Internet Shakespeare Editions

Author: William Shakespeare
Editor: Anthony Dawson
Not Peer Reviewed

Modern (Modern)

Enter Malcolm and Macduff.
Malcolm
Let us seek out some desolate shade and there
1815Weep our sad bosoms empty.
Macduff
Let us rather
Hold fast the mortal sword and, like good men,
Bestride our downfall birthdom. Each new morn
New widows howl, new orphans cry, new sorrows
1820Strike heaven on the face that it resounds
As if it felt with Scotland and yelled out
Like syllable of dolor.
Malcolm
What I believe, I'll wail;
What know, believe; and what I can redress,
1825As I shall find the time to friend, I will.
What you have spoke, it may be so perchance.
This tyrant, whose sole name blisters our tongues,
Was once thought honest; you have loved him well--
He hath not touched you yet. I am young, but something
1830You may discern of him through me, and wisdom
To offer up a weak, poor, innocent lamb
T'appease an angry god.
Macduff
I am not treacherous.
Malcolm
But Macbeth is.
1835A good and virtuous nature may recoil
In an imperial charge. But I shall crave your pardon,
That which you are, my thoughts cannot transpose;
Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell.
Though all things foul would wear the brows of grace,
1840Yet grace must still look so.
Macduff
I have lost my hopes.
Malcolm
Perchance even there where I did find my doubts.
Why in that rawness left you wife and child,
1845Those precious motives, those strong knots of love,
Without leave-taking? I pray you,
Let not my jealousies be your dishonors,
But mine own safeties. You may be rightly just,
Whatever I shall think.
1850Macduff
Bleed, bleed poor country.
Great tyranny, lay thou thy basis sure,
For goodness dare not check thee; wear thou thy wrongs,
The title is affeered. Fare thee well, lord,
I would not be the villain that thou think'st
1855For the whole space that's in the tyrant's grasp
And the rich East to boot.
Malcolm
Be not offended.
I speak not as in absolute fear of you.
I think our country sinks beneath the yoke,
1860It weeps, it bleeds, and each new day a gash
Is added to her wounds. I think withal
There would be hands uplifted in my right,
And here from gracious England have I offer
Of goodly thousands. But for all this,
1865When I shall tread upon the tyrant's head
Or wear it on my sword, yet my poor country
Shall have more vices than it had before,
More suffer, and more sundry ways than ever,
By him that shall succeed.
1870Macduff
What should he be?
Malcolm
It is myself I mean, in whom I know
All the particulars of vice so grafted
That when they shall be opened, black Macbeth
Will seem as pure as snow, and the poor state
1875Esteem him as a lamb, being compared
With my confineless harms.
Macduff
Not in the legions
Of horrid hell can come a devil more damned
In evils to top Macbeth.
1880Malcolm
I grant him bloody,
Luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful,
Sudden, malicious, smacking of every sin
That has a name. But there's no bottom, none,
In my voluptuousness. Your wives, your daughters,
1885Your matrons, and your maids, could not fill up
The cistern of my lust, and my desire
All continent impediments would o'erbear
That did oppose my will. Better Macbeth
Than such an one to reign.
1890Macduff
Boundless intemperance
In nature is a tyranny. It hath been
Th'untimely emptying of the happy throne
And fall of many kings. But fear not yet
To take upon you what is yours: you may
1895Convey your pleasures in a spacious plenty
And yet seem cold--the time you may so hoodwink.
We have willing dames enough. There cannot be
That vulture in you to devour so many
As will to greatness dedicate themselves,
1900Finding it so inclined.
Malcolm
With this, there grows
In my most ill-composed affection such
A stanchless avarice that, were I king,
I should cut off the nobles for their lands,
1905Desire 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.
1910Macduff
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 foisons to fill up your will
1915Of your mere own. All these are portable,
With other graces weighed.
Malcolm
But I have none. The king-becoming graces--
As justice, verity, temperance, stableness,
Bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness,
1920Devotion, 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,
1925Uproar the universal peace, confound
All unity on earth.
Macduff
O Scotland, Scotland!
Malcolm
If such a one be fit to govern, speak.
I am as I have spoken.
1930Macduff
Fit to govern?
No, not to live. O nation miserable!
With an untitled tyrant bloody-sceptered,
When shalt thou see thy wholesome days again,
Since that the truest issue of thy throne
By his own interdiction stands accused
1935And does blaspheme his breed? Thy royal father
Was a most sainted king; the queen that bore thee,
Oft'ner upon her knees than on her feet,
Died every day she lived. Fare thee well,
These evils thou repeat'st upon thyself
1940Hath banished me from Scotland. O my breast,
Thy hope ends here.
Malcolm
Macduff, this noble passion,
Child of integrity, hath from my soul
Wiped the black scruples, reconciled my thoughts
1945To thy good truth and honor. 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
1950I 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,
1955Scarcely 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
1960Is thine and my poor country's to command,
Whither indeed, before thy here-approach,
Old Siward with ten thousand warlike men
Already at a point was setting forth.
Now we'll together and the chance of goodness
1965Be like our warranted quarrel. Why are you silent?
Macduff
Such welcome and unwelcome things at once,
'Tis hard to reconcile.
Enter a Doctor.
Malcolm
Well, more anon.
Comes the King forth, 1970I pray you?
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,
1975They presently amend.
Malcolm
I thank you, doctor.
Exit [Doctor].
Macduff
What's the disease he means?
Malcolm
'Tis called the evil.
A most miraculous work in this good King,
1980Which often since my here-remain in England
I have seen him do. How he solicits heaven
Himself best knows, but strangely visited people,
All swollen and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye,
The mere despair of surgery, he cures,
1985Hanging 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,
1990And sundry blessings hang about his throne
That speak him full of grace.
Enter Ross.
Macduff
See who comes here.
Malcolm
My countryman, but yet I know him not.
1995Macduff
My ever gentle cousin, welcome hither.
Malcolm
I know him now. Good God betimes remove
The means that makes us strangers.
Ross
Sir, amen.
Macduff
Stands Scotland where it did?
2000Ross
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
2005Are made, not marked; where violent sorrow seems
A modern ecstasy; the dead man's knell
Is there scarce asked for who, and good men's lives
Expire before the flowers in their caps,
Dying or e'er they sicken.
2010Macduff
Oh, relation
Too nice and yet too true.
Malcolm
What's the newest grief?
That of an hour's age doth hiss the speaker,
Each minute teems a new one.
Macduff
How does my wife?
Why, well.
Macduff
And all my children?
Ross
Well, too.
Macduff
The tyrant has not battered at their peace?
No, they were well at peace when I did leave 'em.
2020Macduff
Be not a niggard of your speech--how goes't?
When I came hither to transport the tidings
Which I have heavily borne, there ran a rumor
Of many worthy fellows that were out,
Which was to my belief witnessed the rather,
2025For that I saw the tyrant's power afoot.
Now is the time of help. [To Malcolm] Your eye in Scotland
Would create soldiers, make our women fight
To doff their dire distresses.
Malcolm
Be't their comfort
2030We 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.
Ross
Would I could answer
2035This comfort with the like. But I have words
That would be howled out in the desert air
Where hearing should not latch them.
Macduff
What concern they--
The general cause, or is it a fee-grief
2040Due to some single breast?
Ross
No mind that's honest
But in it shares some woe, though the main part
Pertains to you alone.
Macduff
If it be mine
2045Keep it not from me; quickly let me have it.
Let not your ears despise my tongue forever
Which shall possess them with the heaviest sound
That ever yet they heard.
Macduff
H'm, I guess at it.
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.
Malcolm
Merciful heaven!
2055What, 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.
Macduff
My children too?
Ross
Wife, children, servants, all
That could be found.
2060Macduff
And I must be from thence!
My wife killed too?
Ross
I have said.
Malcolm
Be comforted.
Let's make us med'cines of our great revenge
To cure this deadly grief.
2065Macduff
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?
Malcolm
Dispute it like a man.
2070Macduff
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,
2075They 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.
Malcolm
Be this the whetstone of your sword; let grief
Convert to anger. Blunt not the heart, enrage it.
2080Macduff
Oh, I could play the woman with mine eyes
And braggart with my tongue. But gentle heavens,
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,
2085Heaven forgive him too.
Malcolm
This tune goes manly.
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
2090Put on their instruments. Receive what cheer you may,
The night is long that never finds the day.
Exeunt.