Himself best knows: but strangely-visited people,
All swoln and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye,

The mere despair of surgery, he cures ;
Hanging a golden stamp about their necks,
Put on with holy prayers: and 'tis spoken,
To the succeeding royalty he leaves

The healing benediction. With this strange virtue,
He hath a heavenly gift of prophecy;

And sundry blessings hang about his throne,

That speak him full of grace.

Macd.

Enter ROSSE.

See, who comes here?

Mal. My countryman; but yet I know him not ", Macd. My ever-gentle cousin, welcome hither. Mal. I know him now: Good God, betimes

remove

The means that make us strangers!

Rosse.

Sir, Amen.

Alas, poor country;

Macd. Stands Scotland where it did?
Rosse.

Almost afraid to know itself! It cannot

Be call'd our mother, but our grave: where nothing,
But who knows nothing, is once seen to smile;
Where sighs, and groans, and shrieks that rent the air,
Are made, not mark'd; where violent sorrow seems
A modern ecstacy 55 the dead man's knell

Is there scarce ask'd, for who; and good men's lives
Expire before the flowers in their caps,
Dying, or ere they sicken.

Macd.

O, relation,

What is the newest grief?

Too nice, and yet too true!

Mal.

Rosse. That of an hour's age doth hiss the speaker;

Each minute teems a new one.

Macd. The tyrant has not batter'd at their peace? Rosse. No; they were well at peace, when I did leave them.

Macd. Be not a niggard of your speech; How goes it?

Rosse. 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 witness'd the rather,
For that I saw the tyrant's power a-foot:
Now is the time of help; your eye in Scotland
Would create soldiers, make our women fight,
To doff their dire distresses.

Mal.

Be it their comfort,

We are coming thither: gracious England hath
Lent us good Siward, and ten thousand men ;

An older, and a better soldier, none

That Christendom gives out.

Rosse.

'Would I could answer

This comfort with the like! But I have words,

That would be howl'd out in the desert air,
Where hearing should not latch them.

Macd.

What concern they?

The general cause? or is it a fee-grief,

Due to some single breast?

Rosse.

No mind, that's honest,

But in it shares some woe; though the main part
Pertains to you alone.

Keep it not from me, quickly let me have it.

Rosse. Let not your ears despise my tongue for

ever,

Which shall possess them with the heaviest sound, That ever yet they heard.

Macd.

Humph! I guess at it.

Rosse. Your castle is surpriz'd; your wife, and

babes,

Savagely slaughter'd: to relate the manner,
Were, on the quarry 56 of these murder'd deer,
To add the death of you.

Mal.

Merciful heaven!

What, man! ne'er pull your hat upon your brows; Give sorrow words: the grief, that does not speak, Whispers the o'er-fraught heart, and bids it break. Macd. My children too?

Rosse.

Mal.

I have said.

Be comforted:

Let's make us medicines of our great revenge,

To cure this deadly grief.

Macd. He has no children.-All my pretty ones?

Did you say, all?- O, hell-kite!—All?

What, all my pretty chickens, and their dam,

At one fell swoop?

Mal. Dispute it like a man.

Macd.

But I must also feel it as a man:

I shall do so;

I cannot but remember such things were,

That were most precious to me.-Did heaven look on, And would not take their part? Sinful Macduff, They were all struck for thee! naught that I am,

Not for their own demerits, but for mine,

Fell slaughter on their souls: Heaven rest them

now!

Mal. Be this the whetstone of your sword: let

grief

Convert to anger; blunt not the heart, enrage it. Macd. O, I could play the woman with mine eyes, And braggart with my tongue!--But, gentle heaven,

Cut short all intermission; front to front,

Bring thou this fiend of Scotland, and myself;
Within my sword's length set him; if he 'scape,
Heaven forgive him too!

Mal.

This tune goes manly.

Come, go we to the king; our power is ready;
Our lack is nothing but our leave: Macbeth

Is ripe for shaking, and the powers above

Put on their instruments. Receive what cheer you

may;

The night is long, that never finds the day. [Exeunt.