MALCOLM      What’s the newest grief?

ROSS   That of an hour’s age doth hiss the speaker;

Each minute teems a new one.

MACDUFF      How does my wife?

ROSS                           Why, well.

MACDUFF      And all my children?

ROSS                           Well too.

MACDUFF      The tyrant has not battered at their peace?

ROSS   No, they were well at peace when I did leave ’em.

MACDUFF      Be not a niggard of your speech. How goes’t?

ROSS   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 witnessed the rather

For that I saw the tyrant’s power afoot.

Now is the time of help.                    (4.3.175-187)

 

Ross is steeling himself but it’s taking a while. What’s the newest grief? asks Malcolm. Effectively he’s asking, what’s the latest? but his phrasing makes it sound a much less callous (or brutally pragmatic) enquiry, and reinforces that there can be no good news from Scotland, only bad and worse, worse all the time: what was news an hour ago, of an hour’s age, doth hiss the speaker, as if to say, that’s old news now, it’s been supplanted by the latest, which is worse. Each minute teems a new one, a new grief (and to teem is to give birth, to breed; Ross can’t stay away from the language of families, babies, mothers and children).

 

Has Macduff perhaps already clocked that there’s something Ross isn’t saying? Or is he now judging that it’s appropriate for him to make a personal enquiry, now that Ross has given an initial and more general report? How does my wife? The tension has to spike, not least in the audience; like Ross, we know what’s coming. And Ross can’t do it, defaulting to brief, evasive ambiguities. Why, well. And all my children? (All.) Well too. Macduff can’t quite believe it; he feared something worse: the tyrant has not battered at their peace? battered is horrible here, blunt, repeated, brutal violence, and a castle sacked, peace destroyed like a door, a wall, a home, a family. Again Ross bottles it, falling back on a quibble: no, they were well at peace when I did leave ’em. To be dead is to be at peace, and Macduff surely knows that something’s up: be not a niggard of your speech, stop mincing words, being so short, being so miserly with what you have to say. Spit it out. How goes’t? How are they? and also, what’s going on?

 

Ross still can’t do it, although he admits that he is the bringer of more (as yet untold) bad news—so he changes the subject. When I came hither to transport the tidings which I have heavily borne, there ran a rumour of many worthy fellows that were out. He’s surely looking at Malcolm, not making eye-contact with Macduff. There’s talk of an uprising, a rebellion against Macbeth, led by good men. And I saw evidence of this with my own eyes, albeit indirectly, because it was to my belief witnessed by the fact that I saw the tyrant’s power afoot. I didn’t see the rebels myself, only heard of them, but what I did see was Macbeth’s own supporters mobilised (or at least those who would fight for him, whether willingly or not—a brief recollection of Macbeth’s manipulation of the pathetic, downtrodden murderers). Macbeth’s running scared, he wouldn’t have troops out if he didn’t believe he was facing real opposition. Now is the time of help. Now’s the time to act, to return to Scotland, build on this momentum, end this thing.