Or wear it on my sword, yet my poor country 280 By him that shall succeed. Macd. than ever, What should he be? Mal. It is myself I mean: in whom I know 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 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, 310 Macd. This avarice ; Sticks deeper; grows with more pernicious root Mal. But I have none: the king-becoming graces, Acting it many ways. Nay, had I power, I should 325 Uproar the universal peace, confound All unity on earth. Macd. O Scotland! Scotland! Mal. If such a one be fit to govern, speak: Macd. Fit to govern! No, not to live.-O nation miserable, 330 With an untitled tyrant bloody-scepter'd, 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, Have banish'd me from Scotland.-O, my breast, Mal. Deal between thee and me! for even now I put myself to thy direction, and Unspeak mine own detraction; here abjure No less in truth than life: my first false speaking Is thine, and my poor country's, to command: 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? 370 Such sanctity hath heaven given his hand, Mal. I thank you, doctor. [Exit Doctor. 'T is call'd the evil; Macd. What's the disease he means? A most miraculous work in this good king: The healing benediction. With this strange virtue, 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. Rosse. Sir, Amen. Alas, poor country; Almost afraid to know itself! It cannot Be call'd our mother, but our grave: where nothing, 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 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? 410 Which was to my belief witness'd the rather, For that I saw the tyrant's power a-foot : 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, Rosse. No mind that 's honest But in it shares some woe; though the main part 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, Macd. Hum! I guess at it. Rosse. Your castle is surprised; your wife, and babes, Were, on the quarry of these murder'd deer, Merciful heaven !— Mal. All that could be found. Macd. My wife kill'd too? Wife, children, servants, And I must be from thence ! 440 Rosse. I have said. Be comforted: |