Is this a dagger which I see before me?


What's the origin of the phrase 'Is this a dagger which I see before me?'?

This is one of the best-known lines from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, 1605. Shakespeare used the image of a dagger in many of his plays.

In fact there are few of his plays that don’t have a reference to daggers in some form – most commonly deployed as symbolic of treachery. In the Scottish play, Macbeth has a vision of a dagger, pointing toward the King Duncan’s chamber and perhaps indicating that he should use it to follow through on his and Lady Macbeth’s plan of murdering the King.

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.

Gary Martin is a writer and researcher on the origins of phrases and the creator of the Phrase Finder website. Over the past 26 years more than 700 million of his pages have been downloaded by readers. He is one of the most popular and trusted sources of information on phrases and idioms.

Gary Martin

Writer and researcher on the origins of phrases and the creator of the Phrase Finder website. Over the past 26 years more than 700 million of his pages have been downloaded by readers. He is one of the most popular and trusted sources of information on phrases and idioms.
Is this a dagger which I see before me?

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