Banquo

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Macbeth sees Banquo's ghost . Painting by Théodore Chassériau (1855).

Banquo (also Banco ) is a main character in William Shakespeare's drama Macbeth . He is Thane von Lochaber and general of the Scottish King Duncan I. In the play, witches prophesy the future to him and Macbeth. Macbeth is to become king, although the king and his two sons are still alive. Banquo, however, is the ancestor of the future royal family. Macbeth, seduced by these prophecies, decides to help fulfill the prophecies by murdering the king and accusing his sons of murder. Then he also has Banquo removed from the way, but his son Fleance is able to escape to England.

At the coronation ceremony in the presence of many representatives of the nobility, the spirit of Banquos appears. However, it can only be perceived by Macbeth. The strange reactions of the new king draw the suspicion of the nobility on him. The festival has to be broken off.

The prophecy that Banquo's descendants would become kings was familiar to theater-goers in the early 17th century and was based on the contemporary belief that the Stuart royal family , which included reigning King James I of England (also James VI of Scotland), descended from this line. The same can be found in the then popular chronicle of Raphael Holinshed , which Shakespeare used as the basis for many of his plays.

Throughout the play, Banquo is described as what has been considered honorable in Shakespeare's century. It is often assumed that Shakespeare wanted to flatter the reigning king with the positive description of Banquos. Nevertheless, it remains questionable why Banquo, who was present at the prophecy, did not raise suspicions against the regicide Macbeth in time.

In fact, nothing is known about whether a historically verifiable banquo really existed. As research in the 19th century suggests, the Stuarts do not originally come from Scotland, but from Brittany .

literature

  • William Shakespeare: Macbeth. Bilingual edition. German by Frank Günther. (Arden 1984) Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 8th edition, Munich 2011. ISBN 978-3-423-12484-3 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ MacBeth Abstract , Shakespeare Company, accessed February 6, 2017
  2. ^ William Shakespeare: Macbeth. III. Elevator. Fourth scene. Shakespeare's dramatic works, translated by August Wilhelm Schlegel , supplemented and explained by Ludwig Tieck , Vol. 9, Georg Andreas Reimer, Berlin 1832.
  3. ↑ Herbert Coursen: Macbeth . Greenwood Press, Westport, 1997, pp. 5-21, ISBN 0-313-30047-X
  4. ↑ George Chalmers: Caledonia. Volume 1, pp. 571-575, London 1807
  5. ^ JH Round: The Origin of the Stewarts. Part 1 . Medieval Genealogy, accessed November 13, 2008.

Web links