Macbeth

SCENE II. The Country near Dunsinane.

Enter, with drum and colours Menteith, Caithness, Angus, Lennox and Soldiers.

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
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 distemper’d 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 pester’d 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 ow’d:
Meet we the med’cine 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.]