and Lady Macbeth:
... The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements.... Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark
To cry 'Hold! hold!'...
The peaceful castle to which Duncan comes all unsuspectingly, is in
most striking contrast to the fateful tone which pervades the
tragedy. Duncan says:
This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air
Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself
Unto our gentle senses.
and Banquo:
This guest of summer,
The temple-haunting martlet, does approve
By his loved masonry, that the heaven's breath
Smells wooingly here; no jetty, frieze,
Buttress, nor coign of vantage but this bird
Hath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle;
Where they most breed and haunt I have observ'd
The air is delicate.
Perhaps the familiar swallow has never been treated with more
discrimination; and at this point of the tale of horror it has the
effect of a ray of sunshine in a sky dark with storm clouds.
In Act II. Macbeth describes his own horror and Nature's:
Now o'er the one half world
Nature seems dead.... Thou sure and firm-set earth,
Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
Thy very stones prate of my whereabouts.
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