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.
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
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.
Macduff
What should he be?
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
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,
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
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
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 inclined.
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:
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
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,
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,
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.
Macduff
O Scotland, Scotland!
Malcolm
If such a one be fit to govern, speak:
I am as I have spoken.
Macduff
Fit to govern!
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,
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
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
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
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,
Old Siward, with ten thousand warlike men,
Already at a point, was setting forth.
Now we’ll together; and the chance of goodness
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
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.
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,
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,
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.
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!
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,
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
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?
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?
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,
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.
Malcolm
Be’t 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.
Ross
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.
Macduff
What concern they?
The general cause? or is it a fee-grief
Due to some single breast?
Ross
No mind that’s honest
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,
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,
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
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!
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.
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.
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,
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.
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,
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
Put on their instruments. Receive what cheer you may:
The night is long that never finds the day.
Exeunt
ACT V
SCENE I. DUNSINANE. ANTE-ROOM IN THE CASTLE.
Enter a Doctor of Physic and a Waiting-Gentlewoman
Doctor
I have two nights watched with you, but can perceive no truth in your report. When was it she last walked?
Gentlewoman
Since his majesty went into the field, I have seen her rise from her bed, throw her night-gown upon her, unlock her closet, take forth paper, fold it, write upon’t, read it, afterwards seal it, and again return to bed; yet all this while in a most fast sleep.
Doctor
A great perturbation in nature, to receive at once the benefit of sleep, and do the effects of watching! In this slumbery agitation, besides her walking and other actual performances, what, at any time, have you heard her say?
Gentlewoman
That, sir, which I will not report after her.
Doctor
You may to me: and ’tis most meet you should.
Gentlewoman
Neither to you nor any one; having no witness to confirm my speech.
Enter Lady Macbeth, with a taper
Lo you, here she comes! This is her very guise; and, upon my life, fast asleep. Observe her; stand close.
Doctor
How came she by that light?
Gentlewoman
Why, it stood by her: she has light by her continually; ’tis her command.
Doctor
You see, her eyes are open.
Gentlewoman
Ay, but their sense is shut.
Doctor
What is it she does now? Look, how she rubs her hands.
Gentlewoman
It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thus washing her hands: I have known her continue in this a quarter of an hour.
Lady Macbeth
Yet here’s a spot.
Doctor
Hark! she speaks: I will set down what comes from her, to satisfy my remembrance the more strongly.
Lady Macbeth
Out, damned spot! out, I say!— One: two: why, then, ’tis time to do’t.— Hell is murky!— Fie, my lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?— Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him.
Doctor
Do you mark that?
Lady Macbeth
The thane of Fife had a wife: where is she now?— What, will these hands ne’er be clean?— No more o’ that, my
lord, no more o’ that: you mar all with this starting.
Doctor
Go to, go to; you have known what you should not.
Gentlewoman
She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of that: heaven knows what she has known.
Lady Macbeth
Here’s the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh!
Doctor
What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely charged.
Gentlewoman
I would not have such a heart in my bosom for the dignity of the whole body.
Doctor
Well, well, well,—
Gentlewoman
Pray God it be, sir.
Doctor
This disease is beyond my practise: yet I have known those which have walked in their sleep who have died holily in their beds.
Lady Macbeth
Wash your hands, put on your nightgown; look not so pale.— I tell you yet again, Banquo’s buried; he cannot come out on’s grave.
Doctor
Even so?
Lady Macbeth
To bed, to bed! there’s knocking at the gate: come, come, come, come, give me your hand. What’s done cannot be undone.— To bed, to bed, to bed!
Exit
Doctor
Will she go now to bed?
Gentlewoman
Directly.
Doctor
Foul whisperings are abroad: unnatural deeds
Do breed unnatural troubles: infected minds
To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets:
More needs she the divine than the physician.
God, God forgive us all! Look after her;
Remove from her the means of all annoyance,
And still keep eyes upon her. So, good night:
My mind she has mated, and amazed my sight.
I think, but dare not speak.
Gentlewoman
Good night, good doctor.
Exeunt
SCENE II. THE COUNTRY NEAR DUNSINANE.
Drum and colours. Enter Menteith, Caithness, Angus, Lennox, and Soldiers
Menteith
The English power is near, led on by Malcolm,
His uncle Siward and the good Macduff:
Revenges burn in them; for their dear causes
Would to the bleeding and the grim alarm
Excite the mortified man.
Angus
Near Birnam wood
Shall we well meet them; that way are they coming.
Caithness
Who knows if Donalbain be with his brother?
Lennox
For certain, sir, he is not: I have a file
Of all the gentry: there is Siward’s son,
And many unrough youths that even now
Protest their first of manhood.
Menteith
What does the tyrant?
Caithness
Great Dunsinane he strongly fortifies:
Some say he’s mad; others that lesser hate him
Do call it valiant fury: but, for certain,
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