BANQUO
Worthy Macbeth, we stay upon your leisure.
MACBETH
Give me your favour: my dull brain was wrought With things forgotten. Kind gentlemen, your pains Are register'd where every day I turn The leaf to read them. Let us toward the king. Think upon what hath chanced, and, at more time, The interim having weigh'd it, let us speak Our free hearts each to other.
BANQUO
Very gladly.
MACBETH
Till then, enough. Come, friends. Exeunt
Banquo interrupts Macbeth’s murderous considerations, calling him “worthy”, reflecting the tone of the Captain and soldiers who fought with him, but now laden with irony for the audience. Banquo’s reminder that they “stay upon your leisure” is likely a polite one (even deferential), though could equally be delivered with a note of passive aggression. Macbeth snaps out of his reverie and asks for “your favour”, for forgiveness for taking up their time, but an ambiguous apology which could also hint at guilt for his regicidal thoughts. Either way, it points the difference between Macbeth and Banquo’s responses: Macbeth is entranced by the prophecies, whereas Banquo is keen to move on, seemingly willing to dismiss them, though he does end the scene by agreeing “very gladly” to speak again with “free hearts” about the prophecies. Macbeth’s words again have a duality to them; he expresses modesty calling his thoughts “dull” and “forgotten”, but our access to those thoughts through the aside shows us that he has mastery of the situation. His skilful control of language creates a distance between himself and the others on stage: he can interact, without confiding in them. That his brain is “wrought” means here that he is agitated or preoccupied, but it also suggests his mind is malleable and has been formed (by the witches? by his own ambition? by the favour of the King?). He registers their “pains” through the metaphor of a book in which Macbeth is recording and reviewing their favour, an image which suggests he has learned a role, acting out expectations rather than feeling them instinctively. He prompts the next action of the play in the short statement “let us towards the King!”, an instruction which moves us on (though it might be possible for an actor to deliver the line with a bitter tone, in which it would imply some envy). Macbeth turns back to Banquo and shows that he is still reflecting on the witches’ words, the repeated references to time – “at more time”, “interim”, “till then” – suggesting that time will allow for calculated consideration, for reason to make sense of the rapid succession of confusing, supernatural events we have just experienced. Macbeth seems to have taken control of the conversation, with the longer lines and Banquo’s short answers seeming deferential, even submissive. We end 1.3 with Macbeth on the rise!
~ Kate and Ella
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