[Act IV, scene 1.]
Third Apparition. Be lion-mettled, proud; and take no care
Who chafes, who frets, or where conspirers are:
Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be until
Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill
Shall come against him.
Macbeth. Seriously? That will never be.
Who can impress the forest, bid the tree
Unfix his earth-bound root? Nobody, right?
As this could not foreshadow some
Lame plot device, high-placed Macbeth
Shall live the lease of nature, pay his breath
To time and mortal custom.
[Act V, scene 4. The army of Malcolm.]
Siward. What wood is this before us?
Menteith. By some strange coincidence,
The wood of Birnam.
Rolls eyes.
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. Hey, good idea.
Now none of us will die.
Exit one soldier, with boughs and duct tape.
[Act V, scene 5. Dunsinane Castle.]
Messenger. Gracious my lord,
I should report that which I say I saw,
But know not how to do it.
Macbeth. Well, say, sir.
Messenger. As I did stand my watch upon the hill,
I look'd toward Birnam, and anon, methought,
The wood began to move.
Macbeth. Oh, come on!
Messenger. Let me endure your wrath, if't be not so:
'Tis writ upon the script this guy came up with;
I say, a moving grove.
Macbeth. If thou speak'st false,
Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive,
Till famine cling thee: if thy speech be sooth,
I care not if thou dost for me as much.
I pull in resolution, and begin
To doubt the equivocation of the fiend
That lies like truth: 'Fear not, till Birnam wood
Do come to Dunsinane:' and now a wood
Comes toward Dunsinane.
It's the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
Exeunt omnes.
