Act 5, Scene 2

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.