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DAGGER OF THE MIND LYRICS
"Dagger of the Mind" (2006 Demo)
1. Dagger of the Mind
2. The Ballad of Isabella
3. The Porter's Speech
4. Caliban
5. The Trooper (Iron Maiden cover)
6. Dagger of the Mind (live)
7. Sonnet # 108
1. Dagger of the Mind
Macbeth Act II, Scene I
Macb. Go bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready,
She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed.
Is this a dagger
which I see before me,
The handle turned 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?
We are the dagger of the mind
We’ve come to cut you from inside
Thou marshal’st me the way…
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.
I see thee still and on thy blade…
(Dudgeon) gouts of blood which was not so before
There’s no such thing
(It’s) this bloody business that informs
I go, and it is done, the bell invites me.
Hear it not…for it is a knell,
That summons thee to heaven or to hell.
2. The Ballad of Isabella
Measure for Measure II.ii
There is a vice I do most abhor,
And most desires should meet the blow of justice;
For which I would not plead, but that I must;
For which I must not plead, but that I am at war…
If he had been as you and you as he
You would have slipped like him but he
Would not have been so stern like you.
And how would you be if He
Who is the top of judgment
Should judge you as you are
Knock, at your Heart and see who answers there
And ask your heart what it doth know
Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue
Against my brother’s crime of love
Not the kings crown, nor the deputed sword,
The marshal’s truncheon, nor the judge’s robe,
Become them with one half so good a grace
As mercy does—You are too cold.
Is it her fault, or mine?
The tempter or the tempted, who sins most?
Nor she doth she tempt; but it is I
Can it be modesty may betray our sense?
3. The Porter's Speech
Here’s a knocking indeed!
If a man were a porter at Hell Gate
He should have old turning the key
Knock, who’s there ‘i th’ name of Bezlebub?
Here’s a farmer that hang’d himself
On the expectation of plenty
Have napkins enow about you,
Here you’ll swear for’t.
Knock knock knock, who’s there…
…In the devil’s name?
Faith, here’s an equivocator
That could swear both the scales against the other scale
Who committed treason enough for God’s sake
Yet could not equivocate to heaven.
O, come in, equivocator.
Who’s there, who’s there, who’s there?
Faith, here’s an English tailor
Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and urine,
Lechery, sir, it provokes and unprovokes:
It provokes desire, but takes away performance.
It may be said to be an equivocator.
It makes him and it mars him.
It sets him on and it takes him off,
Makes him stand to and not stand to.
Come in, tailor, here you may roast your goose.
Never at quiet! But this place is too cold for hell.
I had thought to have let in some of all professions
That go the primrose way to th’ everlasting bonfire.
Anon, anon, anon anon.
Kn-knock, knock, knock, knock
I pray you remember the porter!
Is thy master stirring?
4. Caliban
A devil - born devil - on whose nature nature can never stick;
On whom my pains – humanely taken – all lost quite lost;
And as with age his body uglier grows,
So his mind cankers. I will plague them all…
A freckled whelp hag-born—not honour’d with a human shape.
Caliban—half man, got the power of the beast within his hand
On an island, in a storm—the power of the beast is born!
I’ll show thee the best springs; I’ll pluck thee berries;
I’ll fish for thee and get thee wood enough.
A plague upon the tyrant that I serve!
I’ll bear him no more sticks, but follow thee…
I’ll show thee every fertile inch o’ th’ island;
And I will kiss thy foot; I prithee, be my god.
All the infections that the sun sucks up
From bogs, fens, flats, on Prosper fall and make him
By inch-meal a disease! His spirits hear me
And yet I needs must curse. But they’ll nor pinch,
Fright me with urchin-shows, pitch me i’ the mire,
Nor lead me, like a firebrand, in the dark
Out of my way, unless he bid ‘em; but
For every trifle are they set upon me;
Sometime like apes that mow and chatter at me
And after bite me, then like hedgehogs which
Lie tumbling in my barefoot way and mount
Their pricks at my footfall; sometime am I
All wound with adders who with cloven tongues
Do hiss me into madness…
5. The Trooper (Iron Maiden cover)
You'll take my life but I'll take yours too
You'll fire your musket but I'll run you through
So when you're waiting for the next attack
You'd better stand there's no turning back.
The Bugle sounds and the charge begins
But on this battlefield no one wins
The smell of acrid smoke and horses' breath
As I plunge on into certain death.
The horse he sweats with fear we break to run
The mighty roar of the Russian guns
And as we race towards the human wall
The screams of pain as my comrades fall.
We hurdle bodies that lay on the ground
And the Russians fire another round
We get so near yet so far away
We won't live to fight another day.
We get so close near enough to fight
When a Russian gets me in his sights
He pulls the trigger and I feel the blow
A burst of rounds take my horse below.
And as I lay there gazing at the sky
My body's numb and my throat is dry
And as I lay forgotten and alone
Without a tear I draw my parting groan.
(music and lyrics by Iron Maiden)
6. Dagger of the Mind (live)
Macbeth Act II, Scene I
Macb. Go bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready,
She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed.
Is this a dagger
which I see before me,
The handle turned 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?
We are the dagger of the mind
We’ve come to cut you from inside
Thou marshal’st me the way…
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.
I see thee still and on thy blade…
(Dudgeon) gouts of blood which was not so before
There’s no such thing
(It’s) this bloody business that informs
I go, and it is done, the bell invites me.
Hear it not…for it is a knell,
That summons thee to heaven or to hell.
7. Sonnet # 108
What's in the brain that ink may character
Which hath not figured to thee my true spirit?
What's new to speak, what new to register,
That may express my love or thy dear merit?
Nothing sweet boy; but yet, like prayers divine,
I must, each day say o'er the very same,
Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine,
Even as when first I hallow'd thy fair name.
So that eternal love in love's fresh case
Weighs not the dust and injury of age,
Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place,
But makes antiquity for aye his page,
Finding the first conceit of love there bred
Where time and outward form would show it dead.
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