A Dagger of the Mind

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 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 half-world

Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse

The curtain'd sleep; now witchcraft celebrates

Pale hecate's offerings

[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.