ITS SUPPOSED PROPHETIC POWER. 103 



Attend. So please you, it is true : — our thane is coming : 



One of my fellows had the speed of him ; 



Who, almost dead for breath, had scarcely more 



Than would make up his message. 

 Lady M. Give him tending ; 



He brings great news. [Exit Attendant. 



The raven himself is hoarse 



That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan 



Under my battlements." 



On this passage Johnson remarks : "The messenger, says 

 the servant, had hardly breath to make up his message ; 

 to which the lady answers mentally, that he may well 

 want breath ; such a message would add hoarseness to 

 the raven. That even the bird whose harsh voice is 

 accustomed to predict calamities, could not croak the 

 entrance of Duncan but in a note of unwonted harsh- 

 ness." 



The preference which the raven evinces for " sickly 

 prey," or carrion, is not unnoticed by the poet : — 



" Now powers from home, and discontents at home, 

 Meet in one line ; and vast confusion waits, 

 As doth a raven on a sick -fallen beast, 

 The imminent decay of wrested pomp." 



King John. Act iv. Sc. 3. 



And again — 



