Of dire combustion, and confus'd events, New hatch'd to the woeful time. Macb. The obscure bird 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! [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, [Bell rings. Enter Lady MACBETH. What's the business, Lady M. That such a hideous trumpet calls to parley The sleepers of the house? speak, speak, Macd. "Tis not for h gration. you O, gentle lady, to hear what I can speak : combustion,]—in this place means, tumult, distress, and not confla i New hatch'd to the woeful time:] i. e. Newly bursting forth to suit the woeful 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; 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 Macb. O, yet I do repent me of my fury, 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 Out-ran the pauser reason.-Here lay Duncan, His silver skin lac'd with his golden blood ;* Courage, to make his love known? 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 in an augre-hole Mal. Nor our strong sorrow Upon the foot of motion. Ban. Look to the lady :— [Lady MACBETH is carried out. And when we have our naked frailties hid, And question this most bloody piece of work, Of treasonous malice." * His silver skin lac'd with his golden blood ;] The allusion here is to the rich habits worn in the age of Shakspeare; and, "it is," says Dr. Warburton," so ridiculous on such an occasion, that it shews the declaimer not to be affected in the manner he would represent himself. The whole speech is an unnatural mixture of far-fetched and common-place thoughts, that shews him to be acting a part." 1_ breech'd with gore:] i.e.Having the very hilts, or breeches, covered with blood.-NARES. m · augre-hole]—is a hole bored with an augre, and is used proverbially for any narrow space. n And when we have our naked frailties hid, That suffer in exposure,] i. e. When we have clothed our half-dressed 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. • In the great hand of God I stand; and, thence, Against the undivulg'd pretence I fight Of treasonable 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 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. There's daggers in men's smiles: the near in blood, Mal. This murderous shaft that's shot, Hath not yet lighted ; and our safest way Which steals itself, when there's no mercy left. [Exeunt. 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, Thou see'st, the heavens, as troubled with man's act, myself an eternal enemy to this treason, and to all its further designs that have not yet come to light.-STEEVENS. the near in blood, The nearer bloody.] Meaning that he suspected Macbeth to be the murderer; for he was the nearest in blood to the two princes, being the cousingerman of Duncan.-STEEVENS. not yet lighted ;] i. e. Has not yet fallen upon the object it was de signed to hit. |