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Mal. I know him now: Good God, betimes remove The means that make us strangers!

Rosse.

Sir, Amen.

Macd. Stands Scotland where it did?
Rosse.

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 rent 19 the

air,

Are made, not mark'd; where violent sorrow seems
A modern ecstasy 20; the dead man's knell

Is there scarce ask'd, for who; and good men's lives
Expire before the flowers in their
Dying, or ere they sicken.

Macd.

Too nice, and yet too true!

Mal.

caps,

O, relation,

What is the newest grief?

Rosse. That of an hour's age doth hiss the speaker; Each minute teems a new one.

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Macd. The tyrant has not batter'd at their peace? Rosse. No; they were well at peace, when I did leave them.

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19 To rent is an ancient verb, which has been long disused,' say the editors: in other words it is the old orthography of the verb to rend.

20 It has been before observed that Shakspeare uses ecstasy for every species of alienation of mind, whether proceeding from sorrow, joy, wonder, or any other exciting cause. Modern is generally used by him in the sense of common. A modern ecstasy is therefore a common grief. Vide Act iii. Sc. 2, p. 265. 21 Thus in Antony and Cleopatra :

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Macd. Be not a niggard of your speech; How

goes it?

Rosse. 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 22 their dire distresses.

Mal.

Be it 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.

Rosse.

'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 23 them.

What concern they?

Macd.
The general cause? or is it a fee-grief 24,
Due to some single breast?

Rosse.

22 To doff is to do off, to put off.

No mind, that's honest,

23 To latch (in the North) signifies the same as to catch. Thus also Golding, in his translation of the first book of Ovid's Metamorphoses :

'As though he would, at everie stride, betweene his teeth hir latch.

Again in the eighth book:

'But that a bough of chesnut-tree, thick leaved, by the way Did latch it,' &c.

24Or is it a fee-grief,' a peculiar sorrow, a grief that hath but a single owner. So in a Lover's Complaint:

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My woeful self that did in freedom stand,

And was my own fee-simple.'

In these singular passages Steevens remarks that 'the attorney has been guilty of a flat trespass on the poet.'

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,

25 of these murder'd deer,

Merciful heaven!

Were, on the quarry
To add the death of you.
Mal.
What, man! ne'er pull your hat upon your brows;
Give sorrow words: the grief, that does not speak,
Whispers the o'erfraught heart, and bids it break 26.
Macd. My children too?

Rosse.

That could be found.

Macd.

My wife kill'd too?

Wife, children, servants, all

And I must be from thence!

Rosse. Mal.

I have said.

Be comforted:

25 Quarry, the game after it is killed: it is a term used both in hunting and falconry. The old English term querre is used for the square spot wherein the dead game was deposited. Quarry is also used for the game pursued.

26

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Cura leves loquuntur, ingentes stupent.'
'Those are killing griefs which dare not speak.'

'Light sorrows often speake,

Vittoria Corombona.

When great, the heart in silence breake.'

Greene's Tragical History of Faire Bellora. Striving to tell his woes, words would not come,

For light cares speak, when mighty griefs are dombe.'

Daniel's Complaint of Rosamond.

Let's make us med'cines of our great revenge,
To cure this deadly grief.

Macd. 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 27?

Mal. Dispute it like a man 28.

Macd.

But I must also feel it as a man:

I shall do so;

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! Mal. Be this the whetstone of your sword: let grief

Convert to anger; blunt not the heart, enrage it, Macd. O, I could play the woman with mine eyes, And braggart with my tongue!But, gentle hea

vens,

Cut short all intermission 29: 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!

This tune 30

Mal. goes manly. Come, go we to the king: our power is ready;

27 At one fell swoop.' Swoop, from the verb to swoop or sweep, is the descent of a bird of prey on his quarry. So in the White Devil, 1612 :—

That she may take away all at one swoop.'

28 i. e. contend with your present sorrow like a man. Thus in Twelfth Night, Act. iv. Sc. 3:—

'For though my soul disputes well with my sense.'

29 All intermission, all pause, all intervening time.

30 The old copy reads time. The emendation is Rowe's.

DD 2.

Our lack is nothing but our leave: Macbeth
Is ripe for shaking, and the powers above
Put on their instruments 31.

you may;

Receive what cheer

The night is long that never finds the day. [Exeunt.

SCENE I.

ACT V.

Dunsinane. A Room in the Castle.

Enter a Doctor of Physick, 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 nightgown upon her, unlock her closet, take forth paper, fold it, write upon it, 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 slumbry 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 'tis most meet you should.

Gent. Neither to you, nor any one; having no witness to confirm my speech.

31 i. e. encourage, thrust us their instruments forward against the tyrant.

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