Enter Ross

MACDUFF      See who comes here.

MALCOLM      My countryman, but yet I know him not.

MACDUFF      My ever-gentle cousin, welcome hither.

MALCOLM      I know him now. Good God, betimes remove

The means that makes us strangers!

ROSS               Sir, amen.

MACDUFF      Stands Scotland where it did?

ROSS               Alas, poor country,

Almost afraid to know itself.            (4.3.160-166)

Enter Ross. Is he going to be the one who breaks the terrible news to Macduff? It won’t be clear for a while, but Macduff’s pleased? surprised? to see him: see who comes here, look who it is! My countryman, replies Malcolm—so, clearly there’s something distinctive about the dress of the Scottish thanes? but yet I know him not. I don’t recognise him yet. Malcolm could be reverting to his default position of suspicion whenever he encounters someone from Scotland, so he’s wary, not yet knowing who this is—or it could simply be that Ross is cloaked and hooded, just arrived, still in his travelling clothes. Macduff’s sure, though and yes, pleased to see him: my ever-gentle cousin, welcome hither. Ross, one of the play’s good guys? probably, although there’s some scope for making him a weak dupe, or Macbeth’s smiling, double-dealing agent. That can seem a stretch, though, especially in this scene; what matters is that Ross and Macduff are close, perhaps related. I know him now, says Malcolm! And his prayer is a plea for the swift removal of all need for suspicion and mistrust, and the necessity for exile too, the situation in Scotland: Good God, betimes remove the means that makes us strangers! (Or, in practical terms, he could simply be telling Ross to take off a hat, or lower his hood, remove his cloak, so that his face can be properly seen.) No need for formalities here. Sir, Amen to that, Ross replies; they’re all friends, all Scottish patriots, together. The priority, therefore, is news: what’s been going on? What’s the latest? Stands Scotland where it did? Is there any change in the situation at home, whether for good or ill? Ross seizes on the general nature of the enquiry, perhaps with some relief: Alas, poor country, almost afraid to know itself. A sense of alienation, rupture, a land estranged from its own nature, frightened and lost, and unable to recognise in its current state the place and the nation it once was.