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 Rosse.

 

MACD.

See who comes here.

MAL.

My countryman; but yet I know him not.

MACD.

My ever gentle cousin, welcome hither.

MAL.

I know him now. Good God betimes remove

The means that makes us strangers!

ROSSE.

Sir, amen.

MACD.

Stands Scotland where it did?

ROSSE.

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;

Where sighs, and groans, and shrieks that rent 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,

Dying or ere they sicken.

MACD.

O relation!

Too nice, and yet too true.

MAL.

What's the newest grief?

ROSSE.

That of an hour's age doth hiss the speaker;

Each minute teems a new one.

MACD.

How does my wife?

ROSSE.

Why, well.

MACD.

And all my children?

ROSSE.

Well too.

MACD.

The tyrant has not batter'd at their peace?

ROSSE.

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

MACD.

Be not a niggard of your speech; how goes't?

ROSSE.

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 witness'd 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.

MAL.

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.

ROSSE.

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.

MACD.

What concern they?

The general cause? or is it a fee-grief

Due to some single breast?

ROSSE.

No mind that's honest

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.

ROSSE.

Let not your ears despise my tongue for ever,

Which shall possess them with the heaviest sound

That ever yet they heard.

MACD.

Humh! I guess at it.

ROSSE.

Your castle is surpris'd; your wife, and babes,

Savagely slaughter'd. To relate the manner,

Were on the quarry of these murther'd deer

To add the death of you.

MAL.

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.

MACD.

My children too?

ROSSE.

Wife, children, servants, all

That could be found.

MACD.

And I must be from thence!

My wife kill'd too?

ROSSE.

I have said.

MAL.

Be comforted.

Let's make us med'cines of our great revenge

To cure this deadly grief.

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.

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,

They were all strook 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.

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 sword's length set him; if he scape,

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 pow'rs above

Put on their instruments. Receive what cheer you may,

The night is long that never finds the day.

 

Exeunt.

 

 

Act V,

Scene I

Enter a Doctor of Physic and a Waiting-Gentlewoman.

 

DOCT.

I have two nights watch'd with you, but can perceive no truth in your report. When was it she last walk'd?

GENT. Since his Majesty went into the field, I have seen her rise from her bed, throw her night-gown upon her, unlock her closet, take forth paper, fold it, write upon't, read it, afterwards seal it, and again return to bed; yet all this while in a most fast sleep.

DOCT. A great perturbation in nature, to receive at once the benefit of sleep and do the effects of watching! In this slumb'ry agitation, besides her walking and other actual performances, what, at any time, have you heard her say?

GENT. That, sir, which I will not report after her.

DOCT.