Macduff
Turn, hell-hound, turn.
An evil dog from the depths of hell. Macduff is comparing Macbeth to something inhuman and devilish.
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.
I can’t say anything: everything I want to say I’ll say with my sword. Your evilness is beyond description.
Macbeth
Thou losest labour:
As easy mayst thou the intrenchant air
With thy keen sword impress 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.
You’re failing. You will be as successful at cutting the air as you will be at making me bleed.
Heads that are able to be harmed.
Macduff
Despair thy charm;
And let the angel whom thou still hast served
Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother's womb
Untimely ripped.
Who is Macduff talking about when he mentions the ‘angel’ Macbeth serves?
Macduff was born prematurely by a Caesarian delivery.
Macbeth
Accursed be that tongue that tells me so,
For it hath cowed my better part of man.
And be these juggling fiends no more believed,
That palter 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.
How do you think Macbeth feels when he discovers the news about Macduff’s birth?
Macbeth describes the witches as ‘juggling fiends’. How does he feel about the prophecies now?
Macduff
Then yield thee, coward,
And live to be the show and gaze o’ the time:
We’ll have thee, as our rarer monsters are,
Painted on a pole, and underwrit,
‘Here may you see the tyrant’.
We’ll have your picture drawn and put up on a sign like an advertisement for an exotic animal, with the words underneath: ’Come, 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!’
Be mocked and tormented by the public
I will fight on. Attack, Macduff - and a curse on either of us if we give in.
(Text edited for rehearsals by Polly Findlay and Zoe Svendsen)