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. Mach. The labour we delight in physics pain. This is the door. Macd. For 'tis my limited service. I'll make so bold to call, [Exit MACDUFf. 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 confus'd events, New hatch'd to the woeful time. The obscure bird Mach. '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! Mach. Len. What's the matter? Macd. Confusion 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!— Enter Lady МАСВЕТН. Lady M. What's the business, That such a hideous trumpet calls to parley Macd. [Bell rings. O, gentle lady! 'Tis not for you to hear what I can speak: The repetition, in a woman's ear, Enter BANQUO. Would murder as it fell.-O Banquo! Banquo! Lady M. What! in our house? Ban. Woe, alas! Too cruel, anywhere. Dear Duff, I pr'ythee, contradict thyself, And say, it is not so. Re-enter MACBETH and LENOX'. Mach. Had I but died an hour before this chance, • Ring the bell.] Malone and Steevens omitted these words, on the ground that they were a stage-direction; whereas they are a repetition of Macduff's order to "ring the alarum bell," and they are moreover necessary to complete the line. Lady Macbeth's speech begins, it is true, with an imperfect hemistich, but such has been the case in many previous instances. If "Ring the bell” had been a stage-direction, it would hardly have been followed by " Bell rings," as it stands in all the old copies. 7 Re-enter Macbeth and Lenox.] The folio, 1623, adds "and Rosse to this I had liv'd a blessed time, for from this instant All is but toys: renown and grace, is dead; Enter MALCOLM and DONALBAIN. Don. What is amiss? Macb. You are, and do not know't: The spring, the head, the fountain of your blood Macd. Your royal father's murder'd. 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. Mach. O! yet I do repent me of my fury, That I did kill them. Macd. Wherefore did you so? Mach. 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, stage-direction; but Rosse has not been on the stage in this act, and he is employed in the next scene. We have, therefore, had no difficulty in correcting an error, which runs through the old copies. Lady M. Help me hence, ho! Macd. Look to the lady. Mal. 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, [Lady MACBETH is carried out. And when we have our naked frailties hid, And question this most bloody piece of work, Of treasonous malice. 8 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, Mal. This murderous shaft that's shot • Against the undivulg'd PRETENCE I fight] "Pretence" is intention, design, a sense in which the word is often used by Shakespeare. So in the next scene, Rosse asks, "What good could they pretend? Hath not yet lighted, and our safest way [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 seest, the heavens, as troubled with man's act, Old M. "Tis unnatural, Even like the deed that's done. On Tuesday last, A falcon, towering in her pride of place, Was by a mousing owl hawk'd at, and kill'd. Rosse. And Duncan's horses (a thing most strange and certain), Beauteous and swift, the minions of their race, 9- the TRAVAILING lamp.] The words travel and travail (observes the Rev. Mr. Barry) have now different meanings, though formerly synonymous. Travelling, the ordinary reading, gives a puerile idea; whereas the poet, by "travailing," seems to have reference to the struggle between the sun and night, which induces Rosse to ask, "Is't night's predominance, or the day's shame," &c. |