Page 2074 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

Showed like a rebel’s whore. But all’s too weak:
For brave Macbeth − well he deserves that name −
Disdaining fortune, with his brandished steel,
Which smoked with bloody execution,

Like valour’s minion carvèd out his passage
Till he faced the slave − [20]
Which ne’er shook hands nor bade farewell to him
Till he unseamed him from the nave to the chops,

And fixed his head upon our battlements.

KING
O valiant cousin! Worthy gentleman!

CAPTAIN
As, whence the sun ’gins his reflection,
Shipwracking storms and direful thunders;
So, from that spring whence comfort seemed to come,

Discomfort swells. Mark, King of Scotland, mark!
No sooner justice had, with valour armed,
Compelled these skipping kerns to trust their heels [30]
But the Norweyan lord, surveying vantage,

With furbished arms and new supplies of men,
Began a fresh assault.

KING
Dismayed not this
Our captains, Macbeth and Banquo?

CAPTAIN
Yes −

As sparrows, eagles, or the hare, the lion.
If I say sooth I must report they were
As cannons overcharged with double cracks;
So they

Doubly redoubled strokes upon the foe.
Except they meant to bathe in reeking wounds [40]
Or memorize another Golgotha
I cannot tell.