Read Macbeth Online

Scene I] Macbeth 39 

Macbeth. Go bid thy mistress, when my drink 

is ready, 
She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed. 

[Exit Servant. 
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, sensible 
To feeling as to sight? or art thou but 
A dagger of the mind, a false creation, 
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain? 
I see thee yet, in form as palpable 40 

As this which now I draw. 
Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going; 
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 dudgeon gouts of blood, 
Which was not so before. There's no such thing : 
It is the bloody business which informs 
Thus to mine eyes. Now o'er the one half-world 
Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse 50 

The curtain'd sleep ; witchcraft celebrates 
Pale Hecate's offerings ; and wither'd murder, 
Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf, 
Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace, 
With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design 

33. Should the dagger be presented on the stage? 
49-56. Account for Macbeth's figurative language here. 



GO