DOCTOR What a sigh is therel 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.

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 whisp’rings 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.

Exeunt

5.2 Enter Menteith, Caithness, Angus, Lennox, soldiers, with a drummer and colours

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 10

Protest their first of manhood.

MENTEITH

What does the tyrant?

CAITHNESS

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 distempered cause

Within the belt of rule.

ANGUS

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.

MENTEITH

Who then shall blame

His pestered 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.

Exeunt, marching

5.3 Enter Macbeth, the Doctor of Physic, 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?

Was he not born of woman? The spirits that know

All mortal consequences have pronounced me thus:

‘Fear not, Macbeth. No man that’s born of woman

Shall e’er have power upon thee.’ Then fly, false thanes,

And mingle with the English epicures.

The mind I sway by and the heart I bear

Shall never sag with doubt nor shake with fear.

Enter Servant

The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon!

Where gott’st thou that goose look?

SERVANT There is ten thousand-

MACBETH Geese, villain?

SERVANT

Soldiers, sir. 15

MACBETH

Go prick thy face and over-red thy fear,

Thou lily-livered boy. What soldiers, patch?

Death of thy soul, those linen cheeks of thine

Are counsellors to fear. What soldiers, whey-face?

SERVANT The English force, so please you.

MACBETH

Take thy face hence.

Exit Servant

Seyton!-I am sick at heart

When I behold-Seyton, I say!—This push

Will cheer me ever or disseat me now.

I have lived long enough. My way of life

Is fall’n into the sere, the yellow leaf,

And that which should accompany old age,

As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,

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 and dare not.

Seyton!

Enter Seyton

SEYTON What’s your gracious pleasure?

MACBETH

What news more?

SEYTON

All is confirmed, my lord, which was reported.

MACBETH

I’ll fight till from my bones my flesh be hacked.

Give me my armour.

SEYTON ’Tis not needed yet.

MACBETH 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?

DOCTOR

Not so sick, my lord,

As she is troubled with thick-coming fancies

That keep her from her rest.

MACBETH

Cure her of that.

Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,

Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,

Raze out the written troubles of the brain,

And with some sweet oblivious antidote

Cleanse the fraught bosom of that perilous stuff

Which weighs upon the heart?

DOCTOR

Therein the patient

Must minister to himself.

MACBETH

Throw physic to the dogs; I’ll none of it.