MAL. "T is call'd the evil; A most miraculous work in this good king: To the succeeding royalty he leaves The healing benediction. With this strange virtue, And sundry blessings hang about his throne, That speak him full of grace. MACD. Enter ROSSE. See, who comes here? MAL. My countryman; but yet I know him not. ROSSE. Sir, Amen. MACD. Stands Scotland where it did? Alas, poor country; Almost afraid to know itself! It cannot Be call'd our mother, but our grave: where nothing, Where sighs, and groans, and shrieks that rend the air, A modern ecstacy; the dead man's knell Is there scarce ask'd, for who; and good men's lives Dying, or ere they sicken. What's 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? MACD. ROSSE. And all my children? Well too. MACD. The tyrant has not batter'd at their peace? ROSSE. No; they were well at peace, when I did leave them. MACD. Be not a niggard of your speech: How goes it? ROSSE. When I came hither to transport the tidings, Of many worthy fellows that were out; Be 't their comfort, MAL. That Christendom gives out. ROSSE. 'Would I could answer This comfort with the like! But I have words Where hearing should not latch them. MACD. The general cause? or is it a fee-grief, ROSSE. What concern they? No mind that's honest But in it shares some woe; 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 heaviest sound, That ever yet they heard. 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; ROSSE. Wife, children, servants, all that could be found. MACD. And I must be from thence! My wife kill'd too? I have said. ROSSE. MAL. Let's make us med'cines of our great revenge, To cure this deadly grief. Be comforted: MACD. He has no children.—All my pretty ones? Did you say, all?—0, hell-kite!-All? What, all my pretty chickens, and their dam, At one fell swoop? MAL. Dispute it like a man. 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, MACD. O, I could play the woman with mine eyes, Bring thou this fiend of Scotland, and myself; MAL This time goes manly. Come, go we to the king; our power is ready; Our lack is nothing but our leave: Macbeth Put on their instruments. Receive what cheer you may; [Exeunt. ACT V. SCENE I.-Dunsinane. A Room in the Castle. Enter a Doctor of Physic, and a waiting Gentlewoman. DOCT. I have two nights watched with you, but can perceive no truth in your report. When was it she last walked? GENT. Since his majesty went into the field, I have seen her rise from her bed, throw her night-gown upon her, unlock her closet, take forth paper, fold it, write upon 't, read it, afterwards seal it, and again return to bed; yet all this while in a most fast sleep. DOCT. A great perturbation in nature! to receive at once the benefit of sleep, and do the effects of watching. In this slumbery agitation, besides her walking and other actual performances, what, at any time, have you heard her say? GENT. That, sir, which I will not report after her. DOCT. You may, to me; and 't is most meet you should. GENT. Neither to you, nor any one; having no witness to confirm my speech. Enter LADY MACBETH, with a taper. 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; 't is 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 't is time to do 't:-Hell is murky!-Fie, my lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? 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?—No more o' that, my lord, no more o' that: you mar all with this starting. DOCT. Go to, go to: you have known what you should not. GENT. She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of that: Heaven knows what she has known. LADY M. Here's the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh! oh! oh! DOCT. What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely charged. GENT. I would not have such a heart in my bosom, for the dignity of the whole body. DOCT. Well, well, well, GENT. 'Pray God it be, sir. DocT. This disease is beyond my practice: Yet I have known those which have walked in their sleep who have died holily in their beds. LADY M. Wash your hands, put on your night-gown; look. not so pale:-I tell you yet again, Banquo 's buried; he cannot come out on 's grave. DOCT. Even so? LADY M. To bed, to bed; there's knocking at the gate. Come, come, come, come, give me your hand. cannot be undone; To bed, to bed, to bed. DocT. Will she go now to bed? What's done [Exit LADY MACBETH. DOCT. Foul whisperings are abroad: Unnatural deeds Do breed unnatural troubles: Infected minds To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets. |