Neither to you nor any one, having no witness to confirm my speech..

Enter LADY MACBETH, with a taper..

Lo you, here she comes! This is her very guise; and, upon my life, fast asleep. Observe her; stand close.

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Doctor. How came she by that light?

Gentlewoman. Why, it stood by her: she has light by her continually; 'tis her command.

Doctor. You see, her eyes are open.

Gentlewoman. Ay, but their sense is shut.

Doctor. What is it she does now? Look, how she rubs her hands.

Gentlewoman. It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thus washing her hands: I have known her continue in this a quarter of an hour.

Lady Macbeth. Yet here's a spot.

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Doctor. Hark! she speaks: I will set down what comes from her, to satisfy my remembrance the more strongly. Lady Macbeth. Out, damned spot! out, I say!-One: two: why, then 'tis time to do't.-Hell is murky !—Fie, my lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?

Doctor. Do you mark that?

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Lady Macbeth. The thane of Fife had a wife: where is she now?-What, will these hands ne'er be clean?-No more o' that, my lord, no more o' that: you mar all with this starting.

Doctor. Go to, go to; you have known what you should

not.

Gentlewoman. She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of that: heaven knows what she has known.

Lady Macbeth. Here's the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh!

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Doctor. What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely charged.

Gentlewoman. I would not have such a heart in my bosom for the dignity of the whole body.

Doctor. Well, well, well,—

Gentlewoman. Pray God it be, sir.

Doctor. This disease is beyond my practice: yet I have known those which have walked in their sleep who have died holily in their beds.

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Lady Macbeth. Wash your hands, put on your nightgown; look not so pale.—I tell you yet again, Banquo's buried; he cannot come out on's grave.

Doctor. Even so?

Lady Macbeth. To bed, to bed! there's knocking at the gate: come, come, come, come, give me your hand. What's done cannot be undone. To bed, to bed, to bed! [Exit. Doctor. Will she go now to bed?

Gentlewoman. Directly.

Doctor. Foul whisperings are abroad: unnatural deeds Do breed unnatural troubles: infected minds

To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets:
More needs she the divine than the physician.
God, God forgive us all! Look after her;
Remove from her the means of all annoyance,
And still keep eyes upon her. So, good night:
My mind she has mated, and amazed my sight.
I think, but dare not speak.

Gentlewoman.

Good night, good doctor.

SCENE II. The country near Dunsinane.

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[Exeunt.

Drums and colours. Enter MENTEITH, CAITHNESS, ANGUS, LENNOX, and Soldiers.

Menteith. The English power is near, led on by Malcolm, His uncle Siward and the good Macduff:

Revenges burn in them; for their dear causes

Would to the bleeding and the grim alarm

Excite the mortified man.

Angus.

Near Birnam wood

Shall we well meet them: that way are they coming.

Caithness. Who knows if Donalbain be with his brother?

Lennox. For certain, sir, he is not: I have a file Of all the gentry: there is Siward's son,

And many unrough youths, that even now

Protest their first of manhood.

Menteith.

Caithness.

What does the tyrant?

Great Dunsinane he strongly fortifies:

Some say he's mad; others that lesser hate him
Do call it valiant fury: but, for certain,
He cannot buckle his distemper'd cause
Within the belt of rule.

Now does he feel

Angus.
His secret murders sticking on his hands;
Now minutely revolts upbraid his faith-breach;
Those he commands move only in command,
Nothing in love: now does he feel his title
Hang loose about him, like a giant's robe
Upon a dwarfish thief.

Menteith.

Who then shall blame

His pester'd senses to recoil and start,

When all that is within him does condemn

Itself for being there?

Caithness.

Well, march we on,

To give obedience where 'tis truly owed:
Meet we the medicine of the sickly weal,
And with him pour we in our country's purge
Each drop of us.

Lennox.

Or so much as it needs,

To dew the sovereign flower and drown the weeds.
Make we our march towards Birnam.

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20

30

[Exeunt, marching.

SCENE III. Dunsinane. A room in the castle.

Enter MACBETH, Doctor, and Attendants.

Macbeth. Bring me no more reports; let them fly all: Till Birnam wood remove to Dunsinane,

I cannot taint with fear. What's the boy Malcolm?

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