Hamlet

The Play's the Thing!

(A nu-Author-ised Version)

The crowd’s quickly filing in through the doors and filling the courtyard of the Globe. A few dark clouds have loomed over since Hercules ran up the flagpole but the wiser, or at least more experienced, Groundlings know they're empty of threat.

A couple of young gents have tried muscling their way on to the stage - it's a new play and a great opportunity for the 'Gulls' to show off their feathers - but they must be new in town: The Globe doesn't allow that sort of thing. They're skulking off to one of the higher levels, faces reddening at the jeers of the apprentice boys.

The usual ladies are plying their trade - they'll need to be quick, the building is almost full and there’re signs of movement in the musicians’ box.

The noise inside is quite deafening, shouts of friends across the floor, apprentices greeting masters and their wives in the galleries running around, a few of the finer folk even higher. It's the new play by Shakspear, one of the actors - something about Hamlet. Several of the audience remember an old play, some even saw it across the river, but it didn't stick in their memories.

Most are expecting plenty of blood - the latest fashion, a good bit of revenge and a few jokes: All know they'll be plenty to talk about after - one of the delights of the new Globe is the arguments in the bars of the stews that take place regularly after one of Shakshaft's concoctions. Several of the crowd are just content to gaze around, mouths open, like dead codfish, stunned by the splendours of the new theatre.

The trumpets blast out and the apprentices cheer. A mix of hissing and hushing is followed by a drum role; the back curtain is thrown open, a couple of ordinance fire and a great loud march sets in.

Straight away the audience understands we’re in a court – some proud king is about to make his entrance, and four stage hands are carrying in the state – so, its official business, big declarations and lots of boasting expected.

In they come. A couple of lackeys in royal livery representing the hundreds of servants who could never fit on the stage, a priest or two, several courtiers – one of whom is an old man, (surely that’s the actor who was playing Caesar last Tuesday?) - there’s Shakspear at the back pretending to be a soldier – and in progresses the King with one of the older boys by his side as the Queen (Time they let him grow a beard and get out of that costume – it fitted him well when he did Titania a couple of year’s ago).

Where’s Burbadge?

Up in the balcony – dressed in black – several of the crowd took him for one of the Gulls who’d managed to sneak in – posing in black – quite a popular colour these days – but the regulation hat’s missing.

Is he a lover, or a puritan? Why’s he up there and not down on stage with the court? Amazing workmanship on that black doublet – rich whoever he is.

Cheers on the stage, echoed by the more roisterous in the crowd, as the King sits in his throne and the Queen takes a chair by his side.

One of the Groundlings bellows, just as he’s about to speak, “Watch out, there’s a black crow above your head!”

This gets a good laugh and gives Burbadge the chance to nod his acknowledgements to the adoring Globe. Great applause and stamping of feet, from some; hisses and shushes from others only stopped by a repeated trumpet clarion – the King rises and attention once again is drawn to the court.

Very few notice the thought behind the eyes of the soldier at the back – but there’ll be changes to the opening of the next performance, if the rest of the play goes well.

I know not why . . .

So many of the anti-Semitic accusations against Shakespeare's play, 'The Merchant of Venice' rely on Antonio, the Merchant of the title, being seen as 'Innocent, Christian Victim' that I am surprised a lot more attention hasn't been focused on the validity of the assumption.

Actually, I am not surprised.

Antonio is such an anodyne wimp and Shylock such a dynamic powerhouse that any focus on the former at the expense of the later is bound to seem wasted: The same is true of Milton’s Satan – now there’s a scene stealer is ever there was one – poor old god left right out in the celestial cold.

And then there is the circular argument – Elizabethan England was anti-Semitic – we all know that – after all, Shylock’s portrayal is one of the main pieces of evidence isn’t it?

Strange then how many of the great Shylock performances of recent times crack the cliché and reveal not a ‘stereotype Jew’ but a very human, if flawed, character.

But there – you see – hoisted by my own petard - off the subject of Antonio and onto Shylock!

The play starts with Antonio walking on (as though through the streets of Venice) with some friends and he answers a question which must have been asked offstage – the conversation going something like,

Friend: Why are you so miserable? This sadness is very boring!

Antonio: In sooth, I know not why I am so sad.

Cue Romeo (Aye me . . .); Cue Hamlet. Oh the moans, the moans!

Any but the most drunken groundling jumps straight to the point – Melancholy: Quite a fashionable disease at the time – every self-respecting artist, musician or unemployed scholar (not to mention teenage lover) donned the black hat and sighed bad breath over his friends (sorry ladies, women had to go for the hysterics).

Antonio is striking a note of dissonance right from his first “oooooo th” – and there are more to come.

He continues:

It wearies me; you say it wearies you;

Get the feeling he couldn’t give a monkey’s?

But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,

What stuff ‘tis made of, whereof it is born,

I am to learn;

And that’s a half line – cue for a big pause.

Plenty of time for the audience to answer his questions – black bile. Too much earthy heaviness – several potential causes: Several types – so, what’s unbalanced this guy: Unbalanced? Yep – he is suffering from an excess of bile, he is out of harmony with not only the world, but his maker.

And then he jumps in with,

And such a want-wit sadness makes of me

That I have much ado to know myself.

So Antonio has nailed his flag to the mast.

But hold on – Much Ado? Not about nothing surely? And, ‘want-wit’? And, not to know myself?

Either he is serious – as this bunch of friends think; or he is posing – as Gratiano suggests later in the scene.

An interrogation follows – following good Elizabethan medical theory.

As a melancholic, Antonio is under the influence of Saturn – he will exhibit sadness, contrariness and deliberation; earth is the dominant element with the attributes of cold, dry, black sourness. A quick look at Durer’s ‘Melancholia 1’ reveals the ‘gifts’ of Saturn – numbering, measuring counting (land and money) – all low, earthly occupations.

Salerio assumes this is where the source of the Antonio’s trouble lies – excessive worry over his material possessions. Solanio backs him up (both giving essential plot details). Salerio returns with more – jointly giving a total of over 30 lines on the worries of being a merchant. How many in that first London audience must have recognised their daily concerns. The recent discovery off the coast of Cornwall of a vast sunken treasure in silver and gold only adds weight to the assumptions of his friends.

Antonio denies the diagnosis – incidentally confirming his melancholic ‘strengths’ of counting, numbering and deliberation. But am I talking about the merchant or the moneylender? It certainly seems to me as though they are two sides of the same coin.

Solanio makes his second, wild guess – love!

Quickly, and contemptuously, dismissed (although many modern productions choose to ignore this dismissal and try to hang Antonio’s character on a secret homosexual love – I suppose it gives the modern method actor something to worry away at, even though it has nothing to do with what Shakespeare intended).

Solanio seems to give in at this point – you have inherited the sadness from nature – but he does bring up ‘two-headed Janus’ – which again suggests, to me, Shylock and Antonio as aspects of a single unity.

We have not got to a solution when Bassanio, Lorenzio and Gratiano enter – and instantly Solanio bids goodbye:

Fare ye well;

We leave you now with better company.

If Solanio has made the Melancholic diagnosis, then the cure includes companionship, unburdening of the heart, and peace of mind (and music and drama) – all designed to ‘lighten’ the humours and restore balance. He and Salerio are not doing too well – although they are trying – they have business to go to, and that is the last thing Antonio needs to be thinking about – so, a quick exit is called for.

Antonio, sourly, thanks them for their company and doesn’t fail to point out that they are ‘embracing the occasion’ to depart.

This is true – but what is the motive?

Well, that’s a very 20^th Century question – Shakespeare, having set the scene of a Melancholic ‘Title’ character, now needs to move the plot on a bit – and introduce a second theme, friendship.

Bassanio is Antonio’s friend – Solanio and Salerio, like Romeo’s mother and father, withdraw to let friends talk and, hopefully, ‘unburden’.

But before that can happen, there is a last stab at the diagnosis – this time from a straight talking Gratiano.

He assumes ‘care’ about earthly things is the cause – and points out how greatly changed Antonio is.

This is one of those important indicators that slip through – how does Gratiano know? What is Antonio doing that is ‘changed’? Surely, like Hamlet, we have visual as well as reported indicators. Antonio must be in black – reduced in finery? Hence the constant assumption ‘material wealth’ is at the bottom of the Melancholy.

Antonio now comes out with the much quoted:

I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano –

A stage, where every man must play a part,

And mine a sad one.

This, of course, is the ‘All the World’s a Stage’ thought – it is, additionally, the ‘How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable; Seems to me all the uses of this world’ of Hamlet.

It is also a half line ending – and Gratiano, not taking this ‘feigned’ nonsense, leaps straight in, playing the fool.

Standard medical treatments are recommended – and an interesting accusation – some men wilfully take on the mantle of Melancholy in order to seem wise – and Antonio doesn’t actually deny this, but says he will talk more.

What are we to make of Antonio’s Melancholy?

Well, the first important point is that Antonio cannot be seen as an example of Christian virtue, in harmony with his maker.

Melancholy, whether feigned or real was an indication of dispair – one of the greater sins to your average Elizabethan – it represented a refusal to enter into a relationship with god.

Next there is the question of the type of Melancholy – and we have dismissed the major contenders – concern for business and love – which leaves us with two further possibilities, ‘The Intellectual’ (indicated by Gratiano) or one not mentioned – The Malcontent.

It was the Malcontent who, finding no place in the social system, joined the extreme religious sects – such as the Puritans or, in Elizabethan England, the Catholics.

And Angelo is most likely in black – just as Malvolio.

Antonio to the groundlings of The Globe, would be seen as a potential figure of fun – and a joke will be played on him which is as cruel as that played on Malvolio. Black humour certainly, arising from the black humor of bile.

But knowledge of this also prepares the audience to expect from Antonio statements of an extreme nature:

The perturbations of melancholy are for the most parte, sadde and fearful, and such as rise of them: as distrust, doubt, diffidence, or dispaire, sometimes furious and sometimes merry in apparaunce, through a kinde of Sardonian, and false laughter, as the humour is disposed that procureth these diversities. Those which are sad and pensive, rise of that melancholick humour, which is the grossest part of the blood, whether it be iuice or excrement, not passing the naturall temper in heat whereof it partaketh, and is called cold in comparison onely. This for the most part is setled in the spleane, and with his vapours anoyeth the harte and passing vp to the brayne, counterfetteth terrible obiectes to the fantasie, and polluting both the substance, and spirits of the brayne, causeth it without externall occasion, to forge monstrous fictions, and terrible to the conceite, which the iudgement taking as they are presented by the disordered instrument, deliuer ouer to the hart, which hath no iudgement of discretion in it self, but giuing credite to the mistaken report of the braine, breaketh out into that inordinate passion, against reason.

- Timothy Bright, A Treatise of Melancholie, (1586), Facsimile Text Society, New York, 1940. p.102.

Taken in this light, the strong anti-jewish sentiments expressed by Antonio cannot be seen as inherent anti-Semitism either in the play or in the playwright.

(Appologies for the not quite right layout - Blogger ain't behaving!

By Popular Demand

One of those quirky thoughts you get crossing over the bridge coming to work in the morning.

Shakespeare and Warhol have a lot in common.

Like the artist, Shakespeare took what was common in his culture and made people really look at it - not look 'new' so much as look deep.

There is tremendously little originality in Shakespeare in terms of philosophy or politics or plot.

No one looks at the plays in performance though for originality - especially nowadays when everyone has read the text before going into the cinema (whoops, should I have said theatre?).

You want to see a slant on your preconceptions: You want a push towards the edge for the thrill of it.

Must try to sleep more and think less.

Departures

The play of departures!

Just finished the second half of the BBC Henry the Eighth: Jolly good too!

What struck me most was the number of departures - and no one given a bad end.

Written well after the events - in a Protestant country - out of the Tudor reign; and no blame to be seen.

Wolsey dies an honest Christian; Catholic Catherine dies a saint's death; Cranmer - to die at the stake under Catherine's daughter's yoke - is deeply holy and prophesies, at the christening of baby Elizabeth, nothing but glory - and virginity and death.

What was Shakey thinking?

Surely it was written for a court performance under James? It is a chamber piece - so much 'internal' - so protagonist free.

What vice there is, is that of ambition and court pettiness. There is no evil here.

It is the fall of angels. Foreshadows of Milton – Wolsey’s words at his end especially.

And what a production – as close to where it should be as the Beeb could get – genuine Tudor locations (so right for this chamber piece).

But still something missing?

Maybe the theatrical.

How intriguing that the original Globe burnt down during a performance of this play – the theatre itself rebelling at so strange a play?

'enery de aiff!

What a reputation the man has!

(Not Shakespeare this time - Good old 'King Henry'.)

Tudor playboy, musician, sportsman, passionate lover, wife killer, church destroyer, (and saviour) in one.

American WASPs are 'P' because of he.

And Shakespeare has a play with the title, 'Henry VIII'.

Well, it is also known as ‘The Famous History if King Henry the Eight’ but that’s far too long for the playbill and we already know the man is famous.

Not so the play.

I’ve just watched the first half of it in fact – from the BBC complete works.

Surprising really – intelligent matter. You don’t notice that when you read it – and I have only a vague remembrance of watching this performance back in 1979 so I only know it through a dutiful, once only, read.

You expect a different treatment of the characters – and much more vitriol against the Spanish (so far it is the French who have had to suffer a jolly good dose of Great English Xenophobia – can’t keep a respected enemy out of it). Catherine, Henry’s first wife, seems a most sympathetic character.

There is an ambiguity with Wolsey – everyone kicking at his common ancestry and ambition – but he is effective and another not exactly unsympathetic ‘representation’ (especially, one suspects, to a working class chap like Shakey).

And at this point there is a dreadful sense of fate weaving – a dark thread slipping into the cloth of gold.

Is there anything anyone could have done?

Which brings up the parallel with Romeo and Juliet: Several times there are little stage actions and theatrical moments that remind one of the earlier play. There is the masquers interrupting a feast, for example, and a man singling out a young woman – with talk of hands; there is the old worldly wise woman talking to the young girl who pretends an innocence not entirely believable, but not hypocritical.

But with R&J you know it didn’t have to be like that – here there is no escape – and it is not just a personal tragedy, it is National History.

(Image at the top is the 18 year old, newly crowned king: You start to think the poor bugger could have been manipulated into a marriage when you look at that!)

Birdseye frozen fishfingers

You sometimes come across something in the shops which awake long forgotten memories - this time it was Heinze ketchup sending me off after fish-fingers.

The delight in slices of white bread, buttered thick (frozen butter essential - to melt when in contact with the too hot fingers) overdose of ketchup designed to dribble and create extra washing, and sheer physicality of biting through that lot - oh, heaven.

Bardseye has done the same for me - not so old or frozen and image, but almost as physical. After a period away from the Bard, he has started on one of those topics that have my mind stimulated.

Expect more posts coming this way.

Blow Blow thou Winter Wind . . .

With winter finally here, a cutting wind has been blowing - the sort that fixes the face with a rigid mask of hurt. I had only been out of the flat a couple of minutes, was just passing the old city walls in fact, when the tell-tale signs of burning cheeks and stiffening skin set in.

Not for the first time, Shakespeare's rather biting song, 'Blow Blow thou Winter Wynd' comes to mind.

What makes a cold wind bitter?

Physically I have been out in low temperatures - well, well below zero - and not felt uncomfortable. But the instant a breeze gets up - and it doesn't take more than that - thoughts of hot black current and gin; a warm fire; toast, melting butter and a thick layer of pate flood the mind.

Some of the bitterest winds happen in England - not the coldest of places in winter: I have known Moscow living Russians return from a January visit to London only to complain of how cold England is - this done by people who live with the snow on the ground and a forecast of plunging overnight temperatures (it already being -10 degrees Celsius).

There is something about the moisture - a bit of rain in the air and life becomes miserable; a damp coldness chills far more than snow; cold wet jeans are killers in exposed conditions.

For Shakespeare though, these whips of nature are nothing compared with the attitudes shown by man to man.

The winter winds are, "not so unkind as man's ingratitude."

An interesting concept – cold, cutting ingratitude.

Hatred I assume is hot: There is animation and energy in the tempest of hatred.

To be ungrateful requires the cutting down of the flow of energy – the freezing out of emotions, an immobilisation of natural life forces.

Feigning friendship’s chilling kiss brings no thoughts of the thaw to come, only of the lonely grave.

New Blog

Books Reflected: Hardy and Romania

I will put all the literature reviews at this site from now on.

Blood

"... most people forgot that the very oldest stories are, sooner or latter, about blood."

(Hogfather, Terry Pratchett)

A Revolution is about to happen in Romania.

This is the last Christmas people will legally be allowed to kill pigs by 'sticking' them.

For those who don't know what that means - basically cutting the major blood vessel in the pig's throat whist it is still alive and letting it bleed, slowly and noisily, to death - ostensibly, in order to catch as much of the blood as possible (for black pudding making) as the still beating heart pumps like mad in the extremely distressed and dying porker.

Another view might be that the European Union's animal cruelty laws are about to bang another nail in the coffin of traditional culture and ethnic life styles: Romania joins the Union on the first of January.

The two weekends before Christmas are the traditional 'Pig Killing' days in this part of the world.

I was reminded of this fact Saturday morning when the squeals of the 'first sacrificed' filled the village.

Looking across from the vantage of a hillside location, a number of large fires were being started in courtyards and a heavy haze was settling in the still air. The fires are used to burn off the bristles and to boil the copious amounts of water needed to process the carcass of a full-grown pig. Burning pig flesh and hair soon added pungency to the normal aroma of wood-smoke from domestic fires.

I have become quite used to 'country ways' and have little of the townie's qualms about killing animals for food (or clothing - try living without a fur hat in the cold winter temperatures of Eastern Europe, say -15 degrees Celsius, on an income of under 100 Euros a month which isn't sufficient to buy the petrol-derived-artificial-fabrics 'politically-correct' fashion dictates) but 'The Pig Killing' still makes me angry.

There is no need for it - a bullet (or bolt) in the head and hoisting the dead animal up in order to let the blood drain under gravity is just as effective (but try telling that to the 'we've always done it this way and it tastes better' brigade).

What struck me this year though was the amount of blood wasted - not many people seemed to be collecting it.

As I walked through the village to go and buy supplies of bread and beer I had to step over several streams of blood and water flowing out of the courtyards across and into the channels which run down to the valley's main brook.

A couple of times I had to step through sheets of red which had spread across the muddy road.

Once I passed a rather furtive looking dog – there are a number of mangy village mongrels whose parentage and ownership is somewhat hazy – which had taken possession of a string of guts, and was mixing bouts of furious chewing with dragging its prize to a place of comparative safety.

Another sign, I thought, that the sausages were not being made.

Then my mind went walkabout.

‘Now that’s a sight you won’t see in the centre of Manchester! In fact, when do you see blood in Manchester?’

And, ‘I bet Shakespeare saw blood as a child – in fact, they’d have been sticking pigs at this time of year in Stratford, back then.’

There is a lot of blood in Shakespeare.

Watching death on TV – even real death, in wars and executions (Christmas in Romania is the Ceaucescu-execution-on-TV season too) – is not the same. Blood is distanced. It is contained, without the smell, at the control of a switch.

In films and theatre, nowadays, it is Kensington Gore, and no matter how realistic it seems, the disbelief is suspended and deep inside the spectator’s head, it is not blood. It is not death. And most modern theatregoers have never experienced real blood and death anyway – sanitised hospitals and ‘Brompton Cocktails’ rule.

They used real blood – pig’s blood in fact – at, The Globe.

And there was a daily familiarity with the reality of killing – from childhood.

The children and grandchildren are involved in my village still – keeping the fire going, fetching and carrying, watching.

I am reminded of the drowning kitten poem of Seamus Heaney – Early Purges.

There will always be people who do the ‘dirty work’ – the executioners (and surgeons) – and killing should be humane – but the rest of the world is losing its grasp on one aspect of reality essential and omnipresent: Blood.

Demon Drink

(or No more Cakes and Ale)

One summer, not that long ago, I spent a weekend in a remote village in Romania - so remote in fact there was no permanent vehicle access - cars drove up a dry river bed in summer to get to it - in winter, cars didn't.

It was there I learnt about water drinking:

Animals do - humans don't.

Humans drink wine, with breakfast, dinner and tea - even children drink wine - or the very young, milk. Herb tea would sometimes be taken for illness.

It isn't alcoholism - although it can easily spill over to that - and the associated domestic violence was an accepted part of life: It is the only safe way to live in a world where the water is dangerous (and science hasn't penetrated - schools? Boiling water cleans it of disease?).

Elizabethan England was the same.

Small beer (low in alcohol) was the Elizabethan 'water'. Every housewife made it at home, children drank it in school, and clergymen knocked back a pint before giving the Sunday sermon.

Strong ale was a social drink leading to drunkenness (and a reported cause for Shakespeare's death). Wine for the rich; cider in certain parts of the country.

No wonder then that drunkenness and drink is quite a common theme in the plays of Shakespeare.

The Porter in Macbeth is drunk.

He talks about drunkenness – and talks in a most vulgar way (it is also, in the hands of a good comedy actor, exceptionally funny).

Modern western audiences, with their convoluted views on alcohol and alcohol abuse, don’t see what Shakespeare’s audience see. An audience in America might be a lot more ‘puritan’ in outlook than one in England, but missing in both is the fundamental necessity of drinking ‘beer’ - or it’s fermented equivalent – as a preserver of life.

Also missing (although less so in parts of the USA) is the essential Co-Text to Shakespeare, the Bible (and associated Elizabethan Homilies and Sermons).

The first thing that came to me when thinking of the Porter Scene, was the text used by Luther on his First sermon on Advent – Romans, chap. 13 vs. 11 – 14.

The key verse is this:

13. Let vs walke honestly as in the day, not in riotyng & dronkennesse, neither in chaumberyng & wantonnesse, neither in strife and enuying.

Is there a better comment on Macbeth at this point in the play?

Macbeth is working at night, the porter talks about the carousing and drinking, about ‘chaumberyng & wantonnesse’ (lechery) and Macbeth himself, who enters quickly, represents envy and strife (although the porter does talk about fighting drunkeness).

It is worth thinking about Luther’s comments on the quoted verse at this point:

“The six works mentioned suffice to teach that he who lives in the darkness of unbelief does not keep himself pure in his neighbor’s sight, but is immoderate in all his conduct, toward himself and toward his fellow-man.”

When we watch Macbeth and Lady Macbeth ‘doing’ the killing, we get wrapped up in the tension and magnitude of the action: We do not think – oh, should he be doing that?

The Porter’s scene gives us space – not to relax, not to relieve ourselves, but to think.

We have an immoderate commentator – reminding us of the darkness of unbelief: Pointing, in the clearest possible way, the path Macbeth is treading.

Lady Macbeth has used the word drunk a couple of times by this point.

She talks of hope being drunk – and then sleeping off the effects.

More interestingly, she enters (Act 2 ii) and says – ‘That which hath made them drunk, hath made me bold’. She has been drinking – but what reads like simple Dutch courage to us, has the smell of sulfur around it:

Honest men it has incapacitated; the evil made bold.

Other drinkers in Shakespeare include Falstaff. If it is true that Falstaff has his origins in The Vice, then his constant drunkenness and whoring support the notion that an Elizabethan audience would be wary of such activities and, no matter how amusing he seems, see his route to the gallows is clearly marked out – lined with primroses maybe.

And a point worth making here is the audience watching Macbeth’s Porter could well have Falstaff in mind – surely it is the same actor playing the parts?

Which brings on the question – which parts did the Porter double? If it is a witch – his entrance as the Porter would instantly link evils.

What does this say of other drunks and drink scenes?

Iago uses drink to bring the downfall of Cassio – Iago playing another Vice/Morality play figure, Good Fellowship!

In Hamlet and Antony and Cleopatra, there are drink scenes with negative connotations.

In Julius Caesar though, and 12^th Night, surely drink is looked on slightly differently? Antony is praised by Caesar for ‘loving drink’.

And Toby Belch’s repost to the Puritan Malvolio, ‘Because thou art virtuous, Shall there be no more cakes and ale?’ surely has a double edge.

If iness

(On Auden's Poem, If I Could Tell You)

Daniel Barenboim, at the start of this year's Reith Lectures, reminded his audience that it is not possible to talk about music - only people's reactions to music. Sometimes I think that this is also true about literature - especially literature which uses words with the intensity Auden manages in this poem.

If asked,

"What is this poem about?"

I'd answer something like:

"The fearfulness of unknowable inevitability."

For me, it is a poem which touches on the limitation of human reasoning, which asks unanswerable questions while longing for certainty, which expresses an 'existential angst'.

But above all, it is a love poem.

Let me start with the uncertainty.

Two other 'If' poems come to mind - 'If I should die' and Kipling's, 'If'.

What is noticeable about both these is the certainty of them: Things will happen, states of being will come into existence, under certain conditions.

Both go, If : Then!

There is a 'knowableness' here. We can predict the future; Cause and Effect are in observable operation.

In contrast, Auden's 'If' leads to 'would' - and the unspoken, 'But I can't'. It expresses an unfulfillable desire.

I think this is most clearly stated in the third stanza. What is wanted here is knowledge - of the future, of "fortunes". This suggests not just what will happen, but how good (or bad) will it be?

An image, of Adam and Eve, came to me while thinking of this stanza - of Adam saying these lines to Eve, and Eve popping off to grab 'the fruit of knowledge' in order to satisfy both their desires.

If I can pass beyond the superficiality of this (and it makes me smile, I must admit), the 'tree of knowledge' myth does reflect a deep, possibly genetically pre-programmed, desire in all humanity for a patterned, readable, knowable existence. Our Human curiosity demands answers.

The fourth stanza tackles a couple of these demands:

"Where does the wind come from?"

And:

"Why do leaves decay?"

Human 'reason' can take us so far - scientific answers can be given about the physical world - but Auden doesn't seem to mean this sort of answer when he posses questions of origins and reasons: His is a metaphysical demand.

The fifth stanza has moved firmly beyond 'realism' - we have roses with wants, and visions becoming manifest.

Except, we don't.

We have a 'Perhaps' at the start. And I 'hear' a tenderness in the tone of voice - especially in the last line repetition of the 'if I could, I would' sentiment.

This is, after all, a 'Love Poem'.

One of the forces behind it is the desire to satisfy a partner: Which begs the question, "What thought or feeling has the partner expressed to provoke this response?"

Is it a desire for knowledge of their future happiness? Or was it an expressed fear of their love not lasting?

Or is the poem 'more cerebral', like a Shakespeare sonnet - provoked not by an external prompt, but by an internal searching?

Shakespeare’s sonnets also remind me of the themes and images used by Auden.

Time's influence on external beauty is to register decay

Internal beauty is eternal.

Whether it is the 'too short a date' of a summer day, or time's 'I told you so', there is a price to pay for living:

The leaves decay.

We exist in nature –

'too hot the eye of heaven shines',

and winds blow - even if we don't know their source.

But there is something beyond this reality - Love,

'the ever fixed mark';

love which the 'I' of both Shakespeare and Auden, feel and know - and confirm in their poems.

The final Shakespearean quality I find in the poem is in its use of form.

This is not a sonnet - but its form carries as much weight and contributes considerably to the meaning.

There is a thudding base line of repetition - Time, Time, Time; I told you so; I told you so; I told you so.

This contributes considerably to the overall feeling –

Time is inescapable: Consequence inevitable.

The repeated, 'If I could, I would' gives that dreadful sense of the unknowable.

The final twisting of 'Time will', to 'Will Time?' drags in a desire for certainty, which the final defeated 'If I could, I would' can only admit to.

And a final poem this overall encounter with time, nature and love reminds me of is ‘Dover Beach’ by Matthew Arnold.

There the voice of the narrator conjures up the great questions I feel are touched on here by Auden in what is quite a remarkable poem.

Luther, Bishops Bible, Macbeth

Just been reading through Luther's Sermon for the First Sunday of Advent (don't ask why - I am not even a Christian).

Couldn't stop thinking of Macbeth all the way through - constant references to light and dark, to faith, to things like:

vices that seek material darkness and secret places.

and

The proverbial expression “shameless night” is a true one. Works we are ashamed to perform in the day are wrought in the night The day, being shamefaced, constrains us to walk honourably. A Christian should so live that he need never be ashamed of the character of his works, though they be revealed to all the world.

Now, I am not suggesting that Shakespeare had this particular sermon in mind, but I do think it is worth remembering that the intensity of this - the repartition of light and dark, the dragging out of the christian symbolism, the debate and discussion are part of the Elizabethan Religious experience -

Something like:

12. The nyght is passed, the day is come nye. Let vs therfore caste away the deedes of darknesse, & let vs put on the armour of lyght.

13.Let vs walke honestly as in the day, not in riotyng & dronkennesse, neither in chaumberyng & wantonnesse, neither in strife and enuying.

Romans 13: 12/13 (Bishops Bible)

Would be a familiar text to the audience - especially around Christmas time. Do we know when Macbeth was performed at court?

(Just a spontaneous thought)

The next jerk in my thinking was about the writing for readers:

Luther is writing - for reading out loud: Do we know if it was still common practice to read 'out loud' in Shakespeare's day?

I recall a production of Faustus which had him, in the opening scene, moving from music stand to music stand to read out loud quotes from his learned books.

If schools still maintained the practice (and I am again reminded of the Muslim world - children learning the Koran by heart - by reciting out loud) - and 'papers' were delivered 'viva' (still in the western academic world today) in the universities - how far apart were the practices of writing for the theatre and writing for a reading out loud 'readership'?

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King James and the witches

Somewhere between the habitual Sunday morning hangover and nipping to the local Praktika to check the price of petrol driven chainsaws, I picked up and read the 16 pages of Daemonologie I'd managed to print off.

What a surprise!

It is one of those books you know about - one referred to as having some sort of connection to Macbeth - and a possible minor source for a few bits and pieces of information - and a good excuse for Shakey to brown-tongue to his new boss.

What you don't grasp until you read it (and until recently how accessible was it? Long live the Internet and all who search it) is how close a foundation the work gives to the witches scenes - and to some fundamental elements in the character of Macbeth himself.

The first thing I noticed was in the preface – Mr Scot, the Englishman (!), who denied witches existed.

So: There was serious doubt in England – serious enough for it to be printed and for the king of Scotland to ‘name and shame’ his future subject.

A few years later, Shakespeare, loyal English subject and chief ‘poet on the payroll’ churns out, possibly for a visit of the new King’s father in law (I did read that somewhere didn’t I?) a script with more than nodding acquaintance to the published views of his patron: “Look daddy-in-law, ain’t my boss learned and ‘ingine’ (ingenious?)!”

Then, in Chapter 1 of the first book, a couple of phrases leapt out.

‘… as first wilfully deceiues them-selves, by running vnto him . . .’

and

‘And as to the diuelles fortelling of things to come, it is true that he knowes not all thinges future, but yet that he knowes parte, the Tragicall event of this historie declares it, . . .’

A suspicion crept on to me at this point – Macbeth could be described as wilfully deceiving himself – and he certainly runs to the devil later in the play.

And did the fortune telling idea - partly true fortune telling at that – give Shakey the idea for the ‘tragicall historie’?

So far this is only tweaks and nudges.

Then, in Chap. 2, there is the mention of two branches of sinning against ‘the holie Ghost’.

One, ‘falling backe’, the second falling back knowingly.

I suspect this is a key to Macbeth’s fall: It starts unknowingly, but quickly develops a self-knowledge that takes it beyond excusable sin.

Next comes an exploration of Magic and Necromancy. Like most people, I suspect, I hadn’t taken a lot of notice of this second word – just assumed it to be a synonym.

Not a bit of it.

As our most knowledgeable King lets us know – ‘Necromancie’ is compounded of the Greek roots meaning ‘prophecy by the dead’.

And shortly after he adds, ‘…the Witches ar servantes onelie, and slaues to the Devil; but the Necromanciers are his maisters and commanders.’

If we look over Macbeth’s relationship with the witches, it starts with him getting information from them – but later in the play he commands – and commands them to produce dead spirits to tell the future. Macbeth has gone deeper into sin than the witches themselves by this action.

Later in the same chapter there is the ‘slippery slope’ (or primrose path?) theory – you start by wanting legitimate knowledge and then get trapped to wanting to know things you shouldn’t be asking about – all for ‘blindlie glorie of themselves’.

And they become, ‘… in verie deede, bond-slaues to their mortall enemie: and their knowledge . . . is nothing increased, except in knowing evill, . . .’

And a final very telling point – ‘ … as Adams was by the eating of the forbidden tree.’

So, Macbeth is Adam! Wham, bam, thank you mam! Lady M. is Eve – and a whole ‘mythic’ significance comes clearly into focus.

Macbeth is all mankind – that is why we watch with horror his fall: It is our fall.

But what is the fruit? Knowledge. Macbeth knows too much. Ignorance truly is bliss – heavenly bliss; knowledge is the work of the Devil.

And take no comfort all you misogynists – Lady Macbeth is no more responsible than Eve in the Jacobean World Picture (He for God, she for God in him.)

In chapter 4 we get a lovely, ‘dafte wiues’ (daft wives – oh, Lordy!), which is surely a nod in the direction of what most of the audience think of witches – and partly accounts for the humour (although I would still put most of that as due to theatrical tradition) that comes through – but we shouldn’t forget – King James has made the distinction between ignorant and knowledgeable sin – Macbeth is well beyond the daft wife stage.

Chapter 4 also has reference to battles and winning – what do the witches say in the first scene?

Chapter 5 gives us a repeat, ‘…to make himselfe so to be trusted in these little thinges, that he may haue the better commoditie thereafter, to deceiue then in the end with a tricke once for all; I meane the euerlasting perdition of their soul & body.’

And Chapter 6 gives us the witches familiars – ‘a dog, a Catte, an Ape’, and repeats the ‘dead bodie’ and ‘…to giue such answers, of the euent of battels, of maters concerning the estate of commonwelths, and such like other great questions . . .’

There is now no doubt in my mind that Shakespeare read this text, before writing Macbeth. There just seem to be too many connections for it to be accidental.

I am sure much of what is written by the King is common place knowledge – but the combination of ideas and expression seem to me to reverberate in the text we have of Macbeth.

And I also suspect the play went down really well with the man who had written Daemonologie.

Enter the King

(Macbeth: Act 1, Scene 2)

What would Shakespeare's audience have experienced at the very start of this scene?

Firstly, there would have been music - the entrance of a King is marked by trumpets.

These trumpets, though, are more battle alarms than ceremonial entrance music. The Elizabethan audience would know the difference.

And instead of the usual stately King’s entrance (see Olivier’s Film, Henry V) we have a rushed entrance – but, it is still ordered, it is still according to rank and the costumes make fairly clear who is more important, who less; who is noble, who a servant: Who on active service, who civilian civil servant.

If this were the start of the play, it would be confusing – to make sense of it, you need to know what is causing the rush.

But it isn't the start of the play - it follows the first, witches scene - which sets up an anticipation in the audience.

The witches dress 'out of rank', they indicate an evil force at work in this state, they show the battle and mention, - Macbeth.

The sound effects in their scene is ‘thunder and lightening’ – rumbles and crashes – the trumpet music, in comparison, is much more ordered.

Much of the second scene only makes sense (and unity) in the light of the first scene.

When the 'sergeant' enters - what does he look like? How does he 'fit in' to the rushed, but essential order and harmony of the court? - He doesn't. He is a bloody man - a phrase often laughed at as weak, but at the time of writing, pregnant with meaning.

Modern televised war, pictures edited to reduce exposure to too much horror (for political and taste considerations) doesn't begin to represent the reality of hacking away at human beings with sharp edged weapons. Try slitting a man's throat and not getting blood on your shoes.

Bullets kill much more cleanly than swords.

I remember the Peter O'Toole Macbeth - derided because it attempted to bring back the blood - but truer to the original in this respect than any other modern production (including film).

The blood screams out - the State is in danger - we can't tell what this man is - he is a soldier of some sort, an officer? Rank has become confused. To the Elizabethan mind, few things were more dangerous than rank confusion (sorry, couldn't resist the pun).

‘What,’ thinks your average 'Lizy apprentice, ‘were those words of the witches? Fair is foul, etc.' - what is rotten in this State? What is upside down?’

‘And what of Macbeth - "they" mentioned him?’

Without the first scene, the subtext is missing - and a considerable amount of the depth of meaning we get out of these scenes comes not from the words, but from the "production" – especially costume.

Shakespeare's words are only part of the work he did - he acted, and directed as well.

Witches and fine weather

The opening of Macbeth is a classic case of, "Will we ever be able to understand what Shakespeare originally intended?"

Quite frankly, the answer is no – but we can take a trip along the path in the right direction.

Let's think about one of the aspects of 'witches'.

Most people follow the argument that Shakespeare's audience would have believed in witches and therefore the opening of the play meant something much deeper to them than it does to us.

Their reaction would have been an instinctive, emotional one - as well as intellectual. They would take it much more seriously than we do.

The first thing we need to get our heads around is the nature of Evil – as personified by the witches.

Germaine Greer, in her ‘SHAKESPEARE: A Very Short Introduction’ makes a couple of interesting points about evil when she is discussing Iago:

‘The point about evil is that it is absurd, unmotivated, inconsistent,’ (pg. 53/54)

and

‘Iago’s behaviour cannot be explained in terms of personality, but rather in terms of force,’ (pg. 56).

(Before anyone goes for my throat, she does make the point that Iago is a much more complicated manifestation of Evil than the witches in Macbeth)

And Greer ties Iago to the earlier stage representation of Vice.

Several issues rise in my mind at this point – but maybe the most important is how is the Globe’s audience expecting evil to be portrayed physically on the stage?

Are they actually linking into the tradition of a comedic evil – absurd to the spectator, easily seen through? The Vice and Devils of the mystery plays? Characters played by the comedians!

In which case, our ‘wasn’t funny in those days’ isn’t strictly accurate.

And who actually acted the witches? Was it boys? What are we to make of the beards? So men! If it was the comedy actors - ? Not funny? Remember, Shakespeare has a set of around 16 male actors to use – if the witches are not played by the comedians, who is? We have the Porter – but that’s a short scene only. Some seriously under used personnel in this production.

And what about costume?

The Elizabethan ‘dress code’ was fairly strict – rules about who could wear what, uniforms (nicer word, livery, used at the time) for everyone and no problem interpreting them. What is traditional ‘witch wear’? (Not the black pointy hat for certain – incidentally has anyone ever seen a production with witches dressed in black pointy hats?).

Women’s clothes – yes (mentioned in the text).

What social class? – Real witches could come as easily from the middle classes as from the poor (Pendle witch trials a little later in the century).

I suspect (or rather speculate) Macbeth’s witches are actually going to dress ‘outside the regulations’: Which would speak volumes to his audience – these are a force for disruption, a force against stability, for chaos.

Which brings me back to Germaine Greer’s point – Evil is a force.

Modern Western Society lives indoors. Natural forces are diluted in our day to day existence – wind, rain, sun and snow barely affect us. The occasional disaster might break through, but it is just that, a disaster, a special occasion – and it takes only days to get back to the electricity, the shelter and the Internet.

In several of Shakespeare’s plays nature is present as unchallengable power – Titania’s speech in Act 2 of A Midsummer Nights Dream being one notable example sometimes cut in modern productions as unintelligible.

In this opening scene, natural forces are summoned into the audience’s imagination – thunder, lightening and rain: Crop destruction, hunger, starvation, ruin to an Elizabethan.

The performance most likely had sound effects – rolling cannon balls for the thunder – possibly battleground noises and trumpets. War and weather – what bigger forces are there – and what have these witches got to do with it? Are they in control?

If we put all of this together we get a very complicated set of meanings.

The witches are not reducible to a single meaning.

Yes, they are “Evil” – but they are also stage representations of evil linking into a tradition – funny, absurd and disruptive. All the World’s a Stage – and a play is what you are watching.

These are not witches, these are actors pretending to be witches: But the world is only an illusion – so what is the truth?Macbeth is a play about the struggle for Macbeth’s soul.

According to Greer, we have to meet the witches, his tempters, before we meet him – and we have to know what they are, what their nature is – she says they have the power of fallen angels – but the fallen angels as presented in popular mediaeval drama, the imps of Satan. ( Pg. 68/69)

Reflections after a Lost Crown

End of a bottle - and distinctly dis-con-bobulated: Tooth had to be totally removed - cracked all the way up.

No pain (for first time in a visit to the dentist) but there is now a gap in the front of my mouth and I make the oddest noises when I try to speak. The "th" sound is distinctly silly, and 's' and 'r' (which was always a problem) are way out of line.

My smile is that of a punch-drunk boxer.

The cost is not small either - a quarter of my official monthly wage!

Enough to drive a man to drink - except it feels strange going down - a warm 'bloody' senstation in the gap as the alcohol passes over the raw flesh.

Eating is odd too - bringing the teeth together results in cutting the swollen gum.

Sans eyes, Sans teeth, Sans everything.

You Are What You Wear

In the words of a Genesis song:

Old man says, "You are what you wear" - wear well.

Certainly, in Shakespeare's England, you were what you wore: And Shakespeare makes use of this (overtly and covertly) in his plays.

In the modern Western World, we have lost 'the meaning’ clothes had attached to them in Elizabethan and Stuart England. There is a superficial understanding in some contexts - we can recognise the Queen of England on state occasions for example - she will wear one of her crowns - preferably with a big diamond in it - and a set of gowns somewhat out of date - made of materials distinctly politically incorrect (like dead animal).

But is there any difference between what a Prince wears or a Premiership footballer (soccer) visiting the sick in hospital? In the UK, both are exceptionally wealthy men, both will be wearing custom-made, designer suits.

Take a photograph of the Queen of England on any but a state occasion, remove the head (whoops, bit of republican sympathy there) and tell me what identifies her as Queen.

We can determine, to a certain degree, wealth by clothing - although with some fashion trends that is difficult. The people in Shakespeare's audience could recognise rank, and status, as well as wealth. Occupation was also much easier to 'see'.

This isn't simply blue-collar/white-collar social class, it is much deeper.

Let's look at a couple of examples of how Shakespeare overtly uses his audience's ability to distinguish and interpret role and give meaning through clothing.

The opening scene of Julius Caesar provides a prime example.

In Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, the crowd that comes onto the stage would have been wearing Elizabethan 'Sunday Best' - perhaps with a band of material over that to indicate they were Romans.

What would the audience have instantly seen? - Ordinary working men dressed out of work-clothes and therefore celebrating either a Religious day, or a special occasion. By their behaviour we can assume they would not have been dressed in Puritan Black, nor in wealthy materials like silks - which were reserved for a better rank of people. What the audience wouldn't see would be the occupations of the men - which on a working day would have been apparent - nor the relative ranks - who was a master craftsman, who a journeyman, who still an apprentice?

This gives a sense of disorder and Saturnalia from the instant the men are sighted. It also helps explain what happens when to two 'magistrates' come on - they see the disorder and react against it. Under their token Toga, the Elizabethan would have seen a very different rank of person. Richer materials would be worn, possibly some indication of office - a mayoral chain for example - gentleman certainly, possibly knights. The way the workmen respond, taking this in mind, indicates a very dangerous state of affairs - and the Elizabethan would have seen it as a danger to the status quo - foreshadowing the civil strife to come.

If a modern production chooses to dress these characters in 'Roman' costume, we loose all sense of this distinction and danger - we cannot interpret Roman costume in the same way. If we dress 'modern' we still have to find some way of packing into the clothes meanings we don't normally identify.

Another opening, with a similar 'packing-in' of meaning, is that to Romeo and Juliet.

After the Prologue, two servants enter. How does Shakespeare show they are servants? - They wear livery.

The very concept of livery is strange to us - but was essential to Shakespeare. On the entry of the new King, James, to London, Mr William Shakespeare and some of his fellow actors were issued with a quantity of red-dyed, woollen cloth - to make the livery of the King of England. Shakespeare marched in procession, carrying the awning over the head of the King, as he entered under specially constructed arches.

The new livery was a step up for Shakespeare and his fellow actors - they had become 'The King's Men'! They had worn livery before - it protected them when they moved about the country - it marked them as the servants of 'The Admiral' and then 'The Chancellor' - each liveery different - each not just saying, I am a servant, but my Lord is so and so, my Lord is 'this important', my Lord is the King of England - so leave me alone.

I do not know how often Shakespeare wore his livery - I suspect quite a lot - especially at court - but many lowlier servants wore theirs all the time, and may higher officials also.

When the Capulet and the Montague servants appear on stage - all this meaning is carried with their clothing - and when the fight starts, in rush more people dressed out of livery - working people, ordinary people, then in comes the 'Princes' livery - and woe betide anyone ignoring that.

I have to say at this point how good the Baz Lurhmann version is in this respect - we do get the sense of difference (through design) between the fighting parties - and the police uniforms work well to identify, ‘The State’. Contrast this with the 'traditional, Renaissance set, Zefferellie version - and you see how so much is lost in the 'authentic' costuming - we do not understand the connotations of livery instinctively (and that is part of the point - intellectually I can add it, but I don't feel it at first sight).

A final point here might be to contrast the two ‘designs’ of Friar Lawrence – Milo O’Shea as the traditional brown robed priest vs. Peter Prothero’s tattooed bruiser! I know which I think is closer to the spirit of an increasingly Protestant England with growing suspicions of Catholic infiltration and invasion.

The History plays are perhaps the most difficult for us to come to contemporary terms with – but some thought given to the workings of the costumes and the props on Shakespeare’s stage does help.

Henry IV, part 2 contains the remarkable scene of young Hal ‘trying on’ the crown – to us, “So what?”

But the crown is much more than an indication of political Kingship – it is a divine symbol – to rightfully assume the crown is to be elected of God. It would ‘shock’ the audience – as it shocks Hal’s father. We can never understand the meaning, or get the same impact from the simple action of taking the crown.

When he does acquire the crown and become Henry V, he changes role, becoming no longer a Prince, but KING – which is also very difficult for modern audiences to understand. Hal never had any moral authority, Henry V does.

Just as an actor changes character with costume changes (something Bottom and his colleagues didn’t understand) so too, the man changes with the costume. Shakespeare and his actor friends went from being the servants of a nobleman to being the ‘National Theatre’, and the red cloth showed that – embodied the status.

In what is most likely Shakespeare’s first History play, Henry VI, Part 2, we have the character of Gloucester, Uncle to the Young King and Lord Protector of England. He is known as Lord Protector by the black staff he carries – it is the symbol of his office – he makes his entrance, with the King in the first scene carrying it. When he loses the office, the staff goes too – he is denuded, becoming a naked, vulnerable human being again: Prospero breaks his staff and his power goes at the end of the Tempest and the same thing happens – denudation and change.

Shakespeare must have given up his livery when he left the Kings men to return to Stratford-upon-Avon, his wife and children.

The fact that so much meaning has been lost to us, leaves great empty spaces in the text – and, more importantly, in the performance of a Shakespeare work.

To attempt to recreate the original ‘performances’ is a non-starter – we do not view the world the way they did then – we cannot understand their performances.

The empty spaces have to be filled though – and that is why Shakespeare, when performed well, is so contemporary – it has to be filled with design and direction which fits today’s worlds.