SCENE III. England. Before the King’s Palace.

      [Enter Malcolm and Macduff.]

       MALCOLM.

       Let us seek out some desolate shade and there

       Weep our sad bosoms empty.

       MACDUFF.

       Let us rather

       Hold fast the mortal sword, and, like good men,

       Bestride our downfall’n birthdom: each new morn

       New widows howl; new orphans cry; new sorrows

       Strike heaven on the face, that it resounds

       As if it felt with Scotland, and yell’d out

       Like syllable of dolour.

       MALCOLM.

       What I believe, I’ll wail;

       What know, believe; and what I can redress,

       As I shall find the time to friend, I will.

       What you have spoke, it may be so perchance.

       This tyrant, whose sole name blisters our tongues,

       Was once thought honest: you have loved him well;

       He hath not touch’d you yet. I am young; but something

       You may deserve of him through me; and wisdom

       To offer up a weak, poor, innocent lamb

       To appease an angry god.

       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 must still look so.

       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 dishonors,

       But mine own safeties:—you may be rightly just,

       Whatever I shall think.

       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 affeer’d.—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.

       Be not offended:

       I speak not as in absolute fear of you.

       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.

       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 open’d, black Macbeth

       Will seem as pure as snow; and the poor state

       Esteem him as a lamb, being compar’d

       With my confineless harms.

       MACDUFF.

       Not in the legions

       Of horrid hell can come a devil more damn’d

       In evils to top Macbeth.

       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 oppose my will: better Macbeth

       Than such an one to reign.

       MACDUFF.

       Boundless intemperance

       In nature is a tyranny; it hath been

       The 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 dames enough; there cannot be

       That vulture in you, to devour so many

       As will to greatness dedicate themselves,

       Finding it so inclin’d.

       MALCOLM.

       With this there grows,

       In my most ill-compos’d affection, such

       A stanchless 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