LITMIR.BIZ

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To make me hunger more; that I should forge

       Quarrels unjust against the good and loyal,

       Destroying them for wealth.

       MACDUFF.

       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 foysons to fill up your will,

       Of your mere own: all these are portable,

       With other graces weigh’d.

       MALCOLM.

       But I have none: the king-becoming graces,

       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,

       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.

       MACDUFF.

       O Scotland, Scotland!

       MALCOLM.

       If such a one be fit to govern, speak:

       I am as I have spoken.

       MACDUFF.

       Fit to govern!

       No, not to live!—O nation miserable,

       With an untitled tyrant bloody-scepter’d,

       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,

       Oftener upon her knees than on her feet,

       Died every day she lived. Fare-thee-well!

       These evils thou repeat’st upon thyself

       Have banish’d me from Scotland.—O my breast,

       Thy hope ends here!

       MALCOLM.

       Macduff, this noble passion,

       Child of integrity, hath from my soul

       Wiped 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

       Be like our warranted quarrel! Why are you silent?

       MACDUFF.

       Such welcome and unwelcome things at once

       ‘Tis hard to reconcile.

       [Enter a Doctor.]

       MALCOLM.

       Well; more anon.—Comes the king forth, I pray you?

       DOCTOR.

       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.

       MALCOLM.

       I thank you, doctor.

       [Exit Doctor.]

       MACDUFF.

       What’s the disease he means?

       MALCOLM.

       ‘Tis 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 ‘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.

       MACDUFF.

       See, who comes here?

       MALCOLM.

       My countryman; but yet I know him not.

       [Enter Ross.]

       MACDUFF.

       My ever-gentle cousin, welcome hither.

       MALCOLM.

       I know him now. Good God, betimes remove

       The means that makes us strangers!

       ROSS.

       Sir, amen.

       MACDUFF.

       Stands Scotland where it did?

       ROSS.

       Alas, poor country,—

       Almost afraid to know itself! It cannot

       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 made, not mark’d; where violent sorrow seems

       A modern ecstasy; the dead man’s knell

       Is there scarce ask’d for who; and good men’s lives

       Expire before the flowers in their caps,

       Dying or ere they sicken.

       MACDUFF.

       O, relation

       Too nice, and yet too true!

       MALCOLM.

       What’s the newest grief?

       ROSS.

       That of an hour’s age doth hiss the speaker;

       Each

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