TEXT:
MALCOLM
Be comforted:
Let's make us medicines of our great revenge,
To cure this deadly grief.
MACDUFF
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?
MALCOLM
Dispute it like a man.
MACDUFF
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!
MALCOLM
Be this the whetstone of your sword: let grief
Convert to anger; blunt not the heart, enrage it.
MACDUFF
O, I could play the woman with mine eyes
And braggart with my tongue! But, gentle heavens,
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!
MALCOLM
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.
Exeunt
NOTES:
Pretty
Rather in the same way that the word “surprise” only appears in the play to describe the attack on Macduff’s castle, the word “pretty” is only used to describe Macduff’s little boy. Ross calls him “pretty cousin” and then Macduff uses it twice here.
Kites
Kites are very unpleasant birds that feast on corpses.