Macd. He did command me to call timely on him: I have almost slipp'd the hour.

Macb.

I'll bring you to him. Macd. I know, this is a joyful trouble to you;

But yet, 'tis one.

Mach. The labour we delight in physics pain. This is the door.

Macd.

For 'tis my limited service.

I'll make so bold to call,

[Exit MACDUFf.

he did appoint so.

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 confus'd events,

New hatch'd to the woeful time. The obscure bird
Clamour'd the livelong night: some say, the earth
Was feverous, and did shake.

Mach.

'Twas a rough night.

Len. My young remembrance cannot parallel A fellow to it.

Re-enter MACDUFF.

Macd. O horror! horror! horror! Tongue, nor

heart,

Cannot conceive, nor name thee!

Mach. Len.

What's the matter?

Macd. Confusion now hath made his master-piece.

Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope

The Lord's anointed temple, and stole thence

The life o' the building.

Mach. 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.-Awake! awake!—
[Exeunt MACBETH and LENOX.
Ring the alarum-bell.-Murder, and treason!
Banquo, and Donalbain! Malcolm, awake!
Shake off this downy sleep, death's counterfeit,
And look on death itself!-up, up, and see
The great doom's image!—Malcolm! Banquo!
As from your graves rise up, and walk like sprites
To countenance this horror! Ring the bell".

Enter Lady МАСВЕТН.

Lady M. What's the business,

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

Macd.

[Bell rings.

O, gentle lady!

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

Enter BANQUO.

Would murder as it fell.-O Banquo! Banquo!
Our royal master's murder'd!

Lady M.

What! in our house?

Ban.

Woe, alas!

Too cruel, anywhere.

Dear Duff, I pr'ythee, contradict thyself,

And say, it is not so.

Re-enter MACBETH and LENOX'.

Mach. Had I but died an hour before this chance,

• Ring the bell.] Malone and Steevens omitted these words, on the ground that they were a stage-direction; whereas they are a repetition of Macduff's order to "ring the alarum bell," and they are moreover necessary to complete the line. Lady Macbeth's speech begins, it is true, with an imperfect hemistich, but such has been the case in many previous instances. If "Ring the bell” had been a stage-direction, it would hardly have been followed by " Bell rings," as it stands in all the old copies.

7 Re-enter Macbeth and Lenox.] The folio, 1623, adds "and Rosse
VOL. VII.
K

to this

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.

Mach. O! yet I do repent me of my fury,

That I did kill them.

Macd.

Wherefore did you so?

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

furious,

Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man:

The expedition of my violent love

Out-ran the pauser reason.-Here lay Duncan,
His silver skin lac'd with his golden blood;
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?

stage-direction; but Rosse has not been on the stage in this act, and he is employed in the next scene. We have, therefore, had no difficulty in correcting an error, which runs through the old copies.

Lady M.

Help me hence, ho!

Macd. Look to the lady.

Mal.

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,

[Lady MACBETH is carried out.

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

And question this most bloody piece of work,
To know it farther. Fears and scruples shake us:
In the great hand of God I stand; and, thence,
Against the undivulg'd pretence I fight

Of treasonous malice.

8

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.

Mal.

This murderous shaft that's shot

• Against the undivulg'd PRETENCE I fight] "Pretence" is intention, design, a sense in which the word is often used by Shakespeare. So in the next scene, Rosse asks, "What good could they pretend?

Hath not yet lighted, and our safest way
Is 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 travailing lampo.
Is't night's predominance, or the day's shame,
That darkness does the face of earth entomb,
When living light should kiss it?

Old M.

"Tis unnatural, Even like the deed that's done. On Tuesday last,

A falcon, towering in her pride of place,

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,

9- the TRAVAILING lamp.] The words travel and travail (observes the Rev. Mr. Barry) have now different meanings, though formerly synonymous. Travelling, the ordinary reading, gives a puerile idea; whereas the poet, by "travailing," seems to have reference to the struggle between the sun and night, which induces Rosse to ask,

"Is't night's predominance, or the day's shame," &c.