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tation of plenty: come in time; have napkins 131) 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 132), 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 135). 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. il-porter it no further: I had thought to have let in some of all professions, that go the primrose way to th' everlasting bonfire. [Knocking.] Anon, anon 134); I pray you remember the porter. [Opens the gate.]

Enter Macduffe 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 135) and drink, Sir, is a great provoker of three things. Macd. What three things doth 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,

131) napkins i. e. handkerchiefs. Steevens. 132) Meaning a Jesuit: an order so troublesome to the state in queen Elizabeth and James the first's time. The inventors of the execrable doctrine of

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equivocation. Warburton. 1) The archness of the joke consists in this, that a French hose being very short and strait, tailor must be master of his trade who could steal any thing from thence. Warburton. 134) Anon, was giebt's? Was? He? anon, anan und manchmal nan antworten die Landleute und an dere niedrige Klassen, wenn sie ein Wort oder eine Frage nicht recht verstehen, wenn sie fragen, wer pocht, oder was man verlangt u. s. w. (S. eine Anmerkung zu Hüttner's Erläuterungen der Farze von Townley: High Life below stairs, S. 75.) 135) cock, cockcrowing. Steevens. It appears from a passage Romeo and Juliet, that Shakspeare means, that they were carousing till three o'clock. Malone.

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and not stand to; in conclusion, equivocates him in 136) 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-137).

Macd. Is thy master stirring?

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

Enter Macbeth."

Len. Good-morrow, noble Sir.

Macb.

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.

Mach.

I'll bring you to him.
Macd. I know, this is a joyful trouble to you;

But yet, 'tis one.

Mach. The labour, we delight in, physicks pain 138).

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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 combustions, and confus'd events,

New hatch'd 10) to the woeful time. The obscure bird
Clamour'd the livelong night: some say, the earth
Was feverous, and did shake.

136) in into.

Steevens.

137) To cast him, to ease my stomach of him. The equivocation is between cast or throw, as a term of wrestling, and cast or cast up. Johnson. 1383 physicks pain i. e. affords a cordial to it. Steevens. mited for appointed. Warburton. 149) Prophecying is what is new-hatch'd, and' in the metaphor holds the place of the egg. The events are the fruit of such hatching. Steevens.

139) Li

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Macd. O horrror! horror! honor! Tongue, nor heart Cannot conceive 141), nor name thee!

Macb. Len.

What's the matter

Macd. Gonfusion now hath made his master-piece!

Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope

The Lord's anointed temple, and stole thence

The life o' the building.

Mach,

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! Banquò!
As from your graves rise up, and walk like sprights,
To countenance this horror!

Lady M.

[Bell rings.]

Enter Lady Macbeth.

What's the business,

That such an hideous trumpet calls to parley
The sleepers of the house? speak, speak

Macd.

"Tis not for you to hear what I can speak: The repetition, in a woman's ear

Would murder as it fell

O gentle lady,

O Banquo! Banquo!

Enter Banquo.

Our royal master's murder'd!

Lady M.

What, in our house?

Ban.

Woe, alas!

Too cruel, any where.

141) The use of two negatives, not to make an affirmative, but to deny more strongly, is very common in our author. Stee

vens.

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,
Th'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.

Don.
Macb.

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Enter Malcolm and Donalbain.
What is amiss?

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.

so?

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 y violent love

Out-ran the pauser reason. Here lay Duncan;
His silver skin laced with his golden blood 2);
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 13) with gore. Who could refrain,

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142) It is not improbable, that Shakspeare put these forced and unnatural metaphors into the month of Macbeth as a mark of artifice and dissimulation, 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 antithesis and metaphor. Johnson. 143) Unmannerly breech'd with gore etc. The expression may mean, that the dag

That had a heart to love, and in that heart

Courage, to make his love known?

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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 brew'd.

Are not yet
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,
That suffer in exposure 144), 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 pretence I fight

Of treasonous malice 145).

Macb.

All.

And so do I.

So all.

Macb. Let's briefly put on manly readiness, And meet the hall together,

All.

Well contented.

[Exeunt all but Malcolm and Donalbain.] 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.

Don. To Ireland, I; our separated fortune

gers were covered with blood, quite to their breeches i. e. their hilts or handles. Steevens. In Shakspeare's time a dagger was a common weapon, and was usually carried by servants and others, suspended at their backs. Malone. 144) i. e. when we have clothed our halfdrest bodies, which may take cold from being exposed to the air. Steevens. 145) Pretenee is intention, design. Banquo's meaning is in our present state of doubt and upcertainty about this murder, I have nothing to do but to put my self under the direction of God; and relying on his support, I here declare myself an eternal enemy to this treason, and to all its further designs that have not yet come to light. Steevens.

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