SCENE V. Dunsinane. Within the castle. The Tragedy of Macbeth  Shakespeare homepage  |  Macbeth  | Act 5, Scene 5 

 Previous scene  |  Next scene  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. 



 Re-enter SEYTON  Wherefore was that cry? 

 SEYTON  The queen, my lord, is dead. 

 MACBETH  She should have died hereafter; 

 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. 

 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: 

 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. 

 I pull in resolution, and begin 

 To doubt the equivocation of the fiend 

 That lies like truth: '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. 



 Exeunt  Shakespeare homepage  |  Macbeth  | Act 5, Scene 5 

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