Page 2178 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

To one of woman born.

MACDUFF
Despair thy charm,
And let the angel whom thou still hast served
Tell thee Macduff was from his mother’s womb
Untimely ripped.

MACBETH
Accursèd be that tongue that tells me so;
For it hath cowed my better part of man;
And be these juggling fiends no more believed
That palter with us in a double sense,

That keep the word of promise to our ear [60]
And break it to our hope. I’ll not fight with thee.

MACDUFF
Then yield thee, coward;
And live to be the show and gaze o’the time.
We’ll have thee, as our rarer monsters are,

Painted upon a pole, and underwrit,
‘Here may you see the tyrant.’

MACBETH
I will not yield
To kiss the ground before young Malcolm’s feet

And to be baited with the rabble’s curse.
Though Birnan Wood be come to Dunsinane
And thou opposed, being of no woman born, [70]
Yet I will try the last. Before my body

I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff;
And damned be him that first cries, ‘Hold, enough!’
Exeunt fighting.

Alarums. Enter fighting, and Macbeth slain.
Exit Macduff.

Retreat and flourish. Enter with drum and colours Malcolm, Seyward, Ross,