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England. Before the KINGS Palace. | |
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Enter MALCOLM and MACDUFF. | |
Mal. Let us seek out some desolate shade, and there | |
Weep our sad bosoms empty. | |
Macd. Let us rather | 5 |
Hold fast the mortal sword, and like good men | |
Bestride our down-falln birthdom; each new morn | |
New widows howl, new orphans cry, new sorrows | |
Strike heaven on the face, that it resounds | |
As if it felt with Scotland and yelld out | 10 |
Like syllable of dolour. | |
Mal. What I believe Ill wail, | |
What know believe, and what I can redress, | |
As I shall find the time to friend, I will. | |
What you have spoke, it may be so perchance. | 15 |
This tyrant, whose sole name blisters our tongues, | |
Was once thought honest: you have lovd him well; | |
He hath not touchd you yet, I am young; but something | |
You may deserve of him through me, and wisdom | |
To offer up a weak, poor, innocent lamb | 20 |
To appease an angry god. | |
Macd. I am not treacherous. | |
Mal. But Macbeth is. | |
A good and virtuous nature may recoil | |
In an imperial charge. But I shall crave your pardon; | 25 |
That which you are my thoughts cannot transpose; | |
Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell; | |
Though all things foul would wear the brows of grace, | |
Yet grace must still look so. | |
Macd. I have lost my hopes. | 30 |
Mal. Perchance even there where I did find my doubts. | |
Why in that rawness left you wife and child | |
Those precious motives, those strong knots of love | |
Without leave-taking? I pray you, | |
Let not my jealousies be your dishonours, | 35 |
But mine own safeties: you may be rightly just, | |
Whatever I shall think. | |
Macd. Bleed, bleed, poor country! | |
Great tyranny, lay thou thy basis sure, | |
For goodness dares not check thee! wear thou thy wrongs; | 40 |
The title is affeerd! Fare thee well, lord: | |
I would not be the villain that thou thinkst | |
For the whole space thats in the tyrants grasp, | |
And the rich East to boot. | |
Mal. Be not offended: | 45 |
I speak not as in absolute fear of you. | |
I think our country sinks beneath the yoke; | |
It weeps, it bleeds, and each new day a gash | |
Is added to her wounds: I think withal, | |
There would be hands uplifted in my right; | 50 |
And here from gracious England have I offer | |
Of goodly thousands: but, for all this, | |
When I shall tread upon the tyrants head, | |
Or wear it on my sword, yet my poor country | |
Shall have more vices than it had before, | 55 |
More suffer, and more sundry ways than ever, | |
By him that shall succeed. | |
Macd. What should he be? | |
Mal. It is myself I mean; in whom I know | |
All the particulars of vice so grafted, | 60 |
That, when they shall be opend, black Macbeth | |
Will seem as pure as snow, and the poor state | |
Esteem him as a lamb, being compard | |
With my confineless harms. | |
Macd. Not in the legions | 65 |
Of horrid hell can come a devil more damnd | |
In evils to top Macbeth. | |
Mal. I grant him bloody, | |
Luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful, | |
Sudden, malicious, smacking of every sin | 70 |
That has a name; but theres no bottom, none, | |
In my voluptuousness: your wives, your daughters, | |
Your matrons, and your maids, could not fill up | |
The cistern of my lust; and my desire | |
All continent impediments would oerbear | 75 |
That did oppose my will; better Macbeth | |
Than such an one to reign. | |
Macd. Boundless intemperance | |
In nature is a tyranny; it hath been | |
Th untimely emptying of the happy throne, | 80 |
And fall of many kings. But fear not yet | |
To take upon you what is yours; you may | |
Convey your pleasures in a spacious plenty, | |
And yet seem cold, the time you may so hoodwink. | |
We have willing dames enough; there cannot be | 85 |
That vulture in you, to devour so many | |
As will to greatness dedicate themselves, | |
Finding it so inclind. | |
Mal. With this there grows | |
In my most ill-composd affection such | 90 |
A stanchless avarice that, were I king, | |
I should cut off the nobles for their lands, | |
Desire his jewels and this others house; | |
And my more-having would be as a sauce | |
To make me hunger more, that I should forge | 95 |
Quarrels unjust against the good and loyal, | |
Destroying them for wealth. | |
Macd. This avarice | |
Sticks deeper, grows with more pernicious root | |
Than summer-seeming lust, and it hath been | 100 |
The sword of our slain kings: yet do not fear; | |
Scotland hath foisons to fill up your will, | |
Of your mere own; all these are portable, | |
With other graces weighd. | |
Mal. But I have none: the king-becoming graces, | 105 |
As justice, verity, temperance, stableness, | |
Bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness, | |
Devotion, patience, courage, fortitude, | |
I have no relish of them, but abound | |
In the division of each several crime, | 110 |
Acting it many ways. Nay, had I power, I should | |
Pour the sweet milk of concord into hell, | |
Uproar the universal peace, confound | |
All unity on earth. | |
Macd. O Scotland, Scotland! | 115 |
Mal. If such a one be fit to govern, speak: | |
I am as I have spoken. | |
Macd. Fit to govern! | |
No, not to live. O nation miserable, | |
With an untitled tyrant bloody-scepterd, | 120 |
When shalt thou see thy wholesome days again, | |
Since that the truest issue of thy throne | |
By his own interdiction stands accursd, | |
And does blaspheme his breed? Thy royal father | |
Was a most sainted king; the queen that bore thee, | 125 |
Oftner upon her knees than on her feet, | |
Died every day she livd. Fare thee well! | |
These evils thou repeatst upon thyself | |
Have banishd me from Scotland. O my breast, | |
Thy hope ends here! | 130 |
Mal. Macduff, this noble passion, | |
Child of integrity, hath from my soul | |
Wipd the black scruples, reconcild my thoughts | |
To thy good truth and honour. Devilish Macbeth | |
By many of these trains hath sought to win me | 135 |
Into his power, and modest wisdom plucks me | |
From over-credulous haste; but God above | |
Deal between thee and me! for even now | |
I put myself to thy direction, and | |
Unspeak mine own detraction, here abjure | 140 |
The taints and blames I laid upon myself, | |
For strangers to my nature. I am yet | |
Unknown to woman, never was forsworn, | |
Scarcely have coveted what was mine own; | |
At no time broke my faith, would not betray | 145 |
The devil to his fellow, and delight | |
No less in truth than life; my first false speaking | |
Was this upon myself. What I am truly, | |
Is thine and my poorcountrys to command; | |
Whither indeed, before thy here-approach, | 150 |
Old Siward, with ten thousand war-like men, | |
Already at a point, was setting forth. | |
Now well together, and the chance of goodness | |
Be like our warranted quarrel. Why are you silent? | |
Macd. Such welcome and unwelcome things at once | 155 |
Tis hard to reconcile. | |
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Enter a Doctor. | |
Mal. Well; more anon. Comes the king forth, I pray you? | |
Doct. Ay, sir; there are a crew of wretched souls | |
That stay his cure; their malady convinces | 160 |
The great assay of art; but, at his touch, | |
Such sanctity hath heaven given his hand, | |
They presently amend. | |
Mal. I thank you, doctor. [Exit Doctor. | |
Macd. Whats the disease he means? | 165 |
Mal. Tis calld the evil: | |
A most miraculous work in this good king, | |
Which often, since my here-remain in England, | |
I have seen him do. How he solicits heaven, | |
Himself best knows; but strangely-visited people, | 170 |
All swoln and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye, | |
The mere despair of surgery, he cures; | |
Hanging a golden stamp about their necks, | |
Put on with holy prayers; and tis spoken | |
To the succeeding royalty he leaves | 175 |
The healing benediction. With this strange virtue, | |
He hath a heavenly gift of prophecy, | |
And sundry blessings hang about his throne | |
That speak him full of grace. | |
Macd. See, who comes here? | 180 |
Mal. My countryman; but yet I know him not. | |
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Enter ROSS. | |
Macd. My ever-gentle cousin, welcome hither. | |
Mal. I know him now. Good God, betimes remove | |
The means that make us strangers! | 185 |
Ross. Sir, amen. | |
Macd. Stands Scotland where it did? | |
Ross. Alas! poor country; | |
Almost afraid to know itself. It cannot | |
Be calld our mother, but our grave; where nothing, | 190 |
But who knows nothing, is once seen to smile; | |
Where sighs and groans and shrieks that rent the air | |
Are made, not markd; where violent sorrow seems | |
A modern ecstasy; the dead mans knell | |
Is there scarce askd for who; and good mens lives | 195 |
Expire before the flowers in their caps, | |
Dying or ere they sicken. | |
Macd. O! relation | |
Too nice, and yet too true! | |
Mal. Whats the newest grief? | 200 |
Ross. That of an hours age doth hiss the speaker; | |
Each minute teems a new one. | |
Macd. How does my wife? | |
Ross. Why, well. | |
Macd. And all my children? | 205 |
Ross. Well too. | |
Macd. The tyrant has not batterd at their peace? | |
Ross. No; they were well at peace when I did leave em. | |
Macd. Be not a niggard of your speech: how goes t? | |
Ross. When I came hither to transport the tidings, | 210 |
Which I have heavily borne, there ran a rumour | |
Of many worthy fellows that were out; | |
Which was to my belief witnessd the rather | |
For that I saw the tyrants power a-foot. | |
Now is the time of help; your eye in Scotland | 215 |
Would create soldiers, make our women fight, | |
To doff their dire distresses. | |
Mal. Be t their comfort, | |
We are coming thither. Gracious England hath | |
Lent us good Siward and ten thousand men; | 220 |
An older and a better soldier none | |
That Christendom gives out. | |
Ross. Would I could answer | |
This comfort with the like! But I have words | |
That would be howld out in the desert air, | 225 |
Where hearing should not latch them. | |
Macd. What concern they? | |
The general cause? or is it a fee-grief | |
Due to some single breast? | |
Ross. No mind thats honest | 230 |
But in it shares some woe, though the main part | |
Pertains to you alone. | |
Macd. If it be mine | |
Keep it not from me; quickly let me have it. | |
Ross. Let not your ears despise my tongue for ever, | 235 |
Which shall possess them with the heaviest sound | |
That ever yet they heard. | |
Macd. Hum! I guess at it. | |
Ross. Your castle is surprisd; your wife and babes | |
Savagely slaughterd; to relate the manner, | 240 |
Were, on the quarry of these murderd deer, | |
To add the death of you. | |
Mal. Merciful heaven! | |
What! man; neer pull your hat upon your brows; | |
Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak | 245 |
Whispers the oer-fraught heart and bids it break. | |
Macd. My children too? | |
Ross. Wife, children, servants, all | |
That could be found. | |
Macd. And I must be from thence! | 250 |
My wife killd too? | |
Ross. I have said. | |
Mal. Be comforted: | |
Lets make us medicine of our great revenge, | |
To cure this deadly grief. | 255 |
Macd. He has no children. All my pretty ones? | |
Did you say all? O hell-kite! All? | |
What! all my pretty chickens and their dam | |
At one fell swoop? | |
Mal. Dispute it like a man. | 260 |
Macd. I shall do so; | |
But I must also feel it as a man: | |
I cannot but remember such things were, | |
That were most precious to me. Did heaven look on, | |
And would not take their part? Sinful Macduff! | 265 |
They were all struck for thee. Naught that I am, | |
Not for their own demerits, but for mine, | |
Fell slaughter on their souls. Heaven rest them now! | |
Mal. Be this the whetstone of your sword: let grief | |
Convert to anger; blunt not the heart, enrage it. | 270 |
Macd. O! I could play the woman with mine eyes, | |
And braggart with my tongue. But, gentle heavens, | |
Cut short all intermission; front to front | |
Bring thou this fiend of Scotland and myself; | |
Within my swords length set him; if he scape, | 275 |
Heaven forgive him too! | |
Mal. This tune goes manly. | |
Come, go we to the king; our power is ready; | |
Our lack is nothing but our leave. Macbeth | |
Is ripe for shaking, and the powers above | 280 |
Put on their instruments. Receive what cheer you may; | |
The night is long that never finds the day. [Exeunt. | |
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