MACBETH	Hang out our banners on the outward walls;
	The cry is still 'They come:' our castle's strength
	Will laugh a siege to scorn: here let them lie
	Till famine and the ague eat them up:
	Were they not forced with those that should be ours,
	We might have met them dareful, beard to beard,
	And beat them backward home.
[A cry of women within]
	What is that noise?
SEYTON	It is the cry of women, my good lord.
[Exit]
MACBETH	I have almost forgot the taste of fears;
	The time has been, my senses would have cool'd	10
	To hear a night–shriek; and my fell of hair
	Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir
	As life were in't: I have supp'd full with horrors;
	Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts
	Cannot once start me.
[Re–enter SEYTON]
	Wherefore was that cry?
SEYTON	The queen, my lord, is dead.
MACBETH	She should have died hereafter;
	There would have been a time for such a word.
	To–morrow, and to–morrow, and to–morrow,
	Creeps in this petty pace from day to day	20
	To the last syllable of recorded time,
	And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
	The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
	Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
	That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
	And then is heard no more: it is a tale
	Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
	Signifying nothing.
[Enter a Messenger]
	Thou comest to use thy tongue; thy story quickly.
Messenger	Gracious my lord,	30
	I should report that which I say I saw,
	But know not how to do it.
MACBETH	Well, say, sir.
Messenger	As I did stand my watch upon the hill,