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,5 Bestride our ⌜downfall’n⌝ 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 yelled out Like syllable of dolor.MALCOLM 10What I believe, I’ll 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. This tyrant, whose sole name blisters our tongues,15 Was once thought honest. You have loved him well. He hath not touched you yet. I am young, but something
You may ⌜deserve⌝ of him through me, and wisdom To offer up a weak, poor, innocent lamb20 T’ appease an angry god.MACDUFF I am not treacherous.MALCOLM But Macbeth is. A good and virtuous nature may recoil In an imperial charge. But I shall crave your25 pardon. 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,30 Yet grace must still look so.MACDUFF I have lost my hopes.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,35 Without leave-taking? I pray you, Let not my jealousies be your dishonors, But mine own safeties. You may be rightly just, Whatever I shall think.MACDUFF Bleed, bleed, poor country!40 Great tyranny, lay thou thy basis sure, For goodness dare not check thee. Wear thou thy wrongs; The title is affeered.—Fare thee well, lord. I would not be the villain that thou think’st45 For the whole space that’s in the tyrant’s grasp, And the rich East to boot.MALCOLM Be not offended. I speak not as in absolute fear of you. I think our country sinks beneath the yoke.50 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; And here from gracious England have I offer Of goodly thousands. But, for all this,55 When I shall tread upon the tyrant’s head Or wear it on my sword, yet my poor country Shall have more vices than it had before, More suffer, and more sundry ways than ever, By him that shall succeed.MACDUFF 60 What should he be?MALCOLM It is myself I mean, in whom I know All the particulars of vice so grafted That, when they shall be opened, black Macbeth Will seem as pure as snow, and the poor state65 Esteem him as a lamb, being compared With my confineless harms.MACDUFF Not in the legions Of horrid hell can come a devil more damned In evils to top Macbeth.MALCOLM 70 I grant him bloody, Luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful, Sudden, malicious, smacking of every sin That has a name. But there’s no bottom, none, In my voluptuousness. Your wives, your daughters,75 Your matrons, and your maids could not fill up The cistern of my lust, and my desire All continent impediments would o’erbear That did oppose my will. Better Macbeth Than such an one to reign.MACDUFF 80 Boundless intemperance In nature is a tyranny. It hath been Th’ untimely emptying of the happy throne And fall of many kings. But fear not yet To take upon you what is yours. You may85 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 That vulture in you to devour so many As will to greatness dedicate themselves,90 Finding it so inclined.MALCOLM With this there grows In my most ill-composed affection such A stanchless avarice that, were I king, I should cut off the nobles for their lands,95 Desire his jewels, and this other’s house; And my more-having would be as a sauce To make me hunger more, that I should forge Quarrels unjust against the good and loyal, Destroying them for wealth.MACDUFF 100 This avarice Sticks deeper, grows with more pernicious root 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 will105 Of your mere own. All these are portable, With other graces weighed.MALCOLM But I have none. The king-becoming graces, As justice, verity, temp’rance, stableness, Bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness,110 Devotion, patience, courage, fortitude, I have no relish of them but abound 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,115 Uproar the universal peace, confound All unity on earth.MACDUFF O Scotland, Scotland!MALCOLM If such a one be fit to govern, speak. I am as I have spoken.MACDUFF 120 Fit to govern?
No, not to live.—O nation miserable, With an untitled tyrant bloody-sceptered, When shalt thou see thy wholesome days again, Since that the truest issue of thy throne125 By his own interdiction stands ⌜accursed⌝ And does blaspheme his breed?—Thy royal father Was a most sainted king. The queen that bore thee, Oft’ner upon her knees than on her feet, Died every day she lived. Fare thee well.130 These evils thou repeat’st upon thyself Hath banished me from Scotland.—O my breast, Thy hope ends here!MALCOLM Macduff, this noble passion, Child of integrity, hath from my soul135 Wiped the black scruples, reconciled my thoughts To thy good truth and honor. Devilish Macbeth By many of these trains hath sought to win me Into his power, and modest wisdom plucks me From overcredulous haste. But God above140 Deal between thee and me, for even now I put myself to thy direction and Unspeak mine own detraction, here abjure The taints and blames I laid upon myself For strangers to my nature. I am yet145 Unknown to woman, never was forsworn, Scarcely have coveted what was mine own, 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 speaking150 Was this upon myself. What I am truly Is thine and my poor country’s to command— Whither indeed, before ⌜thy here-approach,⌝ Old Siward with ten thousand warlike men, Already at a point, was setting forth.155 Now we’ll together, and the chance of goodness Be like our warranted quarrel. Why are you silent?
MACDUFF Such welcome and unwelcome things at once ’Tis hard to reconcile.Enter a Doctor.MALCOLM Well, more anon.—160 Comes the King forth, I pray you?DOCTOR Ay, sir. There are a crew of wretched souls That stay his cure. Their malady convinces The great assay of art, but at his touch (Such sanctity hath heaven given his hand)165 They presently amend.MALCOLM I thank you, doctor.⌜Doctor⌝ exits.MACDUFF What’s the disease he means?MALCOLM ’Tis called the evil: A most miraculous work in this good king,170 Which often since my here-remain in England I have seen him do. How he solicits heaven Himself best knows, but strangely visited people All swoll’n and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye, The mere despair of surgery, he cures,175 Hanging a golden stamp about their necks, Put on with holy prayers; and, ’tis spoken, To the succeeding royalty he leaves The healing benediction. With this strange virtue, He hath a heavenly gift of prophecy,180 And sundry blessings hang about his throne That speak him full of grace.Enter Ross.MACDUFF See who comes here.MALCOLM My countryman, but yet I know him ⌜not.⌝
MACDUFF My ever-gentle cousin, welcome hither.MALCOLM 185 I know him now.—Good God betimes remove The means that makes us strangers!ROSS Sir, amen.MACDUFF Stands Scotland where it did?ROSS Alas, poor country,190 Almost afraid to know itself. It cannot Be called our mother, but our grave, where nothing But who knows nothing is once seen to smile; Where sighs and groans and shrieks that rent the air Are made, not marked; where violent sorrow seems195 A modern ecstasy. The dead man’s knell Is there scarce asked for who, and good men’s lives Expire before the flowers in their caps, Dying or ere they sicken.MACDUFF O relation too nice and yet too true!MALCOLM 200What’s the newest grief?ROSS That of an hour’s age doth hiss the speaker. Each minute teems a new one.MACDUFF How does my wife?ROSS Why, well.MACDUFF 205And all my children?ROSS Well too.MACDUFF The tyrant has not battered at their peace?ROSS No, they were well at peace when I did leave ’em.MACDUFF Be not a niggard of your speech. How goes ’t?ROSS 210 When I came hither to transport the tidings
Which I have heavily borne, there ran a rumor Of many worthy fellows that were out; Which was to my belief witnessed the rather For that I saw the tyrant’s power afoot.215 Now is the time of help. Your eye in Scotland Would create soldiers, make our women fight To doff their dire distresses.MALCOLM Be ’t their comfort We are coming thither. Gracious England hath220 Lent us good Siward and ten thousand men; An older and a better soldier none That Christendom gives out.ROSS Would I could answer This comfort with the like. But I have words225 That would be howled out in the desert air, Where hearing should not latch them.MACDUFF What concern they— The general cause, or is it a fee-grief230 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.MACDUFF If it be mine,235 Keep it not from me. Quickly let me have it.ROSS Let not your ears despise my tongue forever, Which shall possess them with the heaviest sound That ever yet they heard.MACDUFF Hum! I guess at it.ROSS 240 Your castle is surprised, your wife and babes Savagely slaughtered. To relate the manner Were on the quarry of these murdered deer To add the death of you.MALCOLM Merciful heaven!—
245 What, man, ne’er pull your hat upon your brows. Give sorrow words. The grief that does not speak Whispers the o’erfraught heart and bids it break.MACDUFF My children too?ROSS Wife, children, servants, all that could be found.MACDUFF 250 And I must be from thence? My wife killed too?ROSS I have said.MALCOLM Be comforted. Let’s make us med’cines of our great revenge To cure this deadly grief.MACDUFF 255 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?MALCOLM Dispute it like a man.MACDUFF 260I 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.MALCOLM Be this the whetstone of your sword. Let grief Convert to anger. Blunt not the heart; enrage it.MACDUFF 270 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 sword’s length set him. If he ’scape,275 Heaven forgive him too.
MALCOLM 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 above280 Put on their instruments. Receive what cheer you may. The night is long that never finds the day.They exit.
