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 ever,
By him that shall succeed.
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
Esteem him as a lamb, being compar'd
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,

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,

Your 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.

Than such an one to reign.

MACD.

Better Macbeth,

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 inclin'd.

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
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,
Of your mere own.
All these are portable,

With other graces weigh'd.

MAL. But I have none: the king-becoming graces, As justice, verity, temperance, stableness, Bounty, perséverance, mercy, lowliness,

Devotion, 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,
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-sceptred,
When shalt thou see thy wholesome days again,
Since that the truest issue of thy throne
By his own interdiction stands accurs'd,
And 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 liv'd. Fare thee well!
These evils thou repeat'st upon thyself

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
To thy good truth and honour. 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
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
Unknown to woman; never was forsworn ;
Scarcely 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,
Is 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

once,

'Tis hard to reconcile.

Enter a DOCTOR.

I thank you, doctor. [Exit DOCTOR.
MACD. What's the disease he means?
MAL.
'T is call'd the evil;
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 ;
Hanging a golden stamp about their necks,
Put on with holy prayers: and 't is spoken,
To the succeeding royalty he leaves

The healing benedictions. 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.
See, who comes here?
MAL. My countryman; but yet I know him not.
Enter Ross.

MACD. My ever-gentle cousin, welcome hither.
MAL. I know him now :-good God, betimes

MACD. Be not a niggard of your speech; how goes 't?

Ross. 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 witnessed 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 't their comfort
We 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
This comfort with the like! But I have words
That would be howl'd out in the desert air,
Where hearing should not latch them.

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!

Shall we well meet them; that way are they coming. CAITH. Who knows if Donalbain be with his brother?

LEN. For certain, sir, he is not: I have a file
Of all the gentry there is Siward's son,
And many unrough youths, that even now
Protest their first of manhood.

MENT.

What does the tyrant ?
CAITH. Great Dunsinane he strongly fortifies :
Some say he's mad; others, that lesser hate him,
Do call it valiant fury: but, for certain,
He cannot buckle his distemper'd cause
Within the belt of rule.

ANG.
Now does he feel
His secret murders sticking on his hands;
Now minutely revolts upbraid his faith-breach;
Those he commands move only in command,
Nothing in love: now does he feel his title
Hang loose about him, like a giant's robe
Upon a dwarfish thief.

MENT.

Who, then, shall blame

Come, put mine armour on; give me my staff:-
Seyton, send out.-Doctor, the thanes fly from me.-
Come, sir, dispatch.-If thou couldst, doctor, cast
The water of my land, find her disease,
And purge it to a sound and pristine health,
I would applaud thee to the very echo,
That should applaud again.-Pull't off, I say.-
What rhubarb, senna, or what purgative drug,
Would scour these English hence?-Hear'st thou of
them?

DOCT. Ay, my good lord; your royal preparation Makes us hear something.

Enter, with drum and colours, KING MACBETH, SEYTON, and SOLDIERS.

K. MACB. Hang out our banners on the outward walls:

The cry is still, They come. Our castle's strength
Will laugh a siege to scorn: here let them lie
Till famine and the ague eat them up.
Were they not forc'd with those that should be ours,
We might have met them dareful, beard to beard,
And beat them backward home.

[A cry of women within. What is that noise? SEY. It is the cry of women, my good lord.

[Exit.

SCENE III.-Dunsinane. A Room in the Castle. Enter KING MACBETH, DOCTOR and ATTENDANTS.

K. MACB. Bring me no more reports;-let them fly all:

Till Birnam wood remove to Dunsinane,

I cannot taint with fear. What's the boy Malcolm?
Was he not born of woman? The spirits that know
All mortal consequences have pronounced me thus,--
Fear not, Macbeth; no man that's born of woman
Shall e'er have power upon thee. Then fly, false thanes,
And mingle with the English epicures:
The mind I sway by, and the heart I bear,
Shall never sag with doubt nor shake with fear,-
Enter a SERVANT.

The devil damn the black, thou cream-fac'd loon !
Where gott'st thou that goose look ?

SERV. There is ten thousand-
К. МАСВ.

SERV.

Geese, villain? Soldiers, sir. K. MACB. Go, prick thy face, and over-red thy fear,

Thou lily-liver'd boy. What soldiers, patch? Death of thy soul! those linen cheeks of thine Are counsellors to fear. What soldiers, whey-face? SERV. The English force, so please you. K. MACB. Take thy face hence. [Exit Servant. Seyton!-I am sick at heart, When I behold-Seyton, I say!-This push Will chair me ever, or dis-seat me now. I have liv'd long enough: my way of life

Is fallen into the sear, the yellow leaf;

And that which should accompany old age,

As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,
I must not look to have; but in their stead,
Curses not loud, but deep, mouth-honour, breath,
Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare
not.-

Seyton!

K. MACB.

"And now a Wood comes toward Dunsinane." Bring it after me.I will not be afraid of death and bane, Till Birnam forest come to Dunsinane. [Exeunt all except the DOCTOR. DOCT. Were I from Dunsinane away and clear, Profit again should hardly draw me here. [Exit.

K. MACB. I have almost forgot the taste of fears: The time has been, my senses would have cool'd To hear a night-shriek; and my fell of hair Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir As life were in 't: I have supp'd full with horrors; Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts, Cannot once start me.

SEY.

Re-enter SEYTON.

SCENE IV.-Country near Dunsinane: a Wood
Wherefore was that cry?
in view.
The queen, my lord, is dead.
K. MACB. She should have died hereafter;
Enter, with drum and colours, MALCOLM, old
SIWARD and his SON, MACDUFF, MENTEITH, There would have been a time for such a word.
CAITHNESS, ANGUS, LENNOX, Ross, and SOL-To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
DIERS, marching.
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.-

MAL. Cousins, I hope the days are near at hand, That chambers will be safe.

MENT.

We doubt it nothing. SIW. What wood is this before us? MENT. The wood of Birnam. MAL. Let every soldier hew him down a bough, And bear 't before him; thereby shall we shadow The numbers of our host, and make discovery Err in report of us. SOLD.

It shall be done.
SIW. We learn no other, but the confident tyrant
Keeps still in Dunsinane, and will endure
Our setting down before 't.

MAL.
'T is his main hope:
For where there is advantage to be given,
Both more and less have given him the revolt;
And none serve with him but constrained things,
Whose hearts are absent too.

MACD.
Let our just censures
Attend the true event, and put we on
Industrious soldiership.