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 conclusion, 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 legs 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! Not yet. Macd. Is the king stirring, worthy thane? Macd. He did command me to call timely on him; I have almost slipp'd the hour. Macb. But yet, 'tis one. Macb. The labour we delight in, physicks pain. This is the door. 4 For 'tis my limited service.] Limited, for appointed. + "Goes the king hence to-day?"—Malone. But per 5 He does: - he did appoint so.] The words-he does · are omitted by Pope, Theobald, Hanmer, and Warburton. haps Shakspeare designed Macbeth to shelter himself under an immediate falshood, till a sudden recollection of guilt restrained his confidence, and unguardedly disposed him to qualify his assertion; as he well knew the king's journey was effectually prevented by his death. 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 Was feverous, and did shake. Macb. some say, the earth '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! - The great doom's image Malcolm! Banquo! and walk like sprights, [Bell rings. up, up, and see As from your graves rise up, Enter Lady Macbeth, Lady M. What's the business, That such a hideous trumpet calls to parley 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. Woe, alas! Too cruel, any where. Ban. 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; Is left this vault to brag of. 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. O, by whom? Mal. So were their daggers, which, unwip'd, we found They star'd, and were distracted; no man's life 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 fu rious, Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man : Out-ran the pauser reason. Here lay Duncan, Courage, to make his love known? 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 within an augre-hole + 6 Here lay Duncan, His silver skin lac'd with his golden blood;] It is not improbable that Shakspeare put these forc'd 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 remarkable instance of judgment, as it consists entirely of antithesis and metaphor. Yet some of these metaphors are to be found in old plays. JOHNSON. 7 Unmannerly breech'd with gore:] According to Mr. Steevens, the expression may mean, that the daggers were covered with blood quite to their breeches, i. e. their hilts, or handles. The lower end of a cannon is called the breech of it; and it is known that both to breech and to unbreech a gun are common terms; but Dr. Farmer says that the sense is, in plain language, Daggers filthily in a foul manner, -sheath'd with blood, and has given an example where sheaths are called breeches. "Here, where our fate, hid in an augre hole,”- MALONE. - [Lady MACBETH is carried out. And when we have our naked frailties hid, And question this most bloody piece of work, Of treasonous malice. 9 Macb. 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, "Nor are strong sorrow 66 Upon the foot of motion." Malone. 8 And when we have our naked frailties hid, That suffer in exposure,] i. e. when we have clothed our half-drest bodies, which may take cold from being exposed to the air. It is possible that, in such a cloud of words, the meaning might escape the reader. STEEVENS. 9 In the great hand of God I stand; and, thence, Against the undivulg'd pretence I fight Of treasonous malice.] Pretence is intention, design, a sense in which the word is often used by Shakspeare. Banquo's meaning is, -in our present state of doubt and uncertainty about this murder, I have nothing to do but to put myself under the direction of God; and relying on his support, I here declare myself an eternal enemy to this treason, and to all its further designs that have not yet come to light. STEEVens. |