Scene 8
Another part of the field.
(Macbeth; Macduff)
Macbeth dismisses suicide as an option, just as Macduff finally finds him. Macbeth has no wish to fight him, and admits to having avoided Macduff so far, having killed too many of his family already. Macduff has no patience for words, and they fight. When Macbeth taunts him with the prophecy about how he cannot be killed, Macduff strikes right back, revealing that he was not born of woman, but ripped from his mother in a Caesarian section. Macbeth is suddenly full of fear, and curses the witches; he tries to avoid fighting any more with Macduff, but the latter calls him a coward, offering him the chance to surrender and be paraded around the country in a cage. Macbeth regains his courage, and though all the prophecies that announce his time is up have been fulfilled, he chooses to try to escape all the same, and the two begin fighting again. Macduff kills Macbeth. (39 lines)
Enter 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.
Turn, hell-hound, turn!
Of all men else I have avoided thee.
But get thee back, my soul is too much charg’d
With blood of thine already.
I have no words,
My voice is in my sword, thou bloodier villain
Than terms can give thee out!
Fight. Alarum.
Thou losest labor.
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.
Despair thy charm,
And let the angel whom thou still hast serv’d
Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother’s womb
Untimely ripp’d.
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 believ’d,
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.
Then yield thee, coward,
And live to be the show and gaze o’ th’ time!
We’ll have thee, as our rarer monsters are,
Painted upon a pole, and underwrit,
“Here may you see the tyrant.”
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 oppos’d, 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.
Enter fighting, and Macbeth slain. Macduff carries off Macbeth’s body.
