Part 1
Is this a dagger which I see before
me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.
I have
thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision,
To feeling as to sight? Or art thou but(45)
A dagger of the mind,
a false creation,
Proceeding from the
brain?
In this section of
Macbeth's famous "Is this a dagger which I see before me" soliloquy, Macbeth is
questioning his sanity as he deliberates whether or not he should murder King Duncan. He
is trying to understand if this dagger that he is envisioning is a figment of his
imagination, but the questioning runs deeper than imagination or not; Macbeth is trying
to understand if killing the King is a desire of his sane or insane
mind.
I see thee yet, in form
as
As this which now I draw.
Thou
me the way that I was going,(50)
And such an instrument I was to use.
Mine eyes are made the fools o’ the other senses,
Or else worth
all the rest. I see thee still,
And on thy blade and
gouts
of blood,
Which was not so before. There's no such thing:(55)
It
is the bloody business which
Thus to mine eyes. Now o'er the one half-world
Nature seems dead,
and wicked dreams
The curtain'd sleep; witchcraft celebrates
Pale
offerings; and wither'd Murder,(60)
his
the wolf,
Whose howl's his
with his stealthy pace,
With
ravishing strides, towards his
Moves like a ghost.
This second section has
Macbeth deciding that he knows the dagger is a figment of his mind, but it has become so
real to him that he can actually envision the king's blood on the dagger itself. Macbeth
decides that he will use the curtain of night to perform the evil deed of killing his
king; in the night, Shakespeare uses pathetic fallacy to show how all of nature is in
tune with the evilness of Macbeth's plan.
Thou sure and firm-set earth,
Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear(65)
Thy very
stones
whereabout,
And
present
the time,
Which now suits with it. Whiles I threat, he lives;
Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath
gives.
A bell rings.
I go,
and it is done: the bell invites me.(70)
Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a
knell
That summons thee to heaven, or to
hell.
Macbeth recognizes how
nature will understand that the deed he will commit is evil, and he is requesting the
blanket of night to keep him cover. In this final section of the soliloquy, Macbeth has
become self-assured and has finalized his decision to murder Duncan. Nothing will stop
him at this point, not his conscience, nor his questionable
sanity.
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