Table of Contents
ACT 5, SCENE 4
Setting: Country near Burnam wood.
[Drum and colours. Enter MALCOLM, SIWARD and YOUNG SIWARD, MACDUFF, MENTEITH, CAITHNESS, ANGUS, LENNOX, ROSS, and Soldiers, marching]
| MALCOLM | Cousins, I hope the days are near at hand | |
| That chambers will be safe. | ||
| MENTEITH | We doubt it nothing. | |
| SIWARD | What wood is this before us? | |
| MENTEITH | The wood of Birnam. | |
| 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. | ||
| Soldiers | It shall be done. | |
| SIWARD | We learn no other but the confident tyrant | |
| Keeps still in Dunsinane, and will endure | ||
| Our setting down before 't. | ||
| MALCOLM | Tis his main hope: | 10 |
| For where there is advantage to be given, | ||
| Both more and less have given him the revolt, | ||
| And none serve with him but constrained things | ||
| Whose hearts are absent too. | ||
| MACDUFF | Let our just censures | |
| Attend the true event, and put we on | ||
| Industrious soldiership. | ||
| SIWARD | The time approaches | |
| That will with due decision make us know | ||
| What we shall say we have and what we owe. | ||
| Thoughts speculative their unsure hopes relate, | ||
| But certain issue strokes must arbitrate: | 20 | |
| Towards which advance the war. | ||
| [Exeunt, marching] |