And overcome* us like a summer's cloud,

Without our special wonder? You make me strange Even to the disposition that I owe,t

When now I think you can behold such sights,

And keep the natural ruby of your cheeks,

When mine are blanck'd with fear.

Rosse.

What sights, my lord?

Lady M. I pray you, speak not; he grows worse

and worse;

Question enrages him: at once, good night:

Stand not upon the order of your going,

But go at once.

Len.

Attend his majesty!

Lady M.

Good night and better health

A kind good night to all! [Exeunt Lords and Attendants.

Macb. It will have blood; they say, blood will have

blood:

Stones have been known to move, and trees to speak: Augurs, and understood relations, have

By magot-piest and choughs, and rooks, brought forth

The secret'st man of blood.

ACT IV.

THE POWER OF WITCHES.

I conjure you, by that which you profess,
(Howe'er you come to know it) answer me:
Though you untie the winds, and let them fight
Against the churches; though the yesty§ waves
Confound and swallow navigation up;

Though bladed corn be lodg'd and trees blown down;

Though castles topple¶ on their warders' heads;
Though palaces, and pyramids, do slope

Their heads to their foundations; though the treasure
Of nature's germins** tumble all together,

* Pass over.

+ Possess. + Magpies.

Laid flat by wind or rain. ** Seeds which have begun to sprout.

§ Frothy.

T Tumble.

Even till destruction sicken, answer me

To what I ask you.

MALCOLM'S CHARACTER OF HIMSELF.

Mal. 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.

Macb.

O Scotland! Scotland!

Mal. If such a one be fit to govern, speak:

I am as I have spoken.

Macb.

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
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!

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. Dev'lish 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,

*Over-hasty credulity.

For strangers to my nature.
I am yet
Unknown to woman; never was foresworn;
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.

AN OPPRESSED COUNTRY.

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: were 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'S BEHAVIOUR ON THE MURDER OF HIS
WIFE AND CHILDREN.

Rosse.

'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.

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 wo; though the main part

Pertains to you alone.

Macd.

If it be mine,

Keep it not from me, quickly let me have it.

Rosse. Let not your ears despise my tongue for

ever,

Which shall possess them with the heavest sound,
That ever yet they heard

* Common distress of mind.
A grief that has a single owner.

† Catch.

Macd.

Humph! I guess at it. Rosse. Your castle is surpris'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?

Rosse.

That could be found.

Macd.

Wife, children, servants, all

My wife kill'd too?

I have said.

Be comforted:

Rosse.

Mal.

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?-O, hell-kite!-All?

What, all my pretty chickens, and their dam,

At one fell swoop?

Mal. Dispute it like a man.

Macd.

But I must also feel it as a man:

I shall do so;

I cannot but remember such things were,

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. O, 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;

The game after it is killed.

+ All pause.

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 Put on their instruments. Receive what cheer you may;

The night is long, that never finds the day.

ACT V.

SCENE.-Enter Lady MACBETH, with a taper. Gent. Lo you, here she comes! This is her very guise; and, upon my life, fast asleep. Observe her; stand close.

Doct. How came she by that light?

Gent. Why, it stood by her: she has light by her continually; 'tis her command.

Doct. You see her eyes are open.
Gent. Ay, but their sense is shut.

Doct. What is it she does now? Look, how she rubs her hands.

Gent. It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thus washing her hands; I have known her continue in this a quarter of an hour.

Lady M. Yet here's a spot.

Doct. Hark, she speaks: I will set down what comes from her, to satisfy my remembrance the more strongly.

Lady M. Out, damned spot! out, I say!--One; Two; Why, then 'tis time to do't:-Hell is murky!*-Fie, my lord, fie! a soldier, and afear'd? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?-Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?

Doct. Do you mark that?

Lady M. The thane of Fife had a wife; Where is she now?What, will these hands ne'er be clean?

-

• Dark.