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The means that makes us strangers!

Rosse. Sir, Amen,

Macd. Stands Scotland where it did?
Rosse. 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;

Where sighs and groans, and shrieks that rend the air,
Are made not mark'd; where violent sorrow seems
A modern ecstacy; the dead man's knell

Is there scarce ask'd for whom, and good men's lives
Expire before the flowers in their caps;

Dying or e'er they sicken.

Macd. Oh, relation

Too nice, and yet too true!

Mal. What's the newest grief?

Rosse. That of an hour's age doth hiss the speaker, Each minute teems a new one.

Macd. How does my wife?

Rosse. Why, well.

Macd. And all my children?
Rosse. Well too.

Macd. The tyrant has not batter'd at their peace?
Rosse. No; they were at peace when I did leave 'em.
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, and make women fight,
To doff their dire distresses.

Mal. Be't their comfort,

We're coming thither: gracious England hath
Lent us good Siward and ten thousand men
An older, and 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 catch them.
Macd. What concern they?

The gen'ral cause? or is it a free 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,

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. Hum! 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 murther'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. Wife, children, servants, all that could be found.
Macd. And I must be from thence! my wife kill'd too !
Rosse. I've said.

Mal. 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? what all? oh, hell-kite! all?
Mal. Endure 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 Heav'n 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. Heav'n rest them now!
Mal. Be this the whet-stone of your sword, let grief
Convert to wrath; blunt not the heart, enrage it.

Macd. O, I could play the woman with mine eyes, And braggart with my tongue. But gentle Heav'n! 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,
Then Heav'n 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.

0000000

SHAKSPEARE.

CHAP. XXVI.

ANTONY'S SOLILOQUY OVER CÆSAR'S BODY.

O PARDON me, thou bleeding piece of earth! That I am meek and gentle with these butchers. Thou art the ruins of the noblest man

That ever lived in the tide of times.

Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood!
Over thy wounds now do I prophesy,

(Which, like dumb mouths, do ope their ruby lips,
To beg the voice and utterance of my tongue)

A curse shall light upon the line of men ;
Domestic fury, and fierce civil strife,
Shall cumber all the parts of Italy;
Blood and destruction shall be so in use,
And dreadful objects so familiar,

That mothers shall but smile, when they behold
Their infants quarter'd by the hands of war;
All pity choak'd with custom of fell deeds;
And Cæsar's spirit, ranging for revenge,
With Ate by his side come hot from hell
Shall in these confines, with a monarch's voice,
Cry, Havock, and let slip the dogs of war.

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Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your earsy I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.

The evil that men do lives after them;

The good is often interred with their bones;
So let it be with Cæsar! Noble Brutus
Hath told you, Caesar was ambitious;
If it were so, it was a grievous fault;
And grievously hath Cæsar answer'd it.
Here, under leave of Brutus, and the rest,
For Brutus is an honourable man,
So are they all, all honourable men)
Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me
But Brutus says, he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man,

He hath brought many captives home to Rome,
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill;.
Did this in Cæsar seem ambitious?

When that the poor have cry'd, Caesar hath wept;
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.

Yet Brutus says, he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see, that on the Lupercal,
I thrice presented him a kingly crown;

Which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says, ye was ambitious ;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause.
What cause with-holds you then to mourn for him!
O judgement! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.-Bear with me.-
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I nest pause till it come back to me.

If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.
You all do know this mantle: I remember,
The first time ever Caesar put it on,
"Twas on a summer's evening in his tent,
That day he overcame the Nervii-

Look! In this place ran Cassius' dagger through ;-
See what a rent the envious Casca made.-
Through this the well-beloved Btutus stabb'd;
And as he pluck'd his cursed steel away,
Mark how the blood of Cæsar follow'd it!
As rushing out of doors, to be resolved
If Brutus so unkindly knock'd, or no :
For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar's angel.
Judge, oh ye gods! how dearly Caesar lov'd him;
This, this was the unkindest cut of all;
For when the noble Cæsar saw him stab,
Ingratitude, more strong than traitors' arms,

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