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[56]

Thus it appears, that Fleance is not a subordinate, but an equal, object of the King's jealousy.

The perfidious tyrant, with his directions for ridding himself of Banquo, gives the assassins a special charge to make an end of Fleance also:—

———— With him,
(To leave no rubs, nor botches in the work,)
Fleance, his son, that keeps him company,
Whose absence is no less material to me
Than is his father's, must embrace the fate
Of that dark hour.[1]

Here again it is proved, if words bear any intelligible meaning, that

  1. Macbeth, Act iii. Sc. 1.