Doct. Ay, sir: there are a crew of wretched souls, Such sanctity hath heaven given his hand, Mal. I thank you, doctor. [Exit Doctor. 'Tis call'd the evil: Macd. What's the disease he means? A most miraculous work in this good king; The healing benediction. With this strange virtue, And sundry blessings hang about his throne, Mal. My countryman; but yet I know him not. Macd. My ever-gentle cousin, welcome hither. Mal. I know him now: Good God, betimes re move 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 the air, Are made, not mark'd; where violent sorrow seems A modern ecstacy: the dead man's knell Is there scarce ask'd, for who; and good men's lives Expire before the flowers in their caps, Dying, or ere they sicken. Macd. O, relation, What is the newest grief? Too nice, and yet too true! Mal. Rosse. 'That of an hour's age doth hiss the speaker; Each minute teems a new one. Macd. The tyrant has not batter'd at their peace? Rossc. No; they were well at peace, when I did leave them. Macd. Be not a niggard of your speech; How goes it? Rosse. When I came hither to transport the Which I have heavily borne, there ran a rumour Would create soldiers, make our women fight, To doff their dire distresses. Mal. Be it their comfort, We are coming thither: gracious England hath That Christendom gives out. Rosse. 'Would I could answer This comfort with the like! But I have words, Macd. What concern they? The general cause? or is it a fee-grief, Due to some single breast? 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. Humph! I guess at it. Rosse. Your castle is surpriz'd; your wife, and babes, Savagely slaughter'd: to relate the manner, Mal. Let's make us medicines of our great revenge, 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? Mal. Dispute it like a man. 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 heaven, Cut short all intermission; front to front, Bring thou this fiend of Scotland, and myself; This tune goes manly. Mal. Put on their instruments. Receive what cheer you may; The night is long, that never finds the day. [Exeunt. |