As from your graves rise up, and walk like sprights, To countenance this horror! Ring the bell.

Enter Lady MACBETH.

Lady M. What's the business,

[Bell rings.

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

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

Dear Duff, I pr'ythee, contradict thyself,
And say it is not so..

Re-enter MACBEth and Lenox.

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

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.

Enter MALCOLM and DONALBAIN.

Don. What is amiss?

Macb.

You are, and do not know't

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 badg'd with blood; So were their daggers, which, unwip'd, we found Upon their pillows: they star'd, 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?

Macb. Who can be wise, amaz'd, temperate, and

furious,

Loyal and neutral, in a moment?

The expedition of my violent love

Outran the pauser reason.

No man:

Here lay Duncan,

His silver skin lac'd with his golden blood; 8
And his gash'd stabs look'd like a breach in nature,
For ruin's wasteful entrance there, the murderers,
Steep'd in the colours of their trade, their daggers
Unmannerly breech'd with gore. Who could refrain,
That had a heart to love, and in that heart
Courage, to make's love known?

Lady M.

Macd. Look to the lady.

Mal.

Help me hence, ho'

Why do we hold our tongues,

That most may claim this argument for ours?

Don. What should be spoken

Here, where our fate, hid in an auger-hole,
May rush, and seize us?

Are not yet brew'd.

Let's away: our tears

8 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. This whole speech, so considered, is a remark able instance of judgment, as it consists of antithesis only'

Mal.

Nor our strong sorrow

Upon the foot of motion.

Ban.

Look to the lady :
[Lady MACBETH is carried out

And when we have our naked frailties hid,9
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 undivulg'd pretence 1 I fight

Of treasonous malice.

10

Macd.

All.

And so do I.

So all.

Macb. Let's briefly put on manly readiness, And meet i'the hall together.

All.

Well contented.

[Exeunt all but MAL. and DON

Mal. What will you do? Let's not consort with

them :

To show an unfelt sorrow is an office

Which the false man does easy. I'll to England.

Don. To Ireland, I; our separated fortune

Shall keep us both the safer: where we are, There's daggers in men's smiles: the near in blood, The nearer bloody."1

Mal. This murderous shaft that's shot Hath not yet lighted,12 and our safest way

9 That is, when we have clothed our half-dressed bodies. 10 Pretence is here used for design, intention: an usage quite frequent in Shakespeare. Thus in The Winter's Tale, Act iii. sc. 2: The pretence whereof being by circumstances partly laid open." And in Coriolanus, Act i. sc. 2: " Nor did you think it folly, to keep your great pretences veil'd, till when they needs must show themselves." Banquo's meaning is,-Relying upon God, I swear perpetual war against this treason, and all the secret plottings of malice, whence it sprung.

H.

"Meaning that he suspects Macbeth, who was the next in

blood.

12 Suspecting this murder to be the work of Macbeth, Malcolm

ls to avoid the aim: Therefore, to horse; And let us not be dainty of leave-taking,

But shift away.

There's warrant in that theft

Which steals itself, when there's no mercy left.

[Exeunt.

SCENE IV. Without the Castle.

Enter ROSSE and an Old Man.

Old M. Threescore and ten I can remember well; Within the volume of which time I have seen Hours dreadful, and things strange, but this sore

night

Hath trifled former knowings.

Rosse.

Ah! good father, Thou seest, the heavens, as troubled with man's act, Threaten his bloody stage: by the clock 'tis day, And yet dark night strangles the travelling lamp.' Is't night's predominance, or the day's shame, That darkness does the face of earth entomb, When living light should kiss it??

thinks it could have no purpose but what himself and his brother equally stand in the way of; that the "murderous shaft" must pass through them to reach its mark.

H.

1 Collier and Verplanck change travelling to travailing here, on the ground that the former "gives a puerile idea;" whereupon Mr. Dyce remarks: "In this speech no mention is made of the sun till it is described as the travelling lamp,' the epithet travelling' determining what 'lamp' was intended: the instant, therefore, that 'travelling' is changed to travailing,' the word lamp CEASES TO SIGNIFY THE SUN." To which we will add, that if travelling lamp " gives a puerile idea," it may be thought, nevertheless, to have a pretty good sanction in Psalm xix.: "In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun; which cometh forth as a bridegroom out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a giant to run his course." It should be remarked that in the Poet's time the same form of the word was used in the two senses of travel and travail. "After the murder of King Duffe," says Holinshed, “for the

H.

Old M.

'Tis unnatural

Even like the deed that's done. On Tuesday last,
A falcon, towering in her pride of place,3
Was by a mousing owl hawk'd at, and kill’d.
Rosse. And Duncan's horses, (a thing most strange
and certain,)

Beauteous and swift, the minions of their race, Turn'd wild in nature, broke their stalls, flung out, · Contending 'gainst obedience, as they would make War with mankind.

Old M.

'Tis said, they ate each other.' Rosse. They did so; to the amazement of mine

Rosse. Is't known who did this more than bloody

Malcolm and Donalbain, the king's two sons,
Are stol'n away and fled; which puts upon them
Suspicion of the deed.

space of six months togither there appeared no sunne by daye, nor moone by night, in anie part of the realme; but still the sky was covered with continual clouds; and sometimes such outrageous winds arose, with lightenings and tempests, that the people were in great fear of present destruction."

3 A technical phrase in falconry for soaring to the highest pitch. 4 Holinshed relates that after King Duff's murder "there was a sparhawk strangled by an owl," and that horses of singular beauty and swiftness did eat their own flesh."

H

5 Pretend in the sense of intend. See note 10 of the preceding

scene.

H.