Macbeth by William Shakespeare (top ten books of all time .TXT) 📕

the black scruples, reconciled 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.

Enter Ross. Macduff See, who comes here? Malcolm My countryman; but yet I know him not. 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 rend 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 minute teems a new one.

Macduff How does my wife? Ross Why, well. Macduff And all my children? Ross Well too. Macduff The tyrant has not batter’d at their peace? Ross No; they were well at peace when I did leave ’em. Macduff But 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 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.

Malcolm

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.

Macduff

What concern they?
The general cause? or is it a fee-grief
Due to some single breast?

Ross

No mind that’s honest
But in it shares some woe; though the main part
Pertains to you alone.

Macduff

If it be mine,
Keep it not from me, quickly let me have it.

Ross

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

Macduff Hum! I guess at it. Ross

Your castle is surprised; 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.

Malcolm

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.

Macduff My children too? Ross

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

Macduff

And I must be from thence!
My wife kill’d too?

Ross I have said. Malcolm

Be comforted:
Let’s make us medicines of our great revenge,
To cure this deadly grief.

Macduff

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?

Malcolm Dispute it like a man. Macduff

I shall do so;
But I must also feel it as a man:
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!

Malcolm

Be this the whetstone of your sword: let grief
Convert to anger; blunt not the heart, enrage it.

Macduff

O, I could play the woman with mine eyes
And braggart with my tongue! But, gentle heavens,
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!

Malcolm

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. Exeunt.

Act V Scene I

Dunsinane. Ante-room in the castle.

Enter a Doctor of Physic and a Waiting-Gentlewoman. Doctor I have two nights watched with you, but can perceive no truth in your report. When was it she last walked? Gentlewoman Since his majesty went into the field, I have seen her rise from