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 Heaven 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.

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?

Macd. Such welcome and unwelcome things at once, 'Tis hard to reconcile. —See, who comes here ?

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

Enter Rosse, L.

Macd. My ever gentle cousin, welcome hither.

Mal. I know him now: Good Heaven, betimes remove The means that make us strangers!

Rosse. Sir, Amen.

Macd. Stands Scotland where it did?

Basse. Alas, poor country!
Almost afraid to know itself! It cannot
Be called 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 marked: where violent sorrow seems
A modern ecstasy : the dead man's knell
Is there scarce asked, for whom; and good men's lives
Expire before the flowers in their caps,
Dying, or ere they sicken.

Macd. Oh, 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?

Rossc. Why, well.

Hard. And all my children?

Rosse. Well, too.

Macd. The tyrant has not battered at their peace?

Rosse. No; they were all at peace when I did 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 witnessed 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 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 howled out in the desert air,
Where hearing should not latch them.

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.

Macd. If it be mine,
Keep it not from me; quickly let me have it.

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

Macd. Humph! I guess at it.

Rosse. Your castle is surprised; your wife, and babes. Savagely slaughtered: to relate the manner, Were, on the quarry of these murdered 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?

Rosse. Wife, children, servants, all That could be found.

Macd. And I must be from thence! My wife killed, 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.—All my pretty ones?
Did you say, all ?—Oh, hell-kite !—All?
What, all my pretty chickens, and their dam,
At one fell swoop ?

Mal. Dispute it like a man.

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!

Mai. Be this the whetstone of your sword: let grief Convert to anger; blunt not the heart, enrage it.

Macd. Oh, I could play the woman with mine eyes, And braggart with my tongue!—[Kneels.] But, gentle

Heaven,

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! [Exeunt, K.

END OF ACT IV.

ACT V.

Scene I.—Lady Macbeth's Room in the Castle at Dunsinane.

Enter Gentlewoman and Physician, L.

Phy. 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.

Phy. What at any time have you heard her say ?

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

Phy. You may to me; and 'tis most meet you should.

Gent. Neither to you, nor any one; having no witness to confirm my speech.—Lo you, here she comes! This is her very guise; and, upon my life, fast asleep. Observe her: stand close. [They retire, L.

Enter Lady Macbeth, with a Taper, R.

Phy. How came she by that light?

Gent. Why, it stood by her: she has light by her continually; 'tis her command.

Phy. You see her eyes are open.

Gent. Ay, but their sense is shut.

Phy. What is it she does now? Look, how she rubs her hands.

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.

Lady M. Yet here's a spot.

Phy. Hark! she speaks.

Lady M. 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 1— Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him 1

Phy. Do you mark that?

Lady M. 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.

Phy. 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.

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

Phy. What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely char

Gent. I would not have such a heart in my bosom, for the dignity of the whole body.

Lady M. Wash your hands, put on your night-gown; look not so paleI —I tell you yet again, Banquo's buried: he cannot come out of his grave.

Phy. Even so.

Lady M. 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, R.

Phy. Will she go now to bed?

Gent. Directly.

Phy. More needs she the divine than the physician.— Look after her;

Remove from her the means of all annoyance,
And still keep eyes upon her.—
Good Heaven, forgive us all!

[Exeunt, Physician, L., Gentlewoman, R.

Scene II.—A Hall in the Castle at Dunsinane.—Flourish of Trumpets and Drums.

Enter Macbeth and six Gentlemen, L.

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 not he born of woman 1 The spirits that know
All mortal consequences, have pronounced me thus: