They must lie there: Go, carry them; and smear Macb. I am afraid to think what I have done; Look on't again, I dare not. Lady M. I'll go no more: Infirm of purpose! Give me the daggers: The sleeping, and the dead, For it must seem their guilt. Macb. [Exit. Knocking within. 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 ocean wash this blood 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: Hark! The multitudinous seas incarnardine,] To incarnardine is to stain any thing of a flesh colour, or red. Carnardine is the old term for carnation. By multitudinous, the poet is supposed to mean seas of every denomination: or, the seas which swarm with inhabitants: or, perhaps alludes to the multitude of waves. The commentators are not agreed on this point. Get on your nightgown, lest occasion call us, Macb. To know my deed,-'twere best not know myself. Wake Duncan with thy knocking! Ay, 'would thou could'st! [Knock. [Exeunt. 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.2 [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 napkins 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, 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 ever 2 he should have old turning the key.] i. e. frequent, more than enough. lasting bonfire. [Knocking.] Anon, anon; I pray [Opens the gate. you, remember the porter. 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 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. 3 Enter MACBeth. Len. Good-morrow, noble sir! Macb. Not yet. till the second cock:] Cockcrowing, i. e. as Mr. Malone thinks, till three o'clock. 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. Macd. I'll make so bold to call, For 'tis my limited service.* Len. From hence to-day? Exit MACDUff. Goes the king 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 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 heart, Cannot conceive, nor name thee! + For 'tis my limited service.] Limited, for appointed. He does:-he did appoint it so.] The words he does -are omitted by Pope, Theobald, Hanmer, and Warburton. But perhaps 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. 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? Where our fate, hid within an augre-hole, May rush, and seize us? Let's away; our tears Mal. The foot of motion. Ban. Nor our strong sorrow on Look to the lady: [Lady MACBETH is carried out. And when we have our naked frailties hid, 8 That suffer in exposure, let us meet, And question this most bloody piece of work, tion, 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. ' 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. And when we have our naked frailties hid, That suffer in exposure.] i. e. when we have clothed our halfdrest 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. |