ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -Banquo too speaks truth; here he articulates the play’s crisis moment: ‘tis strange (yes, master of understatement); and oftentimes to win us to our harm the instruments of darkness tell us truths, win us with honest trifles, to betray’s in deepest consequence.

Detailed explanation-2: -As to their purpose, Banquo warns Macbeth, “to win us to our harm, / The instruments of darkness tell us truths” only to betray us in the end.

Detailed explanation-3: -Poets may also warn against evil. In Shakespeare’s Macbeth we read “But ‘tis strange, and oftentimes to win us to our harm, the instruments of darkness tell us truths, win us with honest trifles to betray us in deepest consequence.” Art in its various forms, that inspires us to choose the good and be happy, is of God.

Detailed explanation-4: -Fly, good Fleance, fly, fly, fly! Thou may’st revenge – O slave! These lines are Banquo’s dying words, as he is slaughtered by the murderers Macbeth has hired in Act 3, scene 3. In his dying breaths, Banquo urges his son, Fleance, to flee to safety, and charges him to someday revenge his father’s death.

Detailed explanation-5: -He also reminds the murderers of their reason for killing Banquo-that on some past occasion, Page 2 they were wronged by him. To justify his actions, Macbeth also says to them that he would kill Banquo himself, if he could do it without upsetting their mutual friends.