Act 2 — SCENE IV.

Len. The night has been unruly; where we lay Our chimneys were blown down: and, as they say, Lamentings heard i'th'air, strange screams of death, And prophesying with accents terrible Of dire combustion, and confused events, New-hatch'd to the woeful time. The obscure bird clamour'd the live-long night: Some say, the earth was fev'rous, and did shake.

These lines, I think, should be rather regulated thus:

—prophesying with accents terrible, Of dire combustion and confused events. New-hatch'd to th'woeful time, the obscure bird Clamour'd the live-long night. Some say, the earth Was fev'rous and did shake.

A prophecy of an event new-hatch'd, seems to be a prophecy of an event past. The term new-hatch'd is properly applicable to a bird, and that birds of ill omen should be new-hatch'd to the woeful time is very consistent with the rest of the prodigies here mentioned, and with the universal disorder into which nature is described as thrown, by the perpetration of this horrid murder.

NOTE XXII.

—Up, up, and see The great doom's image, Malcolm, Banquo, As from your graves rise up.—

The second line might have been so easily completed, that it cannot be supposed to have been left imperfect by the author, who probably wrote,

—Malcolm! Banquo! rise! As from your graves rise up.—

Many other emendations, of the same kind, might be made, without any greater deviation from the printed copies, than is found in each of them from the rest.

NOTE XXIII.

Macbeth.—Here, lay Duncan, His silver skin laced with his golden blood; And his gash'd stabs look'd like a breach in nature, For ruin's wasteful entrance: there, the murtherers Steep'd in the colours of their trade, their daggers Unmannerly breech'd with gore.—

An unmannerly dagger, and a dagger breech'd, or as in some editions breach'd with gore, are expressions not easily to be understood, nor can it be imagined that Shakespeare would reproach the murderer of his king only with want of manners. There are, undoubtedly, two faults in this passage, which I have endeavoured to take away by reading,

—Daggers Unmanly drench'd with gore.—

I saw drench'd with the king's Mood the fatal daggers, not only instruments of murder but evidences of cowardice.

Each of these words might easily be confounded with that which I have substituted for it by a hand not exact, a casual blot, or a negligent inspection.

Mr. Pope has endeavoured to improve one of these lines, by substituting goary blood for golden blood, but it may easily be admitted, that he who could on such an occasion talk of lacing the silver skin, would lace it with golden blood. No amendment can be made to this line, of which every word is equally faulty, but by a general blot.

It is not improbable, that Shakespeare put these forced and unnatural metaphors into the mouth of Macbeth, as a mark of artifice and dissimulation, to show the difference between the studied language of hypocrisy, and the natural outcries of sudden passion. This whole speech, considered in this light, is a remarkable instance of judgment, as if consists entirely of antitheses and metaphors.

NOTE XXIV.