Macb. There's one did laugh in his sleep, and one cried, murder ! That they did wake each other; Istood 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 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 I pronounce, amen? I had most need of blessing, and amen Stuck in my throat.

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, s 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. 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 Shakspeare's age, has likewise alluded to sleaved or raðelled silk, in his Quest of Cynthia:

"At length 1 on a fountain light,

Whose brim with pinks was platted,

The banks with daffadillies dight,

With grass, like sleave was matted."

LANGTON.

That fears a painted devil. If he do bleed,
I'll gild the faces of the grooms withal,
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 oceans wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No; this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnardine,

Making the green-one red.8

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 night-gown, 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 my

self.9

[Knock.

Wake Duncan with thy knocking! ay, 'would thou

couldst !

(6) Suscipit, o Gelli, quantum non ultima Tethys,

[Exeunt.

Nec genitor nympharum abluit oceanus." Catul. in Gel. 83. STEEV.

(7) To incarnardine is to stain any thing of a flesh colour, or red. Carnardine is the old term for Carnation. STEEV.

The word may be exemplified fromCarew's Obsequies to the Lady Anne Hay:

"One shall ensphere thine eyes; another shall
Impearl thy teeth; a third, thy white and small
Hand shall besnow; a fourth, incarnadine
Thy rosy cheek." WAKEFIELD.

(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 per suaded, unexampled. MAL.

The expression-"one red," may be justified by language more ancient than that of Shakspeare. 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." STEEV.

(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. WARB.

SCENE III.

The same. 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! et! 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.

1

were por
the ker

here,

ed himsel

re; have

weat fort

the other

or, that

er scale

sake, Fe

equivoca o's there?

or stea

e you mar
Ne

oo coid
hought

primros

GOD, 100%

the ga

nt to bed

re second

ee things

ally pre

ine. Le

rokes the

nerefore,

thieche

him 00 heartens

n conciu

Tueen Elis
execrable

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 requited him for his lie; and, I think, being too strong for him, though he took up my leg sometime, yet made a shift to cast him.

Macd. Is thy master stirring?

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

Enter MAСВЕТН.

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.

A fellow to it.

Len. My young remembrance cannot parallel

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!

Enter Lady MACBETH.

Lady M. What's the business,

[Bell rings.

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

Ran. Too cruel, any where.

Dear Duff, I prythee, 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 aggravating circumstances, would naturally have affected 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 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, gives all the marks of sorrow for the fact itself. WARB.