Banquo

A companion who becomes a contrast

Banquo begins Macbeth as a brave Scottish nobleman and fellow captain. In Act 1 Scene 2, the Sergeant praises both Macbeth and Banquo for their courage in defending Duncan’s kingdom. They therefore start from comparable positions: both are respected soldiers, both serve the same king, and both encounter the witches.

Shakespeare makes Banquo a foil to Macbeth: their similarities make their different choices more revealing. Banquo is not simply someone who never feels temptation. He becomes interested in the promised future, but he does not commit murder to secure it. His example suggests that hearing a prophecy does not remove a person’s responsibility for what they do next.

Across the play, his role changes from companion and adviser to suspicious observer, murder victim and haunting reminder. Even after his death, he threatens Macbeth’s peace and his hopes of founding a royal family.

Hearing the prophecy without trusting its source

In Act 1 Scene 3, the Third Witch tells Banquo, ‘Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none’. Here, ‘get’ means father or beget: Banquo’s descendants will become kings, although Banquo himself will not. The contrast between ‘kings’ and ‘none’ separates future family greatness from immediate personal power.

The witches also describe him as ‘Lesser than Macbeth, and greater’. This paradox can suggest that Banquo will hold a lower political position but possess greater moral worth. It also anticipates the contrast between Macbeth’s brief reign and the promised future of Banquo’s descendants.

Banquo questions the witches rather than immediately accepting their authority. Yet he asks them to predict his future, so his scepticism exists alongside curiosity. Once Ross announces that Macbeth has become Thane of Cawdor, the apparent fulfilment of one prediction makes the others more tempting.

Banquo warns Macbeth in Act 1 Scene 3: ‘The instruments of darkness tell us truths’. The metaphor ‘instruments’ presents the witches as agents or tools of evil. ‘Darkness’ carries associations of concealment and spiritual danger. Crucially, Banquo recognises that truth itself can be used deceptively: a small accurate prediction can win someone’s trust before leading them towards much greater harm.

This warning establishes the mechanism of temptation. Macbeth increasingly treats fulfilled predictions as reasons to hope for power; Banquo sees that an accurate statement does not necessarily make its speaker trustworthy. His language connects the supernatural encounter to Christian ideas about evil enticing people into sin.

Restraint is an effort, not an absence of desire

In Act 2 Scene 1, Banquo is awake with his son Fleance shortly before Duncan’s murder. He feels exhausted but fears sleeping, and appeals to ‘merciful powers’:

‘Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature / Gives way to in repose!’

‘Repose’ means rest or sleep. The imperative ‘Restrain’ asks for help in controlling thoughts he judges dangerous. ‘Cursed’ gives those thoughts a moral and religious seriousness. His later admission that he has dreamed about the witches connects this struggle to their predictions.

One reading sees this prayer as evidence of integrity: Banquo acknowledges temptation and tries to resist it. Another emphasises his vulnerability: the prophecy has entered his private thoughts despite his earlier warning. These readings work together. His strength lies in struggling against temptation, not in being untouched by it.

When Macbeth suggests that cooperation could bring Banquo honour, Banquo sets a condition: he must keep ‘My bosom franchised and allegiance clear’ in Act 2 Scene 1. ‘Franchised’ means free; his conscience must remain independent and his loyalty uncorrupted. He is willing to listen, but not to sacrifice existing honour for advancement.

Shakespeare places this exchange immediately before Macbeth’s dagger soliloquy. Structurally, the audience sees Banquo asking for restraint just before Macbeth prepares to act on murderous desire. Both men experience disturbing thoughts, but they respond differently.

Suspicion and hope in the same soliloquy

At the opening of Act 3 Scene 1, Macbeth is king and Banquo speaks alone:

‘Thou hast it now: king, Cawdor, Glamis, all,’

The list gathers Macbeth’s titles together, while ‘all’ emphasises how completely the witches’ promises have been fulfilled. Banquo then adds, ‘Thou play'dst most foully for't’. ‘Foully’ suggests dishonest and wicked action, revealing his suspicion that Macbeth gained the crown through murder. It also echoes the witches’ language of foulness, showing how their influence continues to shape the play.

However, his thoughts turn from Macbeth’s suspected crime to his own promised descendants. Banquo asks, ‘May they not be my oracles as well’. An oracle offers an authoritative supernatural prediction. This description gives the witches a more hopeful status than his earlier metaphor of the ‘instruments of darkness’. The question reveals how attractive their words have become when he imagines benefiting from them.

The soliloquy lets the audience hear suspicion and ambition that Banquo conceals from Macbeth. It is written in blank verse, the play’s usual unrhymed verse form. The questioning movement of the speech matters more than simply identifying its metre: Banquo moves from recognising Macbeth’s success, to suspecting wrongdoing, to hoping for his own family’s future. His abrupt ‘But hush! no more’ closes off these private thoughts before the royal party enters.

Banquo can therefore be read as morally superior to Macbeth without being morally perfect. His earlier insistence on a clear conscience supports the first judgement; his silence about his suspicions and his renewed hope complicate it. Silence might reflect cautious self-preservation under a dangerous ruler, but the proximity of suspicion and hope also suggests self-interest. The most convincing judgement recognises both his restraint and his willingness to benefit from a future he associates with questionable powers.

A father whose survival threatens Macbeth

In Act 3 Scene 1, Macbeth fears Banquo’s courage and wisdom, as well as the prophecy about his descendants. Macbeth has gained the crown but cannot feel secure while another family seems destined to inherit power. He arranges the deaths of both Banquo and Fleance.

During the attack in Act 3 Scene 3, Banquo cries, ‘Fly, good Fleance, fly, fly, fly!’ The repeated imperative conveys urgent fear and a desperate effort to save his son. The affectionate adjective ‘good’ makes this a personal moment of paternal care, not merely a struggle over succession.

Banquo dies, but Fleance escapes. Structurally, this prevents Macbeth from closing off the promised future. Shakespeare contrasts a father trying to protect his child with a ruler ordering a child’s murder to preserve his own power. Banquo’s death therefore exposes how far Macbeth has moved from defending Scotland to destroying those he fears.

The murdered man returns to the king’s place

In Act 3 Scene 4, Banquo’s ghost enters during Macbeth’s banquet and sits in Macbeth’s place. This stage position is significant: the man Macbeth tried to remove now occupies the seat from which Macbeth should display authority. The ghost turns an occasion intended to demonstrate royal order into a scene of public disorder.

Macbeth commands it, ‘never shake / Thy gory locks at me’. ‘Gory’ makes the violence of Banquo’s death visibly present. The command sounds forceful, but Macbeth cannot control what he sees. Banquo speaks no words; Macbeth’s reaction supplies the sense of accusation.

The ghost can be understood as a supernatural return of the murdered man, especially because the stage direction presents his entrance. It can also represent Macbeth’s guilt and psychological disturbance: the other guests do not see what he sees, and Lady Macbeth describes the spectacle as a product of his fear. Either reading makes Banquo powerful after death. Killing him has not restored Macbeth’s security; it has helped destroy his composure and public credibility.

Banquo’s descendants and James I

In Act 4 Scene 1, Macbeth sees a procession of eight kings, with Banquo following. The last king carries a ‘glass’ — a mirror — which reveals further kings. Banquo smiles and points to them as his descendants. The repeated figures and the mirror extend the royal line beyond the immediate spectacle: Macbeth’s individual reign is set against a dynasty that appears to continue far into the future.

James VI of Scotland, who became James I of England in 1603, traced his ancestry to Banquo. This was a claimed lineage, not a reason to treat every event in the play as verified history. For Shakespeare’s audience, the promised kings and the procession could nevertheless connect Banquo’s family to the reigning Stuart monarch. The vision can therefore be read as a compliment to James’s dynasty and its legitimacy.

Shakespeare’s treatment of Banquo also differs from Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles, where Banquo assists Macbeth in the plot against Duncan. Recasting him as a man who resists joining Macbeth’s wrongdoing gives the king’s supposed ancestor a more honourable role. Yet the Act 3 Scene 1 soliloquy preserves complexity: royal flattery does not make Banquo entirely free from ambition.

Turning evidence into an essay argument

OCR’s Shakespeare section asks for one essay from a choice of two questions: an extract-based response linking the passage to elsewhere in the play, or a discursive response developing an argument through different moments. It is worth 40 marks, including four for vocabulary, sentence structures, spelling and punctuation. Interpretation supported by evidence (AO1) and analysis of language, form and structure (AO2) are equally dominant. Context (AO3) should illuminate the particular moment and argument.

Worked paragraph — extract-based question: ‘Explore how Shakespeare makes Banquo a significant figure in the play’, using Act 3 Scene 1 and elsewhere.

Shakespeare makes Banquo significant as a foil whose restraint exposes Macbeth’s moral decline, while also revealing the attraction of ambition. In his Act 3 Scene 1 soliloquy, Banquo suspects that Macbeth ‘play'dst most foully for't’, but then asks, ‘May they not be my oracles as well’. The movement from accusation to hope shows that he recognises wrongdoing yet remains tempted by the promised future of his family. The noun ‘oracles’ gives the witches an authority that contrasts with his earlier description of them as the ‘instruments of darkness’ in Act 1 Scene 3. Because the audience hears these thoughts privately, it can judge the tension between his public loyalty and concealed desires. Nevertheless, unlike Macbeth, Banquo does not murder to fulfil the prediction. This qualified moral contrast also gives James I’s claimed ancestor a more honourable role than Holinshed’s accomplice, without making him a flawless character.

The paragraph builds one connected argument: each quotation contributes to a judgement about Banquo’s significance, and the wider-text link develops that judgement rather than simply naming another scene.

Banquo’s central role

• Foil to Macbeth: comparable courage, status and supernatural temptation; different responses to ambition.
• Resists participating in wrongdoing, but is not free from desire or self-interest.
• Develops from companion and sceptical adviser into suspicious observer, victim and haunting threat.

Evidence to recall

Form, structure and interpretation

• Act 2 Scene 1: Banquo’s prayer precedes Macbeth’s dagger soliloquy — restraint contrasted with murderous action.
• Act 3 Scene 1: blank-verse soliloquy reveals private suspicion and hope beneath public loyalty.
• Banquet: silent ghost occupies Macbeth’s place; public royal order collapses. Read as supernatural return or embodiment of guilt.
• Act 4 Scene 1: eight kings and a mirror extend Banquo’s dynasty beyond Macbeth’s reign.

Context and judgement

James I claimed descent from Banquo. Shakespeare changes Holinshed’s accomplice into a more honourable opponent of Macbeth; the procession can flatter the Stuart dynasty.

Balanced judgement: Banquo is morally stronger than Macbeth, but his concealed suspicions and hope prevent a reading of him as perfectly innocent.

Essay essentials

One essay; 40 marks, including four for AO4. AO1 and AO2 are equally dominant; connect AO3 to the argument.

• Extract-based: develop the extract and elsewhere.
• Discursive: develop at least two moments.
• Extract-only or one-moment answers cannot exceed Level 3; merely brief additional references cannot exceed Level 4.