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I'll gild the faces of the grooms withal,
For it must seem their guilt 5.

[Exit. Knocking within. Whence is that knocking?

Macb. 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 Clean from my hand? No; this my hand will rather The multitudinous seas incarnardine 7,

Making the green—one red o.

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: A little water clears us of this deed:

5 This quibble too occurs frequently in old plays. Shakspeare has it again in King Henry IV. Part 11. Act iv. Sc. 4:

'England shall double gild his treble guilt.'

And in King Henry V. :—

6

"Have for the gilt of France, O guilt indeed.'
'Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood,' &c.
Suscipit, Gellii, quantum non ultima Tethys,
Nec genitor Nympharum abluit oceanus.

Catullus in Gellium, 83.

Οἶμαι γὰρ οὔτ' ἂν Ιστρον οὔτε Φάσιν ἂν
Νίψαι καθαρμῷ τήνδε τὴν στέγην.

Sophoc. Οίδιπ. Τυρ. 1227.

Quis eluet me Tanais? aut quae barbaris
Moeotis undis Pontico incumbens mari?
Non ipse toto magnus oceano pater
Tantum expirarit sceleris!
Non, si Neptuni fluctu renovare operam des;
Non, mare si totum velit eluere omnibus undis.

Senec. Hippol.

Lucret. 1. vi. ver. 1075.

Thus also, in The Insatiate Countess, by Marston, 1613 :—
'Although the waves of all the northern sea
Should flow for ever through these guilty hands,
Yet the sanguinolent stain would extant be.'

To incarnardine is to stain of a red colour. 8 In the old copy this line stands thus :

'Making the Green one, Red.'

The punctuation in the text was adopted by Steevens at the suggestion of Murphy. Malone prefers the old punctuation. Steevens has well defended the arrangement of his text, which seems to me to deserve the preference.

How easy is it then? Your constancy

Hath left you unattended 9. - [Knocking.] Hark! more knocking:

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 10.

[Knock. Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would, thou couldst ? [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 1 turning the key. [Knocking.] Knock, knock, knock: Who's there, i'the name of Belzebub? Here's a farmer 2, that hanged himself on the expectation of plenty: Come in time; have napkins 3 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 4, that could swear in both the scales against either scale; who committed treason enough for God's sake, yet could not equivocate to heaven: 0, come in, equivocator. [Knocking.] Knock, knock, knock; Who's there? 'Faith,

9 'Your constancy hath left you unattended.'-Vide note on King Henry V. Act v. Sc. 2. 446

10 This is an answer to Lady Macbeth's reproof. 'While I have the thoughts of this deed, it were best not know, or be lost to myself."

1 i. e. frequent.

2 Here's a farmer that hanged himself on the expectation of plenty. So in Hall's Satires, b. iv. sat. 6:

"Each muckworme will be rich with lawless gaine,
Altho' he smother up mowes of seven yeares graine,
And hang'd himself when corne grows cheap againe.

3 i. e. handkerchiefs. In the dictionaries of the time sudarium is rendered by napkin or handkerchief, wherewith we wipe away the sweat.'

4 i. e. a Jesuit That order were troublesome to the state, and held in odium in the reigns of Elizabeth and James. They were inventors of the execrable doctrine of equivocation.

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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 everlasting bonfire 5. [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 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

s So in Hamlet:

'Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads."

And in All's Well that Ends Well:-The flowery way that leads to the great fire.'

6 i. e. till three o'clock, according to a passage in Romeo and Juliet:

-The second cock has crow'd,

The curfew bell has toll'd: 'tis three o'clock.

1 In for into,

too strong for him, though he took up my legs sometime, yet I made a shift to cast him. 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!

Macd. Is the king stirring, worthy thane? Macb. Not yet. 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 8 pain. This is the door.

Macd.

I'll make so bold to call,

For 'tis my limited service 9.
Len. Goes the king hence to-day?

Exit MACDUFF.

Macb. 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 prophesying, with accents terrible,

Of dire combustion, and confus'd events,

New hatch'd to the woful 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.

8 i. e. alleviates it. Physic is defined by Baret, a remedie, an helping or curing. So in The Tempest :

"There be some sports are painful; and their labour
Delight in them sets off.

9 i. e. Appointed service.

my

Re-enter MACDUFF.

Macd. O horror! horror! horror! Tongue, nor heart, Cannot conceive, nor name thee 10!

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.

Lady M.

Enter LADY MACBETH.

What's the business,

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

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 11.--O Banquo! Banquo!

10 It has been already observed that Shakspeare uses two negatives, not to make an affirmative, but to deny more strongly. "The repetition, in a woman's ear,

11

Would murder as it fell.'

So in Hamlet:

He would drown the stage with tears,

And cleave the general ear with horrid speech.'

And in The Puritan, 1607:-"The punishments that shall follow you in this world would with horrour kill the ear, should hear them related.'

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