Re-enter MACBETH.

Len. Good morrow, noble sir.

Macb.

Good morrow, both.

Not yet.

Macd. Is the King stirring, worthy thane?
Macb.

Macd. He did command me to call timely on him:

I've almost slipp'd the hour.

Macb.

I'll bring you to him.

Macd. I know this is a joyful trouble to you;

Len. The night has been unruly: where we lay,
Our chimneys were blown down; and, as they say,
Lamentings heard i' the air, strange screams of death:
And, prophesying, with accents terrible,

Of dire combustion and confused events

New hatch'd to th' woeful time, the obscene bird
Clamour'd the livelong night: 35 some say the Earth

82 To heal, to cure, to relieve, is an old meaning of to physic.
The Poet repeatedly uses to limit in the exact sense of to appoint.

34 Here we have a significant note of character. Macbeth catches himself in the utterance of a falsehood, which, I take it, is something at odds with his nature and habitual feelings; and he starts back into a mending of his speech, as from a spontaneous impulse to be true to himself. Much the same thing occurs before, when, upon his saying to his wife "Duncan comes here to-night," she asks, "And when goes hence?" and he replies, "To-morrow, -as he purposes."

35 "The obscene bird" is the owl, which was regarded as a bird of ill omen, and is here represented as a prophet of the direful events in question. Obscene is used in its proper Latin sense, ill-boding or portentous. See Critical Notes.

Macd. O horror, horror, horror! tongue nor heart Cannot conceive nor name thee!

Mach.

What's the matter?

Len.

Macd. Confusion 37 now hath made his masterpiece!

Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope

The Lord's anointed temple,38 and stole thence

The life o' the building.

Macb.

What is't you say? the life?

Len. Mean you his Majesty?

Macd. Approach the chamber, and destroy your sight

With a new Gorgon. Do not bid me speak;

See, and then speak yourselves.

Ring the alarum-bell.

[Exeunt MACB. and LEN.

Awake, awake !

- Murder and treason!

Banquo and Malcolm! Donalbain! awake!

Shake off this downy sleep, death's counterfeit,
And look on death itself! up, up, and see

39

The great doom's image! Malcolm Banquo! all!
As from your graves rise up, and walk like sprites,
To countenance this horror.40

[Alarum-bell rings.

36 Here, as often, fellow is equal. To parallel is to put alongside. 87 Confusion for destruction, as confound for destroy, before. 38 In 1 Samuel, xxiv. 10, David speaks of King Saul as the Lord's anointed"; and St. Paul calls Christians "the temple of the living God." 39 "The great doom" means the Judgment-day, of which this occasion is regarded as a representation. See vol. xv. page 156, note 33.

40 "To countenance this horror" is to put on a likeness of it; to augment or intensify it; an effect which the further horror of men rising up as from the dead, and walking like ghosts, would naturally produce.

Lady M.

Re-enter Lady MACBETH.

What's the business,

That such a hideous trumpet calls to parley
The sleepers of the house? speak, speak!
Macd.

'Tis not for you to hear what I can speak :
The repetition, in a woman's ear,

Would murder as it fell.—

Re-enter BANQUO.

O gentle lady,

Re-enter MACBETH and LENNOX.

Macb. Had I but died an hour before this chance,
I had lived a blessed time; for, from this instant,
There's nothing serious in mortality: 42

All is but toys: renown and grace is dead;
The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees
Is left this vault to brag of.43

Enter MALCOLM and DONALBAIN.

Don. What is amiss?

Macb.

You are, and do not know't:

41 Her ladyship's first thought appears to be, that she and her husband may be suspected of the murder.

42 Mortality is here put for humanity, or the state of human life.

43 Observe the fine links of association in wine and vault; the latter having a double reference, to the wine-vault and to the firmanent over-arching the world of human life.

U. OF ILL LIB.

The spring, the head, the fountain of your blood
Is stopp'd, the very source of it is stopp'd.
Macd. Your royal father's murder'd.

Mal.

O! by whom?

Len. Those of his chamber, as it seem'd, had done't:
Their hands and faces were all badged with blood;

So were their daggers, which, unwiped, we found
Upon their pillows:

They stared, and were distracted; no man's life
Was to be trusted with them.

Macb. O, yet I do repent me of my fury,
That I did kill them.

Macd.

Wherefore did you so?

Mach. Who can be wise, amazed, temperate and furious, Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man:

The expedition 44 of my violent love

Outrun the pauser, reason. Here lay Duncan,
His silver skin laced with his golden blood; 45
And his gash'd stabs look'd like a breach in nature
For ruin's wasteful entrance; 46 there, the murderers,
Steep'd in the colours of their trade, their daggers
Unmannerly breech'd with gore: 47 who could refrain,
That had a heart to love, and in that heart
Courage to make's love known?

44 Expedition for swiftness or haste. Repeatedly so.

45 To gild with blood is a very common phrase in old plays. Johnson says, "It is not improbable that Shakespeare put these forced and unnatural metaphors into the mouth of Macbeth, as a mark of artifice and dissimulation, to show the difference between the studied language of hypocrisy and the natural outcries of sudden passion. The whole speech, so considered, is a remarkable instance of judgment, as it consists entirely of antithesis and metaphor."

46 The image is of a besieging army making a breach in the walls of a city, and thereby opening a way for general massacre and pillage.

47 This probably means rudely covered, dressed, trousered with blood. A metaphor harsh and strained enough.

Lady M.

Macd. Look to the lady.

Mal. [Aside to DON.]

Help me hence, ho!

Why do we hold our tongues,

That most may claim this argument for ours?

Don. [Aside to MAL.] What should be spoken

Here, where our fate, hid

in an auger-hole,48

May rush and seize us?

Let's away: our tears

Are not yet brew'd.

Mal. [Aside to DON.] Nor our strong sorrow Upon the foot of motion.

Ban.

Look to the lady :

[Lady MACBETH is carried out.49

And, when we have our naked frailties hid,50
That suffer in exposure, let us meet,

And question this most bloody piece of work,

To know it further. Fears and scruples shake us:
In the great hand of God I stand; and thence
Against the undivulged pretence I fight

Of treasonous malice.51

Macd.
All.

And so do I.

So all.

48" Where there is no hiding-place so small but that murder may be lurking therein, ready to spring upon us at any moment." The Princes divine at once that their father has been murdered for the crown, and that the same motive means death to themselves as well.

4 Some regard this swoon as feigned, others as real. The question is very material in the determining of Lady Macbeth's character. If feigned, why was it not done when the murder of Duncan was announced? The announcement of these additional murders takes her by surprise; she was not prepared for it; whereas in the other case she had, by her fearful energy of will, steeled her nerves up to it beforehand.

50 Banquo and the others who slept in the castle have rushed forth undressed. This is what he refers to in "our naked frailties."

51 The natural construction is," and thence I fight against the undivulged pretence of treasonous malice." Pretence here means intention or purpose. A frequent usage. So the verb, a little further on: What good could they pretend?" See vol. xv. page 33, note 7.