Quoath the Bleeding Sergeant in Act 1, Scene 2 of Macbeth

William Shakespeare

Doubtful it stood;

As two spent swimmers, that do cling together

And choke their art.  The merciless Macdonwald—

Worthy to be a rebel, for to that

The multiplying villainies of nature

Do swarm upon him—from the Western Isles

Of kerns and gallowglasses is supplied;

And Fortune, on his damned quarrel smiling,

Show’d like a rebel’s whore.  But all’s too weak;

For brave Macbeth—well he deserves that name—

Disdaining Fortune, with his brandish’d steel,

Which smoked with bloody execution,

Like valour’s minion carved out his passage

Till he faced the slave;

Which ne’er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him,

Till he unseam’d him from the nave to the chops,

And fix’d his head upon our battlements.