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 downfal birth-doom: 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 syllables of dolour.

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.

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'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 treach'rous.

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

Macd.
I've lost my hopes.

Mal.
Perchance ev'n there, where I did find my doubts.
Why in that rawness left you wife and children?
Those precious motives, those strong knots of love,
Without leave-taking?
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 † ^noteaffear'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 yoak,

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.
What should he be?

Mal.
It is my self I mean, in whom I know ‡ ^note
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.

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

Mal.
I grant him bloody,
Luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful,
Sudden, malicious, smacking of each 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
The cistern of my lust; and my desire
All continent impediments would o'er-bear
That did oppose my will. Better Macbeth,
Than such an one to reign.

Macd.
Boundless intemperance
In nature is a tyranny; it hath been
Th' 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've 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 sawce
To make me hunger more; that I should forge
Quarrels unjust against the good and royal,
Destroying them for wealth.

Macd.
This avarice
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 † ^notefoysons to fill up your will
Of your mere own. All these are portable,
With other graces weigh'd.

Mal.
But I have none; the King-becoming graces,
As justice, verity, temp'rance, stableness,
Bounty, persev'rance, 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.

Macd.
Oh 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. Oh nation miserable!
With an untitled tyrant, bloody-sceptred,
When shalt thou see thy wholesome days again?
Since that the truest issue of thy throne
By his own interdiction stands accurst,
And do's 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 thy self,
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 God above
Deal between thee and me! for even now
I put my self to thy direction and
Unspeak mine own detraction; here abjure
The taints and blames I laid upon my self,
For strangers to my nature. I am yet
Unknown to women, 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 my self. What I am truly
Is thine, and my poor country's to command:
Whither indeed, before thy here-approach,
Old Seyward with ten thousand warlike men
All ready at a point, was setting forth.
Now we'll together, and the chance of goodness
Be like our warranted quarrel. Why are you silent?

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

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