Hanging a golden stamp about their necks,
Put on with holy prayers: and 't is spoken,
To the succeeding royalty he leaves

The healing benediction. With this strange virtue,
He hath a heavenly gift of prophecy;

And sundry blessings hang about his throne,

That speak him full of grace.

Macd.

Enter ROSSE.

See, who comes here?

Mal. My countryman; but yet I know him not. Macd. My ever-gentle cousin, welcome hither. Mal. I know him now: Good God, betimes remove The means that inake 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.

Too nice, and yet too true!

O, relation,

Mal. What's the newest grief?

Rosse. That of an hour's age doth hiss 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 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 tidings,
Which I have heavily borne, there ran a rumour
Of many worthy fellows that were out;
Which was to my belief witness'd the rather,
For that I saw the tyrant's power a-foot :
Now is the time of help; your eye in Scotland
Would create soldiers, make our women fight
To doff their dire distresses.

Mal.
Be 't their comfort,
We are coming thither: gracious England hath
Lent us good Siward, and ten thousand men ;
An older, and a better soldier, none

That Christendom gives out.

Rosse.

'Would I could answer

This comfort with the like! But I have words
That would be howl'd out in the desert air,
Where hearing should not latch them.a

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 surpris'd; your wife, and

babes,

a Latch them-lay hold of them.

Savagely slaughter'd: to relate the manner,
Were, on the quarry of these murder'd deer,
To add the death of you.

Merciful heaven!—

Mal.
What, man! ne'er pull your hat upon your brows;
Give sorrow words: the grief that does not speak
Whispers the o'erfraught heart, and bids it break.
Macd. My children too?

Rosse. Wife, children, servants, all that could be

found.

Macd. And I must be from thence! My wife kill'd

Rosse.

Mal.

too?

I have said.

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 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.

I shall do so;

But I must also feel it as a man:

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 heavens, Cut short all intermission; front to front, Bring thou this fiend of Scotland, and myself; Within my sword's length set him; if he 'scape, Heaven forgive him too!

Mal.

a

This time goes manly.
Come, go we to the king; our power is ready;
Our lack is nothing but our leave: Macbeth
Is ripe for shaking, and the powers above
Put on their instruments.

may;

Receive what cheer you

The night is long that never finds the day.

[Exeunt.

A Time.-Rowe changed this to tune. Gifford has shown, in a note on Massinger, that the two words were once synonymous in a musical acceptation; and that time was the more ancient and common term.

ACT V.

SCENE I.-Dunsinane. A Room in the Castle. Enter a Doctor of Physic, and a waiting Gentlewoman.

Doct. I have two nights watched with you, but can perceive no truth in your report. When was it she last walked?

Gent. Since his majesty went into the field, I have seen her rise from her bed, throw her nightgown upon her, unlock her closet, take forth paper, fold it, write upon 't, read it, afterwards seal it, and again return to bed; yet all this while in a most fast sleep.

Doct. A great perturbation in nature! to receive at once the benefit of sleep, and do the effects of watching. In this slumbery agitation, besides her walking and other actual performances, what, at any time, have you heard her say?

Gent. That, sir, which I will not report after her. Doct. You may, to me; and 't is most meet you should.

Gent. Neither to you, nor any one; having no witness to confirm my speech.

Enter LADY MACBETH, with a taper.

Lo you, here she comes! This is her very guise; and, upon my life, fast asleep. Observe her: stand close. Doct. How came she by that light?

Gent. Why, it stood by her: she has light by her continually; 't is her command.

Doct. You see, her eyes are open.

Gent. Ay, but their sense is shut.

Doct. What is it she does now? Look how she rubs her hands.