The same.

SCENE III.

Enter a Porter. [Knocking within.]

Port. Here's a knocking, indeed! If a man were porter of hell-gate, he should have old turning the key.' [Knocking.] Knock, knock, knock: Who's there, i'the name of Belzebub? Here's a farmer that hanged himself on the expectation of plenty: Come in time; have napkins2 enough about you; here you'll sweat for't. [Knocking.] Knock, knock: Who's there, i'the other devil's name?-'Faith, here's an equivocator, 3 that could swear in both the scales against either scale; who committed treason enough for God's sake, yet could not equivocate to heaven: O, come in, equivocator. [Knocking.] Knock, knock, knock: Who's there? 'Faith, here's an English tailor come hither, for stealing out of a French hose:4 Come in, tailor; here you may roast your goose. [Knocking.] Knock, knock: Never at quiet! What are you?-But this place is too cold for hell. I'll devil-porter it no further; I had thought to have let in some of all professions, that go the primrose way to the everlasting bonfire. [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 and drink, sir, is a great provoker of three things. Macd. What three things does drink especially provoke ?

Port. Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and urine. Lechery, sir, it provokes, and unprovokes: it provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance: Therefore, much drink may be said to be an equivocator with lechery it makes him, and it mars him; it sets him on, and it takes him off; it persuades him, and disheartens him; makes him stand to, and not stand to: in conclu

(1) i. e. frequent more than enough. (2) i.e. Handkerchiefs. STEEV.

STEEVENS.

(3) Meaning a Jesuit: an order so troublesome to the state in Queen Elizabeth and King James the First's time. The inventors of the execrable doctrine of equivocation. WARB.

(4) The archness of the joke consists in this, that a French hose being very short and strait, a tailor must be master of his trade who could steal any thing from thence. WARB.

sion, equivocates him in a sleep, and, giving him the lie, leaves him.

Macd. I believe, drink gave thee the lie, last night. Port. That it did, sir, i'the very throat o'me: But I requited him for his lie; and, I think, being too strong for him, though he took up my leg sometime, yet I made a shift to cast him.

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. Not yet.

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.

Macb. The labour we delight in, physics pain.

This is the door.

Macd. I'll make so bold to call,

For 'tis my limited service.5.

Len. Goes the king

From hence to-day?

[Exit MACDUFF.

Macb. He does :-he did appoint it 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 prophecying, 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. '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 !

Macb. Len. What's the matter?

Macd. Confusion now hath made his masterpiece! Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope

The Lord's anointed temple, 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.

-Awake! Awake! [Exeunt MACBETH and LENOX. Ring the alarum-bell :-Murder! and treason! Banquo, and Donalbain! Maicolm! 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 sprights, To countenance this horror! [Bell rings.

Enter Lady MACBETH.

Lady M. What's the business,

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,

Would murder as it fell.O Banquo! Banquo!

Enter BANQUO.

Our royal master's murder'd!

Lady M. Woe, alas!

What, in our house ?6

Ban. Too cruel, any where.

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.

(6) Had she been innocent, nothing but the murder itself, and not any of its As it was, aggravating circumstances, would naturally have affected her. her business was to appear highly disordered at the news. Therefore like one who has her thoughts about her, she seeks for an aggravating circumstance, that might be supposed most to affect her personally; not considering, that by placing it there, she discovered rather a concern for herself than for the King. On the contrary, her husband, who had repented the act, and was now labouring under the horrors of a recent murder, in his exclamation, WARB. gives all the marks of sorrow for the fact itself.

Enter MALCOLM and DONALBAIN.

Don. What is amiss?

Macb. You are, and do not know it:

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? No man :

The expedition of my violent love

Outran the pauser reason.——— -Here lay Duncan,
His silver skin lac'd with his golden blood;7

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 his love known?

Lady M. Help me hence, ho!

Macd. Look to the lady. 8

Mal. Why do we hold our tongues,

That most may claim this argument for ours?
Don. What should be spoken here,

(7) Mr. Pope has endeavoured to improve one of these lines by substituting geary blood for golden blood; but it may easily be admitted that he who could on such an occasion t lk of lacing the silver skin, would lace it with golden blood. No amendment can be made to this line, of which every word is equally fulty, but by a general blot.—It is not improbable. that Shak speare put these forced and unnatural metaphors into th mouth of Macbeth, as a mark of artifice and dissimulation, to shew the difference between the studied language of hypocrisy, and the natural outcries of sudden passion. This whole speech so considered, is a remarkable instance of judgment, as it consists entirely of antithesis and metaphor. JOHNSON.

(8) Mr. Whateley justly observes that, "on Lady Macbeth's seeming to faint, while Banquo and Macduff are solicitous about her, Macbeth, by his unconcern, betrays a consciousness that the fainting is feigned" I may add that a bold and hardened villain would, from a refined policy, have assumed the appearance of being alarmed about her lest this very imputation should arise against him: the irresolute Macbeth is not sufficiently at ease to act such a part. MALONE.

Where our fate, hid within an augre-hole,

May rush, and seize us? Let's away; our tears

Are not yet brew'd.

Mal. Nor our strong sorrow on

The foot of motion.

Ban. Look to the lady :

[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 further. 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.9

Macb. And so do I.

All. So all.

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

All. Well contented. [Exeunt all but MÅL. 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 fortunes 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,

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. [Exę:

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,

(9) Pretence is intention, design, a sense in which the word is often used by Shakspeare. STEEV.

() The design to fix the murder upon some innocent person has not yet taken effect. JOHNSON.