But yet I call you servile ministers, That have with two pernicious daughters join'd That keep this dreadful pudder o'er our heads, Unwhipp'd of Justice! Hide thee, thou bloody hand: Hast practis'd on man's life.-Close pent up guilts, Those dreadful summoners grace !--I am a man SHAKSPEARE. CHAPTER XVI. MACBETH'S SOLILOQUY. Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle tow'rd my hand? come, let me clutch thee→→ As this which I now draw. Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going; Mine eyes are made the fools o' th' other senses, Thus to mine eyes.-Now o'er one half the world (Alarmed by his sentinel, the wolf, Whose howl's his watch,) thus with his stealthy pace, And take the present horror from the time, Which now suits with it.-While I threat, he lives- That summons thee to Heaven or to Hell! SHAKSPEARE. CHAPTER XVII. MACDUFF, MALCOLM AND ROSSE. Macd. SEE who comes here? Malc. My countryman; but yet I know him not. I know him now. Good God! betimes remove The means that makes us strangers! Rosse. Sir, Amen. Macd. Rosse. 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, Is there scarce ask'd for whom: and good men's lives Dying or e'er they sicken. Macd. Oh, relation Too nice, and yet too true! Malc. 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? Rosse. Why, well. Macd. And all my children? Rosse. Well too. Macd. The tyrant has not batter'd at their peace? Now is the time of help; your eye in Scotland Malc. Be't their comfort We're coming thither: gracious England hath Rosse. Would I could answer This comfort with the like; but I have words, The general cause? or is it a free grief, Rosse. 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. Hum! 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. Malc. Merciful Heav'n! What, man! ne'er pull your hat upon your brows; Macd. My children too? Rosse. Wife, children, servants, all that could be found. Macd. And I must be from thence! my wife kill'd too? 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? what, all? oh, hell-kite! all? Malc. Endure it like a man. Macd. 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 Heav'n look on, And would not take their part? Fell slaughter on their souls. Heav'n rest them now! Malc. Be this the whetstone of your sword, let grief Convert to wrath; blunt not the heart, enrage it! Macd. O, I could play the woman with mine eyes, Bring thou this fiend of Scotland and myself; Malc. This tune goes manly. Come, go we to the King, our pow'r is ready; Put on their instruments. Receive what cheer you may; SHAKSPEARE. CHAPTER XVIII. ANTONY'S SOLILOQUY OVER CÆSAR'S BODY. O PARDON me, thou bleeding piece of earth! That ever lived in the tide of times. Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood! (Which, like dumb mouths, do ope their ruby lips, A curse shall light upon the line of men: Domestic fury, and fierce civil strife, That mothers shall but smile, when they behold SHAKSPEARE. CHAPTER XIX. ANTONY'S FUNERAL ORATION OVER CÆSAR'S BODY. FRIENDS, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears: He hath brought many captives home to Rome, Did this in Cæsar seem ambitious? When that the poor hath cried, Cæsar hath wept: |