Sticks deeper; grows with more pernicious root
Than summer-seeming (98) 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.

Mal. But I have none: the king-becoming graces,
As justice, verity, temperance, stableness,
Bounty, perséverance, 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(99) 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,
Oftener upon her knees than on her feet,

Died every day she lived. Fare thee well!(100)
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,(101)
Old Siward, with ten thousand warlike men,
Already at a point,(102) 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.

Enter a Doctor.

Mal. Well; more anon.-Comes the king forth, I pray

you?

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.

[Exit Doctor.

'Tis call'd the evil

A most miraculous work in this good king;
Which often, since my here-remain in England,
I've 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.

Macd.

See, who comes here?

Mal. My countryman; but yet I know him not.

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.

Sir, amen.

Macd. 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 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 e'er they sicken.

Macd.

Too nice, and yet too true!

Mal.

O, relation

What's the new'st 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?
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 rumqur
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.

Mal.

Be 't their comfort

We're 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.

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

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.

Merciful heaven!

Mal.
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?

Ross.

That could be found.

Macd.

My wife kill'd too?

Ross.

Mal.

Wife, children, servants, all

And I must be from thence !—

I've said.

Be comforted:

Let's make us medicines 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 ?(103)

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 heaven,
Cut short all intermission; front to front

Bring thou(104) this fiend of Scotland and myself;
Within my sword's length set him; if he scape,
Heaven forgive him too!

Mal.

This tune goes manly. (105)
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