Son

Ross

 LADY MACDUFF. What had he done, to make him fly the land? 

 ROSS. You must have patience, madam. 

 LADY MACDUFF. He had none: His flight was madness: when our actions do not, Our fears do make us traitors. 

 ROSS. You know not Whether it was his wisdom or his fear. 

 LADY MACDUFF. Wisdom! to leave his wife, to leave his babes, His mansion, and his titles, in a place From whence himself does fly? He loves us not: He wants the natural touch; for the poor wren, The most diminutive of birds, will fight, Her young ones in her nest, against the owl. All is the fear, and nothing is the love; As little is the wisdom, where the flight So runs against all reason. 

 ROSS. My dearest coz, I pray you, school yourself: but, for your husband, He is noble, wise, judicious, and best knows The fits o’ th’ season. I dare not speak much further: But cruel are the times, when we are traitors, And do not know ourselves; when we hold rumour From what we fear, yet know not what we fear, But float upon a wild and violent sea Each way and move—I take my leave of you: Shall not be long but I’ll be here again. Things at the worst will cease, or else climb upward To what they were before.—My pretty cousin, Blessing upon you! 

 LADY MACDUFF. Father’d he is, and yet he’s fatherless. 

 ROSS. I am so much a fool, should I stay longer, It would be my disgrace and your discomfort: I take my leave at once. 

[Exit.]

 LADY MACDUFF. Sirrah, your father’s dead. And what will you do now? How will you live? 

 SON. As birds do, mother. 

 LADY MACDUFF. What, with worms and flies? 

 SON. With what I get, I mean; and so do they. 

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