Oldalképek
PDF
ePub

Enter Ross.

MACD. My ever-gentle cousin, welcome hither.

MAL. I know him now:-good God, betimes remove The means that makes us strangers!

Ross.

MACD. Stands Scotland where it did?
Ross.

Sir, Amen.

Almost afraid to know itself! It cannot

Alas, poor country,—

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

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.

MACD.

Too nice, and yet too true!

MAL.

O, relation

What's the newest grief?

Ross. That of an hour's age doth hiss the speaker; Each minute teems a new one.

[blocks in formation]
[ocr errors]

MACD. The tyrant has not batter'd at their peace?
Ross. No; they were well at peace when I did leave 'em.
MACD. Be 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'de 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.

MAL.

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.

The means-] Used perhaps as moans, for woes, troubles, &c. See note ("), p. 49, Vol. II.

b A modern ecstasy;] An ordinary excitation.

eto my belief witness'd-] Evidenced to my belief.

d

- latch-] To latch is a provincial word, signifying the same as to catch

MACD.

The general cause? or is it a fee-grief,
Due to some single breast?

Ross.

What concern they?

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.

Ross. Let not your ears despise my tongue for ever, Which shall possess them with the heaviest sound That ever yet they heard.

MACD.

Hum! I guess at it.

Ross. Your castle is surpris'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 heaven!—

What, man! ne'er pull your hat upon your brows;
Give sorrow words: the grief that does not speak
Whispers the o'erfraught heart, and bids it break.
MACD. My children too?

Ross. Wife, children, servants, all that could be found. 211
MACD. And I must be from thence! My wife kill'd too?
Ross. 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.-All my pretty ones?

Did you say, all?-O, hell-kite!—All?

What, all my pretty chickens and their dam

At one fell swoop?

MAL. Dispute it like a man.

MACD.

But I must also feel it as a man:

I shall do so;

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; 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!

MAL.

This tunea goes manly.

This tune goes manly.] The old text has, "time;" but though time and tune, in

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.

A Room in the Castle.

Enter a Doctor of Physic and a waiting Gentlewoman. DOCT. I have two nights watched with you, but can perceive no truth in your report. When was it she last walked?

GENT. 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 it, read it, afterwards seal it, and again return to bed; yet all this while in a most fast sleep.

DOCT. 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?

GENT. That, sir, which I will not report after her.

DOCT. You may to me; and 't is most meet you should.

GENT. Neither to you nor any one; having no witness to confirm my speech. Lo you! here she comes.

Enter QUEEN, with a taper.

This is her very guise; and, upon my life, fast asleep. Observe her: stand close.

DOCT. How came she by that light?

GENT. Why, it stood by her: she has light by her continually; 't is her command.

DOCT. You see, her eyes are open.

GENT. Ay, but their sense is* shut.

DOCT. What is it she does now? Look, how she rubs her hands. 30 GENT. 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. QUEEN. Yet here's a spot.

DOCT. Hark! she speaks: I will set down what comes from her, to satisfy my remembrance the more strongly.

QUEEN. Out, damned spot! out, I say!-One, two; why, then 't is 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

(*) Old text, are.

their musical acceptation, were often used indifferently, few will have the hardihood to dispute the fitness of Rowe's correction here.

Put on their instruments.] Incite, stir up their instruments against the king.

to account?-Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?

DOCT. Do you mark that?

QUEEN. 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.

:

DOCT. Go to, go to; you have known what you should not.

GENT. She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of that : heaven knows what she has known.

QUEEN. Here's the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh! oh! oh!

DOCT. What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely charged.- 60 GENT. I would not have such a heart in my bosom, for the dignity of the whole body.

DOCT. Well, well, well,

GENT. Pray God it be, sir.

DOCT. This disease is beyond my practice: yet I have known those which have walked in their sleep who have died holily in their

beds.

QUEEN. Wash your hands, put on your night-gown; look not so pale:-I tell you yet again, Banquo's buried; he cannot come out on's grave.

DOCT. Even so?

QUEEN. 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.

DOCT. Will she go now to bed?

GENT. Directly.

DOCT. 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, Goda 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 amaz'd my sight:
I think, but dare not speak.

GENT.

Good night, good doctor.

SCENE II.-The Country near Dunsinane.

[Exit.

[Exeunt.

Enter, with drum and colours, MENTEITH, CAITHNESS, ANGUS,

LENNOX, and Soldiers.

MENT. 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.

God, God forgive us all! A misprint, probably, for "Good God," &c. b- the mortified man.] The ascetic, the anchorite.

ANG.

Near Birnam wood

Shall we well meet them; that way are they coming.

CAITH. Who knows if Donalbain be with his brother?
LEN. 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.

MENT.

What does the tyrant?

CAITH. Great Dunsinane he strongly fortifies:
Some say he's mad; others, that lesser hate him,
Do call it valiant fury: but, for certain,

He cannot buckle his distemper'd cause a
Within the belt of rule.

Now does he feel

ANG.
His secret murders sticking on his hands;
Now minutely revolts upbraid his faith-breach;
Those he commands move only in command,
Nothing in love: now does he feel his title
Hang loose about him, like a giant's robe
Upon a dwarfish thief.

MENT.

Who, then, shall blame

His pester'd senses to recoil and start,

When all that is within him does condemn

Itself for being there?

CAITH.

Well, march we on,

To give obedience where 't is truly ow'd:

Meet we the med'cineb of the sickly weal;

And with him pour we, in our country's purge,
Each drop of us.

LEN.

Or so much as it needs,

20

To dew the sovereign flower, and drown the weeds.
Make we our march towards Birnam.

[Exeunt, marching.

SCENE III.-Dunsinane. A Room in the Castle.

Enter KING MACBETH, Doctor, and Attendants.
K. MACB. Bring me no more reports;-let them fly all:
Till Birnam wood remove to Dunsinane,

I cannot taint with fear. What's the boy Malcolm?
Was he not born of woman? The spirits that know
All mortal consequences have pronounc'd me thus,—
Fear not, Macbeth; no man that's born of woman
Shall e'er have power upon thee. Then fly, false thanes,
And mingle with the English epicures:

The mind I sway by, and the heart I bear,

Shall never sage with doubt nor shake with fear.

He cannot buckle his distemper'd cause-] The late Mr. S. Walker proposed course

for "cause," but surely change may be dispensed with here.

b

the med'cine- The physician.

[blocks in formation]

sag-1 Droop, flag.

« ElőzőTovább »