Abstract
"Oftentimes, to win us to our harm, / the instruments of darkness tell us truths, / Win us with honest trifles, to betray / in deepest consequence? (Act I scene 3, 123-126). Banquo warns Macbeth, who is wandering if he can believe the rest of the three witches' Prophecies, as he just had been named Thane of Cawdor. Banquo tells him that the weird sisters could lure him by introducing implied meanings in their speech. He is actually giving us a definition of equivocation. According to the Concise Oxford Dictionary, to equivocate is to use ambiguous or evasive language. It leads to misunderstanding, and ambiguity. This seems to be a key to understanding this famous play of Shakespeare. Equivocation, that implies several meanings, also raises several questions: is it only an "instrument of darkness" in Macbeth? How can the reader perceive and understand its implied meanings when he first reads the play without knowing its end? What is the importance of equivocation in Macbeth and, more generally, in theatre?
