Describe Macbeth's vision at the end of Act II, Scene 1 in Macbeth.

After Banquo, Fleance and the servants have exited the scene,
Macbeth is left alone onstage to converse with the audience.  He asks, "Is this a dagger I see
before me/The handle toward my hand?"  His vision is of a dagger, which seems to be offering
itself to him rather than threatening him, since "the handle" is pointed "towards" his
hand.

Macbeth goes on in this soliloquy to describe how he clutches
for it, but cannot grasp it.  However, there is question about whether an actual image of a
dagger appears during this soliloquy.  Macbeth asks:

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. . .art thou but

A dagger of
the mind, a false creation,

Proceeding from the heat-oppressed
brain?

So, Macbeth is acknowledging
that he might, in fact, be tormented by an image from his own mind -- his conscience? -- rather
than observing an actual dagger floating in the air before
him.

Either way, he definitely makes the image of a dagger real in
his next line.

I see
thee yet, in form as palpable

As this which now I
draw.

And with the drawing of his own
actual weapon, Macbeth seals his decision to go through with the murder, invoking the dark
spirits of night to aid him in his treason.

For more on this scene,
please follow the links below.