Read Elemental for Free Online

sword from hand to hand and starting up the stairs. “We outnumber you, fiendish tyrant! Outnumber you considerably.”
    â€œWhat you’ve got to keep in mind,” said Macbeth, “is that I bear a charméd life that must not yield to one of woman born. Actually.”
    â€œHa!” cried Macduff. “Ah! Ha! Well!” He seemed very pleased with himself. “Despair thy charm,” he said. “And let the angel that thou still hast served tell thee, Macduff—that’s me —was from his mother’s womb untimely ripped !’ He stuck his chest out.
    â€œYou were still born of woman, though, weren’t you?” Macbeth pointed out.
    The courtyard had fallen silent.
    â€œYou what?” said Macduff.
    â€œBorn of woman nevertheless. Born—you. Woman—your mother.”

    â€œAh no, but Macduff was from his mother’s womb untimely ripped …”
    â€œYes yes, Caesarian section, named after Julius Caesar, the Roman emperor who was born via a surgical incision into the wall of the abdomen rather than through the birth canal,” said Macbeth. “Yes we all know about that. But it’s still a form of birth , isn’t it? You’re still born , and of woman .’
    â€œNo I wasn’t.”
    â€œYes you were.”
    â€œWasn’t.”
    â€œWhat would you call it then? Are you really asserting that being born by Caesarian section is not being born ?”
    â€œUm,” said Macduff, a little confusedly. “Untimely ripped … um …”
    â€œI tell you what,” said Macbeth. “Let’s pop along to the castle library, and look it up in a dictionary. That’ll decide the matter.”
    â€œAll right,” said Macduff, brightening.
    So they made their way to the library, stacked floor to ceiling with dusty folios and quartos and octavos. There Macbeth pulled the Dictionarius from its resting place, plonked it on a desk and turned its heavy pages.
    â€œHere you go,” said Macbeth, with his finger on the relevant definition. “ Sectura Caesaris ‘form of birth in which the infant is delivered through an incision in the mother’s uterus and abdominal wall rather than the more conventional birth canal.’ There you are—‘a form of birth.’ In other words: you are still born of woman, regardless of whatever obstetric interventions happened to be used at the birth. You might as well say that the use of forceps meant that you were no longer ‘born of woman’!”
    â€œWell …” said Macduff, scratching his chin. “I suppose you’re right …”
    â€œHave at you!” said Macbeth, standing back and raising his sword.
    Twenty people had followed the two of them to the library; and so it
was that twenty people watched Macbeth and Macduff fight for about a minute and a half, clanging their swords together vehemently and grunting, until Macbeth swung a blow that Macduff failed to intercept, cleaved through his helm and split his head open. Macduff dropped to the floor dead.
    â€œRight,” said Macbeth, cheerily. “Who’s next?”
    ACT II
    It took Macbeth less than five minutes to cut his way through the soldiers in the library. No matter how they swung or stabbed, their swords always slid away from Macbeth’s body. It was, as one of them observed (just prior to having his leg fatally severed with a lunging swordstroke, such that he fell and quickly bled to death) the weirdest thing.
    Macbeth, his armor smeared with blood, strode along the corridor and out into the courtyard. With a cheer the crowd there surged toward him; but he was not dismayed. It was, from his point of view, a simple matter to stand his ground hacking and chopping targets as they presented themselves. His assailers soon discovered that swords aimed howsoever accurately and forcefully would glide from his armor as if they had been merely glancing blows