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 gone

Both more and less have given him the revolt,

And none serve with him but constrainèd 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                    (5.4.8-21)

 

So. They know—Siward reports—that Macbeth, the confident tyrant (tyrant’s the designation that must be reinforced; this can’t be imagined as regicide) keeps still in Dunsinane. He’s prepared for a siege, for the English force to set down before the castle, make camp, and confident that he can endure it, wait it out. Malcolm agrees; that’s his main hope, yes, that’s the assumption he’s making—and it’s also, pretty much, his only hope, because where there is advantage to be gone, when the opportunity has presented itself, both more and less have given him the revolt. Everyone’s deserted him, of all ranks, high and low, if they’ve been able to, if they’ve spotted a chance. So he’s only got unwilling conscripts left, constrained things, whose hearts are absent too. No one’s really loyal to him anymore; no one has stayed with Macbeth out of love or affection or a sense that he’s in the right. (It almost sounds as if someone present in the previous scene with Macbeth has been a spy, or else deserted and come over to Malcolm’s party since, because Malcolm’s pretty much repeating what Macbeth has said himself.) Well, let’s not be over-confident or speculate too much, says Macduff, ever the grim pragmatist: let our just censures, our final, reasoned assessments attend the true event, wait to see what the actual outcome will be. And put we on industrious soldiership: the main thing we have to do now is fight bravely and also with clever tactics. Macduff, it might be inferred, still has respect for Macbeth the warrior, even as he hates and despises him as a man and loathes him as king. It’s up to Siward, the elder statesman, the general, to whom the younger men perhaps defer, to conclude this little scene with some judicious commonplaces, in sententious couplets. Yes, it’s almost the time when we’ll finally know where we stand, and perhaps be all too aware of the difference in what we shall say we have, right now, in theory, and what we actually owe, that is, possess or achieve in due course. Time will tell, in effect; let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Thoughts speculative their unsure hopes relate; we can theorise all we like, and make plans, and have hopes and intentions. But certain issue strokes must arbitrate. A definite outcome isn’t about thoughts or words, it’s about strokes, blows, fighting, action. Deeds not words, that’s what ultimately settles these questions. And strokes wound and kill. That’s what it’s going to come down to, no matter what anyone says now. Towards which, advance the war. We’d better get on with it. Which here is that certain outcome. It’s time to fight, fight to win. And off they go, marching, presumably to the drum again, an orderly, purposeful force.