Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear And take the prefent horror from the time, Which now fuits with it.-Whilft I threat, he lives I go, and it is done; the bell invites me. Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell SEE MAL. My countryman; but yet I know him not. MACD. My ever-gentle coufin, welcome hither. MAL. I know him now. Good God, betimes remove The means that makes us ftrangers! Rosse. Sir, Amen. MACD. Stands Scotland where it did? ROSSE. Alas, poor country, Almoft afraid to know itfelf. It cannot Be call'd our mother, but our grave; where nothing, Is there scarce afk'd, for whom and good men's lives Dying or e'er they ficken. MACD. Oh, relation Too nice, and yet too true! MAL. What's the newest grief? 6 Rossi. ROSSE. That of an hour's age doth hifs 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? ROSSE. No; they were at peace when I did leave 'em. Now is the time of help; your eye in Scotland MAL. Be't their comfort We're 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 gen'ral caufe? or is it a free-grief, Due to fome fingle breaft. ROSSE. No mind that's honest, But in it shares fome woe; though the main part Pertains to you alone. Cc 4 MACD. MACD. If it be mine, Keep it not from me, quickly let me have it. ROSSE. Let not your ears defpife my tongue for ever, Which shall poffefs them with the heaviest sound, That ever yet they heard. MACD. Hum! I guess at it. Rosse. Your castle is furpris'd, your wife and babes Were on the quarry of these murther'd deer MAL. Merciful Heaven! What, man! ne'er pull your hat upon your brows, MACD. My children too! ROSSE. Wife, children, fervants, all that could be found. MAL. Be comforted. 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 fay, all? what all? oh, hell-kite! al? MAL. Endure it like a man. MACD. I fhall do fo; But I muft alfo feel it as a man. I cannot but remember fuch things were, That were most precious to me. Did Heav'n look on, And would not take their part? Sinful Macduff, Fell flaughter on their fouls. Heav'n reft them now! MAL. MAL. Be this the whet ftone of your fword, 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; MAL. This tune goes manly. Come, go we to the King, our power is ready; Macbeth Is ripe for fhaking, and the powers above Put on their inftruments. Receive what cheer you may; The night is long that never finds the day. SHAKESPEAR. CHA P. XXIV. ANTONY'S SOLILOQUY OVER CESAR'S BODY. PARDON me, thou bleeding piece of earth! Thou art the ruins of the noblest man That ever lived in the tide of times. Woe to the hand that shed this coftly blood! (Which, like dumb mouths, do ope their ruby lips, That That mothers fhall but fmile, when they behold SHAKESPEAR. CHA P. XXV. ANTONY's FUNERAL ORATION OVER CESAR'S BODY. 'RIENDS, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears, FRIEN I come to bury Cæfar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them ; And Brutus is an honourable man. He hath brought many captives home to Rome, When that the poor have cry'd, Cæfar hath wept ; Ambition |