Act 3, Scene 3: Fly, Good Fleance

chill, uk spoken poetry, jazz, bass and piano, slow · 5:17

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Lyrics

[Verse 1]
Dusk settles down on the park by the gate,
Two hired shadows are told now to wait,
A third man creeps from the tree line's screen,
Macbeth sent him too, though the others ask what he's seen,
No name, no past, just a nod and a stare,
Three knives now sharpened in the thickening air.

[Pre-Chorus]
First Murderer squints at the fading glow,
"The west yet glimmers with some streaks of day" — low,
Lated means caught out, traveling too late,
Riders push apace, hurrying hard toward the gate.

[Chorus]
Fly, good Fleance, fly, fly, fly,
Run while your father buys you the sky,
The timely inn is the shelter found in time,
But tonight the road is a trap, not a rhyme,
Fly, good Fleance, through the dark and the dread,
Carry the crown that was promised ahead.

[Verse 2]
Torchlight bobs as the travelers near,
Banquo's voice carries easy, no fear,
He reads the clouds like a man reads a page,
"It will be rain tonight" — simple, not sage,
First Murderer answers, cold as a stone,
"Let it come down" — the attack is their own.

[Verse 3]
Blades flash quick, the torch gets struck dead,
Someone's boot kicks the light from its bed,
Banquo falls hard, but his voice finds the dark,
"O, treachery!" he shouts like a struck spark,
Then the line that matters more than his breath:
"Fly, good Fleance, fly, fly, fly!" — louder than death.

[Chorus]
Fly, good Fleance, fly, fly, fly,
Run while your father buys you the sky,
The timely inn is the shelter found in time,
But tonight the road is a trap, not a rhyme,
Fly, good Fleance, through the dark and the dread,
Carry the crown that was promised ahead.

[Bridge]
The affair was the job, the whole murdering task,
Two names on a list, no questions to ask,
But the boy is the half that slipped through their hand,
Gone into bramble, gone over the land,
Macbeth wanted both, father and son,
The witches' old promise says half is not done,
One shape in the shadows, hired but unnamed,
Still can't finish what the dark itself framed.

[Verse 4]
The murderers stand in the blown-out night,
Counting their failure by absent light,
One prince still breathing somewhere out there,
Means Banquo's blood still climbs the stair,
Not Macbeth's children will wear that gold thread,
The future runs loose while the present lies dead,
Every crown he grabs turns to borrowed sand,
Slipping through fingers he can't command.

[Chorus]
Fly, good Fleance, fly, fly, fly,
Run while your father buys you the sky,
The timely inn is the shelter found in time,
But tonight the road is a trap, not a rhyme,
Fly, good Fleance, through the dark and the dread,
Carry the crown that was promised ahead.

[Outro]
One torch out, one bloodline spared,
The park goes quiet, nobody cared,
But somewhere running, quick and small,
A seed of prophecy outlives the fall.

← Act 3, Scene 2: Full of Scorpions | Act 3, Scene 4: Banquo's Ghost at the Feast →