13 The general cause? or is it a fee-gr ›f,13 Rosse. No mind that's honest But in it shares some woe, though the main part Pertains to you alone. Macd. If it be mine, Keep it not from me; quickly let me have it. Rosse. Let not your ears despise my tongue for ever, Which shall possess them with the heaviest sound That ever yet they heard. Macd. Humph! I guess at it. Rosse. Your castle is surpris'd; your wife, and babes, Savagely slaughter'd: to relate the manner, Mal. Merciful Heaven! What, man! ne'er pull your hat upon your brows: Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak Whispers the o'erfraught heart, and bids it break. Macd. My children too? Let's make us med'cines of our great revenge, To cure this deadly grief. Macd. He has no children. All my pretty ones? Did you say, all? — O, hell-kite! — All? 13 That is, a peculiar sorrow, a grief that hath but a single owner. 14 A quarry was a heap of dead game. See Act i. sc. 2 note 3, of this play. B What! all my pretty chickens, and their dam ? Mal. Dispute it like a man. Macd. But I must also feel it as a man: I shall do so; I cannot but remember such things were, on, And would not take their part? Did Heaven look Sinful Macduff, They were all struck for thee! naught that I am, Not for their own demerits, but for mire, Fell slaughter on their souls: Heaven rest thein now! Mal. Be this the whetstone of your swo.d: let grief Convert to anger; blunt not the heart, enrage it. Macd. 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 tho" this fiend of Scotland and myself; Within my sword's length set him; if he 'scape, Heaven forgive him too! This tune goes manly. Mal. Is ripe for shaking, and the powers above may; Receive what cheer you The night is long that never finds the day. [Exeunt. 16 Swoop, from the verb to swoop or sweep, is the descent of a bird of prey on his quarry. ACT V. SCENE I. Dunsinane. A Room in the Castle. Enter a Doctor of Physic, and a waiting Gentle woman. Doct. I have two nights watch'd with you, but can perceive no truth in your report. When was it she last walk'd? Gent. Since his majesty went into the field, 1 have seen her rise from her bed, throw her nightgown upon her, unlock her closet, take forth paper, fold it, write upon it, read it, afterwards seal it, and again return to bed; yet all this while in a most fast sleep. Doct. A great perturbation in nature! to receive at once the benefit of sleep, and do the effects of watching. In this slumbery agitation, besides her walking, and other actual performances, what at any time have you heard her say? Gent. That, sir, which I will not report after her Doct. You may, to me; and 'tis most meet you should. Gent. Neither to you, nor any one, having no witness to confirm my speech. Enter Lady MACBETH, with a taper. Lo you, here she comes! This is her very guise; and, upon my life, fast asleep. Observe her: stand close. Doct. How came she by that light? Gent. Why, it stood by her she has light by her continually; 'tis her command. Doct. You see, her eyes are open. Gent. Ay, but their sense is shut. Doct. What is it she does now? Look, how she rubs her hands. Gent. It is an accustom'd action with her, to seem thus washing her hands: I have known her continue in this a quarter of an hour. Lady M. Yet here's a spot. Doct. Hark! she speaks: I will set down what comes from her, to satisfy my remembrance the more strongly. Lady M. Out, damned spot! out, I say! - One; two: why, then 'tis time to do't. - Hell is murky!' - Fie, my lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account? Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him? Doct. Do you mark that? Lady M. The thane of Fife had a wife: where is she now? - What! will these hands ne'er be clean? - No more o'that, my lord; no more o'that: you mar all with this starting.? Doct. Go to, go to: you have known what you should not. Gent. She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of that: Heaven knows what she has known. Lady M. Here's the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh! oh! oh! 3 1 Of course Lady Macbeth dreams of being in talk with her husband; and, he having said through fear, Hell is murky," she repeats his words, as in scorn of his cowardice. H. 2 She is alluding to the terrors of Macbeth when the Ghost broke in on the festivity of the banquet. 3 Upon this, the awfulest passage in this most awful scene, Mr Verplanck has written in so high a style of criticism that we cannot forbear to quote him. After remarking how fertile is the sense of smell in the milder and gentler charms of poetry, he observes But the smell has never been successfully used as the means of Doct. What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely charg❜d. Gent. I would not have such a heart in my bosom for the dignity of the whole body. Doct. Well, well, well, Gent. 'Pray God, it be, sir. Doct.-this disease is beyond my practice: yet I have known those which have walk'd in their sleep, who have died holily in their beds. Lady M. Wash your hands, put on your nightgown; look not so pale. I tell you yet again, Banquo's buried: he cannot come out on's grave. Doct. Even so? Lady M. To bed, to bed: there's knocking at the gate. Come, come, come, come, give me your hand: What's done cannot be undone : To bed, to bed, to bed. [Exit Lady MACBETH. Doct. Will she go now to bed? Doct. Foul whisperings are abroad. Unnatural deeds impressing the imagination with terror, pity, or any of the deeper emotions, except in this dreadful sleep-walking of the guilty Queen, and in one parallel scene of the Greek drama, as wildly terrible as this. It is that passage of the Agamemnon of Eschylus, where the captive prophetess Cassandra, wrapt in visionary inspiration, scents first the smell of blood, and then the vapours of the tomb breathing from the palace of Atrides, as ominous of his approaching murder. These two stand alone in poetry; and Fuseli in his lectures informs us, that when, in the kindred art of painting, it has been attempted to produce tragic effect through the medium of ideas drawn from this squeamish sense,' even Raphael and Poussin have failed, and excited disgust instead of terror or compassion." And Mrs. Siddons, after quoting Lady Macbeth'sAll the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand" adds, "How beautifully contrasted is the exclamation with the bolder image of Macbeth, in expressing the same feeling: Will all great Neptune's ocean wash the blood clean from this hand? And how appropriately either sex illustrates the same idea!" H |