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?
– William Shakespeare
Macbeth, Act 2, Scene 1. In Macbeth’s famous third soliloquy before he murders Duncan, he sees the vision of a dagger floating in front of him. It is his first hallucination and sign of madness. The weapon conjured up by Macbeth’s troubled mind symbolizes the murder that is yet to happen and his strong desire to kill Duncan. The dagger speech also captures Macbeth’s fragile mental state, as he wrestles with his conscience and the strain of the guilt that weighs on him. His mind is brought almost to the point of madness by the terrible deed he is about to carry out, the murder of a king.