Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell

That summons thee to heaven, or to hell.

[Exit.

SCENE II.-The same.

Enter LADY MACBETH.

LADY M. That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold :

What hath quench'd them hath given me fire:-
Hark! Peace! It was the owl that shriek'd,

The fatal bellman which gives the stern'st good night,
He is about it: the doors are open;

And the surfeited grooms do mock their charge with snores:
I have drugg'd their possets,

That death and nature do contend about them,
Whether they live, or die.

MACB. [Within.] Who's there?—what, hoa!
LADY M. Alack! I am afraid they have awak'd,
And 't is not done :—the attempt, and not the deed,
Confounds us :-Hark !-I laid their daggers ready,
He could not miss them.-Had he not resembled
My father as he slept I had done 't-My husband!

Enter MACBETH.

10

MACB. I have done the deed :-Didst thou not hear a noise?

LADY M. I heard the owl scream, and the crickets cry. Did not you speak?

MACB.

LADY M.

MACB.

LADY M. Ay.

When?

Now.

As I descended?

I That which hath made them drunk. 'I am emboldened by the guards' intoxication :' not surely, as the Cambridge editors suppose, I have given myself courage with wine.' She had taunted Macbeth with a 'drunken hope;' and such a mode of raising her own spirit seems thoroughly alien from her character.

3 The fatal bellman. The Cambridge editors have excellently explained this by a quotation from Webster, Duchess of Malfi, iv. 2, where Bossola tells the Duchess

"I am the common bellman

That usually is sent to condemned persons
The night before they suffer."

And not the deed. If we do not effect the deed.

MACB. Hark!—

Who lies i' the second chamber?

LADY M.

Donalbain.

20

MACB. This is a sorry sight. [Looking on his hands.
LADY M. A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight.
MACB. There's one did laugh in his sleep,

And one cried, "murther!" that they did wake each other;
I stood and heard them: but they did say their prayers,
And address'd them again to sleep.

LADY M. There are two lodg'd together.

MACB. One cried, "God bless us !" and "Amen," the other,

As they had seen me, with these hangman's hands
Listening their fear: I could not say, amen,

When they did say, God bless us.

LADY M.

Consider it not so deeply.

MACB. But wherefore could not I pronounce, amen? I had most need of blessing, and amen

Stuck in my throat.

LADY M.

30

These deeds must not be thought

After these ways; so, it will make us mad.

MACB. Methought, I heard a voice cry, "Sleep no more! Macbeth does murther sleep, the innocent sleep;

22 A foolish thought. How can it be a sorry sight when it crowns us? The quasi rhyme in the two halves of the line is strongly derisive.

26 Two lodged together. Then they are rightly placed for our purpose of accusing them.

31 Wherefore could I not pronounce, amen? Lady Macbeth had said of her husband

"What thou wouldst highly That wouldst thou holily!"

Here the same bewildered notion is stript bare to view, with all disguise torn from it by desperation.

33 Stuck in my throat. The life to come cannot be 'jumped,' as he thought before the crime was done; for the lurid light of murder flashes the present and the future existence into one.

34 So, it will make us mad. Were we so to consider them. 36 Macbeth does murther sleep. Sleepers are childlike, harmless, innocent; placed by their condition under the safeguard of the waking. Whoever breaks this natural and eternal pact has for ever forfeited the support and refreshment which sleep gives the innocent. Schiller has imitated this in Wallenstein

“Er schläft! O mordet nicht den heil'gen Schlaf."

Sleep, that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care,
The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast."

LADY M.

40

What do you mean? MACB. Still it cried, "Sleep no more!" to all the house : "Glamis hath murther'd sleep and therefore Cawdor Shall sleep no more, Macbeth shall sleep no more!" LADY M. Who was it that thus cried? Why, worthy thane,

You do unbend your noble strength, to think
So brainsickly of things :-Go, get some water,
And wash this filthy witness from your hand.—
Why did you bring these daggers from the place?
They must lie there: Go, carry them; and smear
The sleepy grooms with blood.

МАСВ.
I'll go no more:
I am afraid to think what I have done;

Look on 't again I dare not.

LADY M.

Infirm of purpose!

Give me the daggers : The sleeping, and the dead,
Are but as pictures; 't is the eye of childhood
That fears a painted devil. If he do bleed,

I'll gild the faces of the grooms withal,

50

For it must seem their guilt. [Exit. Knocking within.
MACB.
Whence is that knocking?
How is 't with me, when every noise appals me?
What hands are here? Ha! they pluck out mine eyes!
Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No; this my hand will rather

60

37 The ravelled sleave. Which disentangles the ravelled skein of care. The passage is taken from Sidney (Astrophel):-"Come sleep, O sleep, the certain knot of peace, The bathing place of wits, the balm of woe.' See As You Like It, Act ii. Sc. I. (note) for a similar imitation of Sidney.

42 Glamis hath murthered sleep. He who was Glamis, he who is now Cawdor, he who shall be Macbeth the king.

55 Fears a painted devil. Is affected by such terror as a few blots of colour can add to a sketch which otherwise would be tame enough.

57

That knocking? Macduff and Lenox are knocking at the south gate, as the next scene shows.

The multitudinous seas incarnadine,

Making the green one red.

Re-enter LADY MACBETH.

LADY M. My hands are of your colour; but I shame To wear a heart so white. [Knock.] I hear a knocking At the south entry :-retire we to our chamber :

A little water clears us of this deed :

How easy is it then! Your constancy

Hath left you unattended.-[Knocking.] Hark! more knocking:

Get on your nightgown, lest occasion call us,
And show us to be watchers :-Be not lost

So poorly in your thoughts.

70

MACB. To know my deed, 't were best not know

myself.

[Knock.

Wake Duncan with thy knocking; I would thou couldst !

SCENE III.-The same.

[Exeunt.

Enter a Porter. [Knocking within. PORTER. Here's a knocking, indeed! If a man were porter of hell-gate, he should have old turning the key. [Knocking.] Anon, anon; I pray you, remember the porter. [Opens the gate.

Enter MACDUFF and LENOX.

MACD. Was it so late, friend, ere you went to bed, That you do lie so late?

PORT. 'Faith, sir, we were carousing till the second cock.

62 The multitudinous seas. The sea with its numberless waves. One red-red throughout.

69 Left you unattended. Ceased to attend you.

73 To know my deed. If I must for ever know my own deed (as in the note to line 97 of the next scene).

2 Old turning the key. A fine quantity of key turning, as in Merry Wives of Windsor, i. 4: "Here will be old abusing of the king's English. So auld farrant' or 'old fashioned' means cunning in Scotch of the present day; and 'das alte Reiben ’ is 'that unpleasant rubbing' in German nursery language.

6

23 Remember the porter. Give me something, as you have woke me up.

46 Carousing. From the German 'garaus,' (to drink) ‘right out.' Cf. the derivation of 'wassail' above.

MACD. Is thy master stirring?—

Our knocking has awak'd him; here he comes.

Enter MACBETH.

LEN. Good morrow, noble sir!

MACB.

Good morrow, both !

MACD. Is the king stirring, worthy thane ?
MACB.

47

Not yet. 50

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 't is one.

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

MACD.

I'll make so bold to call,

For 't is my limited service.

LEN. Goes the king hence to-day?

MACB. He does :-he did appoint so.

[Exit MACDUFF.

LEN. The night has been unruly: Where we lay,

Our chimneys were blown down : and, as they say,

60

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 live-long night :
Some say the earth was feverous, and did shake.
MACB. 'T was 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 !
MACB., LEN. What's the matter?

70

MACD. Confusion now hath made his master-piece!

Most sacrilegious murther hath broke ope

The Lord's anointed temple, and stole thence
The life o' the building.

56 Limited service. Appointed task.

64 New-hatched. The newest birth of a baleful time.

73 Stole thence. So 'broke,' 'spoke,' took,' are used as participles.

74 The life of the building. The Shekhinah; the Divine Presence in it.