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Updated: June 22, 2025
Though Birnam wood be come to Dunsinane, and thou opposed to me, who wast born of woman, yet will I try the last."
Accepting for the occasion the popular legendary version of Shakespeare, rather than the corrected account of modern historians, he may be supposed to have found his way north to the camp of Siward, where the youthful and exiled Scotch Prince had sought shelter from Macbeth, and it is no undue stretch of fancy to suggest that he took his part in the memorable overthrow of that usurper at Dunsinane, and thus obtained the favour of his successor.
This is the speech I learned it, easy enough, while he was learning it to the king: To be, or not to be; that is the bare bodkin That makes calamity of so long life; For who would fardels bear, till Birnam Wood do come to Dunsinane, But that the fear of something after death Murders the innocent sleep, Great nature's second course, And makes us rather sling the arrows of outrageous fortune Than fly to others that we know not of.
I was lecturing you about the way to regard women; begging you to consider that they had souls and were capable of loving, as well as of being loved. And here you are accusing me of hating the whole sex, and without the slightest provocation on my part, either. Here is Birnam wood coming to Dunsinane with a vengeance!" "Oh, I don't deny it. I don't pretend to argue about it.
But this I know, that she comes from Uchtred, the earl whom Canute slew, and that she is heir to great estates in Northumberland. "Gospatrick, that fought at Dunsinane?" "Yes, not the old Thane, his uncle, whom Tosti has murdered; but Gospatrick, King Malcolm's cousin, Dolfin's father. Well, she was his ward.
Dear W. . . . Being detained here by rain this morning I devote it to you and to my journal. . . . The next day was Sunday but the weather being fine we concluded to continue our journey, and followed the Tay seeing Birnam Wood and Dunsinane on our way up to Dunkeld, near to which is the fine seat of the Duke of Athol.
Always in trouble with authority, the climax came when he robbed Herluin, steward of Peterborough, of a sum of sixteen silver pennies collected for the use of the monastery, and for this exploit he was outlawed. Accordingly, he left his home and went north, to Siward, who was engaged in war with Macbeth, and for aught we know he may have helped to bring great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill.
Besides this, the hollow promises of the witches had filled him with a false confidence, and he remembered the sayings of the spirits, that none of woman born was to hurt him, and that he was never to be vanquished till Birnam wood should come to Dunsinane, which he thought could never be. So he shut himself up in his castle, whose impregnable strength was such as defied a siege.
I have had great romantick satisfaction in seeing Johnson upon the classical scenes of Shakspeare in Scotland; which I really looked upon as almost as improbable as that "Birnam wood should come to Dunsinane ." Indeed, as I have always been accustomed to view him as a permanent London object, it would not be much more wonderful to me to see St. Paul's Church moving along where we now are.
This is the speech I learned it, easy enough, while he was learning it to the king: To be, or not to be; that is the bare bodkin That makes calamity of so long life; For who would fardels bear, till Birnam Wood do come to Dunsinane, But that the fear of something after death Murders the innocent sleep, Great nature's second course, And makes us rather sling the arrows of outrageous fortune Than fly to others that we know not of.
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