Though in your state of honour I am perfect.

I doubt some 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 savage,

To do worse to you were fell cruelty,

Which is too nigh your person. Heaven preserve you.

I dare abide no longer.

Exit Messenger

LADY MACDUFF

Whither should I fly?

I have done no harm. But I remember now

I am in this earthly world, where to do harm

Is often laudable, to do good sometime

Accounted dangerous folly. Why then, alas,

Do I put up that womanly defence

To say I have done no harm?

Enter Murderers

What are these faces?

A MURDERER Where is your husband?

LADY MACDUFF

I hope in no place so unsanctified

Where such as thou mayst find him.

A MURDERER

He’s a traitor.

MACDUFF’S SON

Thou liest, thou shag-haired villain.

A MURDERER (stabbing him)

What, you egg!

Young fry of treachery!

MACDUFF’S SON

He has killed me, mother.

Run away, I pray you.

⌈He dies.⌉ Exit Macduff’s Wife crying ‘Murder!’

followed by Murderers ⌈with the Son’s body⌉

4.3 Enter Malcolm and Macduff

MALCOLM

Let us seek out some desolate shade, and there

Weep our sad bosoms empty.

MACDUFF

Let us rather

Hold fast the mortal sword, and like good men

Bestride our downfall birthdom. Each new morn

New widows howl, new orphans cry, new sorrows

Strike heaven on the face that it resounds

As if it felt with Scotland and yelled out

Like syllable of dolour.

MALCOLM

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 sole name blisters our tongues,

Was once thought honest. You have loved him well.

He hath not touched you yet. I am young, but

something

You may discern of him through me: and wisdom

To offer up a weak poor innocent lamb

T’appease an angry god.

MACDUFF I am not treacherous.

MALCOLM But Macbeth is.

A good and virtuous nature may recoil

In an imperial charge. But I shall crave your pardon.

That which you are my thoughts cannot transpose.

Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell.

Though all things foul would wear the brows of grace,

Yet grace must still look so.

MACDUFF

I have lost my hopes.

MALCOLM

Perchance even there where I did find my doubts.

Why in that rawness left you wife and child,

Those 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.

MACDUFF

Bleed, bleed, poor country!

Great tyranny, lay thou thy basis sure,

For goodness dare not check thee. Wear thou thy

wrongs;

The title is affeered. 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.

MALCOLM

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

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.

MACDUFF

What should he be?

MALCOLM

It is myself I mean, in whom I know

All the particulars of vice so grafted

That when they shall be opened black Macbeth

Will seem as pure as snow, and the poor state

Esteem him as a lamb, being compared

With my confineless harms.

MACDUFF

Not in the legions

Of horrid hell can come a devil more damned

In evils to top Macbeth.

MALCOLM

I grant him bloody,

Luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful,

Sudden, 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’erbear

That did oppose my will. Better Macbeth

Than such an one to reign.

MACDUFF

Boundless intemperance

In nature is a tyranny. It hath been

Th’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 hoodwink.

We have willing dames enough. There cannot be

That vulture in you to devour so many