My fell of hair
Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir
As life were in ’t. I have supp’d full with horrors.

These lines are spoken by Macbeth in Shakespeare’s tragedy *Macbeth* (c. 1606). They occur after Macbeth has returned from murdering King Duncan and is already steeped in fear and moral disintegration. In conversation with Lady Macbeth, he reflects on how thoroughly he has been exposed to terror and bloodshed: where once a frightening story could make his hair stand on end, he now feels saturated with “horrors.” The moment captures Macbeth’s rapid psychological descent early in the play, as the first regicide triggers paranoia, guilt, and a hardening of sensibility that will accelerate as he commits further violence to secure his power.

Macbeth contrasts an earlier, more ordinary human susceptibility to fear (“a dismal treatise” could make his hair rise) with his present condition: he has “supp’d full with horrors,” as if terror were a meal he has consumed to the point of numbness. The imagery suggests both habituation and corruption—repeated exposure to violence dulls natural responses, while also implying that Macbeth has actively taken in horror through his own deeds. The lines mark a turning point in his moral psychology: fear no longer arrives from outside as a tale or rumor, but from within, as the consequence of actions that have made him intimate with dread.