MACDUFF
I have no words:
My voice is in my sword: thou bloodier villain
Than terms can give thee out!
They fight

MACBETH
Thou losest labour:
As easy mayst thou the intrenchant air
With thy keen sword impress as make me bleed:
Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests;
I bear a charmed life, which must not yield,
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 ripp'd.

Notes and Glossary
NOTES ACT 5 Scene 8 Line 2277 Why should I play the Roman fool, and die on my own sword? An allusion to the antique Roman idea of the dignity of self-destruction. See Act v "Julius Caesar." ACT 5 Scene 8 Line 2278 Lives. Here poetically used for' living men. , ACT 5 Scene 8 Line 2280 Hell-hound Perhaps more than a term of abuse: suggesting demonic possession. ACT 5 Scene 8 Line 2288 Intrenchant. Here used to express 'incapable of being cut.' See Act iii. ACT 5 Scene 8 Line 2315 Hold, enough! See Act I. ACT 5 Scene 8 Line 2331 Why then, God's soldier be he! Siward's speech and conduct upon the occasion of his son's death have historical authority . ACT 5 Scene 8 Line 2340 Behold, where stands the usurper's cursed head. This expression is explained by the record in the Holinshead chronicle:-"Then cutting his head from his shoulders, he set it upon a pole, and brought it unto Malcolm." ACT 5 Scene 8 Line 2342 Thy kingdom's pearl. 'Thy kingdom's chief ornament,' the nobles of Scotland. ACT 5 Scene 8 Line 2347 we shall not spend a large expense of time. It has been suggested that 'extent' or 'expanse' may have been the word intended by Shakespeare, instead of the Folio word "expense" here. It is by no means jmprobable that it was a misprint for either of the suggested words. ACT 5 Scene 8 Line 2350 Earls, -the first that ever Scotland in such an honour nam ' d. This circumstance is recorded by Holinshed in his history of Scotland. 'Thane' was the title previously in use there. ACT 5 Scene 8 Line 2354 Watchful. Suspicious. ACT 5 Scene 8 Line 2360 Measure. Due order. Malcolm's last speech stresses order, divine grace and natural growth. ACT 5 Scene 8 Line 2361 All at once. An idiomatic phrase, signifying 'all inclusively,' 'all collectively.' See Act I "Henry V."

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MACBETH
Accursed be that tongue that tells me so,
For it hath cow'd 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,
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 on 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 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,
And damn'd be him that first cries, 'Hold, enough!'

Exeunt, fighting. Alarums

Retreat. Flourish. Enter, with drum and colours, MALCOLM, SIWARD, ROSS, the other Thanes, and Soldiers

MALCOLM
I would the friends we miss were safe arrived.

SIWARD
Some must go off: and yet, by these I see,
So great a day as this is cheaply bought.

MALCOLM
Macduff is missing, and your noble son.

ROSS
Your son, my lord, has paid a soldier's debt:
He only lived but till he was a man;
The which no sooner had his prowess confirm'd
In the unshrinking station where he fought,
But like a man he died.

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