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Macbeth:
Cure her of that:
Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas’d,
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,
Raze out the written troubles of the brain,
And with some sweet oblivious antidote
Cleanse the stuff’d bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart?
Doctor:
Therein the patient
Must minister to himself.
Macbeth:
Throw physic to the dogs, I’ll none of it.
Come, put mine armour on; give me my staff:
Seyton, send out.—Doctor, the Thanes fly from me.—
Come, sir, despatch.—If thou couldst, doctor, cast
The water of my land, find her disease,
And purge it to a sound and pristine health,
I would applaud thee to the very echo,
That should applaud again.—Pull’t off, I say.—
What rhubarb, senna, or what purgative drug,
Would scour these English hence? Hear’st thou of them?
Doctor:
Ay, my good lord. Your royal preparation
Makes us hear something.
Macbeth:
Bring it after me.—
I will not be afraid of death and bane,
Till Birnam forest come to Dunsinane.
(Exeunt all except Doctor.)
Doctor:
Were I from Dunsinane away and clear,
Profit again should hardly draw me here.
(Exit.)
Scene Four. Country near Dunsinane: a Wood in view.
Enter, with drum and colours Malcolm, old Siward and his Son, 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;
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;
Towards which advance the war.
(Exeunt, marching.)