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Deal between thee and me! for even now
I 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

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« Unknown to woman; never was forsworn; Scarcely have coveted what was mine own; "At no time broke my faith; would not betray 410 "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, Is thine, and my poor country's, to command: Whither, indeed, before thy here-approach, Old Siward, with ten thousand warlike men, *All ready at a point, was setting forth: 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, "Tis hard to reconcile.

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"Enter a Doctor.

"Mal. Well; more anon.-Comes the king forth, I pray you?

"Doct. 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,

"They presently amend.

"Mal. I thank you, doctor.

[Exit.

Macd.

"Macd. What's the disease he means? "Mal. 'Tis call'd the evil :

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A most miraculous work in this good king; "Which often, since my here-remain in England, "I have seen him do. How he solicits heaven, "Himself best knows: but, strangely-visited people, "All swoln and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye, The mere despair of surgery, he cures;

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Hanging 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;

"And sundry blessings hang about his throne, "That speak him full of grace."

Enter ROSSE.

Macd. See, who comes here?

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Mal. "My countryman; but yet I know him not. Macd. My ever-gentle cousin, welcome hither. Mal. I know him now: good God, betimes remove The means that make us strangers!

Rosse. Sir, Amen.

Macd. Stands Scotland where it did?

Rosse. Alas, poor country;

Almost afraid to know itself! It cannot

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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 rent the

air",

Are

Are made, not mark'd; where violent sorrow seems
A modern ecstacy: 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. Oh, relation,

Too nice, and yet too true!

Mal. What is the newest grief?

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Rosse. That of an hour's age doth hiss the speaker; Each minute teems a new one.

Macd. How does my wife?

Rosse. Why, well.

Macd. And all my children?

Rosse. Well too.

Macd. The tyrant has not batter'd at their peace! Rosse. No; they were all at peace, when I did leave

them.

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Macd. Be not a niggard of your speech; how goes it? 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, For that I saw the tyrant's power a-foot : Now is the time of help; your eye in Scotland Would create soldiers, make our women fight, To doff their dire distresses*.

Mal. Be it their comfort,

We are coming thither: gracious England hath
Lent us good Siward, and ten thousand men ;
An older, and a better soldier, none

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That

That Christendom gives out.

Rosse. 'Would I could answer

This comfort with the like! But I have words,
That would be howi'd out in the desert air,

Where hearing *should not catch them.

Macd. What concern they?

The general cause? or is it a *fee-grief,
Due to some single breast ?

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.

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Rosse. Let not your ears despise my tongue for ever, Which shall possess them with the heaviest sound, That ever yet they heard.

Macd. Hum! I guess at it.

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Rosse. Your castle is surpriz'd; your wife, and

babes,

Savagely slaughter'd: to relate the manner,
Were, on the quarry of these murder'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?

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Rosse. Wife, children, servants, all That could be found.

Macd. And I must be from thence!

My

My wife kill'd too?

Rosse. I have said.

Mal. Be comforted:

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-Oh, hell-kite!—All ?

What, all my pretty chickens, and their dam,

At one fell swoop* ?

Mal. Dispute it like a man*.

Macd. I shall do so;

But I must also feel it as a man:

I cannot but remember such things were,

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That were most precious to me.-Did heaven look on,
And would not take their part? Sinful Macduff,
They 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!
Mal. Be this the whetstone of your sword: let grief
Convert to anger; blunt not the heart, enrage it.
Macd. Oh, I could play the woman with mine eyes,
And braggart with my tongue!-But, gentle heaven,
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,
Heaven, forgive him too!

Mal. *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

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Put

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