Page:Macbeth (1918) Yale.djvu/86

74

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?

Ross. Wife, children, servants, all

That could be found.

Macd. And I must be from thence!

My wife kill'd too?

Ross. I have said.

Mal. 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. 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 heavens,

Cut short all intermission; front to front

 210 o'er-fraught: overladen

218 dam: mother

219 Dispute it; cf. n.

224 Naught: worthless

228 Convert: change

231 intermission: delay

