Act 4 — Scene III. England. Before the King's palace.[4428]

Mal. Let us seek out some desolate shade, and there Weep our sad bosoms empty. Macd. Let us rather Hold fast the mortal sword, and like good men Bestride our down-fall'n birthdom: each new morn[4429] New widows howl, new orphans cry, new sorrows 5 Strike heaven on the face, that it resounds As if it felt with Scotland and yell'd out Like syllable of dolour.[4430] Mal. What I believe, I'll wail; What know, believe; and what I can redress, As I shall find the time to friend, I will. 10 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; He hath not touch'd you yet. I am young; but something[4431] You may deserve of him through me; and wisdom[4432] 15 To offer up a weak, poor, innocent lamb[4433] 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;[4434] 20 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,[4435] Yet grace must still look so.[4436] Macd. I have lost my hopes. Mal. Perchance even there where I did find my doubts.[4437] 25 Why in that rawness left you wife and child,[4438] Those precious motives, those strong knots of love, Without leave-taking? I pray you,[4439] Let not my jealousies be your dishonours, But mine own safeties. You may be rightly just, 30 Whatever I shall think. Macd. Bleed, bleed, poor country: Great tyranny, lay thou thy basis sure, For goodness dare not check thee: wear thou thy wrongs;[4440] The title is affeer'd. Fare thee well, lord:[4441] I would not be the villain that thou think'st[4442] 35 For the whole space that's in the tyrant's grasp And the rich East to boot. Mal. 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 40 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,[4443] When I shall tread upon the tyrant's head, 45 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. Macd. What should he be? Mal. It is myself I mean: in whom I know 50 All the particulars of vice so grafted That, when they shall be open'd, black Macbeth[4444] Will seem as pure as snow, and the poor state Esteem him as a lamb, being compared With my confineless harms. Macd. Not in the legions 55 Of horrid hell can come a devil more damn'd In evils to top Macbeth.[4445] Mal. I grant him bloody, Luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful, Sudden, malicious, smacking of every sin[4446] That has a name: but there's no bottom, none, 60 In my voluptuousness: your wives, your daughters, Your matrons and your maids, could not fill up The cistern of my lust, and my desire[4447] All continent impediments would o'erbear, That did oppose my will: better Macbeth 65 Than such an one to reign.[4448] Macd. Boundless intemperance In nature is a tyranny; it hath been 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 70 Convey your pleasures in a spacious plenty,[4449] And yet seem cold, the time you may so hoodwink:[4450] We have willing dames enough; there cannot be[4451] That vulture in you, to devour so many As will to greatness dedicate themselves, 75 Finding it so inclined. Mal. 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, Desire his jewels and this other's house: 80 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,[4452] Destroying them for wealth. Macd. This avarice Sticks deeper, grows with more pernicious root[4453] 85 Than summer-seeming lust, and it hath been[4454] The sword of our slain kings: yet do not fear; Scotland hath foisons to fill up your will[4455] Of your mere own: all these are portable,[4456] With other graces weigh'd. 90 Mal. 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 95 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,[4457] Uproar the universal peace, confound[4458] All unity on earth. Macd. O Scotland, Scotland! 100 Mal. If such a one be fit to govern, speak: I am as I have spoken. Macd. Fit to govern![4459] No, not to live. O nation miserable![4459] With an untitled tyrant bloody-scepter'd, When shalt thou see thy wholesome days again, 105 Since that the truest issue of thy throne By his own interdiction stands accursed,[4460] And does blaspheme his breed? Thy royal father Was a most sainted king: the queen that bore thee, Oftener upon her knees than on her feet, 110 Died every day she lived. Fare thee well![4461] These evils thou repeat'st upon thyself Have banish'd me from Scotland. O my breast,[4462] Thy hope ends here! Mal. Macduff, this noble passion, Child of integrity, hath from my soul 115 Wiped the black scruples, reconciled my thoughts To thy good truth and honour. Devilish Macbeth[4463] 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 120 Deal between thee and me! for even now I put myself to thy direction, and Unspeak mine own detraction; here abjure[4464] The taints and blames I laid upon myself, For strangers to my nature. I am yet 125 Unknown to woman, never was forsworn,[4465] 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 speaking 130 Was this upon myself: what I am truly, Is thine and my poor country's to command: Whither indeed, before thy here-approach,[4466] Old Siward, with ten thousand warlike men,[4467] Already at a point, was setting forth.[4468] 135 Now we'll together, and the chance of goodness[4469] Be like our warranted quarrel! Why are you silent?[4470] Macd. Such welcome and unwelcome things at once 'Tis hard to reconcile.

Mal. Well, more anon. Comes the king forth, I pray you?[4471]140 Doct. Ay, sir; there are a crew of wretched souls That stay his cure: their malady convinces[4472] 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.[4473]145 Macd. What's the disease he means? Mal. 'Tis call'd the evil: A most miraculous work in this good king; Which often, since my here-remain in England,[4474] I have seen him do. How he solicits heaven,[4475] Himself best knows: but strangely-visited people,[4476] 150 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 155 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? Mal. My countryman; but yet I know him not. 160 Macd. My ever gentle cousin, welcome hither. Mal. I know him now: good God, betimes remove[4478] The means that makes us strangers![4479] Ross. Sir, amen. Macd. Stands Scotland where it did? Ross. Alas, poor country! Almost afraid to know itself! It cannot 165 Be call'd our mother, but our grave: where nothing,[4480] But who knows nothing, is once seen to smile; Where sighs and groans and shrieks that rend the air,[4481] Are made, not mark'd; where violent sorrow seems A modern ecstasy: the dead man's knell[4482] 170 Is there scarce ask'd for who; and good men's lives[4483] Expire before the flowers in their caps, Dying or ere they sicken.[4484] Macd. O, relation Too nice, and yet too true![4485] Mal. What's the newest grief?[4485][4486] Ross. That of an hour's age doth hiss the speaker; 175 Each minute teems a new one. Macd. How does my wife? Ross. Why, well. Macd. And all my children? Ross. Well too. Macd. The tyrant has not batter'd 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?[4487] 180 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; Which was to my belief witness'd the rather, For that I saw the tyrant's power a-foot: 185 Now is the time of help; your eye in Scotland Would create soldiers, make our women fight,[4488] To doff their dire distresses. Mal. Be't their comfort We are coming thither: gracious England hath[4489] Lent us good Siward and ten thousand men;[4490] 190 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 howl'd out in the desert air, Where hearing should not latch them. Macd. What concern they?[4491][4492]195 The general cause? or is it a fee-grief[4492] 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. Macd. If it be mine, Keep it not from me, quickly let me have it. 200 Ross. Let not your ears despise my tongue for ever, Which shall possess them with the heaviest sound That ever yet they heard. Macd. Hum! I guess at it.[4493] Ross. Your castle is surprised; your wife and babes Savagely slaughter'd: to relate the manner, 205 Were, on the quarry of these murder'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. 210 Macd. My children too? Ross. Wife, children, servants, all[4494] That could be found.[4494] Macd. And I must be from thence![4494] My wife kill'd too?[4494] Ross. I have said.[4495] Mal. Be comforted: Let's make us medicines of our great revenge, To cure this deadly grief. 215 Macd. He has no children. All my pretty ones?[4496] Did you say all? O hell-kite! All?[4497][4498][4499] What, all my pretty chickens and their dam[4498] At one fell swoop?[4498] Mal. Dispute it like a man. Macd. I shall do so;[4500] 220 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 struck for thee! naught that I am,[4501] 225 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.[4502] Macd. O, I could play the woman with mine eyes, 230 And braggart with my tongue! But, gentle heavens,[4503] Cut short all intermission; front to front Bring thou this fiend of Scotland and myself;[4504] Within my sword's length set him; if he 'scape, Heaven forgive him too! Mal. This tune goes manly.[4505] 235 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 Put on their instruments. Receive what cheer you may; The night is long that never finds the day. [Exeunt.240