Chapter 21

MACBETH. 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 a heat-oppressed brain? I see thee yet, in form as palpable As this which now I draw. Thou marshal'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 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, toward his design Moves like a ghost.--Thou sure and firm-set earth, Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear The very stones prate of my where-about, And take the present horror from the time, Which now suits with it.--Whilst 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. Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell That summons thee to heaven, or to hell. [_Exit_.

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