Now o’er the one half-world / Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse / The curtain’d sleep. Witchcraft celebrates / Pale Hecate’s off’rings; and wither’d murder, / Alarum’d by his sentinel, the wolf, / Whose howl’s his watch, thus with his stealthy pace, / With Tarquin’s ravishing strides, towards his design / Moves like a ghost.—
Act II, Scene 1 · Macbeth
Context
As Macbeth psyches himself up for the murder, he imagines the nighttime world as a realm where witchcraft thrives and 'wither'd murder' moves toward its victim like a ghost or a predator.
Analysis
Macbeth personifies murder as a skeletal figure 'alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf,' using military diction ('sentinel,' 'alarum'd') that turns killing into an organized operation with lookouts and coordinated signals. This language distances him from personal agency—murder becomes an external force with its own schedule and helpers, as if Macbeth is just one more instrument in a process already underway.
Essay Tip
Support a thesis that Macbeth reframes his crime as part of a natural or cosmic order—by describing murder as something the night 'celebrates,' he's trying to make regicide feel inevitable rather than chosen, evading responsibility even in his own mind.