Act 2, Scene 1

Inverness. Court within the Castle.

[Enter Banquo, preceeded by Fleance with a torch.]
Banquo
532 How goes the night, boy?
Fleance
533 The moon is down; I have not heard the clock.
Banquo
534 And she goes down at twelve.
Fleance
535 I take't, 'tis later, sir.
Banquo
536 Hold, take my sword.—There's husbandry in heaven;
537 Their candles are all out:—take thee that too.—
538 A heavy summons lies like lead upon me,
539 And yet I would not sleep:—merciful powers,
540 Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature
541 Gives way to in repose!—Give me my sword.
542 Who's there?
[Enter Macbeth, and a Servant with a torch.]
Macbeth
543 A friend.
Banquo
544 What, sir, not yet at rest? The king's a-bed:
545 He hath been in unusual pleasure and
546 Sent forth great largess to your officers:
547 This diamond he greets your wife withal,
548 By the name of most kind hostess; and shut up
549 In measureless content.
Macbeth
550 Being unprepar'd,
551 Our will became the servant to defect;
552 Which else should free have wrought.
Banquo
553 All's well.
554 I dreamt last night of the three weird sisters:
555 To you they have show'd some truth.
Macbeth
556 I think not of them:
557 Yet, when we can entreat an hour to serve,
558 We would spend it in some words upon that business,
559 If you would grant the time.
Banquo
560 At your kind'st leisure.
Macbeth
561 If you shall cleave to my consent,—when 'tis,
562 It shall make honor for you.
Banquo
563 So I lose none
564 In seeking to augment it, but still keep
565 My bosom franchis'd, and allegiance clear,
566 I shall be counsell'd.
Macbeth
567 Good repose the while!
Banquo
568 Thanks, sir: the like to you!
[Exeunt Banquo and Fleance.]
Macbeth
569 Go bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready,
570 She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed.
[Exit Servant.]
Macbeth
571 Is this a dagger which I see before me,
572 The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee:—
573 I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
574 Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
575 To feeling as to sight? or art thou but
576 A dagger of the mind, a false creation,
577 Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
578 I see thee yet, in form as palpable
579 As this which now I draw.
580 Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going;
581 And such an instrument I was to use.
582 Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses,
583 Or else worth all the rest: I see thee still;
584 And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood,
585 Which was not so before.—There's no such thing:
586 It is the bloody business which informs
587 Thus to mine eyes.—Now o'er the one half-world
588 Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
589 The curtain'd sleep; now witchcraft celebrates
590 Pale Hecate's offerings; and wither'd murder,
591 Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf,
592 Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,
593 With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design
594 Moves like a ghost.—Thou sure and firm-set earth,
595 Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
596 Thy very stones prate of my whereabout,
597 And take the present horror from the time,
598 Which now suits with it.—Whiles I threat, he lives;
599 Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.
[A bell rings.]
Macbeth
600 I go, and it is done; the bell invites me.
601 Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell
602 That summons thee to heaven or to hell.
[Exit.]
[Enter Lady Macbeth.]
Lady Macbeth
603 That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold:
604 What hath quench'd them hath given me fire.—Hark!—Peace!
605 It was the owl that shriek'd, the fatal bellman,
606 Which gives the stern'st good night. He is about it:
607 The doors are open; and the surfeited grooms
608 Do mock their charge with snores: I have drugg'd their possets
609 That death and nature do contend about them,
610 Whether they live or die.
[Within.]
Macbeth
611 Who's there?—what, ho!
Lady Macbeth
612 Alack! I am afraid they have awak'd,
613 And 'tis not done: the attempt, and not the deed,
614 Confounds us.—Hark!—I laid their daggers ready;
615 He could not miss 'em.—Had he not resembled
616 My father as he slept, I had done't.—My husband!
[Re-enter Macbeth.]
Macbeth
617 I have done the deed.—Didst thou not hear a noise?
Lady Macbeth
618 I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry.
619 Did not you speak?
Macbeth
620 When?
Lady Macbeth
621 Now.
Macbeth
622 As I descended?
Lady Macbeth
623 Ay.
Macbeth
624 Hark!—
625 Who lies i' the second chamber?
Lady Macbeth
626 Donalbain.
Macbeth
627 This is a sorry sight.
[Looking on his hands.]
Lady Macbeth
628 A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight.
Macbeth
629 There's one did laugh in's sleep, and one cried, "Murder!"
630 That they did wake each other: I stood and heard them:
631 But they did say their prayers, and address'd them
632 Again to sleep.
Lady Macbeth
633 There are two lodg'd together.
Macbeth
634 One cried, "God bless us!" and, "Amen," the other;
635 As they had seen me with these hangman's hands.
636 Listening their fear, I could not say "Amen,"
637 When they did say, "God bless us."
Lady Macbeth
638 Consider it not so deeply.
Macbeth
639 But wherefore could not I pronounce "Amen"?
640 I had most need of blessing, and "Amen"
641 Stuck in my throat.
Lady Macbeth
642 These deeds must not be thought
643 After these ways; so, it will make us mad.
Macbeth
644 I heard a voice cry, "Sleep no more!
645 Macbeth does murder sleep,"—the innocent sleep;
646 Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care,
647 The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath,
648 Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
649 Chief nourisher in life's feast.
Lady Macbeth
650 What do you mean?
Macbeth
651 Still it cried, "Sleep no more!" to all the house:
652 "Glamis hath murder'd sleep, and therefore Cawdor
653 Shall sleep no more,—Macbeth shall sleep no more!"
Lady Macbeth
654 Who was it that thus cried? Why, worthy thane,
655 You do unbend your noble strength to think
656 So brainsickly of things.—Go get some water,
657 And wash this filthy witness from your hand.—
658 Why did you bring these daggers from the place?
659 They must lie there: go carry them; and smear
660 The sleepy grooms with blood.
Macbeth
661 I'll go no more:
662 I am afraid to think what I have done;
663 Look on't again I dare not.
Lady Macbeth
664 Infirm of purpose!
665 Give me the daggers: the sleeping and the dead
666 Are but as pictures: 'tis the eye of childhood
667 That fears a painted devil. If he do bleed,
668 I'll gild the faces of the grooms withal,
669 For it must seem their guilt.
[Exit. Knocking within.]
Macbeth
670 Whence is that knocking?
671 How is't with me, when every noise appals me?
672 What hands are here? Ha, they pluck out mine eyes!
673 Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
674 Clean from my hand? No; this my hand will rather
675 The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
676 Making the green one red.
[Re-enter Lady Macbeth.]
Lady Macbeth
677 My hands are of your color, but I shame
678 To wear a heart so white.
[Knocking within.]
Lady Macbeth
679 I hear knocking
680 At the south entry:—retire we to our chamber.
681 A little water clears us of this deed:
682 How easy is it then! Your constancy
683 Hath left you unattended.—
[Knocking within.]
Lady Macbeth
684 Hark, more
685 knocking:
686 Get on your nightgown, lest occasion call us
687 And show us to be watchers:—be not lost
688 So poorly in your thoughts.
Macbeth
689 To know my deed, 'twere best not know myself.
[Knocking within.]
Macbeth
690 Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst!
[Exeunt.]
[Enter a Porter. Knocking within.]
Porter
691 Here's a knocking indeed! If a man were porter of hell-gate, he
692 should have old turning the key.
[Knocking.]
Porter
693 Knock, knock, knock.
694 Who's there, i' the name of Belzebub? Here's a farmer that hanged
695 himself on the expectation of plenty: come in time; have napkins
696 enow about you; here you'll sweat for't.—
[Knocking.]
Porter
697 Knock,
698 knock! Who's there, in the other devil's name? Faith, here's an
699 equivocator, that could swear in both the scales against either
700 scale, who committed treason enough for God's sake, yet could not
701 equivocate to heaven: O, come in, equivocator.
[Knocking.]
Porter
702 Knock,
703 knock, knock! Who's there? Faith, here's an English tailor come
704 hither, for stealing out of a French hose: come in, tailor; here
705 you may roast your goose.—
[Knocking.]
Porter
706 Knock, knock: never at
707 quiet! What are you?—But this place is too cold for hell.
708 I'll devil-porter it no further: I had thought to have let in
709 some of all professions, that go the primrose way to the
710 everlasting bonfire.
[Knocking.]
Porter
711 Anon, anon! I pray you, remember
712 the porter.
[Opens the gate.]
[Enter Macduff and Lennox.]
Macduff
713 Was it so late, friend, ere you went to bed,
714 That you do lie so late?
Porter
715 Faith, sir, we were carousing till the second cock: and
716 drink, sir, is a great provoker of three things.
Macduff
717 What three things does drink especially provoke?
Porter
718 Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and urine. Lechery, sir,
719 it provokes and unprovokes; it provokes the desire, but it
720 takes away the performance: therefore much drink may be said to
721 be an equivocator with lechery: it makes him, and it mars him; it
722 sets him on, and it takes him off; it persuades him, and
723 disheartens him; makes him stand to, and not stand to: in
724 conclusion, equivocates him in a sleep, and giving him the lie,
725 leaves him.
Macduff
726 I believe drink gave thee the lie last night.
Porter
727 That it did, sir, i' the very throat o' me; but I requited
728 him for his lie; and, I think, being too strong for him,
729 though he took up my legs sometime, yet I made a shift to cast
730 him.
Macduff
731 Is thy master stirring?—
732 Our knocking has awak'd him; here he comes.
[Enter Macbeth.]
Lennox
733 Good morrow, noble sir!
Macbeth
734 Good morrow, both!
Macduff
735 Is the king stirring, worthy thane?
Macbeth
736 Not yet.
Macduff
737 He did command me to call timely on him:
738 I have almost slipp'd the hour.
Macbeth
739 I'll bring you to him.
Macduff
740 I know this is a joyful trouble to you;
741 But yet 'tis one.
Macbeth
742 The labour we delight in physics pain.
743 This is the door.
Macduff
744 I'll make so bold to call.
745 For 'tis my limited service.
[Exit Macduff.]
Lennox
746 Goes the king hence to-day?
Macbeth
747 He does: he did appoint so.
Lennox
748 The night has been unruly: where we lay,
749 Our chimneys were blown down: and, as they say,
750 Lamentings heard i' the air, strange screams of death;
751 And prophesying, with accents terrible,
752 Of dire combustion and confus'd events,
753 New hatch'd to the woeful time: the obscure bird
754 Clamour'd the live-long night; some say the earth
755 Was feverous, and did shake.
Macbeth
756 'Twas a rough night.
Lennox
757 My young remembrance cannot parallel
758 A fellow to it.
[Re-enter Macduff.]
Macduff
759 O horror, horror, horror! Tongue nor heart
760 Cannot conceive nor name thee!
Macduff
761 MACBETH, LENNOX.
762 What's the matter?
Macduff
763 Confusion now hath made his masterpiece!
764 Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope
765 The Lord's anointed temple, and stole thence
766 The life o' the building.
Macbeth
767 What is't you say? the life?
Lennox
768 Mean you his majesty?
Macduff
769 Approach the chamber, and destroy your sight
770 With a new Gorgon:—do not bid me speak;
771 See, and then speak yourselves.
[Exeunt Macbeth and Lennox.]
Macduff
772 Awake, awake!—
773 Ring the alarum bell:—murder and treason!
774 Banquo and Donalbain! Malcolm! awake!
775 Shake off this downy sleep, death's counterfeit,
776 And look on death itself! up, up, and see
777 The great doom's image! Malcolm! Banquo!
778 As from your graves rise up, and walk like sprites
779 To countenance this horror!
[Alarum-bell rings.]
[Re-enter Lady Macbeth.]
Lady Macbeth
780 What's the business,
781 That such a hideous trumpet calls to parley
782 The sleepers of the house? speak, speak!
Macduff
783 O gentle lady,
784 'Tis not for you to hear what I can speak:
785 The repetition, in a woman's ear,
786 Would murder as it fell.
[Re-enter Banquo.]
Macduff
787 O Banquo, Banquo!
788 Our royal master's murder'd!
Lady Macbeth
789 Woe, alas!
790 What, in our house?
Banquo
791 Too cruel any where.—
792 Dear Duff, I pr'ythee, contradict thyself,
793 And say it is not so.
[Re-enter Macbeth and Lennox, with Ross.]
Macbeth
794 Had I but died an hour before this chance,
795 I had liv'd a blessed time; for, from this instant
796 There's nothing serious in mortality:
797 All is but toys: renown and grace is dead;
798 The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees
799 Is left this vault to brag of.
[Enter Malcolm and Donalbain.]
Donalbain
800 What is amiss?
Macbeth
801 You are, and do not know't:
802 The spring, the head, the fountain of your blood
803 Is stopp'd; the very source of it is stopp'd.
Macduff
804 Your royal father's murder'd.
Malcolm
805 O, by whom?
Lennox
806 Those of his chamber, as it seem'd, had done't:
807 Their hands and faces were all badg'd with blood;
808 So were their daggers, which, unwip'd, we found
809 Upon their pillows:
810 They star'd, and were distracted; no man's life
811 Was to be trusted with them.
Macbeth
812 O, yet I do repent me of my fury,
813 That I did kill them.
Macduff
814 Wherefore did you so?
Macbeth
815 Who can be wise, amaz'd, temperate, and furious,
816 Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man:
817 The expedition of my violent love
818 Outrun the pauser reason. Here lay Duncan,
819 His silver skin lac'd with his golden blood;
820 And his gash'd stabs look'd like a breach in nature
821 For ruin's wasteful entrance: there, the murderers,
822 Steep'd in the colours of their trade, their daggers
823 Unmannerly breech'd with gore: who could refrain,
824 That had a heart to love, and in that heart
825 Courage to make's love known?
Lady Macbeth
826 Help me hence, ho!
Macduff
827 Look to the lady.
Malcolm
828 Why do we hold our tongues,
829 That most may claim this argument for ours?
Donalbain
830 What should be spoken here, where our fate,
831 Hid in an auger hole, may rush, and seize us?
832 Let's away;
833 Our tears are not yet brew'd.
Malcolm
834 Nor our strong sorrow
835 Upon the foot of motion.
Banquo
836 Look to the lady:—
[Lady Macbeth is carried out.]
Banquo
837 And when we have our naked frailties hid,
838 That suffer in exposure, let us meet,
839 And question this most bloody piece of work
840 To know it further. Fears and scruples shake us:
841 In the great hand of God I stand; and thence,
842 Against the undivulg'd pretense I fight
843 Of treasonous malice.
Macduff
844 And so do I.
All
845 So all.
Macbeth
846 Let's briefly put on manly readiness,
847 And meet i' the hall together.
All
848 Well contented.
[Exeunt all but Malcolm and Donalbain.]
Malcolm
849 What will you do? Let's not consort with them:
850 To show an unfelt sorrow is an office
851 Which the false man does easy. I'll to England.
Donalbain
852 To Ireland, I; our separated fortune
853 Shall keep us both the safer: where we are,
854 There's daggers in men's smiles: the near in blood,
855 The nearer bloody.
Malcolm
856 This murderous shaft that's shot
857 Hath not yet lighted; and our safest way
858 Is to avoid the aim. Therefore to horse;
859 And let us not be dainty of leave-taking,
860 But shift away: there's warrant in that theft
861 Which steals itself, when there's no mercy left.
[Exeunt.]

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Notes

TLN 536archaic vocab
“husbandry in heaven; Their candles are all out”
Banquo means that heaven is practicing 'husbandry' — thrift or careful management — by snuffing out the stars (its candles). The word carried a strong sense of economical housekeeping; there is dark irony in praising frugality on the night of a murder.
TLN 538archaic vocab
“heavy summons lies like lead upon me, And yet I would not sleep”
A 'summons' here means a compulsive call or pull toward sleep — the feeling of being dragged down by exhaustion. Banquo is bone-tired yet fights sleep deliberately, praying that resting will not let his cursed thoughts ('the cursed thoughts that nature / Gives way to in repose') loose. His anxiety hints that he too has been disturbed by the witches' prophecies.
TLN 554historical topical
“three weird sisters: To you they have show'd some truth”
'Weird' is from the Old English word 'wyrd', meaning fate or destiny; the 'weird sisters' are creatures of fate, not merely hags. Holinshed, Shakespeare's source, calls them 'the goddesses of destiny.' Banquo's calm acknowledgment that they told Macbeth the truth puts the question of whether to believe and act on their prophecy at the center of the scene.
historical The weird sisters and Jacobean witchcraft
TLN 561archaic vocab
“cleave to my consent,—when 'tis, It shall make honor for you”
Macbeth is inviting Banquo to side with him — 'cleave to my consent' means 'adhere to my party' or 'align your will with mine.' The phrase is deliberately vague; Macbeth is testing whether Banquo can be recruited, without yet saying what cause he is being recruited for. Banquo's answer, that he will be guided only if it does not stain his conscience or his loyalty to the king, is an implicit refusal.
TLN 565archaic vocab
“My bosom franchis'd, and allegiance clear”
'Franchised' means 'free' — unencumbered, without obligation. Banquo says he will follow Macbeth's lead if doing so leaves his conscience unencumbered and his loyalty to the king unimpaired. He draws the exact line Macbeth is about to cross.
TLN 571cultural context
“Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand”
Macbeth sees a floating dagger pointing toward Duncan's chamber — but cannot feel it when he tries to grasp it. He quickly asks whether it is 'a dagger of the mind, a false creation / Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain' — a hallucination produced by feverish anxiety. The question of whether supernatural visions are real or self-generated runs through the whole play, from the witches to Banquo's Ghost.
TLN 580archaic vocab
“Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going”
'Marshall'st' means 'lead' or 'escort.' A marshal was a ceremonial officer who led people into a hall or directed them in procession; the dagger is leading Macbeth toward Duncan's chamber like an officer conducting him to his place. The word gives the murder a terrible formality.
TLN 584archaic vocab
“on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood”
A 'dudgeon' is the wooden handle of a dagger — the grip. 'Gouts' are drops or clots (from French 'goutte,' a drop). Macbeth sees the hallucinated dagger now dripping blood along both blade and haft, as if it has just been used. The vision has shifted from a beckoning guide to a used murder weapon, foreshadowing the act he has not yet committed.
TLN 589classical allusion
“witchcraft celebrates Pale Hecate's offerings”
Hecate was the Greek goddess of the night, crossroads, and magic, and she was said to receive offerings at night — particularly at crossroads, where witches gathered. Calling her 'pale' associates her with the sickly moon and the world of the dead. Macbeth is placing his midnight murder in the company of witchcraft and dark ritual, not merely crime.
classical Triple Hecate
TLN 591rhetorical device
“Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf, Whose howl's his watch”
Murder is personified as a stealthy figure roused from sleep by his sentinel — the wolf, whose howl marks the hour of night like a watchman calling the watch. The image builds a network of military metaphors (alarm, sentinel, watch) around the act of killing, making it feel organized and purposeful. Wolves were associated in Elizabethan culture with night, appetite, and predatory stealth.
TLN 593classical allusion
“With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design Moves like a ghost”
Tarquin (Sextus Tarquinius, son of Rome's last king) crept to the bedchamber of the sleeping Lucrece to rape her — a story told by Livy and retold by Ovid. Macbeth compares his own stealthy approach to sleeping Duncan with Tarquin's approach to his victim: both are night-time violations of a sleeping, helpless person who has done the intruder no harm. 'Ravishing' carries both the sense of 'violating' and 'moving with rapacious speed.'
classical Tarquin and the rape of Lucrece
TLN 596archaic vocab
“Thy very stones prate of my whereabout, And take the present horror from the time”
'Prate' means to chatter or babble — the stones would gossip about where he has been and what he has done. In the next phrase, Macbeth wants the silence ('the present horror') to remain; noise — even from inanimate stones — would 'take away' (steal or diminish) the horror he needs the moment to hold. The line captures a murderer's hyper-sensitivity to sound.
TLN 601cultural context
“it is a knell That summons thee to heaven or to hell”
A 'knell' is a bell tolled for someone who has died or is about to die — the death-bell. In Shakespeare's time parish bells were rung to announce a parishioner's death. Macbeth turns the bell Lady Macbeth strikes to signal him into Duncan's death-knell, and gives it theological weight: it is a summons to the afterlife, heaven or hell. The uncertainty ('or to hell') carries an irony Macbeth does not intend — he is the one who will face that judgment.
TLN 605historical topical
“the fatal bellman, Which gives the stern'st good night”
A 'bellman' was a town crier who rang a bell to signal the hours of the night; but in London the bellman of St Sepulchre's church was specifically known for ringing outside the cells of condemned criminals at Newgate prison the night before their execution, giving them their last 'good night.' Lady Macbeth hears the owl as exactly this figure — a functionary announcing imminent death.
TLN 608archaic vocab
“I have drugg'd their possets That death and nature do contend about them”
A 'posset' was a bedtime drink made of hot milk curdled with wine or ale, commonly given as a remedy or nightcap. Lady Macbeth has put a sedative drug (likely opium-based, widely available from apothecaries) into the grooms' possets, putting them so deeply under that their bodies are hovering between sleep and death — 'death and nature do contend about them.'
TLN 635historical topical
“with these hangman's hands”
The hangman (public executioner) in Elizabethan England not only hanged condemned men but also performed disembowelment for traitors, leaving his hands perpetually blood-stained — it was an infamous, stigmatizing occupation. Macbeth means his hands are as covered in blood as a professional killer's. The comparison is bitterly self-aware: he is no different from the state's official butcher.
TLN 639biblical allusion
“wherefore could not I pronounce 'Amen'? I had most need of blessing, and 'Amen' Stuck in my throat”
'Amen' (Hebrew: 'so be it') is the word with which a congregation assents to a prayer, confirming it as their own. That Macbeth cannot say it after a prayer for God's blessing is a sign that his act has put him outside the community of the blessed — he is cut off from the realm of grace. The image anticipates his inability ever to pray again.
TLN 646rhetorical device
“Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care, The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath, Balm of hurt minds”
Macbeth apostrophizes sleep with a chain of metaphors: 'ravell'd sleave' is a tangled skein of silk thread that sleep 'knits up' (repairs); 'the death of each day's life' means sleep is a small daily death that renews us; 'sore labour's bath' pictures sleep as a soothing wash for exhausted muscles; 'balm' is a healing ointment. The speech is a praise of what he has permanently lost.
TLN 673classical allusion
“Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood Clean from my hand? No; this my hand will rather The multitudinous seas incarnadine”
Neptune was the Roman god of the sea; Macbeth invokes the entire ocean as a measure of what could not clean him. 'Incarnadine' means to make red (from 'incarnadine,' a flesh-red or crimson color); instead of water washing blood away, the blood on his hand will turn all the seas red. The contrast with Lady Macbeth's 'a little water clears us of this deed' defines the moral gulf between them.
classical Neptune, god of the sea
TLN 698historical topical
“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”
The 'equivocator' alludes to the Jesuit priest Henry Garnet, tried in spring 1606 for complicity in the Gunpowder Plot of November 1605. Garnet defended 'equivocation' — giving deliberately misleading answers under oath while privately reserving the true meaning — as a lawful tactic for persecuted Catholics. He 'swore in both scales' because he gave ambiguous testimony on both sides of the question. The joke is that even this expert in evasion could not equivocate his way past the Last Judgment.
historical Equivocation and the Gunpowder Plot
TLN 709biblical allusion
“the primrose way to the everlasting bonfire”
The 'primrose way' is the easy, pleasant path of self-indulgence and sin — literally strewn with flowers, metaphorically comfortable. The 'everlasting bonfire' is hell. The Porter is half-joking that most of humanity takes the pleasant route to damnation. The image behind it is Matthew 7:13-14 — the wide, easy gate leading to destruction versus the narrow gate leading to life.
TLN 742archaic vocab
“The labour we delight in physics pain”
'Physics' here means 'heals' or 'medicates' — the work one enjoys is its own remedy for the discomfort it causes. Macbeth tells Macduff that the trouble of hosting the king is no real trouble because he delights in the service. The sentence is one of Macbeth's many calculated performances of loyal innocence in the scene.
TLN 763historical topical
“Confusion now hath made his masterpiece! Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope The Lord's anointed temple”
'Confusion' means ruin, destruction, and disorder of every kind. Macduff calls the murder the greatest work of destruction ever achieved — a 'masterpiece' of chaos. Calling Duncan 'the Lord's anointed temple' invokes the doctrine of divine right: anointed kings were consecrated to God as his deputies, and their bodies were therefore sacred, like a temple. Killing Duncan is not just murder; it is sacrilege.
historical The divine right of kings
TLN 769classical allusion
“destroy your sight With a new Gorgon”
The Gorgons were three monstrous sisters in Greek myth, of whom Medusa was the most famous: anyone who looked directly at her face was turned to stone. Perseus defeated her by using his shield as a mirror, never looking at her directly. Macduff tells Malcolm and Lennox that the sight of Duncan's murder is a 'new Gorgon' — something so horrible that seeing it directly will petrify them, destroy their capacity to see at all.
TLN 777biblical allusion
“The great doom's image! Malcolm! Banquo! As from your graves rise up, and walk like sprites”
Macduff urges the sleepers to rise from their beds 'as from your graves,' because what they will see looks like 'the great doom's image' — a picture of the Last Judgment ('doom' = judgment). On Judgment Day, the dead rise from their graves; Macduff is saying Duncan's murder has the scale and horror of the end of the world. The urgency of the call — 'rise up' — echoes the trumpet blast of the resurrection.
TLN 830archaic vocab
“our fate, Hid in an auger hole, may rush, and seize us”
An auger is a carpenter's boring tool; an 'auger hole' is a tiny opening bored in wood. Donalbain means that danger can lurk in the smallest, most invisible place and spring out without warning. The sons' danger is real but hidden — like an ambush in a crack in the wall. They must leave before the assassin's identity is certain and they become targets.
TLN 841cultural context
“In the great hand of God I stand; and thence, Against the undivulg'd pretense I fight Of treasonous malice”
Banquo publicly commits himself to God's side and to investigating the 'undivulg'd pretense' (the concealed purpose) behind the murder. 'Undivulg'd pretense' means the hidden plan or intention that has not yet been revealed. He is the only character in the scene to make an explicit statement of religious and moral alignment, quietly marking himself as the play's moral counterweight to Macbeth.
TLN 854rhetorical device
“There's daggers in men's smiles: the near in blood, The nearer bloody”
Donalbain says that those closest to them in kinship — the ones who should be safest — are the most likely to be their killers: 'the near in blood, the nearer bloody.' The line is a grim play on words (near/nearer, blood/bloody) and states the play's central logic: the people you trust most, those 'near in blood,' are precisely the ones most likely to want you dead, because they have the most to gain from the throne. It also, without knowing it, names Macbeth — their kinsman.