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Macbeth: Act IV, Scene 3

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Macbeth
Act IV, Scene 3

England. Before the King’s palace.

English King's palace

English King's palace

Dorothy Carleton Smyth, circa 1900

  1. Enter Malcolm and Macduff.

Malcolm

1 - 2
  1. Let us seek out some desolate shade, and there
  2. Weep our sad bosoms empty.

Macduff

3 - 9
  1.                            Let us rather
  2. Hold fast the mortal sword, and like good men
  3. Bestride our downfall birthdom. Each new morn
  4. New widows howl, new orphans cry, new sorrows
  5. Strike heaven on the face, that it resounds
  6. As if it felt with Scotland, and yell’d out
  7. Like syllable of dolor.

Malcolm

10 - 19
  1.                         What I believe, I’ll wail,
  2. What know, believe; and what I can redress,
  3. As I shall find the time to friend, I will.
  4. What you have spoke, it may be so perchance.
  5. This tyrant, whose sole name blisters our tongues,
  6. Was once thought honest; you have lov’d him well;
  7. He hath not touch’d you yet. I am young, but something
  8. You may discern of him through me, and wisdom
  9. To offer up a weak, poor, innocent lamb
  10. T’ appease an angry god.

Macduff

20
  1. I am not treacherous.

Malcolm

21 - 27
  1.                       But Macbeth is.
  2. A good and virtuous nature may recoil
  3. In an imperial charge. But I shall crave your pardon;
  4. That which you are, my thoughts cannot transpose:
  5. Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell.
  6. Though all things foul would wear the brows of grace,
  7. Yet grace must still look so.

Macduff

28
  1.                               I have lost my hopes.

Malcolm

29 - 35
  1. Perchance even there where I did find my doubts.
  2. Why in that rawness left you wife and child,
  3. Those precious motives, those strong knots of love,
  4. Without leave-taking? I pray you,
  5. Let not my jealousies be your dishonors,
  6. But mine own safeties. You may be rightly just,
  7. What ever I shall think.

Macduff

36 - 42
  1.                          Bleed, bleed, poor country!
  2. Great tyranny, lay thou thy basis sure,
  3. For goodness dare not check thee; wear thou thy wrongs,
  4. The title is affeer’d! Fare thee well, lord,
  5. I would not be the villain that thou think’st
  6. For the whole space that’s in the tyrant’s grasp,
  7. And the rich East to boot.

Malcolm

43 - 55
  1.                            Be not offended;
  2. I speak not as in absolute fear of you.
  3. I think our country sinks beneath the yoke:
  4. It weeps, it bleeds, and each new day a gash
  5. Is added to her wounds. I think withal
  6. There would be hands uplifted in my right;
  7. And here from gracious England have I offer
  8. Of goodly thousands. But, for all this,
  9. When I shall tread upon the tyrant’s head,
  10. Or wear it on my sword, yet my poor country
  11. Shall have more vices than it had before,
  12. More suffer, and more sundry ways than ever,
  13. By him that shall succeed.

Macduff

56
  1.                            What should he be?

Malcolm

57 - 62
  1. It is myself I mean; in whom I know
  2. All the particulars of vice so grafted
  3. That, when they shall be open’d, black Macbeth
  4. Will seem as pure as snow, and the poor state
  5. Esteem him as a lamb, being compar’d
  6. With my confineless harms.

Macduff

63 - 65
  1.                            Not in the legions
  2. Of horrid hell can come a devil more damn’d
  3. In evils to top Macbeth.

Malcolm

66 - 75
  1.                          I grant him bloody,
  2. Luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful,
  3. Sudden, malicious, smacking of every sin
  4. That has a name; but there’s no bottom, none,
  5. In my voluptuousness. Your wives, your daughters,
  6. Your matrons, and your maids could not fill up
  7. The cistern of my lust, and my desire
  8. All continent impediments would o’erbear
  9. That did oppose my will. Better Macbeth
  10. Than such an one to reign.
Robert Taber as Macduff

Robert Taber as Macduff

Virtue & Co., circa 1900

Macduff

76 - 86
  1.                            Boundless intemperance
  2. In nature is a tyranny; it hath been
  3. Th’ untimely emptying of the happy throne,
  4. And fall of many kings. But fear not yet
  5. To take upon you what is yours. You may
  6. Convey your pleasures in a spacious plenty,
  7. And yet seem cold, the time you may so hoodwink.
  8. We have willing dames enough; there cannot be
  9. That vulture in you to devour so many
  10. As will to greatness dedicate themselves,
  11. Finding it so inclin’d.

Malcolm

87 - 95
  1.                         With this, there grows
  2. In my most ill-compos’d affection such
  3. A stanchless avarice that, were I king,
  4. I should cut off the nobles for their lands,
  5. Desire his jewels, and this other’s house,
  6. And my more-having would be as a sauce
  7. To make me hunger more, that I should forge
  8. Quarrels unjust against the good and loyal,
  9. Destroying them for wealth.

Macduff

96 - 102
  1.                             This avarice
  2. Sticks deeper, grows with more pernicious root
  3. Than summer-seeming lust; and it hath been
  4. The sword of our slain kings. Yet do not fear,
  5. Scotland hath foisons to fill up your will
  6. Of your mere own. All these are portable,
  7. With other graces weigh’d.

Malcolm

103 - 112
  1. But I have none. The king-becoming graces,
  2. As justice, verity, temp’rance, stableness,
  3. Bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness,
  4. Devotion, patience, courage, fortitude,
  5. I have no relish of them, but abound
  6. In the division of each several crime,
  7. Acting it many ways. Nay, had I pow’r, I should
  8. Pour the sweet milk of concord into hell,
  9. Uproar the universal peace, confound
  10. All unity on earth.

Macduff

113
  1.                     O Scotland, Scotland!

Malcolm

114 - 115
  1. If such a one be fit to govern, speak.
  2. I am as I have spoken.

Macduff

116 - 128
  1.                        Fit to govern?
  2. No, not to live. O nation miserable!
  3. With an untitled tyrant bloody-sceptred,
  4. When shalt thou see thy wholesome days again,
  5. Since that the truest issue of thy throne
  6. By his own interdiction stands accus’d,
  7. And does blaspheme his breed? Thy royal father
  8. Was a most sainted king; the queen that bore thee,
  9. Oft’ner upon her knees than on her feet,
  10. Died every day she liv’d. Fare thee well,
  11. These evils thou repeat’st upon thyself
  12. Hath banish’d me from Scotland. O my breast,
  13. Thy hope ends here!

Malcolm

129 - 152
  1.                     Macduff, this noble passion,
  2. Child of integrity, hath from my soul
  3. Wip’d the black scruples, reconcil’d my thoughts
  4. To thy good truth and honor. Devilish Macbeth
  5. By many of these trains hath sought to win me
  6. Into his power, and modest wisdom plucks me
  7. From over-credulous haste. But God above
  8. Deal between thee and me! For even now
  9. I put myself to thy direction, and
  10. Unspeak mine own detraction; here abjure
  11. The taints and blames I laid upon myself,
  12. For strangers to my nature. I am yet
  13. Unknown to woman, never was forsworn,
  14. Scarcely have coveted what was mine own,
  15. At no time broke my faith, would not betray
  16. The devil to his fellow, and delight
  17. No less in truth than life. My first false speaking
  18. Was this upon myself. What I am truly
  19. Is thine and my poor country’s to command:
  20. Whither indeed, before thy here-approach,
  21. Old Siward, with ten thousand warlike men
  22. Already at a point, was setting forth.
  23. Now we’ll together, and the chance of goodness
  24. Be like our warranted quarrel! Why are you silent?
'Macbeth' at Covent Garden

'Macbeth' at Covent Garden

Unknown artist, 1760s

Macduff

153 - 154
  1. Such welcome and unwelcome things at once
  2. ’Tis hard to reconcile.
  1. Enter English Doctor.

Malcolm

155
  1. Well, more anon.—Comes the King forth, I pray you?

English Doctor

156 - 160
  1. Ay, sir; there are a crew of wretched souls
  2. That stay his cure. Their malady convinces
  3. The great assay of art; but at his touch,
  4. Such sanctity hath heaven given his hand,
  5. They presently amend.

Malcolm

161
  1.                       I thank you, doctor.
  1. Exit English Doctor.

Macduff

162
  1. What’s the disease he means?

Malcolm

163 - 176
  1.                              ’Tis call’d the evil:
  2. A most miraculous work in this good king,
  3. Which often, since my here-remain in England,
  4. I have seen him do. How he solicits heaven,
  5. Himself best knows; but strangely-visited people,
  6. All swoll’n and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye,
  7. The mere despair of surgery, he cures,
  8. Hanging a golden stamp about their necks,
  9. Put on with holy prayers, and ’tis spoken,
  10. To the succeeding royalty he leaves
  11. The healing benediction. With this strange virtue,
  12. He hath a heavenly gift of prophecy,
  13. And sundry blessings hang about his throne
  14. That speak him full of grace.
  1. Enter Rosse.

Macduff

177
  1.                               See who comes here.

Malcolm

178
  1. My countryman; but yet I know him not.

Macduff

179
  1. My ever gentle cousin, welcome hither.

Malcolm

180 - 181
  1. I know him now. Good God betimes remove
  2. The means that makes us strangers!

Rosse

182
  1.                                    Sir, amen.

Macduff

183
  1. Stands Scotland where it did?

Rosse

184 - 193
  1.                               Alas, poor country,
  2. Almost afraid to know itself! It cannot
  3. Be call’d our mother, but our grave; where nothing,
  4. But who knows nothing, is once seen to smile;
  5. Where sighs, and groans, and shrieks that rent the air
  6. Are made, not mark’d; where violent sorrow seems
  7. A modern ecstasy. The dead man’s knell
  8. Is there scarce ask’d for who, and good men’s lives
  9. Expire before the flowers in their caps,
  10. Dying or ere they sicken.

Macduff

194 - 195
  1.                           O relation!
  2. Too nice, and yet too true.

Malcolm

196
  1.                             What’s the newest grief?

Rosse

197 - 198
  1. That of an hour’s age doth hiss the speaker;
  2. Each minute teems a new one.

Macduff

199
  1.                              How does my wife?

Rosse

200
  1. Why, well.

Macduff

201
  1.            And all my children?

Rosse

202
  1.                      Well too.

Macduff

203
  1. The tyrant has not batter’d at their peace?

Rosse

204
  1. No, they were well at peace when I did leave ’em.

Macduff

205
  1. Be not a niggard of your speech; how goes’t?

Rosse

206 - 213
  1. When I came hither to transport the tidings,
  2. Which I have heavily borne, there ran a rumor
  3. Of many worthy fellows that were out,
  4. Which was to my belief witness’d the rather,
  5. For that I saw the tyrant’s power afoot.
  6. Now is the time of help; your eye in Scotland
  7. Would create soldiers, make our women fight,
  8. To doff their dire distresses.
Frontpiece to the Coburn Actiing Edition of Macbeth

Frontpiece to the Coburn Actiing Edition of Macbeth

Coburn Players, 1912

Malcolm

214 - 218
  1.                                Be’t their comfort
  2. We are coming thither. Gracious England hath
  3. Lent us good Siward, and ten thousand men;
  4. An older and a better soldier none
  5. That Christendom gives out.

Rosse

219 - 222
  1.                             Would I could answer
  2. This comfort with the like! But I have words
  3. That would be howl’d out in the desert air,
  4. Where hearing should not latch them.

Macduff

223 - 225
  1.                                      What concern they?
  2. The general cause? Or is it a fee-grief
  3. Due to some single breast?

Rosse

226 - 228
  1.                            No mind that’s honest
  2. But in it shares some woe, though the main part
  3. Pertains to you alone.

Macduff

229 - 230
  1.                        If it be mine,
  2. Keep it not from me, quickly let me have it.

Rosse

231 - 233
  1. Let not your ears despise my tongue forever,
  2. Which shall possess them with the heaviest sound
  3. That ever yet they heard.

Macduff

234
  1.                           Humh! I guess at it.

Rosse

235 - 238
  1. Your castle is surpris’d; your wife, and babes,
  2. Savagely slaughter’d. To relate the manner,
  3. Were on the quarry of these murder’d deer
  4. To add the death of you.

Malcolm

239 - 242
  1.                          Merciful heaven!
  2. What, man, ne’er pull your hat upon your brows;
  3. Give sorrow words. The grief that does not speak
  4. Whispers the o’er-fraught heart, and bids it break.

Macduff

243
  1. My children too?

Rosse

244 - 245
  1.                  Wife, children, servants, all
  2. That could be found.

Macduff

246 - 247
  1.                      And I must be from thence!
  2. My wife kill’d too?

Rosse

248
  1.                     I have said.

Malcolm

249 - 251
  1.              Be comforted.
  2. Let’s make us med’cines of our great revenge
  3. To cure this deadly grief.

Macduff

252 - 255
  1. He has no children. All my pretty ones?
  2. Did you say all? O hell-kite! All?
  3. What, all my pretty chickens, and their dam,
  4. At one fell swoop?

Malcolm

256
  1. Dispute it like a man.

Macduff

257 - 264
  1.                        I shall do so;
  2. But I must also feel it as a man:
  3. I cannot but remember such things were,
  4. That were most precious to me. Did heaven look on,
  5. And would not take their part? Sinful Macduff,
  6. They were all struck for thee! Naught that I am,
  7. Not for their own demerits, but for mine,
  8. Fell slaughter on their souls. Heaven rest them now!

Malcolm

265 - 266
  1. Be this the whetstone of your sword, let grief
  2. Convert to anger; blunt not the heart, enrage it.

Macduff

267 - 272
  1. O, I could play the woman with mine eyes,
  2. And braggart with my tongue! But, gentle heavens,
  3. Cut short all intermission. Front to front
  4. Bring thou this fiend of Scotland and myself;
  5. Within my sword’s length set him; if he scape,
  6. Heaven forgive him too!

Malcolm

273 - 278
  1.                         This tune goes manly.
  2. Come go we to the King, our power is ready,
  3. Our lack is nothing but our leave. Macbeth
  4. Is ripe for shaking, and the pow’rs above
  5. Put on their instruments. Receive what cheer you may,
  6. The night is long that never finds the day.
  1. Exeunt.
The tragedy of Macbeth

The tragedy of Macbeth

To which are added all original songs

William D'Avenant; Louis Du Guernier; Gerard Van der Gucht, printmaker; Henry Lintot; Benjamin Dodd; 1755

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