Internet Shakespeare Editions

Toolbox




Jump to line
Through Line Number
Help on texts
About this text
Print this page

About this text

  • Title: Macbeth: Modern (Modern)
  • Editor: Anthony Dawson
  • Coordinating editor: Michael Best
  • Research assistant: Katie Davion

    • ISBN: 978-1-55058-528-5

    Copyright Anthony Dawson. This text may be freely used for educational, non-profit purposes; for all other uses contact the Editor.
    Author: William Shakespeare
    Editor: Anthony Dawson
    Not Peer Reviewed

    Modern (Modern)

    [5.8]
    2435Enter Macbeth.
    Macbeth
    Why should I play the Roman fool and die
    On mine own sword? Whiles I see lives, the gashes
    Do better upon them.
    Enter Macduff.
    2440Macduff
    Turn, hell-hound, turn.
    Macbeth
    Of all men else I have avoided thee,
    But get thee back, my soul is too much charged
    With blood of thine already.
    Macduff
    I have no words:
    2445My voice is in my sword, thou bloodier villain
    Than terms can give thee out.
    Fight. Alarum.
    Macbeth
    Thou losest labor.
    As easy mayst thou the intrenchant air
    With thy keen sword impress as make me bleed.
    2450Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests:
    I bear a charmèd life which must not yield
    To one of woman born.
    Macduff
    Despair thy charm
    And let the angel whom thou still hast served
    2455Tell 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
    2460That palter with us in a double sense,
    That keep the word of promise to our ear
    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'th' time.
    2465We'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,
    2470And to be baited with the rabble's curse.
    Though Birnam Wood be come to Dunsinane,
    And thou opposed, being of no woman born,
    Yet I will try the last. Before my body,
    I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff,
    2475And damned be him that first cries, "Hold, enough!"
    Exeunt fighting. Alarums.
    [They] enter fighting, and Macbeth [is] slain. [Exit Macduff with Macbeth's body.]
    About
    Contact us
    Content quality
    Site guide
    © Internet Shakespeare Editions
    Copyright details
    Privacy policy
    This site is supported by:
    University of Victoria
    Friends of the ISE
    SSHRC