| ACT IV SCENE III | England. Before the King's palace. | |
| | 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 down-fall'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 yell'd out | |
| | Like syllable of dolour. | 10 |
| MALCOLM | What 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 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 | 20 |
| | To 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 | 25 |
| | your 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, | |
| | Yet grace must still look so. | 30 |
| 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, | |
| | Without leave-taking? I pray you, | 35 |
| | Let not my jealousies be your dishonours, | |
| | 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, | 40 |
| | For goodness dare not cheque thee: wear thou | |
| | 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, | 45 |
| | 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; | |
| | It weeps, it bleeds; and each new day a gash | 50 |
| | 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, | |
| | When I shall tread upon the tyrant's head, | 55 |
| | 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 | What should he be? | 60 |
| MALCOLM | It is myself I mean: in whom I know | |
| | 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 | 65 |
| | With my confineless harms. | |
| 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, | 70 |
| | 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, | |
| | Your matrons and your maids, could not fill up | 75 |
| | 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 | Boundless intemperance | 80 |
| | 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 | |
| | Convey your pleasures in a spacious plenty, | 85 |
| | 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, | |
| | Finding it so inclined. | 90 |
| 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, | |
| | Desire his jewels and this other's house: | 95 |
| | 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 | This avarice | 100 |
| | 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 will. | |
| | Of your mere own: all these are portable, | 105 |
| | With other graces weigh'd. | |
| MALCOLM | But I have none: the king-becoming graces, | |
| | As justice, verity, temperance, stableness, | |
| | Bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness, | |
| | Devotion, patience, courage, fortitude, | 110 |
| | 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, | |
| | Uproar the universal peace, confound | 115 |
| | 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! | 120 |
| | No, not to live. O nation miserable, | |
| | 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, | 125 |
| | 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, | |
| | Died every day she lived. Fare thee well! | |
| | These evils thou repeat'st upon thyself | 130 |
| | Have banish'd 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 thoughts | 135 |
| | To thy good truth and honour. Devilish Macbeth | |
| | 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 | 140 |
| | 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 yet | |
| | Unknown to woman, never was forsworn, | 145 |
| | 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 | |
| | Was this upon myself: what I am truly, | 150 |
| | 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. | |
| | Now we'll together; and the chance of goodness | 155 |
| | 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.--Comes the king forth, I pray you? | |
| Doctor | Ay, sir; there are a crew of wretched souls | 160 |
| | That stay his cure: their malady convinces | |
| | The great assay of art; but at his touch-- | |
| | Such sanctity hath heaven given his hand-- | |
| | They presently amend. | |
| MALCOLM | I thank you, doctor. | 165 |
| | Exit Doctor | |
| MACDUFF | What's the disease he means? | |
| 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, | 170 |
| | Himself best knows: but strangely-visited people, | |
| | 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, | 175 |
| | To the succeeding royalty he leaves | |
| | 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. | 180 |
| | Enter ROSS | |
| MACDUFF | See, who comes here? | |
| 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! | 185 |
| ROSS | Sir, amen. | |
| 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, | 190 |
| | But who knows nothing, is once seen to smile; | |
| | 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 | 195 |
| | Expire before the flowers in their caps, | |
| | Dying or ere they sicken. | |
| MACDUFF | O, relation | |
| | Too nice, and yet too true! | |
| MALCOLM | What's the newest grief? | 200 |
| 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 | And all my children? | 205 |
| ROSS | Well too. | |
| MACDUFF | The tyrant has not batter'd at their peace? | |
| 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, | 210 |
| | 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: | |
| | Now is the time of help; your eye in Scotland | 215 |
| | Would create soldiers, make our women fight, | |
| | To doff their dire distresses. | |
| MALCOLM | Be't their comfort | |
| | We are coming thither: gracious England hath | |
| | Lent us good Siward and ten thousand men; | 220 |
| | 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, | 225 |
| | Where hearing should not latch them. | |
| MACDUFF | What concern they? | |
| | The general cause? or is it a fee-grief | |
| | Due to some single breast? | |
| ROSS | No mind that's honest | 230 |
| | 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. | |
| ROSS | Let not your ears despise my tongue for ever, | 235 |
| | Which shall possess them with the heaviest sound | |
| | That ever yet they heard. | |
| MACDUFF | Hum! I guess at it. | |
| ROSS | Your castle is surprised; your wife and babes | |
| | Savagely slaughter'd: to relate the manner, | 240 |
| | Were, on the quarry of these murder'd deer, | |
| | To add the death of you. | |
| MALCOLM | Merciful heaven! | |
| | What, man! ne'er pull your hat upon your brows; | |
| | Give sorrow words: the grief that does not speak | 245 |
| | Whispers the o'er-fraught heart and bids it break. | |
| MACDUFF | My children too? | |
| ROSS | Wife, children, servants, all | |
| | That could be found. | |
| MACDUFF | And I must be from thence! | 250 |
| | My wife kill'd too? | |
| ROSS | I have said. | |
| MALCOLM | Be comforted: | |
| | Let's make us medicines of our great revenge, | |
| | To cure this deadly grief. | 255 |
| 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 | |
| | At one fell swoop? | |
| MALCOLM | Dispute it like a man. | 260 |
| 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, | 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. | 270 |
| 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 | |
| | 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 above | 280 |
| | Put on their instruments. Receive what cheer you may: | |
| | The night is long that never finds the day. | |
| | Exeunt | |