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 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: Now, we'll together; and the chance of goodness Be like our warranted quarrel. Why are you silent? Such welcome and unwelcome things at Macd. Doctor. Ay, sir: there are a crew of wretched souls, That stay his cure: their malady convinces Mal. I thank you, Doctor. [Exit Doctor. Macd. What's the disease he means? 'Tis call'd the evil: A most miraculous work in this good king, 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. Enter ROSSE. See, who comes here? Mal. My countryman; but yet I know him not. Macd. My ever-gentle cousin, welcome hither. Mal. I know him now. Good God, betimes re move The means that makes us strangers! Rosse. Sir, amen. Alas, poor country! Macd. Stands Scotland where it did? 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 rend 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 whom; and good men's lives Expire before the flowers in their caps, Dying or ere they sicken. Macd. The tyrant has not batter'd at their peace? Rosse. No; they were well at peace, when I did leave 'em. Macd. Be not a niggard of your speech: how goes 't? 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 witness'd the rather, Mal. Be 't their comfort, We are coming thither. Gracious England hath An older and a better soldier none That Christendom gives out. Rosse. This comfort with the like! Would I could answer But I have words 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 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 for ever, Which shall possess them with the heaviest sound, That ever yet they heard. Macd. Humph! I guess at it. Rosse. Your castle is surpris'd; your wife and babes Savagely slaughter'd: to relate the manner, Were, on the quarry of these murther'd 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'er-fraught heart, and bids it break. Macd. My children too? 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? — O, hell-kite! All? 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! Naught that I am, Not for their own demerits, but for mine, They were all struck for thee. 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 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, Mal. This tune goes manly. Come, go we to the king: our power is ready; 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. |