The Highland Tale; The King Act Five Scene Five Sub Act One

 

BIRNAM COMES TO DUNSINANE

ACT FIVE

SCENE FIVE

SUB ACT ONE

 

“Hang our flags on the outer walls. You all keep shouting, “They are coming!” Our castle’s strength is enough to laugh off their siege.” MacBeth stood on the rampart against the walls. He had seen the invading army lay siege to the fortress. He had moved from Inverness to there on hearing the revolt against him. He had been reinforcing Dunsinane for a long time, building the walls and moats, adding the cannons there, and stockpiling the supplies.

“Dunsinane will be my last bastion in war. None may remove me as king as told by the angels, unless Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane.” MacBeth had barred anyone from visiting Birnam Wood.

“Move the man-suits to the gates. They will be the bastion there.” MacBeth gave the command. “The others take their places on the walls.”

“Let them sit out there until they are killed off by hunger and disease. If so many of our own soldiers had not revolted and joined them, we would have met them in front of the castle, man to man, and beat them back to England.” MacBeth had reports of the men in his regiment deserting their positions. He had given the order to shoot on sight at the desertion.

“Tossed their bodies over the walls. I do not care.” MacBeth was upset. He heard the wailing.

“What is that noise?”

“It's the sound of women crying, my king." Seyton, the aide, told him. “I will check on the cause of it.”

“I have almost forgotten what fear feels like. There was a time when a shriek in the night would have filled me with dread, and a ghost story would have made the hairs on my skin rise as if they were alive.” MacBeth sighed. “But now I have feasted on true horrors, and horror is so familiar to my bloody thoughts that it cannot startle me.”

Seyton returned

“What was the cause of that cry?” MacBeth asked.

“The Queen is dead, my king.”

“Is the Queen dead? She would have died eventually anyway. That news was bound to come at some point.” MacBeth sighed. “My grief indeed.”

“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow... creeping at this slow pace, day after day, until the very end of time. And the days that have gone by are just another step for fools on the way to their deaths.” MacBeth spoke to himself. “Go out, go out, brief candle. Life is an illusion—a pitiful actor who struts and worries for his hour on the stage and then disappears forever. Life is a story told by an idiot, full of noise and emotion, without any meaning.”

“My King, do you want...” Seyton asked.

“Rest? Cry? I am beyond that now, Seyton. I shall... tomorrow.”

A servant enters.

“Speak. You have come to tell me something. Speak quickly.” MacBeth called out.

“My King, I want to tell you what I saw, but I do not know how to say it.”

“Well, just say it, or shall I loosen your tongue?” MacBeth was upset.

“I stood on guard duty on the hill in my post. I looked toward Birnam, and then I thought I saw the forest begin to move.”

“You liars and villains!" MacBeth shouted, “How could a forest move here?”

“I accept your punishment if it is not true. You can see it coming at the horizon... It is a moving forest, I say.” The servant said,.

“If you are lying, you will hang on the nearest tree until you die of hunger... That will be Birnam Wood. If you are speaking the truth, I would not care if you were to do the same to me.” MacBeth was getting worried about his safety.

“The woods on the way here... My resolve is failing, and now I begin to doubt that the lies the angels or demons ever told me only sounded like the truth. “Don’t worry until Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane.” And now wood is coming to Dunsinane.”

“My King, are you well?” Seyton asked.

“Arm yourselves, arm yourselves, and go fight!” MacBeth called on the men. 

“If what the messenger swears to me is true, then I can neither run away nor stay here. I am beginning to grow weary of life. I wish the established order of the world would fall to chaos.” MacBeth looked to Seyton. “You serve me well. Go and hide or run. I do not need your services now.”

“My King……” Seyton looked to the one whom he had served for a long time, but MacBeth was walking a distance away.

“Ring the alarms! Blow, wind! Come, ruin! At least we will die with our armour on our backs.” MacBeth called out to the defenders of Dunsinane.