Macb. There's one did laugh in his sleep, and one cried, murder! That they did wake each other; I stood and heard them: Lady M. There are two lodg'd together. Macb. One cry'd, 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 1 I had most need of blessing, and amen Stuck in my throat. pronounce, amen? Lady M. 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 murder sleep, the innocent sleep; Sleep, that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care, Lady M. What do you mean? Macb. Still it cried, Sleep no more! to all the house : Glamis hath murder'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. Macb. 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, [5] Sleave signifies the ravelled knotty part of the silk, which gives great trouble and embarrassment to the knitter or weaver HEATH. Drayton, a poet of Shakespeare's age, has likewise alluded to sleave or ravelled silk, in his Quest of Cynthia : At length I on a fountain light, Whose brim with pinks was platted, The banks with daffadillies dight, With grass, like sleave was matted." LANGTON. Are but as pictures: 'tis the eye of childhood, For it must seem their guilt. [Exit. Knocking within. How is't with me, when every noise appals me? Clean from my hand? No; this my hand will rather 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 Get on your nightgown, lest occasion call us, So poorly in your thoughts. Macb. To know my deed,-'twere best not know my self." [Knock. Wake Duncan with thy knocking! Ay, 'would thou couldst ! [Exeunt. [6]" Suscipit, o Gelli, quantum non ultima Tethys, Nec genitor nympharum abluit oceanus." Catul. in Gel. 83. STEEVENS. [7] To incarnardine is to stain any thing of a flesh colour, or red. Carnardine is the old term for Carnation. STEEVENS. The word may be exemplified from Carew's Obsequies to the Lady Anne Hay: Hand shall besnow; a fourth, incarnadine [8] One red does not sound to my ear as the phraseology of the age of Elizabeth; and the green, for the green one, or for the green sea, is, I am persuaded, unexampled. MALONE. The expression" one red," may be justified by language more ancient than that of Shakespeare. In Genesis, ii. 24. and in several other places in scripture, we have one flesh" Again in our Liturgy: "be made one fold under one shepherd." STEEVENS. [9] i e. While I have the thoughts of this deed, it were best not know, or be lost to, myself. This is an answer to the lady's reproof. WARBURTON. SCENE III. The same. 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' th' name of Belzebub? Here's a farmer, that hanged himself on the expectation of plenty: Come in time; have napkins 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 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 a Porter. [Knocking within.] 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 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 equi vocation. WARBURTON. [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. WARBURTON. 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' th' 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 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 slipt 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." Len. Goes the king From hence to-day? Macb. He does:-he did appoint it so. [Exit MACDUFF. 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 prophesying, with accents terrible, Of dire combustion, and confus'd events, New hatch'd to th' 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' th' 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! 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. Enter Lady MACВЕТН. 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, All is but toys: renown, and grace, is dead; [6] Had she been innocent, nothing but the murder itself, and not any of its ag gravating circumstances, would naturally have adected her As it was, 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 sup posed 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, gives all the marks of sorrow for the fact itself WARBURTON. |