SparkNotes: Complete Text of Macbeth: Act V, Scene iv

Act V, Scene iv:
Country nearDunsinane: a Wood in view.

[Enter, with drum and colours, Malcolm, old Siward and his Son,Macduff, Menteith, Caithness, Angus, Lennox, Ross, and Soldiers,marching.]

MALCOLM:

Cousins, I hope the days are near at hand

That chambers will be safe.

MENTEITH:

We doubt it nothing.

SIWARD:

What wood is this before us?

MENTEITH:

The wood of Birnam.

MALCOLM:

Let every soldier hew him down a bough,

And bear't before him; thereby shall we shadow

The numbers of our host, and make discovery

Err in report of us.

SOLDIERS:

It shall be done.

SIWARD:

We learn no other but the confident tyrant

Keeps still in Dunsinane, and will endure

Our setting down before't.

MALCOLM:

'Tis his main hope:

For where there is advantage to be given,

Both more and less have given him the revolt;

And none serve with him but constrained things,

Whose hearts are absent too.

MACDUFF:

Let our just censures

Attend the true event, and put we on

Industrious soldiership.

SIWARD:

The time approaches,

That will with due decision make us know

What we shall say we have, and what we owe.

Thoughts speculative their unsure hopes relate;

But certain issue strokes must arbitrate:

Towards which advance the war.

[Exeunt, marching.]