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To offer up a weak, poor, innocent lamb,

To appease an angry God.

Macd. I am not treacherous.

Mal.

But Macbeth is.

A good and virtuous nature may recoil

In an imperial charge 266). But 'crave your pardon;
That which you are, my thoughts cannot transpose:
Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell:

Though all things foul 267) would wear the brows of grace,
Yet grace must still look so.

I have lost my hopes.

my

Macd. Mal. Perchance, even there, where I did find doubts. Why in that rawness 268) left you wife, and child, (Those precious motives, those strong knots of love) Without leave - taking? Let not my jealousies be But mine own safeties. Whatever I shall think.、

Macd.

I pray you,

your

dishonours,

You may be rightly just,

Bleed, bleed, poor country!

Great tyranny, lay thou thy basis, sure,

For goodness dares not check thee! Wear thou thy wrongs, His title is affeer'd 269)! 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.

Mal.

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

266) In an imperial charge. A good mind may recede from Johnson. goodness in the execution of a royal commission. 267) The meaning perhaps is this: My suspicions cannot injure you, if you be virtuous, by supposing that a traitor may put on your virtuous appearance. I do not say that your virtuous appearance proves you a traitor; for virtue must wear its proper form, though that form be counterfeited by villainy. Johnson. 268) Why in that rawness. Without previous provision, without due preparation, without maturity of counsel. Johnson. 269) To affeer is to assess, or reduce to certainty. Ritson. Perhaps the meaning is: Poor country, wear thou thy wrongs! Thy title to them is now fully established by law. Or perhaps he addresses Malcolm. Continue to endure tamely the wrongs you suffer: thy just title to the throne is cow'd, has not spirit to establish itself. Malone.

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..

Macd.

What should he be?
Mal. 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 compar'd

With my confineless harms.

Macd.

Not in the legions

Of horrid hell, can come a devil more damn'd,
In evils, to top Macbeth.

Mal.
I grant him bloody,
Luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful,

Sudden 270), 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

All continent impediments would o'er-bear,
That did oppose my will.

Than such a one to reign.

In

Macd.

Better Macbeth,

Boundless intemperance

nature is a tyranny: it hath been

The untimely emptying of the happy throne,
And fall of many kings. But fear not yet
To take upon you what is yours: you may
Convey your pleasures in a spacious plenty,

And

yet seem cold, the time you may so hood-wink. We have willing dames enough; there cannot be That vulture in you, to devour so many, As will to greatness dedicate themselves, Finding it so inclin'd.

270) sudden, violent, hasty. Johnson.

Mal.

With this, there grows,

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In my most ill-compos'd affection, such
A stanchless avarice, that, were I king,
I should cut off the nobles for their lands;
Desire his jewels, and this other's house:
And my more-having would be as a sauce
To make me hunger more; that I should forge
Quarrels unjust against the good, and loyal,
Destroying them for wealth.

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Sticks deeper; grows with more pernicious root
Than summer-seeding lust 271); and it hath been
The sword of our slain kings. Yet do not fear;
Scotland hath foysons 272) to fill up your will
Of your mere own. All these are portable 273),
With other graces weigh'd.

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 274),

Macd.

O Scotland! Scotland!

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

I am as I have spoken.

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271) summer-seeding lust. The allusion is to plants; and the sense is: Avarice is a perennial weed; it has a deeper and more pernicious root than lust, which is a more annual, and lasts but for a summer, when it sheds its seed and decays." Blackstone. 272) Foysons, means provisions in plenty. Steevens. 273) Portable answers exactly to a phrase now in use. Such failings may be borne with, or are bearable. Steevens. 274) I believe, all that Malcolm designs to say is, that, if he had power, he would even annihilate the gentle source or principle of peace: pour the soft milk by which it is nourished, among the flames of hell, which could not fail to dry it up. Lady Macbeth has already observed that her husband was „, too full of the milk of human kindness."*

Steevens.

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No, not to live. O nation miserable,

With an untitled tyrant bloody-scepter'd,
When shalt thou see thy wholsome days again?
Since that the truest issue of thy throne
By his own interdiction stands accurs'd,
And does blaspheme his breed?

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Thy royal father

Was a most sainted king; the queen, that bore thee,
Ofter upon her knees than on her feet,

Died every day she liv'd 275). 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. Devilish Macbeth
By many of these trains hath sought to win me
Into his power: and modest wisdom plucks me
From over-credulous haste 276): 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,
All ready at a point 377), was setting forth.

215) Died every day she lived. The expression is borrowed from the sacred writings: „I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus, I die daily." Malone. 276) From overcredulous haste, from over-hasty credulity. Malone. 277) At a point, may mean all ready at a time;, but Shakspeare meant more: he meant both time and place and certainly wrote: All

122

Now we'll together; and the chance, of goodness,

Be like our warranted quarrel 278)! Why are you silent? Macd. Such welcome and unwelcome things at once, "Tis hard to reconcile.

Enter a Doctor.

Mal. Well; more anon. - Comes the king forth, I pray

you?

Doct. Ay, Sir; there are a crew of wretched souls,

That stay his cure; their malady convinces 279)

The great assay of art; but, at his touch,
Such sanctity hath heaven given his hand,
They presently amend.

Mal.

I thank you, doctor.
Macd. What's the disease he means?
Mal.

[Exit Doctor.]

'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 280);
Hanging a golden stamp 281) about their necks,
Put on with holy prayers: and 'tis spoken,

To the succeeding royalty he leaves

The healing benediction 282). With this strange virtue,
He hath a heavenly gift of prophecy;

ready at appoint, i. e. at the place appointed, at the rendezvous. Warburton. 278) There is no need of change. Johnson. And the chance quarrel. That is, may the event be, of the goodness of heaven, (pro justitia divina) answerable to the cause.- But I am inclined to believe that Shakspeare wrote:

and the chance, O goodness,

Be like our warranted quarrel!

If we adopt this reading, the sense will be: And O thou sovereign Goodness, to whom we now appeal, may our fortune answer to subdues. our cause. Johnson. 279) convinces i. e. overpowers, Steevens. 280) The Evil oder the King's Evil, ist die eigenthümliche Benennung der Kröpfe, deren Heilung bekanntermafsen den Königen von England beigelegt wird. Eduard Confessor soll diese Wunderkraft zuerst ausgeübt haben. Eschenburg. 281) A golden stamp. This was the coin called an angel. The value of the coin was ten shillings. Steevens. Shakspeare has merely transcribed what he found in Holingshed.

282)

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