Or wear it on my sword, yet my poor country
Shall have more vices than it had before;
More suffer, and more sundry ways

280 By him that shall succeed.

Macd.

than ever,

What should he be?

Mal. It is myself I mean: in whom I know
All the particulars of vice so grafted,

That, when they shall be open'd, black Macbeth Will seem as pure as snow; and the poor state 285 Esteem him as a lamb, being compared

With my confineless harms.

Macd.

Not in the legions

Of horrid hell, can come a devil more damn'd
In evils, to top Macbeth.

Mal.

I grant him bloody, Luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful, 290 Sudden, malicious, smacking of every sin That has a name: But there's no bottom, none, In my voluptuousness: . . . and my desire All continent impediments would o'erbear, That did oppose my will: Better Macbeth, Than such a one to reign.

295

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 300 Convey your pleasures in a spacious plenty, And yet seem cold, the time you may so hoodwink.

Mal.

With this there grows,
In my most ill-composed affection, such
A stanchless avarice, that, were I king,
305 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.

310 Macd.

This avarice

;

Sticks deeper; grows with more pernicious root
Than summer-seeming lust; and it hath been
The sword of our slain kings: yet do not fear
Scotland hath foysons to fill up your will,
315 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,
320 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,

325 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,

330 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 accursed, And does blaspheme his breed ?-Thy royal father 335 Was a most sainted king: the queen that bore thee,

340

Oft'ner 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
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
345 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
350 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
355 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,
360 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, 365 'T is hard to reconcile.

Mal. Well; more anon.—

Enter a Doctor.

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,

370 Such sanctity hath heaven given his hand,
They presently amend.

Mal.

I thank you, doctor.

[Exit Doctor.

'T is call'd the evil;

Macd. What's the disease he means?
Mal.

A most miraculous work in this good king:
Which often, since my here-remain in England,
375 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,
380 Put on with holy prayers: and 't is 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,

385 That speak him full of grace.

390

Macd.

See, who comes here?

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

Enter RossE.

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, 395 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.

400 Too nice, and yet too true!

Mal.

relation

What's the newest grief?

Rosse. 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 ? 405 Rosse. No; they were well 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;

410 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,

415 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 420 That would be howl'd 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.

425 Macd.

430

If it be mine,

Keep it not from me, quickly let me have it.

Rosse. 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.

Rosse. Your castle is surprised; 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;
435 Give sorrow words: the grief that does not speak
Whispers the o'erfraught heart, and bids it break.
Macd. My children too?
Rosse.

All that could be found.

Macd.

My wife kill'd too?

Wife, children, servants,

And I must be from thence !

440

Rosse.
Mal.

I have said.

Be comforted: