And what will you do now? how will you live?

Son. As birds do, mother.
L. Macd. What, on worms and Aies?
Son. On what I get, I mean, and fo do they.

L. Macd. Poor bird! thou'dit never fear the net, nor The pic-fall, nor the gin.

[lime : Son. Why should I, mother? poor birds they are not

set for. My father is not dead, for all your saying.

L. Macd. Yes, he is dead; how wilt thou do for a father?

Son. Nay, how will you do for a husband ?
L. Macd. Why, I can buy me twenty at any market.
Son. Then you'll buy 'em to fell again.

L. Macd. Thou speak'it with all thy wit, and yet, With wit enough for thee.

[i' faith, Son. Was my father a traitor, mother? L. Macd. Ay, that he was. Son. What is a traitor? L. Macd. Why, one that swears and lies. Son. And be all traitors, that do so?

L. Macd. Every one, that does so, is a traitor, and must be hang’d.

Son. And must they all be hang'd, that swear and lie?
L. Macd. Every one.
Son. Who muit hang them?
L. Macd. 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.

L. Macd. God help thee, poor monkey! but how' wilt thou do for a father?

Son. If he were dead, you'd weep for him : if you would not, it were a good fign that I should quickly have a new father. L. Macd. Poor pratler! how thou talk'it ?

Enter a Messenger. Mej. Bless you, fair dame! I am not to you known, 'Though in your ítate of honour I am perfect;

1 doubt, fome 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 favage:
To do worse to you were fell cruelty,
Which is too nigh your person. Heav'n preserve you!
I dare abide no longer.

[Exit Melenget.
L. Maci. Whither should I fiy?
I've done no harm. But I remember now,
I'm in this earthly world, where to do harm
Is ofien laudable; to do good, sometime
Accounted dang'rous folly. Why then, alas !
Do I put up that womanly defence,
To say, I'd done no harm-what are these faces -

Enter Murderers. Mura Where is your husband ?

L. Macd. I hope, in no place so unfanétihed
Where such as thou may'll find him,

Mur. He's a traitor,
Son. Thou ly'ft, thou hag-ear'd villain.
Mur. What, you egg?

[Stabbing bima Young fry of treachery?

SunHe'as kill'd me, mother, Run away, pray you. [Exit L. Macduff, crying murder

(Murderers pursue here SCENE changes to the King of England's Palace.

L

Enter Malcolm and Macduff,
ET us seek out some defolate Made, and there

Weep our fad bosoms empty.
Macd. Let us rather
Hold fast the mortal sword; and, like good men,
Beftride our downfal birth doom: each new morn,
New widows how), new orphans cry; new forrows.
Strike heaven on the face, that it resounds
As if it felt with Scotland, and veli'd out
Like fyllables of dolour.

Mal. 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 fole name blisters our tongues,
Was once thought honeft; you have lov’d him well,
He hath not touch'd you yet. I'm young; but somea-

thing (36)
You may deserve of him through me, and wisdona
To offer up a weak, poor, innocent lamb,
T'appease an angry God.

Macd. I am not treacherous,

Mal. But Macbeth is. A good and virtuous nature may recoil In an imperial charge. I crave your pardon : That which you are, my thoughts cannot transpose ; Angels are bright ftill, though the brightest fell : Though all things foul would wear the brows of grace, Yet grace must still look fo.

Macd. I've lost my hopes.

Mal. Perchance, ev'n there, where I did find my doubts. Why in that rawness left you wise and children? Thöfe 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:

Macd, Bleed, bleed, poor country!" Great tyranny, lay thou thy basis sure, . For goodness dares not check thee! wear thou thy wrongs,,

(36)

I’in young, but something Toutmay discern of bim through me, &c.] If the wh le tanour of the context could not have convinced our blind editors, that we ought to read deserve inftead of difcern, (as I have corrected in the text,) yet Macduffs answer, sure, might have given them fume light,-.-I'ami *H treacherous. There is another passa e, in which vice verja the fime error has been committed upon the other word: K. Lear. (old 4to in 1608)

an eye deserving Thine honour from thy suff'ring. where the sense evidently demands, difcerning

Hisia

His title is affear'd. Fare thee well, Lord:
I would not be the villain that thou think'it,
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 finks beneath the yoke;
I: weeps, it bleeds, and each new day a gash
Is added to her wounds. I think withal,
There would be hands up-lifted in my right:
And here from gracious England have I offer
Of goodly thousands. But for all this,
When I Mall tread upon the tyrant's head,
O: wear it on my sword, yet my poor country
Shall have more vices than it had before ;
More suffer, and more fundry 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 se m as pure as fnow, and the poor

ftatc
Efteem him as a lamb, being compar'd
With

my

confineless harms.
Macd. Not in the legions
Of horrid hell can come a deyil more damn'd,
In evils to top Macbethe.

Mal. I grant him bloody,
Luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful,
Sudden, malicious, smacking of ev'ry fin
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 oppofe my will. Better Macbeth,
Than such an one to reign.

Macd. Boundless intemperance
In nature is a tyranny; it hath been
Th' untimely emptying of the happy throne;

And

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 hoodwink:
We've willing dames enough; there cannot be
That vulture in you to devour so many,
As will to greatness dedicate themselves,
Finding it to inclin'd.

Mal. With this, there grows,
In my moft 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.

Macd. This avarice
Sticks deeper; grows with more pernicious root (37)
Than fummer-teeming luft; and it hath been
The sword of our sain Kings: yet do not fear;
Scotland hath foyfons to fill up your will
Of your mere own. All these are portable,
With other graces weigh’d..

(37)

grows with more pernicious root Tban fummer-seeming luft.) Mr. Warburton concurr’d with me its observing, that fummer-feeming has no manner of sense: We there, fore both corrected conjecturally,

Tban fummer-teeming luf.
j. e, the pallion, which lakts no longer than the beat of life, and which
goes off in the winter of age. Besides, the metaphor is much more
juft by our emendation; for fummer is the seafon in which weeds get-
strength, grow rank, and dilate themselves..
. Henry VI,

Now 'tis the spring;
And weeds are shallow-rooted; suffer them now,

And they'll o'ergrow the garden.
The same image our author in another passage conveys by an equi-
Talent epithet, summer-swelling.
2. Gent. of Ver

Disdain to root the summer-swelling flow'rg
And make rough winter everlastingly

Mal,