The multitudinous seas incarnardine,'

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

[knocking :

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

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

So poorly in your thoughts.

Macb. To know my deed,-'twere best not know

myself.

[Knock.

[Exeunt.

Wake Duncan with thy knocking! Ay, 'would thou

could'st!

SCENE III.--The same.

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.] Knock, knock, knock: Who's there, i' th' name of Belzebub? Here's a farmer, that hanged himself on the expectation of plenty : Come in time; have napkins 3 enough about you; here you'll sweat for't. [Knocking.] Knock, knock: Who's there, i' th' other devil's name? 'Faith, here's an equivocator, 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

turn to a red colour. 3 handkerchiefs.

2 i. e. constant turning of the key. Meaning, a Jesuit.

4

come hither, for stealing out of a French hose:' 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.

Macd. Is thy master stirring?

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

Good-morrow, both.

Not yet.

Macd. Is the king stirring, worthy thane?
Macb.
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, physicks pain.

This is the door.

Macd.

I'll make so bold to call,

For 'tis my limited2 service.

Len.

From hence to-day ?

1 The archness of the joke consists in this, that a French hose being very short and straight, a tailor must be master of his trade who could steal any thing from thence.-WARBURTON.

⚫ appointed service.

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' th' air; strange screams of death; And prophecying, with accents terrible,

Of dire combustion, and confus'd events,

New hatch'd to th' woeful time. The obscure bird Clamour'd the livelong 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 Cannot conceive, nor name thee!

Macb. Len.

[heart,'

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' th' building.

Macb.

What is't you say? the life?

Len. Mean you his majesty?

[sight

Macd. Approach the chamber, and destroy your 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 sprights, To countenance this horror! [Bell rings.

This use of the double negative is very common in our

author.

Enter Lady MАСВЕТН.

Lady M.
That such a hideous trumpet calls to parley
The sleepers of the house? speak, speak.-
Macd.

What's the business,

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

Ban.

Woe, alas!

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.

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 Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man: [furious, 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 his love known?
Lady M.

Macd. Look to the lady.

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,
May rush and seize us? Let's away; our tears
Are not yet brew'd.

Mal.

The foot of motion.

Ban.

Nor our strong sorrow on

2

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 pretence3 I fight

Of treasonous malice.

Foully sheathed.

2 Meaning, our half-dressed bodies.

3 the secret and ulterior design.