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

Macd.
Let us, rather,
Hold fast she mortal sword;

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'† ^note out
Like syllables of Grief.

Mal.
This tyrant, whose sole name blisters our tongue
Was once thought honest: you have lov'd him well,
He hath not touch'd you, yet. I'm young, but something
You may discern of him through me, and wisdom
To offer up a weak, poor, innocent lamb,
T'appease an angry god.

Macd.
I am not treacherous.

Mal.
But Macbeth is.
A good and virtuous nature may recoil,
In an imperial charge.

Macd.
I've lost my hopes.

Mal.
Perchance, e'en there, where I did find my doubts.
Let not my jealousies be your dishonours,
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! Wear thou thy wrongs,
His title is affear'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,
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 up-lifted 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.
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,
But there's no bottom, none,
In my voluptuousness:
Nay, had I power, I should
Pour the sweet milk of concord into hell,
Uproar the universal peace, confound
All unity on earth.* ^note

Macd.
Oh Scotland! Scotland!—

Mal.
If such a one be fit to govern, speak.

Macd.
Fit to govern?
No, not to live. Oh, nation miserable,
With an untitled tyrant, bloody-sceptred!
When shalt thou see thy wholsome days again?
Since that the truest issue of thy throne,
By his own interdiction stands accurst,
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,
Dy'd every day she liv'd. Oh! fare thee well!
These evils, thou repeat'st upon thyself,
Have banish'd me from Scotland. Oh, my breast!
Thy hope ends here.

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 pow'r: and modest wisdom plucks me

From over-credulous haste: but Heav'n above
Deal between thee and me! for even now
I put myself to thy direction, and
Unspeak my own detraction; what I am truly,
Is thine, and my poor country's to command:
Whither, indeed, before thy here approach,
Old Siward with ten thousand warlike men,
All ready at a point, was setting forth.
Now we'll together, and the chance, O goodness,
Be like our warranted quarrel! Why are you silent?

Macd.
Such welcome, and unwelcome things, at once,
'Tis hard to reconcile.* ^note 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 Heav'n 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 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 whom; and good men's lives
Expire before the flowers in their caps;
Dying or e'er they sicken.

Macd.
Oh, 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 all at peace, when I did leave 'em.

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 rather,
For that I saw the tyrant's power a-foot:
Now is the time of help; your eye in Scotland
Would create soldiers, and make women fight,
To doff their dire distresses.

Mal.
Be it their comfort
We're 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 could not catch them.* ^note

Macd.
What concern they?
The gen'ral cause? or is it a grief,
Due to some single breast?

Rosse.
No mind that's honest,
But in it shares some woe; tho' 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.
At once, I guess, and am afraid to know!

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
To add the death of you.

Mal.
Merciful heav'n!
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.† ^note

Macd.
My children, too!—

Rosse.
Wife, children, servants, all that could be found.

Macd.
And I not with them. My wife kill'd, too!

Rosse.
I've 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? what all? oh, 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.* ^note
I cannot but remember such things were,
That were most precious to me: did heav'n look on,
And would not take their part? Sinful Macduff,
They were all struck for thee!
Not for their own demerits, but for mine.

Mal.
Be this the whetstone of your sword, let grief
Convert to wrath: blunt not the heart, enrage it.

Macd.
O, I could play the woman with mine eyes,
And braggart with my tongue. But, gentle heav'n!
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
Then heav'n 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 powers above
Put on their instruments. Receive what cheer you may;
The night is long that never finds the day. [Exeunt.† ^note End of the Fourth Act.

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