Len. Goes the king hence to-day?
Macb.

He does;-he did appoint 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 prophesying, with accents terrible,

Of dire combustion, and confused events,
New hatched to the woful time.

The obscure bird

Clamored 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!

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 drowsy 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 MACBETH.

Lady M.
That such a hideous trumpet calls to parley
The sleepers of the house?

Macd.

What's the business,

Speak, speak,

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!

Dear Duff, I pr'ythee, contradict thyself,
And sav it is not so.

Re-enter MACBETH and LENOX.

Macb. Had I but died an hour before this chance, I had lived 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.

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 stopped; the very source of it is stopped.

Macd. Your royal father's murdered.

Mal.

O, by whom?

Len. Those of his chamber, as it seemed, had

done't.

Their hands and faces were all badged with blood;

So were their daggers, which unwiped we found
Upon their pillows.

They stared, 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.

Wherefore did you so?

Macb. Who can be wise, amazed, temperate, and furious,

Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man.
The expedition of my violent love

Outran the pauser reason.-Here lay Duncan,
His silver skin laced with his golden blood;

And his gashed stabs looked like a breach in nature,
For ruin's wasteful entrance. There, the murderers,
Steeped in the colors of their trade, their daggers
Unmannerly breeched 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?
Don. What should be spoken,

Here, where our fate, hid in an auger-hole,

May rush, and seize us? Let's away; our tears

Are not yet brewed.

Mal.

Upon the foot of motion.

Ban.

Nor our strong sorrow

Look to the lady ;

[LADY MACBETH is carried out.

And when we have our naked frailties hid,
That suffer in exposure, 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,

1 "Breeched with gore," covered with blood to their hilts.
2 The old folio reads "augure."

Against the undivulged pretence1 I fight
Of treasonous malice.

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.
Don. To Ireland, I; our separated fortune
Shall keep us both the safer. Where we are,
There's daggers in men's smiles: the near in blood,
The nearer bloody."

Mal.

This murderous shaft that's shot, Hath not yet lighted;3 and our safest way Is, to avoid the aim. Therefore, to horse; And let us not be dainty of leave-taking, But shift away. There's warrant in that theft Which steals itself, when there's no mercy left.

SCENE IV. Without the Castle.

Enter ROSSE and an Old Man.

[Exeunt.

Old M. Threescore and ten I can remember well; Within the volume of which time, I have seen

1 Pretence is here put for design or intention. 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 myself an eternal enemy to this treason, and to all its further designs that have not yet come to light."

Meaning that he suspects Macbeth to be the murderer; for he was the nearest in blood to the two princes, being the cousin-german of Duncan. 3 Malcolm means to say, "The shaft has not yet done all its intended

mischief."

Hours dreadful, and things strange; but this sore night Hath trifled former knowings.

Ah, good father,

Rosse.
Thou see'st, the heavens, as troubled with man's act,
Threaten his bloody stage. By the clock, 'tis day,
And yet dark night strangles the travelling lamp.
Is it night's predominance, or the day's shame,
That darkness does the face of earth entomb,
When living light should kiss it?1

Old M.
'Tis unnatural,
Even like the deed that's done. On Tuesday last,
A falcon, tow'ring in her pride of place,2

Was by a mousing owl hawked at, and killed.

Rosse. And Duncan's horses, (a thing most strange and certain,)

Beauteous and swift, the minions of their race,
Turned wild in nature, broke their stalls, flung out,
Contending 'gainst obedience, as they would make
War with mankind.

Old M.

'Tis said, they ate each other. Rosse. They did so; to the amazement of mine

eyes,

That looked upon't. Here comes the good Mac

duff.

Enter MACDuff.

Why, see you not?

How goes the world, sir, now?

Macd.

Rosse. Is't known who did this more than bloody

deed?

1 "After the murder of king Duffe," says Holinshed, "for the space of six months togither there appeared no sunne by daye, nor moon by night in anie part of the realme; but still the sky was covered with continual clouds; and sometimes such outrageous winds arose, with lightenings and tempests, that the people were in great fear of present destruction." It is evident that Shakspeare had this passage in his thoughts. Most of the portents here mentioned are related by Holinshed, as accompanying king Duffe's death: "there was a sparhawk strangled by an owl," and "horses of singular beauty and swiftness did eat their own flesh."

2 "A falcon tow'ring in her pride of place," a technical phrase in falconry for soaring to the highest pitch. Faulcon haultain, was the French term for a towering or high-flying hawk.

VOL. III.

27