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

Lady M. Wash your hands, put on your night-gown ; look not so pale :-I tell you yet again, Banquo's buried; he cannot come out of his grave.

Doc. Even so ?

Lady M. 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. Doc. Will she go now to bed?

Gent. Directly.

Doc. Foul whisperings are abroad: Unnatural deed's 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 amaz'd my sight:
I think, but dare not speak.

Gent. Good night, good doctor.

SCENE II.

[Exeunt.

The Country near Dunsinane. Enter with Drum and Colours, MENTETH, CATHNESS, ANGUS, LENOX, and Soldiers.

Ment. 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. 3

Ang. Near Birnam wood

Shall we well meet them; that way are they coming. Cath. Who knows, if Donalbain be with his brother? Len. 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.

Ment. What does the tyrant?

[3] By the mortified man, is meant a religious; one who has subdued his passions, is dead to the world, has abandoned it, and all the affairs of it: an Ascetic. WARB.

Cath. 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.

Ang. Now does he feel

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.

Ment. Who then shall blame

His pester'd senses to recoil, and start,
When all that is within him does condemn
Itself, for being there ?4

Cath. Well, march we on,

To give obedience where 'tis truly ow'd :
Meet we the medecin of the sickly weal;5
And with him pour we, in our country's purge,

Each drop of us.

Len. Or so much as it needs,

To dew the sovereign flower, and drown the weeds. Make we our march towards Birnam. [Exe. marching.

SCENE III.

Dunsinane. A Room in the Castle. Enter MACBETH, Doctor, and Attendants.

Macb. 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?
Was he not born of woman? The spirits that know
All mortal consequents, pronounc'd me thus:
Fear not, Macbeth; no man, that's born of woman,
Shall e'er have power on thee.-Then fly, false thanes,
And mingle with the English epicures:&

[4] That is, when all the faculties of the mind are employed in self-condemnation. JOHNS.

[5] i. e. physician. Shakspeare uses this word in the feminine gender, where Lafeu speaks of Helen in All's well that ends well; and Florizel, in The Winter's Tale, calls Camillo "the medecin of our house." STEEV.

[6] Shakspeare took the thought from Holinshed, p 179 and 180, of his History of Scotland: "-For manie of the people abhorring the riotous man ners and superstitious gormandizing brought in among them by the Englyshe

The mind I sway by, and the heart I bear,

Shall never sagg" with doubt, nor shake with fear.

Enter a Servant.

-The devil damn thee black, thou cream-fac'd loon! Where gott'st thou that goose-look?

Ser. There is ten thousand

Macb. Geese, villain?

Ser. Soldiers, sir.

Macb. Go, prick thy face, and over-red thy fear, Thou lily-liver'd boy. What soldiers, patch? Death of thy soul! those linen cheeks of thine Are counsellors to fear. 8 What soldiers, whey-face? Ser. The English force, so please you.

Macb. Take thy face hence.-Seyton !-
sick at heart,

When I behold-Seyton, I say!This push
Will cheer me ever, or dis-seat me now.
I have liv'd long enough: my way of life
Is fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf:9
And that which should accompany old age,
As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,

-I am

I must not look to have; but, in their stead,
Curses, not loud, but deep, mouth-honour, breath,
Which the poor heart would fain deny, but dare not. ---
Seyton!-

Enter SEYTON.

Sey. What is your gracious pleasure?

Macb. What news more?

Sey. All is confirm'd, my lord, which was reported. Macb. I'll fight, till from my bones my flesh be hack'd. Give me my armour.

Sey. 'Tis not needed yet.

men, were willing inough to receive this Donald for their king, trusting (besause he had beene brought up in the Isles with the old customes and manners of their antient nations, without tast of English likerous delicats,) they should by his seuere order in gouernement recouer againe the former temperance of their old progenitors." The same historian informs us, that in those ages the Scots eat but once a day, and even then very sparingly. It appears from Dr. Johnson's Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland, that the natives had neither kail nor brogues, till they were taught the art of planting the one, and making the other, by the soldiers of Cromwell. STEEV. [7] To sag, or swag, is to sink down by its own weight, or by an overload. It is common in Staffordshire to say, "a beam in a building sags, or has sagged." TOLLET.

WARE

[8] The meaning is, they infect others who see them, with cowardice. [9] Sear is dry.

STEEV.

Macb. I'll put it on.

Send out more horses, skirr the country round; '
Hang those that talk of fear.-Give me mine armour.-
How does your patient, doctor?

Doc. Not so sick, my lord,

As she is troubled with thick-coming fancies,
That keep her from her rest.

Macb. Cure her of that:

Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas'd;
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow;
Raze out the written troubles of the brain ;
And, with some sweet oblivious antidote,
Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff,
Which weighs upon the heart?

Doc. Therein the patient
Must minister to himself.

Macb. Throw physic to the dogs, I'll none of it.Come, put mine armour on; give me my staff:Seyton, send out.-Doctor, the thanes fly from me :Come, sir, despatch :-If thou could'st, doctor, cast The water of my land, find her disease,

And purge it to a sound and pristine health,
I would applaud thee to the very echo,

That should applaud again.-Pull't off, I say.-
What rhubarb, senna, or what purgative drug,

Would scour these English hence?-Hearest thou of

them?

Doc. Ay, my good lord; your royal preparation Makes us hear something.

Macb. Bring it after me.

I will not be afraid of death and bane,
Till Birnam forest come to Dunsinane.

Doc. Were I from Dunsinane away and clear,

Profit again should hardly draw me here.

[Exit.

[Exeunt.

[1] To skirr, I belleve, signifies to scour, to ride hastily.

STEEV.

[2] To cast the water was the phrase in use for finding out disorders by the inspection of urine. STEEVENS.

SCENE IV.

Country near Dunsinane. A Wood in view. Enter, with Drum and Colours, MALCOLM, old SIWARD, and his Son, MACDUFE, MENTETH, CATHNESS, ANGUS, LENOX, ROSSE, and Soldiers, marching.

Mal. Cousins, I hope the days are near at hand, That chambers will be safe.

Ment. We doubt it nothing.

Siw. What wood is this before us?
Ment. The wood of Birnam.

Mal. Let every soldier hew him down a bough,
And bear't before him; thereby shall we shadow
The numbers of our host, and make discovery
Err in report of us.

Sold. It shall be done.

Siw. We learn no other, but the confident tyrant
Keeps still in Dunsinane, and will endure
Our setting down before't.

Mal. 'Tis his main hope:

For where there is advantage to be given,

Both more and less have given him the revolt ;3
And none serve with him but constrained things,
Whose hearts are absent too.

Macd. Let our just censures

Attend the true event, and put we on
Industrious soldiership.

Siw. The time approaches,

That will with due decision make us know

What we shall say we have, and what we owe.4
Thoughts speculative their unsure hopes relate;
But certain issue strokes must arbitrate:

Towards which, advance the war. [Exeunt, marching.

SCENE V.

Dunsinane. Within the Castle. Enter, with Drums and Colours, MACBETH, SEYTON, and Soldiers.

Macb. Hang out our banners on the outward walls; The cry is still, They come : Our castle's strength

[3] Advantage or 'vantage, in the time of Shakspeare, signified opportunity. He shut up himself and his soldiers (says Malcolm) in the castle, because when there is an opportunity to be gone, they all desert him.

JOHNS.