Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal: Have a Terrifying Halloween! (Shakespeare)

Friday, October 24, 2014

Have a Terrifying Halloween! (Shakespeare)

Edward de Vere (aka Shakespeare, 1564-1616, PotW.org, Macbeth); Wisdom Quarterly

(GCH) Roman Childmolester Polanski (1971); Geoffrey Wright (2006); Rupert Goold (2010)

Where do readers go? (barnesandnoble.com)

If there's one thing we as North Americans love in our scary movies it's Satanism and blasphemy, which scares us and keeps us in our place.

And who better to provide it than the translator of the KJV of the Bible and other popular literature?

Double, double toil and trouble!

(The Collected Works of Shakespeare and the Judeo-Christian Bible are the two of the most popular pieces of English lit and have been for quite some time, which is no coincidence thanks to King James and Edward de Vere). Act 1 Scene 1 of Macbeth:

The Three Witches' recipe appears at the beginning of Macbeth, Act IV, Scene 1: William Shakespeare. The Globe Illustrated Shakespeare: The Complete Works Annotated. Howard Staunton (ed.), New York: Gramercy Books, 1993.

A dark Cave. In the middle, a Caldron boiling. Thunder.

Enter the three Witches.

WITCH 1. Thrice the brinded* cat hath mew'd.

[*brinded: having obscure dark streaks or flecks on gray]

WITCH 2. Thrice and once, the hedge-pig whin'd.

WITCH 3. Harpier cries:—'tis time! 'tis time!

WITCH 1. Round about the caldron go;

In the poison'd entrails throw.—

Toad, that under cold stone,

Days and nights has thirty-one;

Swelter'd venom sleeping got,

Boil thou first i' the charmed pot!

ALL. Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn, and caldron bubble.

I will kill you and eat you says the naga to the frog (photography.nationalgeographic.com)

WITCH 2. Fillet of a fenny snake,

In the caldron boil and bake;

Eye of newt, and toe of frog,

Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,

Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting,

Lizard's leg, and owlet's wing,—

For a charm of powerful trouble,

Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

ALL. Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn, and caldron bubble.

WITCH 3. Scale of dragon; tooth of wolf;

Witches' mummy; maw and gulf* [mouth and throat]

Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark;

Root of hemlock digg'd i the dark;

Liver of blaspheming Jew;

Gall of goat, and slips of yew

Sliver'd in the moon's eclipse;

Nose of Turk, and Tartar's lips;

Finger of birth-strangled babe

Ditch-deliver'd by a drab,*— [prostitute]

Make the gruel thick and slab:

Add thereto a tiger's chaudron,* [entrails]

For the ingrediants of our caldron.

ALL. Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn, and caldron bubble.

WITCH 2. Cool it with a baboon's blood,

Then the charm is firm and good.

Horrible Witches
(ABC News, Oct. 22) Now the head witch has been chased out of Christendom proper, DC, and into a hinterland, AL, but she and her brood still make trouble, trouble, toil and trouble for anyone who comes in contact with Sarah Caribou Barbie Palins, Alaska's garish First Family.

Shakespeare-Navigators.com (Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 1)

I'm not a crone, and my witches are not trash.

Thunder and lightning.
          Enter three WITCHES.

     First Witch:
When shall we three meet again?
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
     Second Witch:
When the hurlyburly's done,
When the battle's lost and won.
     Third Witch:
That will be ere the set of sun.
     First Witch:
Where the place?
     Second Witch:
Upon the heath.
      Third Witch:
There to meet with Macbeth.
     First Witch:
I come, Graymalkin!
     Second Witch:
Paddock calls.
     Third Witch:
Anon.
     ALL:
Fair is foul, and foul is fair:
Hover through the fog and filthy air.

          Exeunt. More