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? Sir, Amen. Almost afraid to know itself! It cannot Alas, poor country,— Be call'd our mother, but our grave: where nothing, A modern ecstasy; the dead man's knell Is there scarce ask'd for who; and good men's lives 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. MACD. The tyrant has not batter'd at their peace? Of many worthy fellows that were out; MAL. Be 't their comfort 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, Ross. What concern they? No mind that 's honest But in it shares some woe; though the main part 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 Were, on the quarry of these murder'd deer, MAL. Merciful heaven!— What, man! ne'er pull your hat upon your brows; Ross. Wife, children, servants, all that could be found. 211 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, Not for their own demerits, but for mine, Fell slaughter on their souls. Heaven rest them now! MACD. O, I could play the woman with mine eyes, Bring thou this fiend of Scotland and myself; 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; 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. 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? Of all the gentry: there is Siward's son, And many unrough youths, that even now MENT. What does the tyrant? CAITH. Great Dunsinane he strongly fortifies: He cannot buckle his distemper'd cause a Now does he feel ANG. 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, LEN. Or so much as it needs, 20 To dew the sovereign flower, and drown the weeds. [Exeunt, marching. SCENE III.-Dunsinane. A Room in the Castle. Enter KING MACBETH, Doctor, and Attendants. I cannot taint with fear. What's the boy Malcolm? 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. sag-1 Droop, flag. |