perceive no truth in your report. When was it she last walked? Gent. Since his majesty went into the field, I have seen her rise from her bed, throw her night-gown 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 slumbry 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. 2 Since his majesty went into the field,] This is one of Shakspeare's oversights. He forgot that he had shut up Macbeth in Dunsinane, and surrounded him with besiegers. That he could not go into the field, is observed by himself with splenetic im patience : our castle's strength "Will laugh a siege to scorn. Here let them lie "Were they not forc'd with those that should be ours, It is clear also, from other passages, that Macbeth's motions had long been circumscribed by the walls of his fortress. The truth may be, that Shakspeare thought the spirit of lady Macbeth could not be so effectually subdued, and her peace of mind so speedily unsettled by reflection on her guilt, as during the absence of her husband: deserto jacuit dum frigida lecto, Dum queritur tardos ire relicta dies. For the present change in her disposition, therefore, our poet (though in the haste of finishing his play he forgot his plan) might mean to have provided, by allotting her sich an interval of solitude as would subject her mind to perturbation, and dispose her thoughts to repentance. It does not appear, from any circumstance within the com. pass of this drama, that she had once been separated from her husband, after his return from the victory over Macdonwald, and the king of Norway. Steevens. 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.3 Gent. Ay, but their sense is shut.4 Doct. What is it she does now? Look, how she rubs her hands. Gent. It is an accustomed 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.5 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 mur 3 ber eyes are open.] So, in The Tempest: "This is a strange repose, to be asleep "With eyes wide open," &c. Steevens. Ay, but their sense is shut.] The old copy has-are shut; and so the author certainly wrote, though it sounds very harshly So again, in his 112th Sonnet: to our ears. "In so profound abysm I throw all care Malone. In the Sonnet our author was compelled to sacrifice grammar to the convenience of rhyme. In the passage before us, he was free from such constraint. What, therefore, should forbid us to read, with the present text? Ay, but their sense is shut. Steevens. 5 Yet here's a spot.] A passage somewhat similar occurs in Webster's Vittoria Corombona, &c. 1612: 66 Here's a white hand! "Can blood so soon he wash'd out?" Webster's play was published in 1612. Shakspeare's in 1623. Steevens. One; Two] Macbeth does not, previously to the murder, mention the hour at which lady Macbeth is to strike upon the bell, which was to be the signal for his going into Duncan's chamber to execute his wicked purpose; but it seems that lady Macbeth is now thinking of the moment when she rang ky!"-Fy, my lord, fy! a soldier, and afear'd? 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?8 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.9 Doct. Goto, 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. the bell; and that two o'clock was the hour when the deed was perpetrated. This agrees with the scene that immediately precedes the murder, but not with that which follows it. See p. 104, n. 7. Malone. 7 Hell is murky!] Murky is dark. So, in The Tempest Act IV, sc. i: "The most opportune place," &c. Lady Macbeth is acting over, in a dream, the business of the murder of Duncan, and encouraging her husband as when awake. She, therefore, would not have even hinted the terrors of hell to one whose conscience she saw was too much alarmed already for her purpose. She certainly imagines herself here talking to Macbeth, who, (she supposes) had just said, Hell is murky, (i. e. hell is a dismal place to go to in consequence of such a deed) and repeats his words in contempt of his cowardice. Hell is murky!-Fy, my lord, fy! a soldier, and afear'd? This explanation, I think, gives a spirit to the passage, which has hitherto appeared languid, being perhaps misapprehended by those who placed a full point at the conclusion of it. Steevens. 8 who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?] Statius, in a passage already quoted, speaking of the sword by which an old man was slain, calls it egentem sanguinis ensem; and Ovid, [Met. L. VII,] describing a wound inflicted on a superannuated ram, has the same circum stance: 9 guttura cultro "Fodit, et exiguo maculavit sanguine ferrum." Steevens. you mar all with this starting.] Alluding to the terrors of Macbeth, when the Ghost broke in on the festivity of the banquet. Steevens. Lady. M. Here's the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh! oh! oh! Doct. What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely charged. 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 walked in their sleep, who have died holily in their beds. Lady. M. Wash your hands, put on your night-gown; look not so pale:-I tell you yet again, Banquo 's buried; he cannot come out of his 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 [Exit Lady MACB. bed. Doct. Will she go now to bed? Doct. Foul whisperings are abroad: Unnatural deeds Do breed unnatural troubles: Infected minds To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets. 1 To bed, to bed; there's knocking at the gate.] Lady Macbeth, in her sleep, is talking of Duncan's murder, and recalls to her mind the circumstance of the knocking at the gate just after it. A. C. 2 My mind she has mated,] Astonished, confounded. The expression is taken from chess-playing: 66 that so young a warrior Johnson. "Should bide the shock of such approved knights, Soliman and Perseda. I think, but dare not speak. Gent. Good night, good doctor. [Exeunt. SCENE II. The Country near Dunsinane. Enter, with Drum and Colours, MENTETH, CATHNESS, ANGUS, LENOX, and Soldiers. Ment. The English power is near, led on by Malcolm, His uncle Siward,3 and the good Macduff. woman, "Worse than Medusa mateth all our minds." Orlando Furioso, by R. Greenę, 1599, "Not mad, but mated." Comedy of Errors. In the following instances, (both taken from the ancient metrical romance of The Sowdon of Babyloyne, MS.) the allu sion to chess is still more evident: "The dikes there so develye depe "Thai held them selfe chek mate.' 99 P. 7. "He brake his legges, be cryed alas, "And felle alle chek mate." Steevens. Scory, in the commendatory verses prefixed to Drayton's Heroicall Epistles, makes use of this phrase, and exactly in the same sense: "Yet with these broken reliques, mated mind, H. White. Our author, as well as his contemporaries, seems to have used the word as explained by Dr. Johnson. Mr. Pope supposes mated to mean here conquered or subdued; but that clearly is not the sense affixed to it by Shakspeare; though the etymology, supposing the expression to be taken from chess-playing, might favour such an interpretation. "Cum sublatis gregariis agitur regis de vita et sanguine, sic cum nulla est elabendi via, nullum subterfugium, qui vicit, MATE, inquit, quasi matado; i. e. occisus, killed, a mater, [Hispan.] occidere." Minshieu's DICT. in v. Mate. The original word was to amate, which Bullokar, in his Expositor, 8vo. 1616, explains by the words, " to dismay, to make afraid:" so that mate, as commonly used by our old writers, has no reference to chess-playing. Malone 3 His uncle Siward,] "Duncan had two sons (says Holinshed) by his wife, who was the daughter of Siward, Earl of |