Hello everyone

I have recently started to study Shakespeare's Macbeth and right now i dont know whats going on. Can you guys help me by paraphrasing the famous line where Macbeth speaks about the dagger. I am really confused. IF you guys would put it in different words it would be much appreciated.

Rand

Rand, this is not poetry. But there are guides available, just Google:

[www.sparknotes.com] />
Les

The Bard not poetry? A case could be made for blank verse, surely.


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


Later, Lady Mac B:

O proper stuff!
This is the very painting of your fear:

This is the air-drawn dagger which, you said,
Led you to Duncan. O, these flaws and starts,

Impostors to true fear, would well become
A woman's story at a winter's fire,
Authorized by her grandam. Shame itself!
Why do you make such faces? When all's done,
You look but on a stool.


Funny but I don't remember that he or his lady had a first name. Most odd.

Rand, this is not poetry.

Hugh, do you really want Rand's next queries about "The Crucible", "A Doll's House" and "Death of a Salesman". I'm having enough trouble with Blake.


Les



Post Edited (11-01-04 11:55)

I know, but everyone yells at me for being rude, so I'm practicing Mr. Nice.

I know this is a month after the fact, but here is my paraphrasing of the dagger speech:

Is this a dagger in front of me,
With the handle toward my hand? Let me touch you.
I don’t have you but I can still see you.
Aren’t you, fatal vision, able to be
Felt as well as seen? Or are you just a
Figment of my imagination, a result
Of Hallucination from fever?
Nevertheless, you look as real as this dagger
That I am drawing right now.
You are leading me where I was already going;
And I was going to use a dagger just like you.
My sight either the one sense not working right,
Or it’s the only one working; either way I see you,
And there is blood on your blade that
That wasn’t there before. There’s no dagger here;
It is the murder I’m about to commit that is
Making me see it. Over half of the world is
Sleeping, and evil nightmares are deceiving
Their sleep; Witches are giving up
Offerings to Hecate, and Old Man Murder
Is roused by his servant, the wolf,
And he walks silently to his destination.
He moves like Tarquin
Like a ghost. Sure and firm earth,
Do not listen to my footsteps, I’m afraid
your stones will talk about where I am,
And break the horrifying stillness of this moment,
Because it is so appropriate. While I am stalling Duncan lives;
And I am loosing my nerve talking about it.

I made this for myself to write a paper in Honors Shakespeare, I hope it can help someone else.