The Situation in Scotland

The Situation in Scotland

  • Submitted By: bopper
  • Date Submitted: 12/14/2008 10:09 PM
  • Category: English
  • Words: 691
  • Page: 3
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Macbeth Act 4, Scene 3, Lines 182-275

See, who comes here?

My countryman, but I still don’t know him.

My ever-gentle cousin, welcome here.

Now I know him now. Good God, soon we’ll remove
the thing that makes us strangers!

Amen, sir.

Is it the same situation in Scotland?

Alas, poor country,
Almost afraid to know itself! It cannot
Be called our mother, only our grave. where nothing,
But who knows nothing, is once seen to smile,
Where sighs, and groans, and shrieks, that tear at the air,
Are made, not marked, where violent sorrow seems
A modern ecstasy. No one hardly asks who
The dead man's knell is for, and good men's lives
Expire before the flowers in their caps,
Dying before the flowers show signs of sickness.

O, kinsman
Too nice, and yet too true!

What's the newest grief?

The news accuses the speaker;
Each minute turns up a new one.

How’s my wife?

She’s well.

What about all my children?

Well too.

The tyrant hasn’t taken action against them?

No. Before I left, they were fine.

Don’t mince words: how is it going?
When I came here to transport the tidings,
Which I have heavily borne, there ran a rumor
Of many worthy fellows that were in the field,
Which I know to be true by surmising the enemy was marching,
because I saw Macbeth’s men were marching.
Now is help is coming. Your person in Scotland
Would create soldiers, make our women fight,
To take off their pitiful miseries.

Let it be their comfort that
We are coming there. Gracious England has
Lent us good Siward and ten thousand men.
Christendom doesn’t have
An older or a better soldier.

I wish I could answer
This comfort with a similar one! But I have words
That would be howled out into the desert air,
Where hearing should not catch them

What concern are they?
The general cause? Or is it a grief owned
Entirely by one person?

Only a mind that's honest
Could share some of this woe, although the main part
Pertains to you...

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