Read the excerpt from act 3, scene 4 of The Tragedy of Macbeth . Macbeth: Then comes my fit again: I had else been perfect; Whole as the marble, founded as the rock, As broad and general as the casing air: But now I am cabin’d, cribb’d, confin’d, bound in To saucy doubts and fears. But Banquo ’s safe? First Murderer: Ay, my good lord; safe in a ditch he bides, With twenty trenched gashes on his head; The least a death to nature. What does the murderer mean by the phrase "safe in a ditch”?
B
Banquo has attacked them.D
Banquo has gone into hiding.The murderer explains what he means immediately afterward: Banquo is in a ditch with twenty deep wounds on his head, any one of which would be fatal. So “safe” is darkly ironic—Banquo is dead, not escaping or hiding. The correct choice is “Banquo has been slain.”
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