Banco’s assassination

Banco’s assassination turns a private confession into a political execution: after overhearing Banco reckon with his guilt and the witches’ promise of a royal line descending from him, Macbett kills his former ally to prevent that future. The scene makes prophecy a motive for immediate violence, while showing how ambition and remorse have already unsettled the bond between the two men.

Background and Prophecy

Banco’s reflection begins with Macbett’s expected accession. The witches’ predictions have, in Banco’s view, come true one after another: Macbett is to become king after Baron Candor and Baron Glamiss. Banco recalls that Duncan’s death was necessary for Macbett’s rise, since Duncan could neither die nor constitutionally abdicate in Macbett’s favor without force changing hands. Banco admits that he had a part in Duncan’s murder, which he explains as the result of a grudge. His account makes clear that the assassination grows out of a previous act in which both men were implicated, though their gains from it have proved sharply unequal.

The witches’ other prediction complicates Banco’s place in the new order. He expected Macbett to grant him the chamberlainship and remembers Macbett’s promise, but doubts that it will be kept. Macbett, he observes, had promised fidelity to Duncan and then killed him; Banco therefore sees reason to suspect that his own promised reward will fare no better. He also recognizes the resemblance between their actions: if people condemn Macbett for betraying Duncan, they may judge Banco similarly. This prospect turns political calculation inward, toward guilt that success cannot conceal.

Banco’s Confession

Banco measures his prospects against Macbett’s apparent rewards: wealth, fame, power, and Lady Duncan. He has none of these advantages to quiet his remorse. The contrast is not simply between a successful ruler and an unrewarded accomplice; Banco understands that both have participated in Duncan’s killing, but only Macbett seems to have converted that violence into power and status. Banco’s regret is therefore bound up with envy as well as conscience.

The prophecy offers him a different kind of consolation. The witches said that he would father a line of kings, princes, presidents, and dictators, though he is unmarried and has no children. He treats this forecast as credible because the witches have already shown, in his judgment, that they can see the future. He also admits that before meeting them he had wanted no more than to serve his king. Now, he says, ambition and jealousy have seized him. The predicted dynasty makes that change seem both promising and absurd: Banco imagines a line of rulers extending from him while having neither a spouse nor an heir.

He proposes to marry the Lady in Waiting, whom he finds attractive and somewhat spooky. Her ability to foresee danger, he reasons, could help them avoid it. From there his plans become openly political: once married, with a family and the chamberlainship secured, he intends to curtail Macbett’s powers and act as his éminence gris. He even entertains the possibility that the witches may revise their predictions and that he may reign during his own lifetime. His speech thus moves from regret over the past to plans for family, influence, and eventual rule.

Macbett’s Decision

Macbett has hidden nearby and heard Banco’s entire reflection. What Banco presents as a mixture of self-reproach and private hope, Macbett hears as treason. He is particularly alarmed to learn that Banco has been told he will father a line of kings, a prediction that Macbett says his wife and her maid had also heard but had not disclosed to him. That omission makes the prophecy seem, to him, part of a sinister plot rather than simply another forecast.

Macbett connects the promised descendants to the political crime he has already committed. If he killed Duncan only to place Banco’s descendants on the throne, his own accession would have served the very line that could displace him. He therefore decides to strike at the prophecy’s source by killing Banco. The scene gives his action a double character: he claims to be resisting destiny, yet the means he chooses are another act of violence, driven by the fear that destiny has assigned power to someone else. His attempt to control the prediction becomes the event that destroys Banco before the promised line can begin.

The Killing and Its Significance

Macbett calls Banco back, and Banco answers that he is coming. When Banco appears and asks what Macbett wants, Macbett accuses him of repaying intended favors with betrayal and stabs him in the heart. Banco falls and asks God for mercy. The exchange is abrupt: the private voice that had just imagined a marriage and a dynasty is silenced by the man who has overheard it.

As he leaves, Macbett asks where the predicted kings are and declares that they will rot with Banco, nipped in the bud. His words treat the killing as an assault not only on Banco but on an entire future lineage. Yet the forecast itself has not been disproved; the scene shows Macbett trying to prevent its fulfillment, not evidence that he has succeeded. The immediate result is the death of his former ally and the conversion of suspicion into direct violence. Structurally, the scene shifts from Banco’s inward reckoning to Macbett’s decisive action: prophecy first gives Banco an imagined future, then gives Macbett a reason to destroy him.