He bore a part only less distinguished than Macbeth's in the battles against Sweno and Macdonwald. He and Macbeth are called 'our captains,' and when they meet the Witches they are traversing the 'blasted heath'[233] alone together. Banquo accosts the strange shapes without the slightest fear. They lay their fingers on their lips, as if to signify that they will not, or must not, speak to _him_. To Macbeth's brief appeal, 'Speak, if you can: what are you?' they at once reply, not by saying what they are, but by hailing him Thane of Glamis, Thane of Cawdor, and King hereafter. Banquo is greatly surprised that his partner should start as if in fear, and observes that he is at once 'rapt'; and he bids the Witches, if they know the future, to prophesy to _him_, who neither begs their favour nor fears their hate. Macbeth, looking back at a later time, remembers Banquo's daring, and how he chid the sisters, When first they put the name of king upon me, And bade them speak to him. 'Chid' is an exaggeration; but Banquo is evidently a bold man, probably an ambitious one, and certainly has no lurking guilt in his ambition. On hearing the predictions concerning himself and his descendants he makes no answer, and when the Witches are about to vanish he shows none of Macbeth's feverish anxiety to know more. On their vanishing he is simply amazed, wonders if they were anything but hallucinations, makes no reference to the predictions till Macbeth mentions them, and then answers lightly. When Ross and Angus, entering, announce to Macbeth that he has been made Thane of Cawdor, Banquo exclaims, aside, to himself or Macbeth, 'What! can the devil speak true?' He now believes that the Witches were real beings and the 'instruments of darkness.' When Macbeth, turning to him, whispers, Do you not hope your children shall be kings, When those that gave the Thane of Cawdor to me Promised no less to them? he draws with the boldness of innocence the inference which is really occupying Macbeth, and answers, That, trusted home, Might yet enkindle you unto the crown Besides the thane of Cawdor. Here he still speaks, I think, in a free, off-hand, even jesting,[234] manner ('enkindle' meaning merely 'excite you to _hope_ for'). But then, possibly from noticing something in Macbeth's face, he becomes graver, and goes on, with a significant 'but,' 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's In deepest consequence.