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To do worse to you were fell cruelty,
Which is too nigh your person.

you!

I dare abide no longer.

L. Macd.

Heaven preserve

[Exit.

Whither should I fly?

I have done no harm. But I remember now

I am in this earthly world, where to do harm
Is often laudable, to do good sometime
Accounted dangerous folly: why then, alas,
Do I put up that womanly defence,

To say I have done no harm?—What are these faces?

Enter Murderers.

First Mur. Where is your husband?

L. Macd. I hope, in no place so unsanctified
Where such as thou mayst find him.

First Mur.

Son. Thou liest, thou shag-ear'd villain!
First Mur.

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He's a traitor.

What, you egg! [Stabbing him.

Young fry of treachery!

Son.

He has kill'd me, mother:

Run away, I pray you!

[Dies.

[Exit Lady Macduff, crying Murderer!' Exeunt murderers, following her.

Scene III.

England. Before the King's palace.
Enter Malcolm and Macduff.

Mal. Let us seek out some desolate shade, and there
Weep our sad bosoms empty.

Macd.

Mal.

Let us rather

Hold fast the mortal sword, and like good men
Bestride our down-fall'n birthdom: each new morn
New widows howl, new orphans cry, new sorrows
Strike heaven on the face, that it resounds
As if it felt with Scotland and yell'd out
Like syllable of dolour.

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What I believe, I'll wail;
What know, believe; and what I can redress,
As 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 touch'd you yet. I am young; but

something

You may deserve of him through me; and wisdom
To offer up a weak, poor, innocent lamb

To appease an angry god.

Macd. I am not treacherous.

Mal.

But Macbeth is.

A good and virtuous nature may recoil

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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,
Yet grace must still look so.

Macd.

I have lost my hopes.

Mal. Perchance even there where I did find my doubts.
Why in that rawness left you wife and child,

Those precious motives, those strong knots of love,
Without leave-taking? I pray you,

Let not my jealousies be your dishonours,

But mine own safeties. You may be rightly just,
Whatever I shall think.

Macd.

Bleed, bleed, poor country: 31

Great tyranny, lay thou thy basis sure,

For goodness dare not check thee: wear thou thy

wrongs;

The title is affeer'd.

Fare thee well, lord:

I would not be the villain that thou think'st

For the whole space that's in the tyrant's grasp

And the rich East to boot.

Mal.

Be not offended:

I speak not as in absolute fear of

you.

I think our country sinks beneath the yoke;
It
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,
When 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
By him that shall succeed.

Macd.

ever,

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What should he be?

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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
Esteem him as a lamb, being compared

With my confineless harms.

Macd.

Mal.

Not in the legions

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

I grant him bloody,
Luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful,
Sudden, malicious, smacking of every sin

That has a name: but there's no bottom, none, 60
In my voluptuousness: your wives, your daughters,
Your matrons, and your maids, could not fill up
The cistern of my lust, and my desire

Macd.

Mal.

All continent impediments would o'erbear,
That did oppose my will: better Macbeth
Than such an one to reign.

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
Convey 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,
Finding it so inclined.

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,
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

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