Role in The Play
Banquo is in a third of the play's scenes, as both a human and a ghost. As significant as he is to the plot, he has fewer lines than the relatively insignificant Ross, a Scottish nobleman who survives the play. In the second scene of the play, King Duncan describes the brave manner in which Macbeth, Thane of Glamis, and Banquo bravely led his army against invaders, fighting side by side. In the next scene, Banquo and Macbeth, returning from the battle together, encounter the Three Witches, who predict that Macbeth will become Thane of Cawdor, and then king. Banquo, skeptical of the witches, challenges them to predict his own future, and they foretell that Banquo will never himself take the throne, but will beget a line of kings. Banquo remains skeptical after the encounter, wondering aloud if evil can ever speak the truth. He warns Macbeth that evil will offer men a small, hopeful truth only in order to catch them in a deadly trap.
When Macbeth kills the king and takes the throne, Banquo—the only one aware of this encounter with the witches—reserves judgment for God. He is unsure whether Macbeth committed regicide to gain the throne, but muses in a soliloquy that "I fear / Thou play'dst most foully for 't". He offers his respects to the new King Macbeth and pledges loyalty. Later, worried that Banquo's descendants and not his own will rule Scotland, Macbeth sends men to kill Banquo and his son Fleance. During the melee, Banquo holds off the assailants so that Fleance can escape, but is himself killed. The ghost of Banquo later returns to haunt Macbeth at the banquet in act three, scene four. A terrified Macbeth sees him, while the apparition is invisible to his guests. He appears again to Macbeth in a vision granted by the Three Witches, wherein Macbeth sees a long line of kings descended from Banquo.
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