University of Virginia Library

SCENE II.

—A Room in the Palace.
ABERNETHY, BALIOL.
ABERNETHY.
He is your bitterest enemy, my liege;—
Even on your coronation-day, when yet
Th'inaugurating fumes were smoking on you,
I mark'd his mal-contentedness of feature,
And caught his moody and invidious lips
Mumbling black syllables of mutiny.

BALIOL.
Even let him grumble on; I do not see
Wherefore, for one or two distemper'd words,
I should distemper my serenity,
And simply suffer my dear peace to be
Stabb'd to the quick with airy calumnies.

ABERNETHY.
You are too mild, my liege, and too forgiving;
The gospel-precept was not made for kings,
Of fair forgiveness of our enemies:
Mean men may safely overlook their foes,
Or hug them close in Christian charity;
But mightier monarchs must let slip their necks
From Christian nooses, and in Pagan wise
To death must hate and hunt their enemies.

BALIOL.
To death, my lord?—Recall that baleful word;
It grates too horribly upon my spirit;
I would not be a king to hear it oft:—
Say, what be these great sinnings of Macduff,
That he deserves such signal persecution?

ABERNETHY.
I know too well his deeds and his deserts;
Which your too gracious grace interprets so,
That you are jeoparded by clemency.
He is the colleague and confederate
Of th'intermeddling disappointed Bruce;
With whom he has in darkling colloquy
Been huddling and conspiring head to head,
Setting their faction-fostering thoughts a-broach,
And in your grace's free unforced election,
Searching for friv'lous pegs whereon to hang
Exceptious cavils, and disloyalties:—
Must disaffection gad abroad with licence,
Fattening herself on treasonable breath,
Until her monstrous head attain a growth
As high as heaven, too lofty to be hit?—
I'd rather crush the minim as she crawls,
Preventing toil by one good stamp o' the foot,
Than hew her down with glorious difficulty
In her gigantic overgrowth.

BALIOL.
O, my lord,
Crush her, in God's name, then, within her shell,
In silence, that my life be not perplex'd
With her vexatious chirpings and with yours.
Think not I know th'offence or the offender;—
Think not I'm privy to the punishment.—

ABERNETHY.
Farewell, my gracious sovereign; may thy throne
Be 'stablished on the corses of thy foes.
[Exit Abernethy.

BALIOL.
Woe's me—and is it thus to be a king?—
A king!—that splendid phantom perch'd on high
To terrify and to command the world;
Alas! no longer to command himself,
But be commanded, and be twisted round
Like th'idle vane, by every gust that blows
From Passion's blust'ring universal sky.
For not alone we to ourselves are slaves,
Obedient to the worst of impulses,
Each o'er-officious friend, whose hand did help
To shove us up the steeps of royalty,
The top no sooner gain'd, makes arrogant
And violent encroachment on our peace;
Which as his services' due meed he claims,
Perverting Gratitude's angelic virtue,
Ev'n to forbid us to be virtuous:—
Then, if to be a king cannot be ought
Than to be thus, grant me, O God! again
A subject's virtues, and a subject's peace:
I'm sick already of sad royalty!