Editing Banquo (section)

==Role in the play==
[[File:Macbeth and Banquo with the witches JHF.jpg|alt=Dark painting showing two figures encountering witch-like creatures.|thumb|upright|''Macbeth and Banquo with the Witches'' by [[Henry Fuseli]]]]
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.<ref>{{cite book |last=Braunmuller |first=A. R. |chapter=Introduction |title=Macbeth |editor1-first=A. R. |editor1-last=Braunmuller |series=The New Cambridge Shakespeare |location=Cambridge |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |year=1997 |isbn=0-521-29455-X |page=[https://archive.org/details/macbeth0000shak_q6u8/page/266 266] |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/macbeth0000shak_q6u8/page/266 }}</ref> In the second scene of the play, a wounded soldier describes the manner in which Macbeth, Thane of Glamis, and Banquo, Thane of Lochaber, resisted invading forces, 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, sceptical 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 sceptical 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 to catch them in a deadly trap.<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.shakespeare-navigators.com/macbeth/T13.html| title = ''Macbeth.'' Act 1, Scene 3.}}</ref>

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".<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.shakespeare-navigators.com/macbeth/T31.html#2| title = ''Macbeth'', Act 3, Scene 1, lines 2–3.}}</ref> He offers his respects to the new King Macbeth and pledges loyalty.<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.shakespeare-navigators.com/macbeth/T31.html| title = ''Macbeth.'' Act 3, Scene 1.}}</ref> Later, worried that Banquo's descendants and not his own will rule [[Scotland]], Macbeth sends two men, and then a [[Third Murderer]], to kill Banquo and his son [[Fleance]]. During the melee, Banquo holds off the assailants so that Fleance can escape, but is himself killed.<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.shakespeare-navigators.com/macbeth/T33.html| title = ''Macbeth.'' Act 3, Scene 3.}}</ref> The [[Ghosts in European culture|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.<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.shakespeare-navigators.com/macbeth/T41.html| title = ''Macbeth.'' Act 4, Scene 1.}}</ref>