Macbeth — Act 4, Scene 3in modern English, side by side

England. Before the King’s Palace · Malcolm, Macduff, Doctor, Ross

Macduff has arrived at the English court to beg Malcolm, King Duncan's exiled son, to lead an army against Macbeth — but Malcolm, fearing a trap, must first test whether Macduff is secretly Macbeth's agent. Neither man yet knows that Macbeth's hired killers have just slaughtered Macduff's wife and children.

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Enter Malcolm and Macduff

Malcolm

Let us seek out some desolate shade and there

Weep our sad bosoms empty.

Let's find some deserted, shady spot and cry our sad hearts empty there.

Macduff

Let us rather

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

Bestride our down-fall’n birthdom.5

Let's instead keep a firm grip on our deadly swords, and like good men stand over our fallen homeland to defend it.

Each new morn5

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.

Every new morning, new widows howl, new orphans cry, and new sorrows strike heaven in the face until the sky rings as if it felt Scotland's pain and screamed out the same cry of grief.

Malcolm

What I believe, I’ll wail;10

What know, believe;

What I believe, I'll mourn; what I know for certain, I'll believe;

and what I can redress,

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

and what I can put right, I will — whenever time is on my side.

What you have spoke, it may be so, perchance.

What you've said may perhaps be true.

This tyrant, whose sole name blisters our tongues,

Was once thought honest:15

This tyrant, whose mere name blisters our tongues, was once thought honest.

you have loved him well;15

He hath not touch’d you yet.

You loved him well, and he hasn't harmed you yet.

I am young; but something

You may deserve of him through me;

I'm young, but you might earn a reward from him by betraying me

and wisdom

To offer up a weak, poor, innocent lamb

To appease an angry god.

— and it would be shrewd to offer up a weak, poor, innocent lamb to appease an angry god.

Macduff

I am not treacherous.20

I am not treacherous.

Malcolm

But Macbeth is.

A good and virtuous nature may recoil

In an imperial charge.

Even a good and virtuous nature can give way under a king's command.

But I shall crave your pardon.

That which you are, my thoughts cannot transpose.

But I beg your pardon: my suspicions can't change what you actually are.

Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell:25

Angels are still bright, even though the brightest of them fell.

Though all things foul would wear the brows of grace,

Yet grace must still look so.

Even if everything foul tried to wear the face of goodness, goodness would still have to look like itself — so how can I tell them apart?

Macduff

I have lost my hopes.

Then I have lost my hopes.

Malcolm

Perchance even there where I did find my doubts.

Perhaps you lost them in the very place I found my doubts.

Why in that rawness left you wife and child,30

Those precious motives, those strong knots of love,

Without leave-taking?—

Why did you abandon your wife and child — those precious reasons for living, those strong knots of love — so abruptly, without even saying goodbye?

I pray you,

Let not my jealousies be your dishonours,

But mine own safeties.

Please, don't take my suspicions as insults to your honor; they're only my own safeguards.

You may be rightly just,

Whatever I shall think.35

You may be entirely honorable, whatever I happen to think.

Macduff

Bleed, bleed, poor country!

Great tyranny, lay thou thy basis sure,

For goodness dare not check thee!

Great tyranny, lay your foundations deep, since goodness doesn't dare to stop you.

wear thou thy wrongs;

The title is affeer’d.—

Flaunt the wrongs you've done — your stolen title is legally confirmed.

Fare thee well, lord:

Farewell, my lord.

I would not be the villain that thou think’st40

For the whole space that’s in the tyrant’s grasp

And the rich East to boot.

I wouldn't be the villain you think I am for all the land in the tyrant's grasp, with the riches of the East thrown in.

Malcolm

Be not offended:

I speak not as in absolute fear of you.

Don't be offended: I'm not speaking out of settled distrust of you.

I think our country sinks beneath the yoke;45

It weeps, it bleeds; and each new day a gash

Is added to her wounds.

I do think our country is sinking beneath the yoke; it weeps, it bleeds, and each new day another gash is added to its wounds.

I think, withal,

There would be hands uplifted in my right;

And here, from gracious England, have I offer

Of goodly thousands:50

I also think there would be hands raised on my behalf; and here gracious England has offered me thousands of good soldiers.

but, for all this,50

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.55

But for all that, when I have trampled on the tyrant's head, or carry it on my sword, my poor country will suffer under more vices than it did before — suffer more, and in more different ways than ever — under the man who succeeds him.

Macduff

What should he be?

Who could that 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 state60

Esteem him as a lamb, being compar’d

With my confineless harms.

I mean myself — a man in whom, I know, every variety of vice is grafted so deep that when they open into full bloom, black Macbeth will seem as pure as snow, and our poor country will count him a lamb compared with my limitless capacity for harm.

Macduff

Not in the legions

Of horrid hell can come a devil more damn’d

In evils to top Macbeth.65

Not in all the legions of horrid hell could there be a devil more damned in evil than Macbeth.

Malcolm

I grant him bloody,

Luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful,

Sudden, malicious, smacking of every sin

That has a name:

I grant he's bloody, lustful, greedy, false, deceitful, violent, malicious — reeking of every sin that has a name.

but there’s no bottom, none,

In my voluptuousness:70

But there is no bottom, none, to my sexual appetite.

your wives, your daughters,70

Your matrons, and your maids, could not fill up

The cistern of my lust;

Your wives, your daughters, your married women, and your young girls could not fill up the tank of my lust;

and my desire

All continent impediments would o’erbear,

That did oppose my will:

and my desire would flatten every barrier of restraint standing in its way.

better Macbeth

Than such an one to reign.75

Better Macbeth than a king like that.

Macduff

Boundless intemperance

In nature is a tyranny; it hath been

Th’ untimely emptying of the happy throne,

And fall of many kings.

Boundless lust in a man's nature is a kind of tyranny too; it has emptied happy thrones before their time and been the downfall of many kings.

But fear not yet

To take upon you what is yours:80

But don't be afraid yet to claim what is yours.

you may80

Convey your pleasures in a spacious plenty,

And yet seem cold—the time you may so hoodwink.

You can take your pleasures discreetly and in abundance while appearing cold to the world — you can blindfold the public that way.

We have willing dames enough; there cannot be

That vulture in you, to devour so many

As will to greatness dedicate themselves,85

Finding it so inclin’d.

We have willing women enough; there can't be a vulture inside you hungry enough to devour all those who will offer themselves to a king once they find him so inclined.

Malcolm

With this there grows

In my most ill-compos’d affection such

A staunchless avarice, that, were I king,

I should cut off the nobles for their lands;90

Desire his jewels, and this other’s house:

Along with this, there grows in my thoroughly corrupt character such an unquenchable greed that if I were king I would cut down the nobles to get their lands, crave this man's jewels and that man's house;

And my more-having would be as a sauce

To make me hunger more; that I should forge

Quarrels unjust against the good and loyal,

Destroying them for wealth.95

and every new gain would only be a sauce to make me hungrier, until I invented unjust quarrels against good and loyal men and destroyed them for their wealth.

Macduff

This avarice

Sticks deeper; grows with more pernicious root

Than summer-seeming lust;

That greed cuts deeper — it grows from a more poisonous root than lust, which fades like a summer season;

and it hath been

The sword of our slain kings:

greed has been the sword that slew our kings.

yet do not fear;

Scotland hath foisons to fill up your will,100

Of your mere own.

Yet don't be afraid: Scotland has treasures enough to satisfy you out of what is rightfully your own.

All these are portable,

With other graces weigh’d.

All these faults are bearable when weighed against other virtues.

Malcolm

But I have none:

But I have none.

the king-becoming graces,

As justice, verity, temp’rance, stableness,

Bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness,105

Devotion, patience, courage, fortitude,

I have no relish of them;

The graces that make a king — justice, truthfulness, self-control, steadiness, generosity, perseverance, mercy, humility, devotion, patience, courage, fortitude — I have no trace of them.

but abound

In the division of each several crime,

Acting it many ways.

Instead I overflow with every possible variation of each individual crime, and act them out in every possible way.

Nay, had I power, I should

Pour the sweet milk of concord into hell,110

Uproar the universal peace, confound

All unity on earth.

No: if I had the power, I would pour the sweet milk of harmony straight into hell, throw universal peace into an uproar, and destroy all unity on earth.

Macduff

O Scotland, Scotland!

Malcolm

If such a one be fit to govern, speak:

If a man like this is fit to govern, say so.

I am as I have spoken.115

I am what I have described.

Macduff

Fit to govern?

No, not to live.—

No — not fit to live.

O nation miserable,

With an untitled tyrant bloody-scepter’d,

When shalt thou see thy wholesome days again,

O miserable nation, under a tyrant with no right to the throne and a bloody scepter in his hand, when will you see your healthy days again?

Since that the truest issue of thy throne120

By his own interdiction stands accus’d,

And does blaspheme his breed?

The truest heir to your crown stands accused by his own confession and curses his own bloodline.

Thy royal father

Was a most sainted king.

Your royal father was a most saintly king;

The queen that bore thee,

Oft’ner upon her knees than on her feet,

Died every day she lived.125

the queen who bore you spent more time on her knees in prayer than on her feet, and lived every day as if preparing to die.

Fare thee well!125

Farewell!

These evils thou repeat’st upon thyself

Have banish’d me from Scotland.—

These evils you keep reciting against yourself have banished me from Scotland.

O my breast,

Thy hope ends here!

— O my heart, your hope ends here!

Malcolm

Macduff, this noble passion,

Child of integrity, hath from my soul130

Wiped the black scruples, reconcil’d my thoughts

To thy good truth and honour.

Macduff, this noble outburst of passion, the child of your integrity, has wiped the black doubts from my soul and reconciled my mind to your good faith and honor.

Devilish Macbeth

By many of these trains hath sought to win me

Into his power,

Devilish Macbeth has tried many tricks just like this to lure me into his power,

and modest wisdom plucks me

From over-credulous haste:135

and plain common sense holds me back from believing anyone too quickly.

but God above135

Deal between thee and me!

But let God above be the judge between you and me

for even now

I put myself to thy direction, and

Unspeak mine own detraction;

— for from this moment I put myself in your hands, and I take back every slander I spoke against myself.

here abjure

The taints and blames I laid upon myself,

For strangers to my nature.140

I renounce, here and now, the sins and faults I pinned on my own name; they are strangers to my real nature.

I am yet140

Unknown to woman;

I have never yet been with a woman.

never was forsworn;

I have never broken an oath.

Scarcely have coveted what was mine own;

I have scarcely coveted even what was my own.

At no time broke my faith;

I have never once broken my word.

would not betray

The devil to his fellow;

I wouldn't betray the devil himself to a fellow devil,

and delight

No less in truth than life:145

and I love truth no less than life.

my first false speaking145

Was this upon myself.

My first lie was the one I just told against myself.

What I am truly,

Is thine and my poor country’s to command:

What I truly am belongs to you and to my poor country.

Whither, indeed, before thy here-approach,

Old Siward, with ten thousand warlike men,

Already at a point, was setting forth.150

In fact, before you even arrived, old Siward with ten thousand battle-ready men was already setting out for Scotland.

Now we’ll together, and the chance of goodness

Be like our warranted quarrel.

Now we'll go together — and may our chances of success be as good as our cause is just.

Why are you silent?

Macduff

Such welcome and unwelcome things at once

’Tis hard to reconcile.

Such welcome and unwelcome things at once — it's hard to take them in together.

Enter a Doctor

Malcolm

Well; more anon.—155

Well, more of this later.

Comes the King forth, I pray you?155

— Is the King coming out, please tell me?

Doctor

Ay, sir.

Yes, sir.

There are a crew of wretched souls

That stay his cure:

There's a crowd of wretched, sick people waiting for his healing touch.

their malady convinces

The great assay of art;

Their disease defeats the very best that medical skill can attempt;

but at his touch,

Such sanctity hath heaven given his hand,

They presently amend.160

but at his touch — heaven has given his hand such holiness — they recover on the spot.

Malcolm

I thank you, doctor.

Thank you, doctor.

_Exit Doctor._

Macduff

What’s the disease he means?

What disease does he mean?

Malcolm

’Tis call’d the evil:

A most miraculous work in this good king;

It's called 'the evil' — and curing it is a miraculous work this good king performs.

Which often, since my here-remain in England,165

I have seen him do.

I've often watched him do it since I came to England.

How he solicits heaven,

Himself best knows,

How he wins heaven's help, only he 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,170

Put on with holy prayers:

but people afflicted with strange diseases — all swollen and covered in ulcers, pitiful to look at, utterly beyond the help of surgery — he cures, hanging a gold coin around their necks and saying holy prayers over them.

and ’tis spoken,

To the succeeding royalty he leaves

The healing benediction.

And they say he passes this healing blessing down to his royal successors.

With this strange virtue,

He hath a heavenly gift of prophecy;

Along with this strange power, he has a heavenly gift of prophecy;

And sundry blessings hang about his throne,175

That speak him full of grace.

and all kinds of blessings surround his throne and proclaim him a man full of grace.

Enter Ross

Macduff

See, who comes here?

Look — who's coming here?

Malcolm

My countryman; but yet I know him not.

A fellow Scot, by his dress; but I don't recognize him yet.

Macduff

My ever-gentle cousin, welcome hither.

My ever-kind cousin, welcome here.

Malcolm

I know him now.180

Now I recognize him.

Good God, betimes remove180

The means that makes us strangers!

Good God, quickly remove whatever it is that makes us strangers to one another!

Ross

Sir, amen.

Amen to that, sir.

Macduff

Stands Scotland where it did?

Does Scotland stand where it did?

Ross

Alas, poor country,

Almost afraid to know itself!185

Alas, poor country — almost too frightened to look at itself!

It cannot185

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 ecstasy.190

It can't be called our mother anymore, but our grave: a place where no one is ever seen to smile except those who know nothing; where sighs and groans and shrieks tear the air and nobody even notices; where violent grief passes for an ordinary mood.

The dead man’s knell190

Is there scarce ask’d for who;

The funeral bell rings and people hardly ask who it's for anymore;

and good men’s lives

Expire before the flowers in their caps,

Dying or ere they sicken.

good men's lives wither faster than the flowers in their caps — they're dying before they even fall sick.

Macduff

O, relation

Too nice, and yet too true!195

Oh, a report almost too finely detailed — and yet too true!

Malcolm

What’s the newest grief?

What is the newest grief?

Ross

That of an hour’s age doth hiss the speaker;

A grief an hour old gets its teller hissed for bringing stale news;

Each minute teems a new one.

every minute breeds a new one.

Macduff

How does my wife?

How is my wife?

Ross

Why, well.200

Why — well.

Macduff

And all my children?

Ross

Well too.

Macduff

The tyrant has not batter’d at their peace?

The tyrant hasn't attacked their peace?

Ross

No; they were well at peace when I did leave ’em.

No — they were well at peace when I left them.

Macduff

Be not a niggard of your speech:205

Don't be stingy with your words.

how goes’t?205

How do things stand?

Ross

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 afoot.210

When I set out to carry the news that has weighed on me so heavily, a rumor was spreading that many worthy men had taken up arms; and I believed it all the more because I saw the tyrant's forces on the move.

Now is the time of help.

Now is the moment for help.

Your eye in Scotland

Would create soldiers, make our women fight,

To doff their dire distresses.

One glimpse of you in Scotland would create soldiers, and make even our women fight to throw off their terrible sufferings.

Malcolm

Be’t their comfort

We are coming thither.215

Let it be their comfort that we are coming.

Gracious England hath215

Lent us good Siward and ten thousand men;

An older and a better soldier none

That Christendom gives out.

Gracious England has lent us good Siward and ten thousand men; no older or better soldier exists anywhere in Christendom.

Ross

Would I could answer

This comfort with the like!220

I wish I could answer that comfort with comfort of my own!

But I have words220

That would be howl’d out in the desert air,

Where hearing should not latch them.

But I carry words that ought to be howled out into empty desert air, where no ear could catch them.

Macduff

What concern they?

Whom do they concern?

The general cause?

or is it a fee-grief

Due to some single breast?225

Or is it a private grief that belongs to one heart alone?

Ross

No mind that’s honest

But in it shares some woe, though the main part

Pertains to you alone.

No honest mind can help sharing some of this sorrow, though the greatest part of it belongs to you alone.

Macduff

If it be mine,

Keep it not from me, quickly let me have it.230

If it's mine, don't keep it from me. Give it to me quickly.

Ross

Let not your ears despise my tongue for ever,

Which shall possess them with the heaviest sound

That ever yet they heard.

Don't let your ears hate my tongue forever, for it's about to fill them with the heaviest sound they have ever heard.

Macduff

Humh!

Hm.

I guess at it.

I can guess it.

Ross

Your castle is surpris’d; your wife and babes235

Savagely slaughter’d.

Your castle was taken by surprise; your wife and children savagely slaughtered.

To relate the manner

Were, on the quarry of these murder’d deer,

To add the death of you.

To describe how it was done would be to pile your own death onto the heap of these murdered deer.

Malcolm

Merciful heaven!—

Merciful heaven!

What, man! ne’er pull your hat upon your brows.240

— Come, man, don't pull your hat down over your eyes.

Give sorrow words.

Put your sorrow into words.

The grief that does not speak

Whispers the o’er-fraught heart, and bids it break.

The grief that doesn't speak whispers to the overburdened heart and tells it to break.

Macduff

My children too?

Ross

Wife, children, servants, all

That could be found.245

Wife, children, servants — everyone they could find.

Macduff

And I must be from thence!

And I had to be away from there!

My wife kill’d too?

My wife killed too?

Ross

I have said.

I have said it.

Malcolm

Be comforted:

Take comfort.

Let’s make us med’cines of our great revenge,250

To cure this deadly grief.

Let's make medicine out of our great revenge, to cure this deadly grief.

Macduff

He has no children.—

He has no children.

All my pretty ones?

— All my pretty ones?

Did you say all?—

Did you say all?

O hell-kite!—

O hawk from hell!

All?

All of them?

What, all my pretty chickens and their dam

At one fell swoop?255

What — all my pretty chickens and their mother, snatched in one savage swoop?

Malcolm

Dispute it like a man.

Take it like a man.

Macduff

I shall do so;

I will.

But I must also feel it as a man:

But I must also feel it like a man.

I cannot but remember such things were,

That were most precious to me.—260

I can't help remembering that such things existed — and that they were the most precious things in my life.

Did heaven look on,260

And would not take their part?

Did heaven look on and refuse to take their side?

Sinful Macduff,

They were all struck for thee!

Sinful Macduff, they were all struck down because of you!

Naught that I am,

Not for their own demerits, but for mine,

Fell slaughter on their souls:

Worthless as I am, it wasn't their faults but mine that brought the slaughter down on their souls.

heaven rest them now!

Heaven rest them now.

Malcolm

Be this the whetstone of your sword.265

Let this be the whetstone that sharpens your sword.

Let grief265

Convert to anger; blunt not the heart, enrage it.

Let grief turn into anger; don't let it dull your heart — let it enrage it.

Macduff

O, I could play the woman with mine eyes,

And braggart with my tongue!—

Oh, I could weep like a woman with my eyes and brag like a loudmouth with my tongue!

But, gentle heavens,

Cut short all intermission;

But, gentle heavens, cut short all delay.

front to front,

Bring thou this fiend of Scotland and myself;270

Bring this fiend of Scotland and me face to face;

Within my sword’s length set him;

set him within reach of my sword

if he ’scape,

Heaven forgive him too!

— and if he escapes me, then may heaven forgive him too!

Malcolm

This tune goes manly.

Now that's a manly tune.

Come, go we to the King.

Come, let's go to the King.

Our power is ready;

Our lack is nothing but our leave.275

Our army is ready; all we lack now is the King's formal leave to depart.

Macbeth275

Is ripe for shaking, and the powers above

Put on their instruments.

Macbeth is ripe for the shaking, and the powers above are taking up their instruments.

Receive what cheer you may;

Accept whatever comfort you can:

The night is long that never finds the day.

the night is long that never finds the day — however dark things are, dawn will come.

_Exeunt._

Famous lines in this scene

“Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell:” line 25

Malcolm's reason for distrusting appearances: Lucifer was the brightest angel, yet he fell — so a traitor can look virtuous. But the reverse also holds: genuine goodness keeps looking like goodness. The line crystallizes the play's obsession with the gap between fair appearance and foul reality, first sounded by the witches.

“Give sorrow words. The grief that does not speak / Whispers the o’er-fraught heart, and bids it break.” line 241

Malcolm's advice to Macduff on hearing of the massacre: speak your grief aloud, because silent grief whispers to the overburdened heart until it breaks. It is one of literature's most quoted statements about mourning — the idea that unexpressed sorrow is not strength or stoicism but a slow internal destruction.

“What, all my pretty chickens and their dam / At one fell swoop?” line 254

Macduff pictures Macbeth as a 'hell-kite' — a hawk from hell — diving once and killing all his 'chickens' (his children) and their 'dam' (their mother). 'Fell' means savage or deadly. The phrase entered everyday English: 'at one fell swoop' still means everything destroyed in a single sudden stroke.

“The night is long that never finds the day.” line 278

The scene's closing note of hope: however endless the darkness of Macbeth's tyranny feels, no night lasts forever — dawn has to come. Malcolm uses the proverb to steady Macduff for war, and it signals to the audience that the play has finally turned toward Macbeth's downfall in Act 5.

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