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Gent. Why, it stood by her she has light by her continually; 'tis her command.

Doc. You see, her eyes are open.

Gent. Ay, but their sense is shut.

Doc. What is it she does now? Look, how she rubs her hands.

Gent. It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thus washing her hands; I have known her continue in this a quarter of an hour.

Lady M. Yet here's a spot.

Doc. Hark, she speaks: I will set down what comes from her, to satisfy my remembrance the more strongly. Lady M. Out, damned spot! out, I say!-One; Two; Why, then 'tis time to do't-Hell is murky!

-Fie, my lord, fie! a soldier, and afear'd? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?-Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?

Doc. Do you mark that?

Lady M. The thane of Fife had a wife; Where is she now ?-What, will these hands ne'er be clean ?No more o'that, my lord, no more o'that you mar all with this starting.

Doc. Go to, go to; you have known what you should

not.

Gent. She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of that: Heaven knows what she has known.

Lady M. Here's the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh! oh! oh!

Doc.What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely charged. Gent. I would not have such a heart in my bosom, for the dignity of the whole body.

Doc. Well, well, well,

Gent. 'Pray God, it be, sir.

[1] Lady Macbeth is acting over, in a dream, the business of the murder of Duncan, and encouraging her husband, as when awake. She therefore would not have even hinted the terrors of hell to one whose conscience she saw was too much alarmed already for her purpose. She certainly imag ines herself here talking to Macbeth, who (she supposes) had just said Hell is murky, (i. e. hell is a dismal place to go to in consequence of such a deed) and repeats his words in contempt of his cowardice,

Hell is murky!Fie, my lord, fie! a soldier, and afear'd? This explanation, I think, gives a spirit to the passage, which has hitherto appeared languid, being, perhaps, misapprehended by those who placed a full point at the conclusion of it.

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STEEV.

Doc. This disease is beyond my practice: Yet I have known those which have walked in their sleep, who have died holily in their beds.

Lady M. Wash your hands, put on your night-gown ; look not so pale :-I tell you yet again, Banquo's buried; he cannot come out of his grave.

Doc. Even so ?

Lady M. To bed, to bed; there's knocking at the gate. Come, come, come, come, give me your hand; What's done, cannot be undone : To bed, to bed, to bed. [Exit. Doc. Will she go now to bed?

Gent. Directly.

Doc. Foul whisperings are abroad: Unnatural deed's Do breed unnatural troubles: Infected minds

To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets.
More needs she the divine, than the physician.-
God, God, forgive us all! Look after her;
Remove from her the means of all annoyance,
And still keep eyes upon her :-So, good-night,
My mind she has mated, 2 and amaz'd my sight:
I think, but dare not speak.

Gent. Good night, good doctor.

SCENE II.

[Exeunt.

The Country near Dunsinane. Enter with Drum and Colours, MENTETH, CATHNESS, ANGUS, LENOX, and Soldiers.

Ment. The English power is near, led on by Malcolm, His uncle Siward, and the good Macduff.

Revenges burn in them: for their dear causes
Would, to the bleeding, and the grim alarm,
Excite the mortified man. 3

Ang. Near Birnam wood

Shall we well meet them; that way are they coming.
Cath. Who knows, if Donalbain be with his brother?
Len. For certain, sir, he is not: I have a file

Of all the gentry; there is Siward's son,
And many unrough youths, that even now
Protest their first of manhood.

Ment. What does the tyrant?

[2] Astonished, confounded. JOHNSON.

[3] By the mortified man, is meant a religious; one who has subdued his passions, is dead to the world, has abandoned it, and all the affairs of it: an Ascetic. WARB.

Cath. Great Dunsinane he strongly fortifies:

Some say, he's mad; others, that lesser hate him,
Do call it valiant fury: but, for certain,

He cannot buckle his distemper'd cause
Within the belt of rule.

Ang. Now does he feel

His secret murders sticking on his hands;
Now minutely revolts upbraid his faith-breach;
Those he commands, move only in command,
Nothing in love: now does he feel his title
Hang loose about him, like a giant's robe
Upon a dwarfish thief.

Ment. Who then shall blame

His pester'd senses to recoil, and start,
When all that is within him does condemn
Itself, for being there ?4

Cath. Well, march we on,

To give obedience where 'tis truly ow'd:
Meet we the medecin of the sickly weal ;5
And with him pour we, in our country's purge,

Each drop of us.

Len. Or so much as it needs,

To dew the sovereign flower, and drown the weeds. Make we our march towards Birnam. [Exe. marching.

SCENE III.

Dunsinane. A Room in the Castle. Enter MACBETH, Doctor, and Attendants.

Macb. Bring me no more reports; let them fly all ; Till Birnam wood remove to Dunsinane,

I cannot taint with fear. What's the boy Malcolm?
Was he not born of woman? The spirits that know
All mortal consequents, pronounc'd me thus:
Fear not, Macbeth; no man, that's born of woman,
Shall e'er have power on thee.-Then fly, false thanes,
And mingle with the English epicures :

[4] That is, when all the faculties of the mind are employed in self-condemnation. JOHNS.

[5] i. e. physician. Shakspeare uses this word in the feminine gender, where Lafeu speaks of Helen in All's well that ends well; and Florizel, in The Winter's Tale, calls Camillo "the medecin of our house." STEEV.

[6] Shakspeare took the thought from Holinshed, p 179 and 180, of his History of Scotland: "For manie of the people abhorring the riotous manners and superstitious gormandizing brought in among them by the Englyshe

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