Macbeth's soliloquy Annotated version of the soliloquy context of the scene
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-oppressèd brain? I see thee yet, in form as palpable 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' th' 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 curtained sleep. Witchcraft celebrates Pale Hecate’s offerings, and withered murder, Alarumed by his sentinel, the wolf, Whose howl’s his watch, thus with his stealthy pace, With Tarquin’s ravishing strides, towards his design Moves like a ghost. Thou sure and firm-set earth, Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear Thy very stones prate of my whereabout, And take the present horror from the time, Which now suits with it. Whiles I threat, he lives. Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives. |
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The context of the scene can be explained in many different areas but the main one would be the bad omen which Macbeth accepts when he decides to commit the deed .The line that displays this is "Thou
marshall’st me the way that I was going , and the instrument i was too use " .This makes the reader understand that Macbeth is accpeting the bad omen of the dagger and has decided to use that instrument. An omen is an event or happening that you take as sign of something to come. It’s believed to be a bad omen if a black cat crosses your path or if it rains on your wedding day.
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