Shakespeare in six months

I’m in a hospital in Denver, where my husband is recovering from having his appendix out. (So much for our ski vacation.) I was reading The Merchant of Venice in the hospital waiting room, so when Andrew handed me his wedding ring (it had to come off before surgery), I thought of MOV’s ring fiasco and Portia’s ultimatum to Bassanio:

This house, these servants, this same myself are yours–my lord’s!–I give them with this ring, which when you part from, lose, or give away, let it presage the ruin of your love, and be my vantage to exclaim on you.

 Obviously, Bassanio takes off the ring before the play is over…but I haven’t gotten that far yet this time around. I think I’ll have more sympathy for him, though.

 p.s. I finished The Winter’s Tale on the plane out here, so I’ll have some posts about that coming up.

Two weeks ago I went snowshoeing with my husband, and later this week we’re off to Colorado for some skiing! Between that and all the snow we’ve been bombarded with, I’m thinking it’s time to grab The Winter’s Tale. I remember being in total disbelief at the ending last time I read it–we’ll see if it strikes me any differently this time around.

Thousands of letters pour into Verona every year addressed to Juliet. People ask for her blessing, her guidance, her help. Sometimes they’re just sharing the good news of their own love stories. Some of the writers address Juliet like she’s Santa Claus, but others honestly pour out their hearts.

You can learn more about this (and read some of the actual letters) in Letters to Juliet by Lise and Ceil Friedman.)

Here’s one of my favorites from the book:

Dear Juliet,
I am in a bunker. Outside I hear missiles exploding, bullets being fired. I am twenty-two years old and I’m scared. Our commander has told us that soon we must come out. A hand-to-hand battle awaits us. I feel I will die. I leave life with this brief note. I am entrusting it to you, symbol of universal love. I delude myself by thinking it will make people understand the futility of hate.
–Brian L., Vietnam, 1972

If you need to brush up on the plot of Romeo and Juliet, Friar Laurence conveniently sums it up at the end of Act 5. Bodies are strewn across the stage–Paris, Juliet, Romeo, Tybalt, even Romeo’s mom has died–and, called to the graveyard in the middle of the night, the prince demands an explanation. Friar Laurence is the only survivor who actually knows all the details, so he recaps:

Romeo, there dead, was husband to that Juliet;
And she, there dead, that Romeo’s faithful wife:
I married them; and their stol’n marriage-day
Was Tybalt’s dooms-day, whose untimely death
Banish’d the new-made bridegroom from the city,
For whom, and not for Tybalt, Juliet pined.
You, to remove that siege of grief from her,
Betroth’d and would have married her perforce
To County Paris: then comes she to me,
And, with wild looks, bid me devise some mean
To rid her from this second marriage,
Or in my cell there would she kill herself.
Then gave I her, so tutor’d by my art,
A sleeping potion; which so took effect
As I intended, for it wrought on her
The form of death: meantime I writ to Romeo,
That he should hither come as this dire night,
To help to take her from her borrow’d grave,
Being the time the potion’s force should cease.
But he which bore my letter, Friar John,
Was stay’d by accident, and yesternight
Return’d my letter back. Then all alone
At the prefixed hour of her waking,
Came I to take her from her kindred’s vault;
Meaning to keep her closely at my cell,
Till I conveniently could send to Romeo:
But when I came, some minute ere the time
Of her awaking, here untimely lay
The noble Paris and true Romeo dead.
She wakes; and I entreated her come forth,
And bear this work of heaven with patience:
But then a noise did scare me from the tomb;
And she, too desperate, would not go with me,
But, as it seems, did violence on herself.
All this I know; and to the marriage
Her nurse is privy: and, if aught in this
Miscarried by my fault, let my old life
Be sacrificed, some hour before his time,
Unto the rigour of severest law.

It seemed appropriate to read Romeo and Juliet during the week of Valentine’s Day (to pay homage to St. Valentine’s violent death and the eventual association of romantic love). Partake of some of the romantic, solemnly-breathed gushing in the early acts:

•  She doth teach the torches to burn bright! It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night as a rich jewel in an Ethiop’s ear.
• Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight! For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.
• Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven, having some business, do entreat her eyes to twinkle in their spheres till they return.
• Give me my Romeo, and when I shall die take him and cut him out in little stars, and he will make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun.

Things go downhill quickly and thoroughly in King John. Minutes after the wedding:

• One of the Pope’s sidekicks shows up and incites France to attack England. They fight.
• John capturs Arthur.
• The bastard kills the man who killed Lion Heart (and shows up onstage with his head, gross).
• The English beat a hasty retreat across the channel.

Not long after, it gets even crazier:

• Arthur dies, not because John has ordered it (which he had) but because he jumped off a wall and didn’t notice the rocks below.
• Queen mum Eleanor died randomly (this disappointed me–I liked her!).
• Constance (Arthur’s mom) also dies, “in a frenzy.”
• The French invade England. All kinds of English forces rally against John.
• The tide wipes out most English troops, who were killing time in a tidal wash.
• Monks poison John, who stays alive just long enough to hear about the crushing defeat.

And they all lived happily ever after? Maybe next time.

Even with all the calamity, the bastard shines like a star. He’s hands-down the most interesting character in this play. He goes from funny (see the post on Act 1 below) to trash-talking emissary to loyal soldier. By Act 5, he’s single-handedly commanding the English troops and giving France a real run for their money (until the tide comes in, that is). He grows into a total hero–maybe that’s what Eleanor meant in the first act by encouraging him to claim his inheritance from Lion Heart. And in the end, the bastard’s grief is the only reason I care about John’s death.

John et. al are armed, dangerous, and ready to take on the French army.

That’s because John doesn’t exactly have the kingship free and clear. A kid named Arthur is the real heir, the son of John’s older brother–but Lion Heart crowned John in his will, and who’s going to pass that up?

Arthur’s whiny mom has inspired the French king to war with her complaining, and the two sides meet outside the town of Angiers.

Angiers is an English town (at least at this point in time), so Richard shouts at them to hail him as king. The French king shouts at them to hail Arthur. (Arthur, being so young and generally disinterested in being king, does very little shouting himself.)

That’s when the scene starts reminding me of Monty Python. The good folks of Angiers are about as helpful as these guys:

Only instead of running away, the English and French troops battle it out to win their allegiance.

They fight. In a funny scene, both sides send out a herald to proclaim victory. The citizens laugh at them, and John starts getting annoyed. He’s so annoyed that he teams up with the arch-rival French army to teach the city a lesson. Just as they’re getting ready to strike, the city pitches a clever idea: how about if somebody gets married instead?

Well, they’re a bit more specific than that, actually–they point out the dauphin of France and John’s cute niece. And after about 30 seconds of thinking it over, the two are madly in love, aided by the prospect of peace and a huge dowry.

They find a church, tie the knot, and just like that, everyone’s happy.

Two brothers come to King John, arguing about the eldest’s legitimacy and right to inherit the family’s land. Rumor has it he was fathered by Richard the Lion-Hearted, John’s older brother and until his recent death, England’s king.

John dismisses this claim, all the while whispering with his mother, “Gosh, he looks like Richard.”

Eleanor’s the queen mother, but ditch that mental image of a dainty and reserved paragon of etiquette. She’s a powerhouse, and she outshines John on a number of levels.

She addresses the older brother: You have two options–have land and be like your brother, or be landless but be the reputed son of Richard the Lion-Hearted and in charge of your own destiny. What’s it going to be?

This is when we readers realize just how ugly the younger brother is.

He has legs like “riding-rods,” arms like “eel skins stuffed,” and a thin, pinched face. The bastard (as the older brother is so elegantly called throughout the play) takes one look at him and decides it’s not so bad to be illegitimate.

(He’s so thrilled that he doesn’t look like his brother, or the equally unattractive man he had considered his father, that he later praises his mother for sleeping with the king.)

He forgoes his inheritance. Eleanor introduces herself as Grandma, John knights him, and together they troop off to France and to war.

Well, I’ve got to start somewhere! Since I blame King John for the flash of inspiration that led to this project, I guess that’s as good a place as any.

So far, I know nothing about the play. And all I know about the man comes from Disney’s Robin Hood. For a quick refresher, check out this YouTube video:

Here goes!

Christina

When I was in London in 2004, I caught a performance of “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare–Abridged” by the Reduced Shakespeare Co. Three performers condensed all 38 plays into a few hours, and it was hilarious.

Before the show started, the performers shouted out the titles of plays, and audience members raised their hands if they had read it.

Only one person—one of the performers—raised his hand for King John. (At the time, fresh off my college Shakespeare class, I was convinced this was a joke and there was no Shakespeare play about King John. But I’m betrayed by the table of contents in my Complete Works of Shakespeare…It’s right there under the histories—The Life and Death of King John.)

That show, or that moment before the show, made me wonder what it would be like to have read all Shakespeare’s plays.

When I started this blog on February 2, I’d read 15 plays and a handful of sonnets. It’s not exactly something to sneeze at, but it’s hardly 40% of the plays, even less of the sonnets, and hardly an introduction to the narrative poems.

So I’m going deeper, to dust off what I once knew and to introduce myself to a whole lot more. Welcome to the adventure, and feel free to read along.

Christina