No Fear Shakespeare
Macbeth
Get this No Fear to go!
Act 4, Scene 3, Page 2
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MACDUFF
I
have lost my hopes.
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MACDUFF
I have lost my hope of convincing you to fight against
Macbeth.
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MALCOLM
Perchance even there where I did find my doubts.
Why in that rawness left you wife and child,
Those precious motives, those strong knots of love,
Without leave-taking? I pray you,
Let not my jealousies be your dishonors,
But mine own safeties. You may be rightly just,
Whatever I shall think.
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MALCOLM
Maybe you lost your hopes about me where I found my doubts about
you. Why did you leave your wife and child
vulnerable—the most precious things in your life, those
strong bonds of love? How could you leave them behind? But I beg
you, don’t interpret my suspicions as slander against you.
You must understand that I want to protect myself. You may really be
honest, no matter what I think.
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MACDUFF
Bleed,
bleed, poor country!
Great tyranny, lay thou thy basis sure,
For goodness dare not check thee. Wear thou thy wrongs;
The title is affeered.—Fare thee well, lord.
I would not be the villain that thou think’st
For the whole space that’s in the tyrant’s
grasp,
And the rich East to boot.
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MACDUFF
Bleed, bleed, poor country! Great tyrant, go ahead and build
yourself up, because good people are afraid to stand up to you.
Enjoy everything you stole, because your title is safe! Farewell,
lord. I wouldn’t be the villain you think I am even if I
were offered all of Macbeth’s kingdom and the riches of the
East too.
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MALCOLM
Be
not offended.
I speak not as in absolute fear of you.
I think our country sinks beneath the yoke.
It weeps, it bleeds, and each new day a gash
Is added to her wounds. I think withal
There would be hands uplifted in my right;
And here from gracious England have I offer
Of goodly thousands. But, for all this,
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.
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MALCOLM
Don’t be offended. I don’t completely distrust
you. I do think Scotland is sinking under Macbeth’s
oppression. Our country weeps, it bleeds, and each day a fresh cut
is added to her wounds. I also think there would be many people
willing to fight for me. The English have promised me thousands of
troops. But even so, when I have Macbeth’s head under my
foot, or stuck on the end of my sword, then my poor country will be
plagued by worse evil than it was before. It will suffer worse and
in more ways than ever under the reign of the king who follows
Macbeth.
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MACDUFF
What
should he be?
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MACDUFF
Who are you talking about?
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