Macbeth - Act 2 Scene 3
The same.
The Porter is a conventional comic servant figure, though he seems out of place in the action of Macbeth. His comic interlude gives the audience a moment of relief from the intensity of the action, while at the same time heightening suspense, as we await the discovery of Duncan's body.
The Porter's imaginary game has sinister undertones: he imagines himself welcoming members of various professions to the gates of Hell, thus linking Macbeth's castle with the underworld.
The play's preoccupation with clothing is seen again, though here it has bawdy undertones, connecting tailoring with sex and venereal disease.
Knocking within. Enter a Porter
Porter
Here's a knocking indeed! If a man were
porter of hell-gate, he should have old turning
the key.
Knocking within
Knock, knock, knock! Who's there, i' the name
of Beelzebub? Here's a farmer, that hanged
himself on the expectation of plenty: come
in time; have napkins enow about you; here
you'll sweat for't.
Knocking within
Knock, knock! Who's there, in th'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 within
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 within
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.
Knocking within
Anon, anon! I pray you, remember the Porter.
Opens the gate
Enter MACDUFF and LENNOX
MACDUFF
Was it so late, friend, ere you went to bed,
That you do lie so late?
This speech suggests that the Porter is still drunk from the previous night, as well as having had little rest; both of these qualities can be played up to comic effect.
Porter
'Faith sir, we were carousing till the second cock:
and drink, sir, is a great provoker of three things.
MACDUFF
What three things does drink especially provoke?
Porter
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.
MACDUFF
I believe drink gave thee the lie last night.
Porter
That it did, sir, i' the very throat on 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.
It's not clear what happens to the Porter after this exchange. He has no lines beyond this point, but there's no exit marked for him, and the stage gradually fills with characters over the course of the scene.
Macbeth presumably enters in his nightshirt, as will Lady Macbeth later in the scene. Banquo, Malcolm, and Donalbain would be similarly dressed for bed, so that by the end of the scene, most of the characters seem inappropriately attired, though they may be armed, creating an image of a court unbalanced and disjointed.
MACDUFF
Is thy master stirring?
Enter MACBETH
Our knocking has awaked him; here he comes.
LENNOX
Good morrow, noble sir.
MACBETH
Good morrow, both.
MACDUFF
Is the King stirring, worthy Thane?
MACBETH
Not yet.
MACDUFF
He did command me to call timely on him;
I have almost slipped the hour.
Macbeth's clipped responses may indicate his apprehension, or he may be a better liar here than Lady Macbeth gives him credit for.
MACBETH
I'll bring you to him.
MACDUFF
I know this is a joyful trouble to you; but yet 'tis one.
MACBETH
The labour we delight in physics pain. This is the door.
MACDUFF
I'll make so bold to call, for 'tis my limited service.
Exit
This relatively casual exchange is underscored with suspense, as the audience and Macbeth await Macduff's response to the murder.
Lennox's speech reports disturbances in the natural world, introducing the idea that the murder of a king disrupts not only human affairs, but the natural and supernatural realms as well. This idea will be repeated later in the play, and is also used by Shakespeare in Hamlet, Julius Caesar, and Richard II.
LENNOX
Goes the King hence today?
MACBETH
He does; he did appoint so.
LENNOX
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 confused events
New hatched to the woeful time; the obscure bird
Clamoured the livelong night; some say, the earth
Was feverous and did shake.
MACBETH
‘Twas a rough night.
LENNOX
My young remembrance cannot parallel
A fellow to it.
Re-enter MACDUFF
MACDUFF
O horror, horror, horror! Tongue nor heart
Cannot conceive nor name thee!
MACBETH & LENNOX
What's the matter?
MACDUFF
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!
Macbeth surely knows what Macduff is getting at, but his false confusion may be aided by Macduff's whirling and indirect speech.
MACBETH
What is 't you say? The life?
LENNOX
Mean you his majesty?
MACDUFF
Approach the chamber, and destroy your sight
With a new Gorgon. Do not bid me speak;
See, and then speak yourselves.
Exeunt MACBETH and LENNOX
Awake, awake!
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 sprites,
To countenance this horror! Ring the bell.
Since this is an alarm-bell, used to alert the household to attack or emergency, it may continue ringing for some time through the scene.
Bell rings
Enter LADY MACBETH
LADY MACBETH
What's the business, that such a hideous trumpet
Calls to parley the sleepers of the house?
Speak, speak!
Given what we know of Lady Macbeth, Macduff's comment is extremely ironic.
MACDUFF
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.
Enter BANQUO
O Banquo, Banquo,
Our royal master 's murdered!
LADY MACBETH
Woe, alas!
What, in our house?
Banquo's "dear Duff" hints at a familiarity between these two men that is not mentioned anywhere else in the play.
BANQUO
Too cruel any where.
Dear Duff, I prithee, contradict thyself,
And say it is not so.
Re-enter MACBETH and LENNOX, with ROSS
Macbeth is dissembling here, but may nevertheless be sincere in his meaning: Macbeth's life will never be the same again, and he will find himself increasingly dissatisfied with his new position.
MACBETH
Had I but died an hour before this chance,
I had lived a blessèd 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
DONALBAIN
What is amiss?
Macbeth's speech is again ambiguous, but it picks up on the play's concern with fathers, sons, inheritance, and the disruption of the natural process of succession.
MACBETH
You are, and do not know't:
The spring, the head, the fountain of your blood
Is stopped; the very source of it is stopped.
MACDUFF
Your royal father 's murdered.
MALCOLM
O, by whom?
LENNOX
Those of his chamber, as it seemed, had done't:
Their hands and faces were an badged with blood;
So were their daggers, which unwiped we found
Upon their pillows; they stared, and were distracted;
No man's life was to be trusted with them.
Macbeth's killing of Duncan's attendants is a surprising detail. This was not part of the plan set out by Lady Macbeth, and neither Macbeth nor Lennox have given any indication of it until this point in the scene. This additional murder may reflect Macbeth's paranoia, and also begins a process whereby, having killed to achieve the crown, Macbeth will continue killing in order to keep it.
Macbeth's words contain an insult to Macduff, which may be subtle or quite overt. It is likely that Macduff and Macbeth move toward some kind of physical confrontation here, prompting Lady Macbeth's faint.
The faint may be a genuine response to the stressful situation, or it could be a deliberate move calculated to disrupt the confrontation between Macbeth and Macduff.
Presumably, Macbeth and Macduff's confrontation continues during this aside, maintaining its aggression until Banquo's repetition of "look to the lady."
MACBETH
O, yet I do repent me of my fury,
That I did kill them.
MACDUFF
Wherefore did you so?
MACBETH
Who can be wise, amazed, temperate and furious,
Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man:
The expedition of my violent love
Outrun the pauser, reason. Here lay Duncan,
His silver skin laced with his golden blood;
And his gashed stabs looked like a breach in nature
For ruin's wasteful entrance; there, the murderers,
Steeped in the colours of their trade, their daggers
Unmannerly breeched with gore. Who could refrain,
That had a heart to love, and in that heart
Courage to make 's love known?
LADY MACBETH
Help me hence, ho!
MACDUFF
Look to the lady.
MALCOLM
[Aside to DONALBAIN]
Why do we hold our tongues,
That most may claim this argument for ours?
DONALBAIN
[Aside to MALCOLM]
What should be spoken here, where our fate,
Hid in an auger-hole, may rush, and seize us?
Let 's away; our tears are not yet brewed.
MALCOLM
[Aside to DONALBAIN]
Nor our strong sorrow upon the foot of motion.
BANQUO
Look to the lady;
LADY MACBETH is carried out
And when we have our naked frailties hid,
That suffer in exposure, let us meet,
And question this most bloody piece of work,
To know it further. Fears and scruples shake us.
In the great hand of God I stand; and thence
Against the undivulged pretence I fight
Of treasonous malice.
MACDUFF
And so do I.
The unity and cooperation of these lines is immediately undercut by Malcolm and Donalbain, who can no longer trust anyone in Scotland. With the King's murder, bonds of loyalty, duty, and trust are dissolved.
ALL
So all.
MACBETH
Let's briefly put on manly readiness,
And meet i' the hall together.
ALL
Well contented.
Exeunt all but Malcolm and Donalbain
MALCOLM
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.
DONALBAIN
To Ireland, I; our separated fortune
Shall keep us both the safer. Where we are,
There's daggers in men's smiles: the near in blood,
The nearer bloody.
MALCOLM
This murderous shaft that's shot
Hath not yet lighted, and our safest way
Is to avoid the aim. Therefore, to horse;
And let us not be dainty of leave-taking,
But shift away: there's warrant in that theft
Which steals itself, when there's no mercy left.
Exeunt