Quote 16
MACBETH
I am settled and bend up
Each corporal agent to this terrible feat.
Away, and mock the time with fairest show.
False face must hide what the false heart doth
know. (1.7.92-96)
Macbeth is starting to get the hang of this whole deception thing: he's calling on his entire body ("each corporal agent") to help him out, telling his "false face" to hide the treachery of his "false heart."
Quote 17
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-oppressèd brain?
I see thee yet, in form as palpable
As this which now I draw.
Thou marshal'st me the way that I was going,
And such an instrument I was to use.
Mine eyes are made the fools o' th' other senses,
Or else worth all the rest. (2.1.44-57)
Well, is it? By opening with a question, Macbeth leaves us wondering whether he does really see a dagger—whether there's some supernatural force at work—or whether it's all just a figment of his treacherous brain.
Quote 18
MACBETH
Bring forth men-children only,
For thy undaunted mettle should compose
Nothing but males. (1.7.83-85)
Macbeth tells his wife that she's manly enough to only give birth to male-children. Sorry, Macbeth, but you're the one responsible for the Y-chromosome. But this is an interesting look at Early Modern ideas about gender: "masculinity" and "femininity" seem to be more about behavior than any particularly sex characteristics.