NOTE XXI.
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.—