Thy title is affeered!'-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 then 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 opened, black Macbeth Will seem as pure as snow; and the poor state Esteem him as a lamb, being compared

With my confineless harms.2

Macd.

Not in the legions

Of horrid hell, can come a devil more damned

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. Better Macbeth,
Than such a one to reign.

1 To affeer is a law term, signifying to assess or reduce to certainty. 2 i. e. immeasurable evils.

3 Luxurious, lascivious.

4 Sudden, passionate.

Macd.

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.

Mal.
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
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:1 and it hath been
The sword of our slain kings. Yet do not fear;
Scotland hath foysons to fill up your will,
Of your mere own. All these are portable,3
With other graces weighed.

Mal. But I have none.

graces,

The king-becoming

As justice, verity, temperance, stableness,
Bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness,
Devotion, patience, courage, fortitude,
I have no relish of them; but abound
In the division of each several crime,

1 Sir W. Blackstone proposed to read summer-seeding, which was adopted by Steevens; but the meaning of the epithet may be, "lust as hot as summer." In Donne's Poems, Malone has pointed out its oppositewinter-seeming.

2 Foysons, plenty.

3 Portable answers to a phrase now in use. borne with, or are bearable.

Such failings may be

Acting in 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 accursed,

And does blaspheme his breed?-Thy royal father
Was a most sainted king; the queen, that bore thee,
Oftener upon her knees than on her feet,

Died every day she lived. Fare thee well!
These evils, thou repeat'st upon thyself,

Have banished me from Scotland.-O, my breast,
Thy hope ends here!

Mal.
Macduff, this noble passion,
Child of integrity, hath from my soul.
Wiped the black scruples, reconciled my thoughts
To thy good truth and honor. Devilish Macbeth
By many of these trains hath sought to win me
Into his power; and modest wisdom plucks me
From over-credulous haste; 2 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

1 "With an untitled tyrant." Thus in Chaucer's Manciple's Tale:

"Right so betwix a titleless tiraunt

And an outlawe."

2 Credulous haste, overhasty credulity.

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.

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 1
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 Doctor.

Macd. What's the disease he means?
Mal.

'Tis called 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 'tis spoken,
To the succeeding royalty he leaves

The healing benediction. With this strange virtue,

1 i. e. overcomes it. We have before seen this word used in the same Latin sense, Act i. Sc. 7, of this play. "To convince or convicte, to vanquish and overcome-evinco."-Baret.

2 A golden stamp, the coin called an angel; the value of which was ten shillings.

He hath a heavenly gift of prophecy;
And sundry blessings hang about his throne,
To 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 make us strangers!

Ross.

Sir, Amen.

Macd. Stands Scotland where it did?
Rosse.

Alas, poor country!

Almost afraid to know itself! It cannot

Be called our mother, but our grave; where nothing, But who knows nothing, is once seen to smile;

Where sighs, and groans, and shrieks that rent1 the

air,

Are made, not marked; where violent sorrow seems A modern ecstasy: the dead man's knell

Is there scarce asked, for who; and good men's lives Expire before the flowers in their caps,

Dying, or ere they sicken.

Macd.

Too nice, and yet too true!

Mal.

O, relation,

What is the newest grief?

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 battered at their peace? Rosse. No; they were well at peace, when I did leave them.

1 "To rent is an ancient verb, which has been long disused," say the editors: in other words, it is the old orthography of the verb to rend. 2 A modern ecstasy is a common grief.