MACDUFF      O Scotland, Scotland! MALCOLM      If such a one be fit to govern, speak. I am as I have spoken. MACDUFF      Fit to govern? No, not to live. O nation miserable! With an untitled tyrant, bloody-sceptred, When shalt thou see thy wholesome days again, Since that the truest issue of thy throne By his own […]

MACDUFF      This avarice Sticks deeper, grows with more pernicious root Than summer-seeming lust; and it hath been The sword of our slain kings. Yet do not fear. Scotland hath foisons to fill up your will Of your mere own. All these are portable, With other graces weighed. MALCOLM      But I have none. The king-becoming graces, […]

MALCOLM      With this, there grows In my most ill-composed affection, such A staunchless avarice, that were I king I should cut off the nobles for their lands, Desire his jewels and this other’s house, And my more-having would be as a sauce To make me hunger more, that I should forge Quarrels unjust against the […]

MACDUFF      Boundless intemperance In nature is a tyranny; it hath been Th’untimely emptying of the happy throne And fall of many kings. But fear not yet To take upon you what is yours. You may Convey your pleasures in a spacious plenty, And yet seem cold. The time you may so hoodwink. We have willing […]

MALCOLM      I grant him bloody, Luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful, Sudden, malicious, smacking of every sin That has a name; but there’s no bottom, none, In my voluptuousness. Your wives, your daughters, Your matrons, and your maids, could not fill up The cistern of my lust, and my desire All continent impediments would o’erbear That did […]

MACDUFF       What should he be? MALCOLM      It is myself I mean, in whom I know All the particulars of vice so grafted That, when they shall be opened, black Macbeth Will seem as pure as snow, and the poor state Esteem him as a lamb, being compared With my confineless harms. MACDUFF       Not in the […]

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 […]

MACDUFF      Bleed, bleed poor country! Great tyranny, lay thou thy basis sure, For goodness dare not check thee; wear thou thy wrongs, The title is affeered. Fare thee well, lord. I would not be the villain that thou think’st For the whole space that’s in the tyrant’s grasp, And the rich East to boot. MALCOLM      […]

MACDUFF      I have lost my hopes. MALCOLM      Perchance even there where I did find my doubts. Why in that rawness left you wife and child, Those precious motives, those strong knots of love, Without leave-taking? I pray you, Let not my jealousies be your dishonours, But mine own safeties. You may be rightly just, Whatever […]

MACDUFF      I am not treacherous. MALCOLM      But Macbeth is. A good and virtuous nature may recoil In an imperial charge. But I shall crave your pardon: That which you are, my thoughts cannot transpose. Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell. Though all things foul would wear the brows of grace, Yet grace […]