r, then lets in Macduff and Lennox. . . . Macduff discovers King Duncan's body. . . . Macbeth, in pretended fury, kills the King's grooms. . . . Malcolm and Donalbain, fearing that they will be murdered next, flee. Enter a Porter.Porter: "Here's a knocking indeed!" (2.3.1). Enter Macduff and Lennox.Macduff: "Was it so late, friend, ere you went to bed, that you do lie so late?" (2.3.22-23). Enter Macbeth.Macduff: "Is the king stirring, worthy thane?" (2.3.45). Enter Lady Macbeth.Lady Macbeth: "Woe, alas! / What, in our house?" (2.3.87-88). Enter Malcolm and Donalbain.Macduff: "Your royal father 's murder'd" (2.3.100). Enter a Porter:In the previous scene, we heard a repeated knocking. (You might be interested in reading Thomas DeQuincey's famous comments on the significance of the knocking, in his essay, "On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth.") The knocking frightened Macbeth and made Lady Macbeth hurry to cover up their crime. She led Macbeth away to change into nightclothes and to wash King Duncan's blood off his hands. The knocking continues, louder and more impatient, and now we see a Porter coming to the gate, but he doesn't seem to be in much of a hurry. Perhaps that's because he is -- as Lady Macbeth was at the opening of the previous scene -- still a little drunk. It occurs to him that if he were the gatekeeper of hell, he'd have plenty of opportunities to turn the key. He says, "Here's a knocking indeed! If a man were porter of hell-gate, he should have old turning the key" (2.3.1-3). Then, instead of turning the key and opening the gate, he describes some people he might welcome to hell. First there is a farmer who hanged himself "on the expectation of plenty" (2.3.6). Because everyone was going to have plenty of food, the farmer's prices were going to go down, and he couldn't stand it. Next, there is an equivocator, the kind of person who thinks it's not a sin to tell a lie, if what he says is somehow true. (Later in the p...
