MACBETH

Go bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready,
She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed.
Exit ServantIs 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
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 halfworld
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, 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.
A bell ringsI 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

The use of metaphors is extremely common in this soliloquy. Some examples of metaphors within this passage are :

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?

  1. Fatal Vision : Macbeth describes the imagery of the dagger as a “fatal vision”, meaning that it could be a clear indication that his fate is to murder the King. The adjective; “fatal”, is extremely effective in this context as it shows that the vision of the dagger will not only do damage to the King, but to Macbeth too.
  2. Dagger of the mind: The dagger of the mind is a more obvious metaphor within this passage. It relates to Macbeth contemplating whether the dagger is real or not.  The dagger of the mind could also mean that something is doing harm to his brain. A suggestion to what it could be is Lady Macbeth. Lady Macbeth could be the dagger of his mind as she is leading him on the wrong path (to murder the King).
  3. Heat oppressed brain: This metaphor describes Macbeth’s mental state. “Heat oppressed” could portray how much his brain has had to handle over the last couple of weeks, therefore leading to the reasoning of the hallucination of the dagger.