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[The country near Dunsinane.
Drum and colors. Enter Menteith, Caithness, Angus, Lennox, and Soldiers]
Menteith
The English power is near, led on by Malcolm,
His uncle Siward, and the good Macduff.
Revenges burn in them, for their dear causes
Would, to the bleeding and the grim alarm,
Excite the mortified man.
Angus
Near Birnam wood
Shall we well meet them; that way are they coming.
Caithness
Who knows if Donalbain be with his brother?
Lennox
For certain, sir, he is not. I have a file
Of all the gentry. There is Siward's son,
And many unrough youths that even now
Protest their first of manhood.
Menteith
What does the tyrant?
Caithness
Great Dunsinane he strongly fortifies.
Some say he's mad; others, that lesser hate him,
Do call it valiant fury. But, for certain,
He cannot buckle his distempered cause
Within the belt of rule.
Angus
Now does he feel
His secret murders sticking on his hands;
Now, minutely, revolts upbraid his faith-breach;
Those he commands move only in command,
Nothing in love. Now does he feel his title
Hang loose about him, like a giant's robe
Upon a dwarfish thief.
Menteith
Who then shall blame
His pestered senses to recoil and start,
When all that is within him does condemn
Itself for being there?
Caithness
Well, march we on,
To give obedience where 'tis truly owed.
Meet we the medicine of the sickly weal,
And with him, pour we in our country's purge,
Each drop of us.
Lennox
Or so much as it needs,
To dew the sovereign flower and drown the weeds.
Make we our march towards Birnam.
[Exit, marching]
