Macbeth Group

Question:

limjiahui
limjiahui
Student
High School - 10th Grade

Why didn't Banquo's son, Fleance, become the king after Macbeth dies?

According to the Witches' prophecies, Banquo's children will be future kings, even though Banquo himself will never be. The other two prophecies about Macbeth have come true, so why then did Shakespeare not let the third prophecy come true?

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Posted by limjiahui on Tuesday July 7, 2009 at 4:43 AM and tagged with banquo, fleance, holinshed, macbeth, stuart dynasty.

Answers:

  1. lit24
    lit24 Teacher
    Doctorate

    Fleance and his father Banquo are both fictional characters but presented as historical fact by Raphael Holinshed whose "Chronicles" was the source for Shakespeare's "Macbeth." In Raphael's "Chronicles" Fleance flees to Wales in fear of Macbeth, there he marries a Welsh princess by name Nesta Verch Gruffydd. They beget a son Walter who makes his way back to Scotland where he becomes the Royal Steward. According to the legend he began the Stuart line of monarchs through whom Scotland and England were united.

    In 1722, the Scottish historian Richard Hay revealed that both Banquo and Fleance were only fictitious characters. Modern historical research has proved that Banquo and Fleance never existed.

    The plot of "Macbeth" ends with the death of Macbeth. Shakespeare does not continue the drama after that because if he had continued to write about what happened to Fleance then the tragic intensity of his play would have been diluted.

    Sources:
    http://www.enotes.com/macbeth/character-analysis
    http://www.enotes.com/macbeth/criticism
    http://www.enotes.com/macbeth/essays

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    Posted by lit24 on Tuesday July 7, 2009 at 5:52 AM

  2. impeccable
    impeccable Teacher
    College - Senior

    The major misunderstanding arises from the wrong selection of the word meaning by the Modern English Translators.  Read again carefully the dialogue of  the third witch in this context.  " THOU SHALT GET KINGS, THOUGH THOU BE NONE....ETC".  The translators of modern english have taken the meaning of the word GET as BEGET and from there the confusion springs up.

    The word GET has many other meanings and the one that fits in logically in this context is the meaning "LINEAGE".  According to the Websters seventh collegiate dictionary the meaning of this word is " A GROUP OF PERSONS TRACING DECENT FROM A COMMON ANCESTOR".  Here the witch did not say that Banquo's son would ascend the throne after Duncan but had averred that the lineage carried down the generation would produce the Kings.  Who was the ancestor of the kings who have filled the throne of Scotland afterwards?  Who was the ancestor of James the sixth of scotland and the first of England? Are they not the decendents of Fleance?  lastly who was the ancestor of the king under whom both the crowns of England and the Scotland have got united?  Was he notthe decendent of Fleance's lineage?

     

    Thus the prophecy of the third witch had not gone unfulfilled.

     

    God bless you.

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    Posted by impeccable on Wednesday July 8, 2009 at 3:57 AM

  3. guardcat
    guardcat Teacher
    Graduate School

    Because Fleance who was actually Banquo's grandson became the grandfather of the Stuart kings and thus a threat to the Tudor throne and the ruling party during Shakespeares time.

    Sources:
    http://en.rodovid.org/wk/Person:116866

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    Posted by guardcat on Sunday September 13, 2009 at 9:27 AM