Macbeth

Macbeth

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