Was this upon myself: What I am truly,
Is thine, and my poor country's to command.

AN OPPRESSED COUNTRY.

Alas, poor country;

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; [air,
Where sighs, and groans, and shrieks that rent the
Are made, not mark'd: where violent sorrow seems
A modern ecstasy *: 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.

MACDUFF'S BEHAVIOUR ON THE MURDER OF HIS WIFE
AND CHILDREN.

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.

What concern they?

Macd.
The general cause? or is it a fee-grieft,
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.

Macd.

If it be mine,

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 surpris'd; your wife and babes Savagely slaughter'd: to relate the manner,

Were, on the quarry § of these murder'd deer,
To add the death of you.

Mal.

Merciful heaven!

† Catch.

*Common distress of mind.
A grief that has a single owner.
The game after it is killed.

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.

That could be found.
Macd.

My wife killed too?

Rosse.

Mal.

Wife, children, servants, all

And I must be from thence!

I have said.

Be comforted:

Let's make us med'cines 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.

I shall do so;

But I must also feel it as a man:

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!

This tune goes manly.

Mal.
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
The night is long, that never finds the day.

* All pause.

[may;

ACT V.

SCENE. Enter Lady MACBETH, with a Taper.

Gent. Lo you, here she comes! This is her very guise; and, upon my life, fast asleep. Observe her; stand close.

Doct. How came she by that light?

Gent. Why, it stood by her: she has light by her continually; 'tis her command.

Doct. You see, her eyes are open.

Gent. Ay, but their sense is shut.

Doct. What is it she does now? Look, how she rubs her hands.

Gent. It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thus washing her hands; I have known her continue in this a quarter of an hour.

Lady M. Yet here's a spot.

Doct. Hark, she speaks: I will set down what comes from her, to satisfy my remembrance the more strongly.

Lady M. Out, damned spot! out, I say!-One; Two; Why, then 'tis time to do't:-Hell is murky *!

* Dark.

-Fie, my lord, fie! a soldier, and afear'd? What need we fear, who knows it, when none can call our power to account?-Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?

Doct. Do you mark that?

Lady M. The thane of Fife had a wife; where is she now?What, will these hands ne'er be clean? -No more o' that, my lord, no more o'that: you mar all with this starting.

Doct. Go to, go to; you have known what you should not.

Gent. She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of that: Heaven knows what she has known.

Lady M. Here's the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh! oh! oh!

Doct. What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely charged.

Gent. I would not have such a heart in my bosom, for the dignity of the whole body.

Doct. Well, well, well.—

Gent. 'Pray God, it be, sir.

Doct. This disease is beyond my practice: Yet I have known those which have walked in their sleep, who have died holily in their beds.

Lady M. Wash your hands, put on your nightgown; look not so pale:-I tell you yet again, Banquo's buried; he cannot come out of his grave. Doct. Even so?

Lady M. To bed, to bed; there's knocking at the gate. Come, come, come, come, give me your hand; What's done, cannot be undone: To bed, to bed, to bed.

DESPISED OLD AGE.

I have liv'd long enough: my way of life
Is fall'n into the sear*, the yellow leaf:
And that which should accompany old age,
As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,

* Dry. E E

I must not look to have; but, in their stead,
Curses, not loud, but deep, mouth-honour, breath,
Which the poor heart would fain deny, but dare not.

DISEASES OF THE MIND INCURABLE.

Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas'd;
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow;
Raze out the written troubles of the brain;
And, with some sweet oblivious antidote,
Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff,
Which weighs upon the heart?

REFLECTIONS ON LIFE.

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.

Othello.

ACT I.

PREFERMENT.

"TIs the curse of service;

Preferment goes by letter, and affection,
Not by the old gradation, where each second
Stood heir to the first.

IAGO'S DISPRAISE OF HONESTY.

We cannot all be masters, nor all masters Cannot be truly follow'd. You shall mark