Page:Macbeth (1918) Yale.djvu/96

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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 forc'd with those that should be ours,

We might have met them dareful, beard to beard,

And beat them backward home.

What is that noise?

Sey. It is the cry of women, my good lord.

[Exit.]

Macb. I have almost forgot the taste of fears.

The time has been, my senses would have cool'd

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.

Wherefore was that cry?

Sey. The queen, my lord, is dead.

Macb. 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,

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.

 5 forc'd: reinforced

11 fell: scalp

15 start: startle

17 should have died: would have had to die

