MACBETH  4.3

		[Enter MALCOLM and MACDUFF]

MALCOLM		Let us seek out some desolate shade, and there
		Weep our sad bosoms empty.

MACDUFF		Let us rather
		Hold fast the mortal sword, and like good men
		Bestride our down-fall'n birthdom: each new morn	5
		New widows howl, new orphans cry, new sorrows
		Strike heaven on the face, that it resounds
		As if it felt with Scotland and yell'd out
		Like syllable of dolour.

MALCOLM		What I believe I'll wail,	10
		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.
		This tyrant, whose sole name blisters our tongues,
		Was once thought honest: you have loved him well.	15
		He hath not touch'd you yet. I am young;
		but something
		You may deserve of him through me, and wisdom
		To offer up a weak poor innocent lamb
		To appease an angry god.	20

MACDUFF

I am not treacherous.

MALCOLM		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.

MACDUFF

I have lost my hopes.

30

MALCOLM		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.

MACDUFF		Bleed, bleed, poor country!
		Great tyranny! lay thou thy basis sure,
		For goodness dare not cheque thee: wear thou	40
		thy wrongs;
		The title is affeer'd! Fare thee well, lord:
		I would not be the villain that thou think'st
		For the whole space that's in the tyrant's grasp,
		And the rich East to boot.	45

MALCOLM		Be not offended:
		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	50
		There would be hands uplifted in my right;
		And here from gracious England have I offer
		Of goodly thousands: but, for all this,
		When I shall tread upon the tyrant's head,
		Or wear it on my sword, yet my poor country	55
		Shall have more vices than it had before,
		More suffer and more sundry ways than ever,
		By him that shall succeed.

MACDUFF

What should he be?

MALCOLM		It is myself I mean: in whom I know	60
		All the particulars of vice so grafted
		That, when they shall be open'd, black Macbeth
		Will seem as pure as snow, and the poor state
		Esteem him as a lamb, being compared
		With my confineless harms.	65

MACDUFF		Not in the legions
		Of horrid hell can come a devil more damn'd
		In evils to top Macbeth.

MALCOLM		I grant him bloody,
		Luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful,	70
		Sudden, malicious, smacking of every sin
		That has a name: but there's 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	75
		All continent impediments would o'erbear
		That did oppose my will: better Macbeth
		Than such an one to reign.

MACDUFF		Boundless intemperance
		In nature is a tyranny; it hath been	80
		The untimely emptying of the happy throne
		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.	85
		We have willing dames enough: there cannot be
		That vulture in you, to devour so many
		As will to greatness dedicate themselves,
		Finding it so inclined.

MALCOLM		With this there grows	90
		In my most ill-composed affection such
		A stanchless avarice that, were I king,
		I should cut off the nobles for their lands,
		Desire his jewels and this other's house:
		And my more-having would be as a sauce	95
		To make me hunger more; that I should forge
		Quarrels unjust against the good and loyal,
		Destroying them for wealth.

MACDUFF		This avarice
		Sticks deeper, grows with more pernicious root	100
		Than summer-seeming lust, and it hath been
		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 weigh'd.	105

MALCOLM		But I have none: the king-becoming graces,
		As justice, verity, temperance, stableness,
		Bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness,
		Devotion, patience, courage, fortitude,
		I have no relish of them, but abound	110
		In the division of each several crime,
		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.	115

MACDUFF

O Scotland, Scotland!

MALCOLM		If such a one be fit to govern, speak:
		I am as I have spoken.

MACDUFF		Fit to govern!
		No, not to live. O nation miserable,	120
		With an untitled tyrant bloody-scepter'd,
		When shalt thou see thy wholesome days again,
		Since that the truest issue of thy throne
		By his own interdiction stands accursed,
		And does blaspheme his breed? Thy royal father	125
		Was a most sainted king: the queen that bore thee,
		Oftener upon her knees than on her feet,
		Died every day she lived. Fare thee well!
		These evils thou repeat'st upon thyself
		Have banish'd me from Scotland. O my breast,	130
		Thy hope ends here!

MALCOLM		Macduff, this noble passion,
		Child of integrity, hath from my soul
		Wiped the black scruples, reconciled my thoughts
		To thy good truth and honour. Devilish Macbeth	135
		By many of these trains hath sought to win me
		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	140
		Unspeak mine own detraction, here abjure
		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,	145
		At no time broke my faith, would not betray
		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 poor country's to command:	150
		Whither indeed, before thy here-approach,
		Old Siward, with ten thousand warlike men,
		Already at a point, was setting forth.
		Now we'll together; and the chance of goodness
		Be like our warranted quarrel! Why are you silent?	155

MACDUFF		Such welcome and unwelcome things at once
		'Tis hard to reconcile.
		[Enter a Doctor]

MALCOLM

Well; more anon.--Comes the king forth, I pray you?

Doctor		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.

MALCOLM		I thank you, doctor.
		[Exit Doctor]

MACDUFF

What's the disease he means?

165

MALCOLM		'Tis call'd 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.
		[Enter ROSS]

MACDUFF

See, who comes here?

180

MALCOLM

My countryman; but yet I know him not.

MACDUFF

My ever-gentle cousin, welcome hither.

MALCOLM		I know him now. Good God, betimes remove
		The means that makes us strangers!

ROSS

Sir, amen.

185

MACDUFF

Stands Scotland where it did?

ROSS		Alas, poor country!
		Almost afraid to know itself. It cannot
		Be call'd our mother, but our grave; where nothing,
		But who knows nothing, is once seen to smile;	190
		Where sighs and groans and shrieks that rend the air
		Are made, not mark'd; where violent sorrow seems
		A modern ecstasy; the dead man's knell
		Is there scarce ask'd for who; and good men's lives
		Expire before the flowers in their caps,	195
		Dying or ere they sicken.

MACDUFF		O, relation
		Too nice, and yet too true!

MALCOLM

What's the newest grief?

ROSS		That of an hour's age doth hiss the speaker:	200
		Each minute teems a new one.

MACDUFF

How does my wife?

ROSS

Why, well.

MACDUFF

And all my children?

ROSS

Well too.

MACDUFF

The tyrant has not batter'd at their peace?

205

ROSS

No; they were well at peace when I did leave 'em.

MACDUFF

But not a niggard of your speech: how goes't?

ROSS		When I came hither to transport the tidings,
		Which I have heavily borne, there ran a rumour
		Of many worthy fellows that were out;	210
		Which was to my belief witness'd the rather,
		For that I saw the tyrant's power a-foot:
		Now is the time of help; your eye in Scotland
		Would create soldiers, make our women fight,
		To doff their dire distresses.	215

MALCOLM		Be't their comfort
		We are coming thither: gracious England hath
		Lent us good Siward and ten thousand men;
		An older and a better soldier none
		That Christendom gives out.	220

ROSS		Would I could answer
		This comfort with the like! But I have words
		That would be howl'd out in the desert air,
		Where hearing should not latch them.

MACDUFF		What concern they?	225
		The general cause? or is it a fee-grief
		Due to some single breast?

ROSS		No mind that's honest
		But in it shares some woe; though the main part
		Pertains to you alone.	230

MACDUFF		If it be mine,
		Keep it not from me, quickly let me have it.

ROSS		Let not your ears despise my tongue for ever,
		Which shall possess them with the heaviest sound
		That ever yet they heard.	235

MACDUFF

Hum! I guess at it.

ROSS		Your castle is surprised; your wife and babes
		Savagely slaughter'd: to relate the manner,
		Were, on the quarry of these murder'd deer,
		To add the death of you.	240

MALCOLM		Merciful heaven!
		What, man! ne'er pull your hat upon your brows;
		Give sorrow words: the grief that does not speak
		Whispers the o'er-fraught heart and bids it break.

MACDUFF

My children too?

245

ROSS		Wife, children, servants, all
		That could be found.

MACDUFF		And I must be from thence!
		My wife kill'd too?

ROSS

I have said.

MALCOLM		Be comforted:	250
		Let's make us medicines of our great revenge,
		To cure this deadly grief.

MACDUFF		He has no children. All my pretty ones?
		Did you say all? O hell-kite! All?
		What, all my pretty chickens and their dam	255
		At one fell swoop?

MALCOLM

Dispute it like a man.

MACDUFF		I shall do so;
		But I must also feel it as a man:
		I cannot but remember such things were,	260
		That were most precious to me. Did heaven look on,
		And would not take their part? Sinful Macduff,
		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!	265

MALCOLM		Be this the whetstone of your sword: let grief
		Convert to anger; blunt not the heart, enrage it.

MACDUFF		O, I could play the woman with mine eyes
		And braggart with my tongue! But, gentle heavens,
		Cut short all intermission; front to front	270
		Bring thou this fiend of Scotland and myself;
		Within my sword's length set him; if he 'scape,
		Heaven forgive him too!

MALCOLM		This tune goes manly.
		Come, go we to the king; our power is ready;	275
		Our lack is nothing but our leave; Macbeth
		Is ripe for shaking, and the powers above
		Put on their instruments. Receive what cheer you may:
		The night is long that never finds the day.
		[Exeunt]