Come in, without there!
Enter LENNOX
LENNOX What’s your grace’s will?
MACBETH Saw you the weird sisters?
LENNOX No, my lord.
MACBETH Came they not by you?
LENNOX No, indeed, my lord.
MACBETH Infected be the air whereon they ride;
And damn’d all those that trust them! I did hear
The galloping of horse: who was’t came by?
LENNOX ‘Tis two or three, my lord, that bring you word
Macduff is fled to England.
MACBETH Fled to England!
LENNOX Ay, my good lord.
MACBETH Time, thou anticipatest my dread exploits:
The flighty purpose never is o’ertook
Unless the deed go with it; from this moment
The very firstlings of my heart shall be
The firstlings of my hand. And even now,
To crown my thoughts with acts, be it thought and done:
The castle of Macduff I will surprise;
Seize upon Fife; give to the edge o’ the sword
His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls
That trace him in his line. No boasting like a fool;
This deed I’ll do before this purpose cool.
But no more sights!–Where are these gentlemen?
Come, bring me where they are.
Exeunt
Scene 2
Fife. Macduff’s castle.
Enter LADY MACDUFF, her Son, and ROSS
LADY MACDUFF What had he done, to make him fly the land?
ROSS You must have patience, madam.
LADY MACDUFF He had none:
His flight was madness: when our actions do not,
Our fears do make us traitors.
ROSS You know not
Whether it was his wisdom or his fear.
LADY MACDUFF Wisdom! to leave his wife, to leave his babes,
His mansion and his titles in a place
From whence himself does fly? He loves us not;
He wants the natural touch: for the poor wren,
The most diminutive of birds, will fight,
Her young ones in her nest, against the owl.
All is the fear and nothing is the love;
As little is the wisdom, where the flight
So runs against all reason.
ROSS My dearest coz,
I pray you, school yourself: but for your husband,
He is noble, wise, judicious, and best knows
The fits o’ the season. I dare not speak
much further;
But cruel are the times, when we are traitors
And do not know ourselves, when we hold rumour
From what we fear, yet know not what we fear,
But float upon a wild and violent sea
Each way and move. I take my leave of you:
Shall not be long but I’ll be here again:
Things at the worst will cease, or else climb upward
To what they were before. My pretty cousin,
Blessing upon you!
LADY MACDUFF Father’d he is, and yet he’s fatherless.
ROSS I am so much a fool, should I stay longer,
It would be my disgrace and your discomfort:
I take my leave at once.
Exit
LADY MACDUFF Sirrah, your father’s dead;
And what will you do now? How will you live?
Son As birds do, mother.
LADY MACDUFF What, with worms and flies?
Son With what I get, I mean; and so do they.
LADY MACDUFF Poor bird! thou’ldst never fear the net nor lime,
The pitfall nor the gin.
Son Why should I, mother? Poor birds they are not set for.
My father is not dead, for all your saying.
LADY MACDUFF Yes, he is dead; how wilt thou do for a father?
Son Nay, how will you do for a husband?
LADY MACDUFF Why, I can buy me twenty at any market.
Son Then you’ll buy ’em to sell again.
LADY MACDUFF Thou speak’st with all thy wit: and yet, i’ faith,
With wit enough for thee.
Son Was my father a traitor, mother?
LADY MACDUFF Ay, that he was.
Son What is a traitor?
LADY MACDUFF Why, one that swears and lies.
Son And be all traitors that do so?
LADY MACDUFF Every one that does so is a traitor, and must be hanged.
Son And must they all be hanged that swear and lie?
LADY MACDUFF Every one.
Son Who must hang them?
LADY MACDUFF Why, the honest men.
Son Then the liars and swearers are fools,
for there are liars and swearers enow to beat
the honest men and hang up them.
LADY MACDUFF Now, God help thee, poor monkey!
But how wilt thou do for a father?
Son If he were dead, you’ld weep for
him: if you would not, it were a good sign
that I should quickly have a new father.
LADY MACDUFF Poor prattler, how thou talk’st!
Enter a Messenger
Messenger Bless you, fair dame! I am not to you known,
Though in your state of honour I am perfect.
I doubt some danger does approach you nearly:
If you will take a homely man’s advice,
Be not found here; hence, with your little ones.
To fright you thus, methinks, I am too savage;
To do worse to you were fell cruelty,
Which is too nigh your person. Heaven preserve you!
I dare abide no longer.
Exit
LADY MACDUFF Whither should I fly?
I have done no harm. But I remember now
I am in this earthly world; where to do harm
Is often laudable, to do good sometime
Accounted dangerous folly: why then, alas,
Do I put up that womanly defence,
To say I have done no harm?
Enter Murderers
What are these faces?
First Murderer Where is your husband?
LADY MACDUFF I hope, in no place so unsanctified
Where such as thou mayst find him.
First Murderer He’s a traitor.
Son Thou liest, thou shag-hair’d villain!
First Murderer What, you egg!
Stabbing him
Young fry of treachery!
Son He has kill’d me, mother:
Run away, I pray you!
Dies
Exit LADY MACDUFF, crying ‘Murder!’ Exeunt Murderers, following her
Scene 3
England. Before the King’s palace.
Enter MALCOLM and MACDUFF
MALCOLM Let us seek out some desolate shade, and there
Weep our sad bosoms empty.
MACDUFF Let us rather
Hold fast the mortal sword, and like good men
Bestride our down-fall’n birthdom: each new morn
New widows howl, new orphans cry, new sorrows
Strike heaven on the face, that it resounds
As if it felt with Scotland and yell’d out
Like syllable of dolour.
MALCOLM What I believe I’ll wail,
What know believe, and what I can redress,
As I shall find the time to friend, I will.
What you have spoke, it may be so perchance.
This tyrant, whose sole name blisters our tongues,
Was once thought honest: you have loved him well.
He hath not touch’d you yet. I am young;
but something
You may deserve of him through me, and wisdom
To offer up a weak poor innocent lamb
To appease an angry god.
MACDUFF I am not treacherous.
MALCOLM But Macbeth is.
A good and virtuous nature may recoil
In an imperial charge. But I shall crave
your pardon;
That which you are my thoughts cannot transpose:
Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell;
Though all things foul would wear the brows of grace,
Yet grace must still look so.
MACDUFF I have lost my hopes.
MALCOLM Perchance even there where I did find my doubts.
Why in that rawness left you wife and child,
Those precious motives, those strong knots of love,
Without leave-taking? I pray you,
Let not my jealousies be your dishonours,
But mine own safeties. You may be rightly just,
Whatever I shall think.
MACDUFF Bleed, bleed, poor country!
Great tyranny! lay thou thy basis sure,
For goodness dare not cheque thee: wear thou
thy wrongs;
The title is affeer’d! 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.
MALCOLM 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 than it had before,
More suffer and more sundry ways than ever,
By him that shall succeed.
MACDUFF What should he be?
MALCOLM It is myself I mean: in whom I know
All the particulars of vice so grafted
That, when they shall be open’d, black Macbeth
Will seem as pure as snow, and the poor state
Esteem him as a lamb, being compared
With my confineless harms.
MACDUFF Not in the legions
Of horrid hell can come a devil more damn’d
In evils to top Macbeth.
MALCOLM 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