© Pearson Education, Inc., or its affiliates. All rights reserved.NOTES[Enter Macduff.]
Macduff. Turn, hell-hound, turn!
Macbeth. Of all men else I have avoided thee.
But get thee back! My soul is too much charged
With blood of thine already.
Macduff. I have no words:
My voice is in my sword, thou bloodier villain
Than terms can give thee out!^3
[Fight. Alarum.]
Macbeth. Thou losest labor:
As easy mayst thou the intrenchant^4 air
With thy keen sword impress^5 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^6 whom thou still hast served
Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother’s womb
Untimely ripped.^7
Macbeth. Accursèd be that tongue that tells me so,
For it hath cowed my better part of man!^8
And be these juggling fiends no more believed,
That palter^9 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’ th’ time:^10
We’ll have thee, as our rarer monsters^11 are,
Painted upon a pole,^12 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 damned be him that first cries “Hold, enough!”
[Exit, fighting. Alarums.]
[Re-enter fighting, and Macbeth slain. Exit Macduff, with Macbeth.
Retreat and flourish.^13 Enter, with drum and colors,
Malcolm, Siward, Ross, Thanes, and Soldiers.]
Malcolm. I would the friends we miss were safe arrived.5- terms... out words can
describe you. - intrenchant incapable of
being cut. - impress make a dent in.
10- angel fallen angel; fiend.
- his... ripped Macduff’s
mother died before giving
birth to him. - better... man courage.
1520 9. palter juggle.- gaze o’ th’ time spectacle of
the age. - monsters freaks.
- Painted... pole pictured on a
banner stuck on a pole by a
showman’s booth.
25CLOSE READ
ANNOTATE: In lines 8–22, mark
details that relate to the witches’
prophesies.
QUESTION: What do these
details show about Macbeth’s
sense of certainty up until this
point in the play?
CONCLUDE: Does the knowledge
that Macbeth has been tricked
change how the reader sees
him?30- Retreat and flourish trumpet
call to withdraw and fanfare.
35The Tragedy of Macbeth, Act V 345LIT17_SE12_U03_A5C_WC.indd Page 345 01/11/16 8:42 pm s-w-047 /140/PE02830/MYPERSPECTIVES_ENGLISH_LANGUAGE_ARTS_SE_and_TE/NA/SE/2017/G1/XXXXXXX ...CLOSE READ
Remind students to focus on the supernatural.
You may wish to model the Close Read using the
following think-aloud format. Possible responses
to questions on the student page are included.
ANNOTATE: In lines 8–22, I notice that Macbeth
refers to one of the Witches’ prophesies.
QUESTION: By “these juggling fiends...”
Macbeth means the Witches. When he calls them
“juggling,” he probably means that they juggle
words and their meanings—they say one thing
but mean another. By “keep the word of promise
to our ear” he probably means that the Witches’
prophecies were technically correct. They did
warn him to beware of Macduff, and they did
say that no one born in the usual way could
kill Macbeth—but, unbeknownst to Macbeth,
Macduff was born in an unusual way—by
Caesarean section. By “And break [promises] to
our hope” Macbeth probably means that what
Macbeth hoped the Witches were saying (that
Macbeth was pretty safe) did not come true.CONCLUDE: This speech shows that when
Macbeth learns that the prophecies have come
true, he is angry because he thinks the Witches—
by using verbal sleight of hand—have fooled him.
In fact, he has made himself a victim of dramatic
irony by fooling himself: he believed exactly what
he needed to believe.Whole-Class Learning 345
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