MALCOLM 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. (4.3.40-50)
Even in exile, Malcolm vividly evokes Scotland’s suffering. I think our country sinks beneath the yoke, oppressed and bowed down, cowed by tyranny. As if the people were one body with the land itself, it weeps, it bleeds, and each new day a gash is added to her wounds. There’s a sense of sadism here, the already suffering body tormented again and again, the gash a violation but also, somehow, more casual, less intentional than a stab or a blow. A tearing apart of the body politic, its life blood ebbing away. But yet, I think withal there would be hands uplifted in my right: at the same time I know that people would come out in support of me, and not least here from gracious England, where I have an offer of goodly thousands, from the king himself. I could count on an army of English, as well as an uprising in my favour at home in Scotland, rallying to my cause, were I to invade.
Malcolm’s got another twist to come, though, a further strange test for Macduff; he doesn’t trust him yet, it seems. But for all this, when I shall tread upon the tyrant’s head, or wear it on my sword—this sounds reasonable, the imagining of ultimate victory, the defeat and death of Macbeth—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. What? So, the defeat and deposition of Macbeth is only going to allow someone even worse to seize the crown, more vicious and immoral, and in more varied ways, even than Macbeth? What on earth is Malcolm going on about, and what’s he playing at?
