He's here in double trust:
First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,
Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,
Who should against the murderer shut the door,
Not bear the knife myself.
Confusion now hath made his master-piece!
Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope
The Lord's anointed temple, and stole thence
The life o' the building.
O, what fall was there, my countrymen !
Then I, and you, and all of us fell down,
Whilst bloody treason flourished over us.
Yea, from the table of my memory
I'll wipe away all trivial fond records,
All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past,
That youth and observation copied there;
And thy commandment all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain,
Unmix'd with baser matter:
O, it comes o'er my memory,
As doth the raven o'er the infected house,
Boding to all.
Thus hath the course of justice wheel'd about,
And left thee but a very prey to time;
Having no more but thought of what thou wert,
To torture thee the more, being what thou art.
Malcolm. Dispute it like a man.
Macduff.
But I must also feel it as a man :
I cannot but remember such things were,
That were most precious to me.
Who by repentance is not satisfied,
Is nor of heaven, nor earth.
They say, best men are moulded out of faults;
And, for the most, become much more the better
For being a little bad: so may my husband.
Be a sufficient ransom for offence,
I tender it here; I do as truly suffer,
As e'er I did commit.
Never came reformation in a flood,
With such a heady current, scow'ring faults:
Nor never Hydra-headed wilfulness
So soon did lose his seat, and fall at once,
As in this king.
Let me tell the world,
If he out-live the envy of this day,
England did never owe so sweet a hope,
So much misconstrued in his wantonness.
To tell
you what I was, since my conversion
So sweetly tastes, being the thing I am.
I survive,
To mock the expectation of the world;
To frustrate prophecies; and to raze out
Rotten opinion, who hath writ me down
After my seeming.
Like bright metal on a sullen ground,
My reformation, glittering o'er my fault,
Shall shew more goodly, and attract more eyes,
Than that which hath no foil to set it off.
The prince will, in the perfectness of time,
Cast off his followers: and their memory
Shall as a pattern or a measure live,
By which his grace must mete the lives of others;
Turning past evils to advantages.
What is done cannot be now amended:
Men shall deal unadvisedly sometimes,
Which after-hours give leisure to repent;
Yet time serves, wherein you may redeem Your banish'd honours, and restore yourselves Into the good thoughts of the world again.
When thou dost hear I am as I have been,
Approach me, and thou shalt be as thou wast,
The tutor and the feeder of
my riots,
Till then, I banish thee.
Reply not to me with a fool-born jest ;
Presume not, that I am the thing I was:
For heaven doth know, so shall the world perceive,
That I have turn'd away my former self;
So will I those that kept me company.
O wretched state! O bosom, black as death!
O limed soul; that struggling to be free,
Art more engag'd! Help, angels, make assay
Bow, stubborn knees! and, heart, with strings of steel, Be soft as sinews of the new-born-babe.
The purest treasure mortal times afford,
Is spotless reputation; that away,
Men are but gilded loam, or painted clay.
Good name, in man, and woman, dear my
Is the immediate jewel of their souls :
Who steals my purse, steals trash, 'tis something, no
'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he, that filches from me my good name,
Robs me of that, which not enriches him,
But makes me poor indeed.
Myself I throw, dread Sovereign, at thy feet :
My life thou shalt command, but not my shame ;
The one my duty owes ; but my fair name,
(Despight of death, that lives upon my grave,)
To dark dishonour's use thou shalt not have,
My name, that was as fresh As Dian's visage, is now begrim'd and black.
Be stirring as the time; be fire with fire;
Threaten the threat'ner, and out-face the brow
Of bragging horrour: so shall inferior eyes,
That borrow their behaviours from the great,
Grow great by your example, and put on
The dauntless spirit of resolution.
Do not, for one repulse, forego the purpose
That
you resolv'd to effect.
Bring me no more reports; let them fly all.
Till Birnam wood remove to Dunsinane,
I cannot taint with fear.
Ring alarum bell: Blow, wind! come, wrack!
At least we'll die with harness on our back.
I'll fight, till from my bones the flesh he hack'd.-
Give me my armour.
Let them pull all about mine ears; present me
Death on the wheel, or at wild horses' heels;
Or pile ten hills on the Tarpeian rock,
That the precipitation might down stretch
Below the beam of sight, yet will I still
Be thus to them.
Hang out our banners; on the outward walls
The cry is still, They come: Our castle's strength
Will laugh a siege to scorn: here let them lie,
Till famine, and the ague, eat them up:
Were they not forc'd with those that should be ours, We might have met them dareful, beard to beard, And beat them backward home.
To kiss the ground before young Malcolm's feet,
And to be baited with the rabble's curse.
Though Birnam wood be come to Dunsinane,
And thou oppos'd, being of no woman born,
Yet will I try the last: Before my body
I throw my warlike shield: lay on, Macduff;
And damn'd be him that first cries, Hold, enough.
Now, my co-mates, and brothers in exile,
Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
More free from peril than the envious court?
How use doth breed a habit in a man !
This shadowy desert, unfrequented woods,
I better brook than flourishing peopled towns:
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