As things stand, though, horror and this moment are perfectly ‘suited’ or matched, i.e. The phrase ‘take the present horror from the time’ is a little more difficult to interpret: the most likely meaning is that Macbeth thinks that if he moves silently that will remove the horror from this moment, since the sound of his footsteps will fill him with fear over what he is going to do.

It’s become clear by this point that the dagger appearing to him has made Macbeth’s mind up: he plans to go through with the deed. Macbeth calls upon the earth to render his steps similarly silent, so that nobody will be alerted to his plans as he enters Duncan’s chamber and murders him. The word ‘murder’ should perhaps be capitalised (it is in some editions) to make it clear that Macbeth is personifying it as Murder: Murder has been roused awake by his watchdog, the wolf, and like Tarquin – the man who raped Lucrece in a story Shakespeare had earlier written about in his narrative poem The Rape of Lucrece, hence ‘ravishing’ – moves towards his prey, silently and stealthily like a ghost. Hecate, the goddess of witchcraft in classical mythology, performs ‘offerings’ or rituals – we’re back to Macbeth’s encounter with the three Witches or Weird Sisters. Whose howl’s his watch, thus with his stealthy pace, Dreams of witchcraft and evil disrupt Macbeth’s sleep: he’s up and about, but the boundary between dreaming and waking seems to have been disturbed. It’s night time, and across the whole northern hemisphere or ‘half-world’, things seem to have come to a halt. The detail of the dagger intensifies: he now sees (or thinks he can see) drops of blood on the blade and ‘dudgeon’ (the handle of the dagger).īut he immediately says there isn’t any blood on the dagger (whether or not a dagger is there, he seems to know the blood is imagined), and merely a result of his thoughts being so turned towards bloody deeds (i.e. Note: the soliloquy beginning ‘Is this a dagger which I see before me’ appears in Act II Scene 1 of Shakespeare’s Macbeth.Īs so often with a Shakespeare soliloquy, here we find Macbeth arguing with himself, changing his mind mid-line. I go, and it is done the bell invites me. Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives. Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fearĪnd take the present horror from the time, With Tarquin’s ravishing strides, towards his design Whose howl’s his watch, thus with his stealthy pace. Pale Hecate’s offerings, and wither’d murder, The curtain’d sleep witchcraft celebrates

Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse Or else worth all the rest I see thee still,Īnd on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood, Mine eyes are made the fools o’ the other senses, Thou marshall’st me the way that I was going Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?

I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.

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