In the next speech at first Macbeth is frightened but then he pulls himself together.
Macbeth starts hallucinating:
“ Is this a dagger which I see before me.”
As Macbeth is so nervous about the murder he is starting to see things that are not really there. The dagger is just an image because his mind is fixed on the thought of murder. Macbeth is confused:
“ Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
to feeling as to sight?”
He is confused because he is wondering why he cannot touch the dagger as well as see it. He starts to compare it to his own dagger:
“ In form as palpable
As this which now I draw.”
He starts to relate what is happening to the dagger that is similar to the murder that he is about to commit:
“Thou marshall’st me the way that I was going,
And such an instrument I was to use.”
He is trying to sort everything out in his head. He is getting even more confused now:
“Mine eyes are made fools o’th’other senses,
Or else worth all the rest.”
He is thinking that his eyes must not be good because he cannot feel the dagger, or otherwise they are better than all his other senses put together. He is trying to think of reasons as to why these strange things are happening. Then he sees another thing that starts to frighten him:
“ And dungeon gouts of blood,
Which was not so before.”
He decides it is the murder that he is about to commit that is making him see things.
Macbeth starts to calm down now because he realises that this murder has got to be commited. He talks about murder as being a person:
“ And withered murder,
Alarumed by his sentinel, the wolf,
Whose howl’s his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,
With Tarquins ravishing strides, towards his design
Moves like a ghost.”
As he knows this murder has to be committed he can talk about it more.
He starts to be aware that this murder has got to be done skilfully:
“ Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
Thy very stones prate of my whereabout.”
He realises people might be able to hear his footsteps, he is a bit worried but then pulls himself together:
“ Whiles I threat he lives;
Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.”
Macbeth decides that Duncan is not going to die if he just talks about the murder. Actions speak louder than words. He is prepared to commit the murder now because sooner is better than later.
Then he is ready to do the deed:
“Hear it not Duncan, for it is a knell
That summons thee to heaven or to hell.”
Then Macbeth goes to commit the murder.
