“If you shall cleave to my consent”: A Note on Macbeth

I begin with these lines from Macbeth:

MACBETH If you shall cleave to my consent, when it is,

It shall make honour for you.

BANQUO  So I lose none in seeking to augment it. (2.1.34-36)

In the Arden 2 edition of the play (1982), editor Kenneth Muir observes that these lines are particularly ambiguous. In this note, I hope to lessen the ambiguity. Macbeth seems to imply that if Banquo accepts or acquiesces to the witches’ prediction that Macbeth will become the king of Scotland, then the prediction that Banquo’s offsprings will rule Scotland may also become true—a win-win situation. In reply, Banquo retorts in an equally equivocal manner that by thus accepting the witches’ prediction, he advances the prospect of such a case and thereby upholds the cause for both of them with no loss to either of them. But the characters have oblique and complex relations even when they are sincere and candid in their conversations. At another level, Macbeth seems to suggest that if Banquo, as an accomplice, agrees to advance the future prospect of Macbeth becoming King of Scotland, both lucrative power and position will lie in store for Banquo. Either way, he will stand a winner, regardless of whether the witches’ predictions prove true for both of them.