This storm is
the sympathetic horror of Nature at the breaking open of the Lord's
anointed temple--horror in which the animal creation partakes, for the
horses of Duncan, "the minions of their race," and therefore the most
sensitive of their sensitive race, tear each other to pieces in the
wildness of their horror. Consider along with this a foregoing portion
of the second scene in the same act. Macbeth, having joined his wife
after the murder, says:
"Who lies i' the second chamber?
"_Lady M._ Donalbain.
* * * * *
"There are two lodged together."
These two, Macbeth says, woke each other--the one laughing, the other
crying _murder_. Then they said their prayers and went to sleep
again.--I used to think that the natural companion of Donalbain would be
Malcolm, his brother; and that the two brothers woke in horror from the
proximity of their father's murderer who was just passing the door. A
friend objected to this, that, had they been together, Malcolm, being
the elder, would have been mentioned rather than Donalbain. Accept this
objection, and we find a yet more delicate significance: the _presence_
operated differently on the two, one bursting out in a laugh, the other
crying _murder_; but both were in terror when they awoke, and dared not
sleep till they had said their prayers.
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