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 a one to reign.
Macd. 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 inclin'd.
Mal. With this, there grows,
In my most ilf-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.
Sticks deeper; grows with more pernicious root
Than summer-seeding lust:7 and it hath been
The sword of our slain kings: Yet do not fear;
Scotland hath foysons 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, 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.
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 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. Fare thee well!
These evils, thou repeat'st upon thyself,
Have banish'd me from Scotland.-O, 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 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,
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?
Mal. Well; more anon. Comes the king forth,
Doct. 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.
Mal. I thank you, 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;
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 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 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.
Are made, not mark'd; where violent sorrow seems
[9] i. e. overpowers, subdues. STEEV.
[1] To rent is an ancient verb, which has been long ago disused. STEE
Is there scarce ask'd, for who; and good men's lives Expire before the flowers in their caps,
Dying, or ere they sicken.
Macd. O, relation,
Too nice, and yet too true!
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.
Macd. And all my children ?
Rosse. Well too.
Macd. The tyrant has not batter'd at their peace ?
Ros. No; they were well at peace, when Idid 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 afoot:
Now is the time of help; your eye in Scotland
Would create soldiers, make our women fight,
To doff their dire distresses.
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. 3
Macd. What concern they?
The general cause? or is it a fee-grief,
Due to some single breast?
Rosse. No mind, that's honest,
But in it shares some woe; though the main part
Pertains to you alone.
[2] That is, no more regarded than the contorsions that fanatics throw themselves into. The author was thinking of those of his own times. WARB. [3] To latch (in the North country dialect) signifies the same as to catch.
[4] A peculiar sorrow; a grief that hath a single owner. The expression is, at least to our ears, very harsh. JOHNSON.
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, 5
To add the death of you.
Mal. 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.
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.6-All my pretty ones?
Did you say, all?-O, hell-kite! - All?
What, all my pretty chickens, and their dam,
At one fell swoop?7
Mal. Dispute it like a man. 8
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
[5] Quarry is a term used both in hunting and falconry. In both sports means the game after it is killed. STEEV.
[6] It has been observed by an anonymous critic, that this is not said ( Macbeth, who had children, but of Malcolm, who, having none, supposes father can be so easily comforted.
[7] Swoop is the descent of a bird of prey on his quarry.
[8] i, e. contend with your present sorrow like a man.
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