Macbeth · William Shakespeare
SCENE VIII. The same. Another part of the field.
Enter Macbeth. MACBETH. Why should I play the Roman fool, and die On mine own sword? whiles I see lives, the gashes Do better upon them. Enter Macduff. MACDUFF. Turn, hell-hound, turn! MACBETH. Of all men else I have avoided thee: But get thee back; my soul is too much charg’d With blood of thine already. MACDUFF. I have no words; My voice is in my sword: thou bloodier villain Than terms can give thee out! [_They fight._] MACBETH. Thou losest labour: As easy mayst thou the intrenchant air With thy keen sword impress, as make me bleed: Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests; I bear a charmed life, which must not yield To one of woman born. MACDUFF. Despair thy charm; And let the angel whom thou still hast serv’d Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother’s womb Untimely ripp’d. MACBETH. Accursed be that tongue that tells me so, For it hath cow’d my better part of man! And be these juggling fiends no more believ’d, That palter with us in a double sense; That keep the word of promise to our ear, And break it to our hope!—I’ll not fight with thee. MACDUFF. Then yield thee, coward, And live to be the show and gaze o’ th’ time. We’ll have thee, as our rarer monsters are, Painted upon a pole, and underwrit, “Here may you see the tyrant.”
MACBETH. I will not yield, To kiss the ground before young Malcolm’s feet, And to be baited with the rabble’s curse. Though Birnam wood be come to Dunsinane, And thou oppos’d, being of no woman born, Yet I will try the last. Before my body I throw my warlike shield: lay on, Macduff; And damn’d be him that first cries, “Hold, enough!” [_Exeunt fighting. Alarums._] Retreat. Flourish. Enter, with drum and colours, Malcolm, old Siward, Ross, Thanes and Soldiers. MALCOLM. I would the friends we miss were safe arriv’d. SIWARD. Some must go off; and yet, by these I see, So great a day as this is cheaply bought. MALCOLM. Macduff is missing, and your noble son. ROSS. Your son, my lord, has paid a soldier’s debt: He only liv’d but till he was a man; The which no sooner had his prowess confirm’d In the unshrinking station where he fought, But like a man he died. SIWARD. Then he is dead? ROSS. Ay, and brought off the field. Your cause of sorrow Must not be measur’d by his worth, for then It hath no end. SIWARD. Had he his hurts before? ROSS. Ay, on the front. SIWARD. Why then, God’s soldier be he! Had I as many sons as I have hairs, I would not wish them to a fairer death: And so his knell is knoll’d.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.