Bestride our down-fall'n birthdom: Each new morn, New widows howl; new orphans cry; new sorrows As if it felt with Scotland, and yell'd out Mal. What I believe, I'll wail; What know, believe; and, what I can redress, What you have spoke, it may be so, perchance. 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, 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, Macd. Bleed, bleed, poor country! Great tyranny, lay thou thy basis sure, For goodness dares not check thee! wear thou thy wrongs, Thy 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: Macd. 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 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, Sudden, malicious, smacking of every sin Macd. Boundless intemperance In nature is a tyranny: it hath been The untimely emptying of the happy throne, As will to greatness dedicate themselves, Mal. With this, there grows, In my most ill-compos'd 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 Quarrels unjust against the good, and loyal, Destroying them for wealth. Macd. This avarice Sticks deeper; grows with more pernicious root Of your mere own: All these are portable, Mal. But I have none: The king-becoming graces, Acting it many ways. Nay, had I power, I should Pour the sweet milk of concord into hell, 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, With an untitled tyrant bloody-scepter'd, When shalt thou see thy wholsome days again? And does blaspheme his breed?-Thy royal father Died every day she lived. Fare thee well! 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 Unknown to woman; neyer was forsworn; 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, once, 'Tis hard to reconcile. Enter a Doctor. Mal. Well; more anon.-Comes the king forth, |