Mal.
Let us seek out some desolate shade, and there
Weep our sad bosoms empty.

Macd.
Let us rather
Hold fast the mortal sword^{9 note}
; and, like good men,

Bestride our down-fall'n birthdom^{1 note}

Mal.
What I believe, I'll wail;
What know, believe; and, what I can redress,
As I shall find the time to friend^{3 note}, I will.
What you have spoke, it may be so, perchance.
This tyrant, whose sole name blisters our tongues,
Was once thought honest: you have lov'd him well;
He hath not touch'd you yet. I am young; but something
You may deserve of him through me^{4 note}
; and wisdom^{5 note}

Macd.
I am not treacherous.

Mal.
But Macbeth is.
A good and virtuous nature may recoil,
In an imperial charge^{6 note}
. But I shall crave your pardon^{7 note}
;
That which you are, my thoughts cannot transpose:
Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell:
Though all things foul^{8 note}

Macd.
I have lost my hopes.

Mal.
Perchance, even there, where I did find my doubts.
Why in that rawness^{9 note}

But mine own safeties:—You may be rightly just,
Whatever I shall think.

Macd.
Bleed, bleed, poor country!
Great tyranny, lay thou thy basis sure,
For goodness dares not check thee^{1 note}! wear thou thy wrongs^{2 note},
Thy title is affeer'd^{3 note}

I would not be the villain that thou think'st
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
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,
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
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 compar'd
With my confineless harms^{4 note}.

Macd.
Not in the legions
Of horrid hell, can come a devil more damn'd
In evils, to top Macbeth.

Mal.
I grant him bloody,
Luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful,
Sudden, malicious^{5 note}

The cistern of my lust; and my desire
All continent impediments would o'er-bear,
That did oppose my will: Better Macbeth,
Than such a one to reign.

Macd.
Boundless intemperance^{6 note}
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,
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 inclin'd.

Mal.
With this, there grows,
In my most ill-compos'd 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:
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.

Macd.
This avarice
Sticks deeper; grows with more pernicious root
Than summer-seeming lust^{7 note}

The sword of our slain kings: Yet do not fear;
Scotland hath foysons^{8 note}

Mal.
But I have none: The king-becoming graces,
As justice, verity, temperance, stableness,

Bounty, perséverance, mercy, lowliness,
Devotion, patience, courage, fortitude,
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
All unity on earth^{1 note}

Macd.
O Scotland! Scotland!

Mal.
If such a one be fit to govern, speak:
I am as I have spoken.

Macd.
Fit to govern!
No, not to live.—O nation miserable,
With an untitled tyrant^{2 note}

bloody-scepter'd,
When shalt thou see thy wholesome days again?
Since that the truest issue of thy throne
By his own interdiction stands accurs'd,
And does blaspheme his breed?—Thy royal father
Was a most sainted king: the queen, that bore thee,

Oftner upon her knees than on her feet,
Died every day she lived^{3 note}

Mal.
Macduff, this noble passion,
Child of integrity, hath from my soul
Wip'd the black scruples, reconcil'd my thoughts
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^{4 note}: But God above
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 yet
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 speaking
Was this upon myself: What I am truly,
Is thine, and my poor country's, to command:
Whither, indeed, before thy here-approach^{5 note},
Old Siward, with ten thousand warlike men,

All ready* ^note at a point^{6 note}

Macd.
Such welcome and unwelcome things at once,
'Tis hard to reconcile. Enter a Doctor.

Mal.
Well; more anon.—Comes the king forth, I pray you?

Doct.
Ay, sir: there are a crew of wretched souls,

That stay his cure: their malady convinces^{8 note}
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.

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,
I have seen him do. How he solicits heaven,
Himself best knows: but strangely-visited people,
All swoln and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye,
The mere despair of surgery, he cures^{9 note};
Hanging a golden stamp^{1 note}

Put on with holy prayers: and 'tis spoken,
To the succeeding royalty he leaves
The healing benediction^{2 note}

Enter Rosse.

Macd.
See, who comes here?

Mal.
My countryman; but yet I know him not^{3 note}

Macd.
My ever-gentle cousin, welcome hither.

Mal.
I know him now: Good God, betimes remove
The means that make 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^{4 note}

Is there scarce ask'd, for who; and good men's lives
Expire before the flowers in their caps^{6 note}

,
Dying, or ere they sicken.

Macd.
O, relation,
Too nice, and yet too true^{7 note}
!

Mal.
What is 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^{8 note}

.

Macd.
And all my children^{9 note}

Rosse.
Well too.

Macd.
The tyrant has not batter'd at their peace?

Rosse.
No; they were well at peace, when I did leave them.

Macd.
Be not a niggard of your speech; How goes it?

Rosse.
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:
Now is the time of help! your eye in Scotland
Would create soldiers, make our women fight,
To doff their dire distresses^{1 note}.

Mal.
Be it 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^{2 note}

Macd.
What concern they?
The general cause? or is it a fee-grief^{3 note}

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.
Humph! I guess at it.

Rosse.
Your castle is surpriz'd; your wife, and babes,
Savagely slaughter'd: to relate the manner,
Were, on the quarry of these murder'd deer^{4 note}

Mal.
Merciful heaven!—
What, man! ne'er pull your hat upon your brows^{5 note}

Give sorrow words: the grief, that does not speak^{6 note}

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^{7 note}

Did you say, all?—O, hell-kite!—All?
What, all my pretty chickens, and their dam,
At one fell swoop^{8 note}

Mal.
Dispute it like a man^{9 note}

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 struck 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^{1 note}
; 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^{2 note}

Mal.
This tune^{3 note}

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