What is the business?"
Theobald regarded 'Ring the bell' as a stage-direction; but a direction follows, and Macduff, in his anxiety and impatience, reiterates his order.
"Let's briefly put on manly readiness."
A very awkward way of expressing Let us make haste and put on our clothes (see Index v. [Ready]), for they must have been in their nightgowns. (Ham. iii. 4.) I greatly doubt if the editors have understood it; for they have no note on it; and Singer quotes it as a parallel to "Put on the dauntless spirit of resolution" (K. John, v. 1).
Act III.
Sc. 1.
"Let your Highness'
Command be upon me, to the which my duties," etc.