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Get on your nightgown, lest occasion call us,
And show us to be watchers:-Be not lost
So poorly in your thoughts.

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.[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 you, remember the porter. [Opens the gate.

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:3 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.

Enter MACBETH.

Len. Good-morrow, noble sir!

Macb.

Good-morrow, both!

Not yet.

Macd. Is the king stirring, worthy thane?

Macb.

3 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.
I'll bring you to him.
Macd. I know, this is a joyful trouble to you;

But yet, 'tis one.

Macb. The labour we delight in, physicks pain. This is the door.

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From hence to-day?

Macb.

He does:-he did appoint it so.3 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!

4 For 'tis my limited service.] Limited, for appointed.

5 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.

Macb. 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.

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,
To countenance this horror!
[Bell rings.

Enter Lady MАСВЕТН.

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

What's the business,

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!

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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, 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 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.

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;

Here lay Duncan,

His silver skin lac'd with his golden blood;] It is not impro bable, that Shakspeare put these forced and unnatural metaphors into the mouth of Macbeth, as a mark of artifice and dissimula

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