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.

you!

I dare abide no longer.

L. Macd.

I have done no harm.

Heaven preserve

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,

Το

say, I have done no harm?

faces?

Enter Murderers.

Mur. Where is your husband?

-What are these

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

Mur.

He's a traitor.

Son. Thou ly'st, thou shag-ear'd' villain.

Mur.

What, you egg! [Stabbing him.

Young fry of treachery!

Son.

Run away, I

pray you.

He has killed me, mother;

[Dies. [Exit LADY MACDUFF, crying murder, and pursued by the Murderers.

7' Shag-ear'd villain.' It has been suggested that we should read shag-hair'd, an abusive epithet frequent in our old plays. Hair being formerly spelt heare, the corruption would easily arise. In Lodge's Incarnate Devils of this Age, 1596, 4to. p. 37, we have it thus: shag-heard slave,'

SCENE III.

England. A Room in the King's Palace.

Enter MALCOLM and MACDUFF1.

Mal. Let us seek out some desolate shade, and

there

Weep our sad bosoms empty.

Let us rather

Macd.
Hold fast the mortal sword; and, like good men,
Bestride our downfall'n birthdom 2: 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 yell'd out
Like syllable 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 3, 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 lov'd him well;
He hath not touch'd you yet. I am young; but
something

You may deserve of him through me; and wisdom

1 This scene is almost literally taken from Holinshed's Chronicle, which is in this part an abridgment of the chronicle of Hector Boece, as translated by John Bellenden.. From the recent reprints of both the Scottish and English chroniclers, quotations from them become the less necessary; they are now accessible to the reader curious in tracing the poet to his sources of information.

2 Birthdom, for the place of our birth, our native land. Thus in the Second Part of King Henry IV. Morton says:—

3 i. e. befriend.

he doth bestride a bleeding land.'

4 You may deserve of him through me.' The old copy reads discerne. The emendation was made by Theobald. In the subsequent part of the line something is wanted to complete the

To offer up a weak, poor, innocent lamb,
To appease an angry god.

Macd. I am not treacherous.

Mal.

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 soo.

Macd.

I have lost my hopes. Mal. 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.

Macd.

Bleed, bleed, poor country!

Great tyranny, lay thou thy basis sure,

Steevens

sense. There is no verb to which wisdom can refer. conjectured that the line might originally have run thus :

5

You may deserve through me; and wisdom is it

To offer,' &c.

'A good and virtuous nature may recoil

In an imperial charge.'

A good mind may recede from goodness in the execution of a royal commission.

6 This is not very clear. Johnson has thus attempted to explain it My suspicions cannot injure you, if you be virtuous, by supposing that a traitor may put on your virtuous appearance. I do not say that your virtuous appearance proves you a traitor; for virtue must wear its proper form, though that form be counterfeited by villany.' An expression of a similar nature occurs in Measure for Measure:

For goodness dares not check thee !-wear thou thy

wrongs;

The title is affeer'd7!-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.

Mal.

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.

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 seem as pure as snow; and the
poor state
Esteem him as a lamb, being compar'd

With my confineless harms 8.

7 To affeer is a law term, signifying to assess or reduce to certainty. The meaning therefore may be :

'The title is confirmed to the usurper.'

My interpretation of the passage is this: Bleed, bleed, poor country! Great Tyranny, lay thou thy basis sure, for goodness dares not check thee!' Then, addressing Malcolm, Macduff says, 'Wear thou thy wrongs,-the title to thy crown is now confirmed—' to the usurper he would probably have added, but that he interrupts himself with angry impatience, at being suspected of traitorous double dealing.

8 i. e. immeasurable evils. Thus in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act ii. Sc. 2, we have :

Macd.

Not in the legions

Of horrid hell, can come a devil more damn'd

In evils, to top Macbeth.

Mal.
I grant him bloody,
Luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful,

Sudden 10, 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 a one to reign.

Macd.

Boundless intemperance
In nature is a tyranny; it hath been
The 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 hood-wink.
We have willing dames enough; there cannot be
That vulture in you, to devour so many

As will to greatness dedicate themselves,
Finding it so inclin'd.

Mal.
With this, there grows,
In my most ill compos'd affection, such
A staunchless 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

9 Luxurious, lascivious.

10. Sudden, passionate.