MACBETH
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.
Macbeth continues his soliloquy with repetition of “I see thee”, which builds up the tension towards the murder and suggests his determination to confirm the vision as real. He describes the dagger of the vision as “palpable” - as capable of being touched, but the etymology of the word suggests too that this touch is tender or gentle. This - along with the pronouns (“thou” and “thy”) Macbeth uses to personify the dagger - suggest that he and the dagger are in sync, both "instruments" in the plans of others: Macbeth is being strung along by Lady Macbeth and the witches ("instruments of darkness"); the dagger is being used by Macbeth to commit regicide. He reaches here for the real dagger, a stage direction embedded within Macbeth's speech ("which now I draw") and the lineation shortens to give pause for the action. The illusion through the words is made real in its on-stage replacement. Though he may still question his eyes, his mind and body are now in chorus, both prepared to murder Duncan. With this, the prompt is to act and the dagger "marshall'st" him towards Duncan's chamber, a verb which connotes an army official and reminds us that Macbeth is still a soldier. The agency of the dagger allows us to believe that it is not just a hallucination, but a trick on the part of the witches, a supernatural manipulation of his vision and reason. He separates his senses out in a way that seems to distance him from his experiences; his "eyes are made the fools o'the other senses" and he is left questioning his reality. This presents a meta-theatrical challenge for the audience: within this imaginary world of the theatre, should we further suspend our disbelief to accept a 'reality' where witches can create visions, should we trust in Macbeth's words (our only access to this vision) or should question his integrity? Before we have time to consider, the monosyllabic string speeds up the pace and – after the brief pause afforded by the caesura – we hear the third iteration of "I see thee". The recurrence of three is significant throughout the play (three witches, three prophecies) and we are alert to the climax of the speech. For this reason, emphasis falls on the “gouts of blood” upon the “blade and dudgeon”, an image which brings forward the violence of murder and (especially on the “dudgeon”, the handle) foreshadows the recurring image of bloody hands in the rest of the play. Macbeth tries to shake the image off with the assertive, heavily stressed "there's no such thing", and his focus is brought back to the (satisfyingly alliterative) "bloody business". Though he still uses replacements for murder, with "business" connoting a workmanlike approach, the shift from the earlier "great business" reminds us of its reality.
- Leah