You may70
Convey your pleasures in a spacious plenty71
And yet seem cold–the time you may so hoodwink.
We have willing dames enough. There cannot be73
That vulture in you to devour so many
As will to greatness dedicate themselves,
Finding it so inclined.
MALCOLM With this there grows
77 In my most ill-composed affection such
78 A stanchless avarice that, were I king,
79 I should cut off the nobles for their lands,
80 Desire his jewels, and this other’s house,
And my more-having would be as a sauce
82 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
86 Than summer-seeming lust, and it hath been
87 The sword of our slain kings. Yet do not fear.
88 Scotland hath foisons to fill up your will
89 Of your mere own. All these are portable,
90 With other graces weighed.
MALCOLM
But I have none. The king-becoming graces,
As justice, verity, temp’rance, stableness,
93 Bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness,
Devotion, patience, courage, fortitude,
95 I have no relish of them, but abound
96 In the division of each several crime,
Acting in many ways. Nay, had I pow’r, I should
Pour the sweet milk of concord into hell,
99 Uproar the universal peace, confound
100 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 Fit to govern?
No, not to live! O nation miserable,
With an untitled tyrant bloody-sceptered,104
When shalt thou see thy wholesome days again,
Since that the truest issue of thy throne
By his own interdiction stands accursed107
And does blaspheme his breed? Thy royal father108
Was a most sainted king; the queen that bore thee,
Oft’ner upon her knees than on her feet,110
Died every day she lived. Fare thee well.111
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 soul
Wiped the black scruples, reconciled my thoughts116
To thy good truth and honor. Devilish Macbeth
By many of these trains hath sought to win me118
Into his power; and modest wisdom plucks me119
From overcredulous haste; but God above120
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 yet125
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 speaking130
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
135 Already at a point was setting forth.
136 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
136 Well, more anon.–Comes the king forth, I pray you?
DOCTOR
Ay, sir. There are a crew of wretched souls
140 That stay his cure. Their malady convinces
142 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
143 What’s the disease he means?
MALCOLM ’Tis called 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
146 Himself best knows, but strangely visited people,
All swoll’n and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye,
150 The mere despair of surgery, he cures,
152 Hanging a golden stamp about their necks,
153 Put on with holy prayers, and ’tis spoken
To the succeeding royalty he leaves
The healing benediction. With this strange virtue,154
He hath a heavenly gift of prophecy,
And sundry blessings hang about his throne
That speak him full of grace.156
Enter Ross.159
MACDUFF See who comes here.
MALCOLM
My countryman; but yet I know him not.160
MACDUFF
My ever gentle cousin, welcome hither.
MALCOLM
I know him now. Good God betimes remove162
The means that makes us strangers.
ROSS Sir, amen.
MACDUFF
Stands Scotland where it did?
ROSS Alas, poor country,
Almost afraid to know itself. It cannot
Be called our mother but our grave, where nothing166
But who knows nothing is once seen to smile;
Where sighs and groans, and shrieks that rend the air,
Are made, not marked; where violent sorrow seems169
A modern ecstasy. The dead man’s knell170
Is there scarce asked for who, and good men’s lives171
Expire before the flowers in their caps,
Dying or ere they sicken.173
MACDUFF O, relation
Too nice, and yet too true!174
MALCOLM What’s the newest grief?
ROSS
That of an hour’s age doth hiss the speaker;175
176 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 battered at their peace?
ROSS
No, they were well at peace when I did leave ’em.
MACDUFF
180 Be not a niggard of your speech. How goes’t?
ROSS
When I came hither to transport the tidings
182 Which I have heavily borne, there ran a rumor
183 Of many worthy fellows that were out,
184 Which was to my belief witnessed the rather
For that I saw the tyrant’s power afoot.
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 hath
190 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 words
That would be howled out in the desert air,
195 Where hearing should not latch them.
MACDUFF What concern they,
The general cause or is it a fee-grief196
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,
Keep it not from me; quickly let me have it.200
ROSS
Let not your ears despise my tongue forever,
Which shall possess them with the heaviest sound
That ever yet they heard.
MACDUFF Hmm–I guess at it.
ROSS
Your castle is surprised, your wife and babes
Savagely slaughtered. To relate the manner
Were, on the quarry of these murdered deer,206
To add the death of you.
MALCOLM Merciful heaven–
[To Macduff ]
What, man, ne’er pull your hat upon your brows.208
Give sorrow words. The grief that does not speak209
Whispers the o’erfraught heart and bids it break.210
MACDUFF
My children too?
ROSS Wife, children, servants, all
That could be found.212
MACDUFF 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
He has no children. All my pretty ones?
Did you say all? O hellkite! All?
What, all my pretty chickens and their dam
219 At one fell swoop?
MALCOLM
220 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
That were most precious to me. Did heaven look on
And would not take their part? Sinful Macduff,
225 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
230 O, I could play the woman with mine eyes
And braggart with my tongue.
1 comment