Shakespeare, Year 10: Banquo, Macduff and the witches (Macbeth option)

That his descendants will be kings, although he will not be one himself

提示“Get” here means to father.

为什么Banquo hears a prophecy as tempting as Macbeth's and does nothing to make it happen. That is why he is often called Macbeth's foil: the same test, the opposite response.

Banquo

提示The only other person who heard the prophecies.

为什么He says it alone on stage, so the audience knows he suspects Macbeth of murder. He does not act on it, and is killed two scenes later.

His son, Fleance

提示A boy carrying a torch.

为什么Because Fleance lives, the prophecy about Banquo's line can still come true. Macbeth's reaction, at the banquet in Act 3 Scene 4, is “Then comes my fit again”: he can never feel safe.

Macduff

提示The Thane of Fife.

为什么It happens in Act 2 Scene 3. From the start Macduff is tied to honest, open feeling, the opposite of the Macbeths' acting.

feel

提示The opposite of bottling it up.

为什么The play keeps asking what it means to be a man. Lady Macbeth says it means being ready to kill; Macduff says it includes grief.

foul; fair

提示Two short opposites beginning with f, swapped round.

为什么The line says good and bad are about to change places. It sets up a play in which nothing is what it looks like.

The witches'

提示They chanted the same two adjectives.

为什么He has not met them yet. One reading is that he is already tuned to their way of thinking before they speak to him.

No

提示Look at what they actually say in Act 1 Scene 3.

为什么They only greet him with titles. The idea of murder is his: within lines he speaks of a “horrid image” that makes his hair stand on end. How far they are to blame is something the play leaves open.

Banquo

提示Macbeth's fellow general, standing beside him on the heath.

为什么He means that evil powers offer small truths to win trust and then betray you over something that matters. It describes exactly what happens to Macbeth.

trouble

提示It names what the witches are brewing for Scotland.

为什么The witches speak in short rhyming lines with a heavy beat, quite unlike the verse the human characters use. It makes them sound like people casting a spell.