No Fear Shakespeare

Macbeth

William Shakespeare

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Act 5, Scene 4

Original Text

Modern Text

Drum and colors. Enter MALCOLM, SIWARD, MACDUFF, Siward’s SON, MENTEITH, CAITHNESS, ANGUS, LENNOX, ROSS, and SOLDIERS, marching
MALCOLM, old SIWARD and his SON, MACDUFF, MENTEITH, CAITHNESS, ANGUS, LENNOX, ROSS, and SOLDIERS enter marching, with a drummer and flag.


MALCOLM
Cousins, I hope the days are near at hand
That chambers will be safe.
MALCOLM
Kinsmen, I hope the time is coming when people will be safe in their own bedrooms.

MENTEITH
     We doubt it nothing.
MENTEITH
We don’t doubt it.

SIWARD
What wood is this before us?
SIWARD
What’s the name of this forest behind us?

MENTEITH
     The wood of Birnam.
MENTEITH
Birnam Wood.


5

MALCOLM
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.
MALCOLM
Tell every soldier to break off a branch and hold it in front of him. That way we can conceal how many of us there are, and Macbeth’s spies will give him inaccurate reports.

SOLDIERS
     It shall be done.
SOLDIERS
We’ll do it.



10
SIWARD
We learn no other but the confident tyrant
Keeps still in Dunsinane and will endure
Our setting down before ’t.
SIWARD
We have no news except that the overconfident Macbeth is still in Dunsinane and will allow us to lay siege to the castle.





MALCOLM
     'Tis his main hope:
For, where there is advantage to be given,
Both more and less have given him the revolt,
And none serve with him but constrainèd things
Whose hearts are absent too.
MALCOLM
He wants us to lay siege. Wherever his soldiers have an opportunity to leave him, they do, whatever rank they are. No one fights with him except men who are forced to, and their hearts aren’t in it.


15
MACDUFF
     Let our just censures
Attend the true event, and put we on
Industrious soldiership.
MACDUFF
We shouldn’t make any judgments until we achieve our goal. Let’s go fight like hardworking soldiers.

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