Retreat and flourish. Enter, with drum and colours, Malcolm, Siward, Ross, thanes, and soldiers

MALCOLM      I would the friends we miss were safe arrived.

SIWARD         Some must go off; and yet by these I see

So great a day as this is cheaply bought.

MALCOLM      Macduff is missing, and your noble son.

ROSS   Your son, my lord, has paid a soldier’s debt.

He only lived but till he was a man,

The which no sooner had his prowess confirmed

In the unshrinking station where he fought,

But like a man he died.         (5.11.1-9)

Suspense suspense. But there’s aural confirmation at least that the battle’s over, and won: the trumpets sound the retreat, and there’s a flourish, a fanfare, for the new king. And they fill the stage, with drums and colours, so that it’s not immediately apparent who’s there, who’s not, and whether they know about Macduff and Macbeth. Malcolm’s first words are anxious, and also properly concerned: I would the friends we miss were safe arrived. He could be talking about family as much as friends, but this concern for others, the sense of a man in relationships with others, is something else that’s marking Malcolm as the anti-Macbeth. Siward speaks up as the experienced soldier: that’s the way of it, lad: some must go off; a battle means casualties, it’s inevitable. Some of them will be dead. And yet by these—the numbers present, probably, although there could be a document, a list, that he’s looking over, the casualty figures—I see so great a day as this is cheaply bought. It’s not been too bad, says the professional, who knows the balance sheets and the acceptable bottom line of battles. Malcolm knows already who’s not there, it transpires: Macduff is missing, and your noble son. A reminder to the audience, if we’d forgotten: we know already that Young Siward is dead, perhaps Macbeth’s final victim. And Ross, again, has to be the bearer of bad news, as he tells Siward that your son, my lord, has paid a soldier’s debt. He’s paid the ultimate price, the one all soldiers reckon: he’s dead (and there’s a quibble on debt and death). But it was a good death, a man’s death (and the way that Ross sets it out here only serves to reinforce Young Siward’s youth): he only lived but till he was a man, the which no sooner had his prowess confirmed in the unshrinking station where he fought, upright and honourable, holding his ground, but like a man he died. He died on his feet and went down fighting, like a man. It’s a final gesture at this particular kind of warrior identity, this particular version of what it is to be a man, which has been scrutinised—and sometimes found wanting—in the play. Comfort to a warrior father, is what’s mostly meant, but it also sounds in part like an elegy for Macbeth too, and all that he once stood for and personified.