TEXT:
LENNOX
Goes the king hence to-day?
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
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.
Bell rings
NOTES:
Lamentings
If Macbeth were set in Ireland, there might be a case to be made for this being a reference to a banshee, whose wailing cries were a traditional harbinger of death. But we’re in Scotland, so perhaps not.
The Obscure Bird
As we’ve discussed earlier, the owl was a bad omen, and its cry was never a good thing to hear. Lennox has heard it howling all night - nothing good can come of this. If you’re interested to read more about owls and their lore throughout Shakespeare, click here.
Julius Caesar
Shakespeare's play about the conspirators who assassinate Julius Caesar can be reasonably assumed to have been first performed in 1599. The likelihood is that it appeared just before Hamlet, and so the references to ancient Rome in its first scene are hardly surprising - Rome was probably still on Shakespeare's mind.
Antimetabole
The word is derived from the Ancient Greek ἀντιμεταβολή (antimetabolḗ), from ἀντί (antí - opposite, or against) and μεταβολή (metabolḗ - changing, turning about; also the root of the word metabolism). It is a rhetorical device that uses careful repetition; words are repeated in successive clauses but their order is changed. As mentioned in the episode, a very simple example is “fair is foul and foul is fair”.
Some other examples:
All for one, and one for all. (Dumas, The Three Musketeers)
One should eat to live, not live to eat. (Socrates)
The great object of his life is defeated by continually resolving to do, yet doing nothing but resolve. (Samuel Taylor Coleridge, discussing Hamlet)
Sacrilege
Sacrilege is the violation or abuse/misuse of something that is considered sacred.
The Lord’s Anointed
This quotation is from the First Book of Samuel in the Old Testament; Samuel 24:6 reads He said to his men, “The Lord forbid that I should do this thing to my lord, the Lord's anointed, to put out my hand against him, seeing he is the Lord's anointed.”
The Temple
From the Second Letter to the Corinthians: And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
Gorgons
The Gorgons were Ancient Greek mythological monsters. Like the witches, they are usually imagined as a group of three very weird sisters: Euryale, Sthenno and Medusa, the most famous. The Gorgons were notorious for having snakes instead of hair. They were so frightening to look at that anyone who gazed directly upon them would be turned to stone. Shakespeare’s construction in Macbeth is so intricate and carefully-woven, it’s surely no accident that we get a nod to a group of dangerous and powerful women right here in the description of the king’s murder.
Alarum
Amid the various bells that ring in this play, the alarum-bell would have been the noisiest. The name comes from the Italian phrase “all’armi” - to arms! - and so this is the sound of preparation when an army, or a castle, is under attack. It would have been loud enough to wake everyone and put the whole community on alert.
The Great Doom
I was very excited to find a book entitled The Apocalypse in English Renaissance Thought and Literature online, but then almost immediately came upon several very negative reviews, lamenting the fact that the book’s contents have almost nothing to do with its promising title. The Apocalypse was a very popular subject in Renaissance England, and hovers frequently at the edges of Shakespeare’s imagination. Macduff here likens the sight of the murdered Duncan to the chaos anticipated at the end of time; it’s a very powerful image to invoke.