|
28 Jan 03 - 10:35 AM (#876588) Subject: BS: Bush=Ahab+Hamlet From: Art Thieme Given that 9/11 was a terrible thing like having a leg torn off by a white whale or having the ghost of your father tell you that his brother (who has married your mom) actually killed him (the king) and now has, himself, become king and you had better kill him to avenge the wrong that was done OR at least go out and kill the white whale that toppled your towers! Me thinks this is the stuff of real and basic and classic tragedy that demands a play be written by Mudcatters if we are not all brought down ourselves in the intervening tragic mayhem. I suggest we do that very thing, create the play, here in this thread !!! Art Thieme Art Thieme |
|
28 Jan 03 - 12:10 PM (#876668) Subject: RE: BS: Bush=Ahab+Hamlet From: Kim C Call me Ishmael. |
|
28 Jan 03 - 12:23 PM (#876680) Subject: RE: BS: Bush=Ahab+Hamlet From: TIA 'Tis bitter cold, and I am sick at heart. |
|
28 Jan 03 - 12:27 PM (#876683) Subject: RE: BS: Bush=Ahab+Hamlet From: Stilly River Sage Can we cut to the chase, do a segue to MacBeth, and tell Bush "despair your charmed life. . ."? |
|
28 Jan 03 - 12:41 PM (#876695) Subject: RE: BS: Bush=Ahab+Hamlet From: Kim C Out out damned spot. The queen, my lord, is dead. |
|
28 Jan 03 - 12:55 PM (#876710) Subject: RE: BS: Bush=Ahab+Hamlet From: Deda If Burnham Wood won't come to Dunsinane, then bring Dunsinane to Burnham Wood ... (I dibs no points off for spelling!) (We need the Scottish play added in, murder and utter criminality on and behind the throne.) |
|
28 Jan 03 - 01:56 PM (#876772) Subject: RE: BS: Bush=Ahab+Hamlet From: Kim C How can we fit Queequeg into Macbeth? |
|
28 Jan 03 - 02:07 PM (#876782) Subject: RE: BS: Bush=Ahab+Hamlet From: alanabit Hamlet is a whingeing, deceitful, egocentric, spoiled brat who wants to be king for no better reason than the fact that his Dad held the office. His disastrous attempt at plotting to get himself into office, for which he is patently unfit, brings about the collapse of his country. You could be onto something with your metaphor there Art. |
|
28 Jan 03 - 02:13 PM (#876787) Subject: RE: BS: Bush=Ahab+Hamlet From: Stilly River Sage Quequeg could be one of the three witches, with a more proactive stance. Or he could be MacDuff. Ishmael just observed and told the story, Quequeg actually offed the whale. (I hope that's right--it has been a while since I read any of these). So Quequeg could be MacDuff. |
|
28 Jan 03 - 02:15 PM (#876788) Subject: RE: BS: Bush=Ahab+Hamlet From: Stilly River Sage So who is Quequeg? Colin Powell? The member of the crew who saw the truth and survives after all? |
|
28 Jan 03 - 02:22 PM (#876794) Subject: RE: BS: Bush=Ahab+Hamlet From: Sam L I don't get the Hamlet, maybe the Ur-Hamlet, but I haven't read it. Maybe Bush=Ahab-Hamlet. Call me, Ishmael. |
|
28 Jan 03 - 03:10 PM (#876843) Subject: RE: BS: Bush=Ahab+Hamlet From: Kim C Well, Queequeg was from Kokovoko, a place not on any map, somewhere in the South Sea Islands, if I remember right. He had tattoos all over his body and he observed something that Ishmael referred to as Ramadan - whether he meant Ramadan in the Islamic sense, I don't know. In spite of their cultural differences, Queequeg and Ishmael became great friends; and I don't remember exactly either, but I think Queequeg did fire the fatal harpoon. I never really got the impression that Hamlet wanted to be king himself as much as he wanted to expose Polonius for the fraud that he was, and avenge his father's death. So to suck them all in, he pretended to be crazy when he supposedly wasn't. Ahab, on the other hand, was consumed with the idea of killing the whale that took his leg. Starbuck was the only one what had any sense about him. |
|
28 Jan 03 - 03:46 PM (#876882) Subject: RE: BS: Bush=Ahab+Hamlet From: Amos ...so whenever possible, try to lean on the Starbuck's in your life? Call me Dubya; I don't do slings and arrows, but just to stay with a good message for folks I do like to try opposing and ending things, so as to make the pie wider. It would make it easier to put more food on more few families along the Axis of Evil, is how I look at it. Life may not be just a dagger I see before me like an idiot, full and furry, but that's how I see it, and so that's how it is... |
|
28 Jan 03 - 03:54 PM (#876889) Subject: RE: BS: Bush=Ahab+Hamlet From: Art Thieme Mainly: To mix the few Given---Iraq = Moby Dick--the white whale---the pain in Ahab's side. "HE HEAPS ME. HE TASKS ME." Given---George Bush the First's inability to take out Iraq ten years ago is parallel to the tragic heights reached in Hamlet's procrastinations---especially in the light of recent events going down all around us and with us like the twin towers and/or the walls of Jerico. Dubya's obsession with Iraq is easily traced back to his father's after-the-fact inability to act. He was, the fishermen all said, a "master baiter". When his harpoon was in his own hand, there was, seemingly, an inability to act. This was Hamlet's problem as well. The kid was a wimp. He needed Viagra bad and pretty much didn't believe in ghosts either.--- Here was a guy who was afraid / sure he was hearing voices and seeing stuff not really there who, in the end, took everyone off this mortal coil with him. Bush's cabinet are the off-the-mark voices he is hearing. Ahab's obsessive hunt for Moby Dick is, I think, young Bush going after the thing that ripped off his daddy's (middle) leg. That kind of thing ya just can't let pass--ala John Wayne Bobbit. Ya get it sewn back on the best way you can but it never gets to be what it was in the old days. Polonious is played perfectly by Trent Lott Ophelia is played by the Attorney Gen. of Florida whatever her name was.(You know who I mean.) the king's brother is played by Jeb Bush. The GHOST of the king ia played by the gosts of all our anonymous GUESTs personified into one fell spirit---as is their wont . Laertes is played by EARL SCRUGGS (to bring music into this thread.) We need more, folks. Try your hands at it. This is just a start. Love, Art Thieme |
|
28 Jan 03 - 04:38 PM (#876939) Subject: RE: BS: Bush=Ahab+Hamlet From: Kim C Wasn't Polonius the king's brother? He killed the king and married the queen. |
|
28 Jan 03 - 04:48 PM (#876945) Subject: RE: BS: Bush=Ahab+Hamlet From: Kim C ooops! I was mistaken. Claudius is the murdering king's brother, and Polonius is his son, which means Hamlet's uncle is now his daddy and his cousin is now his brother so I guess he's his own grandpa. |
|
28 Jan 03 - 04:56 PM (#876951) Subject: RE: BS: Bush=Ahab+Hamlet From: Don Firth Polonius was the father of Ophelia and Laertes. One of the king's advisors, he was essential a silly busybody. Had some good speeches, though. Lots of possible counterparts. . . . Don Firth ". . . something is rotten in the District of Columbia. . . ." |
|
28 Jan 03 - 04:57 PM (#876953) Subject: RE: BS: Bush=Ahab+Hamlet From: TIA I think Bush Jr. is more of a Curly from Of Mice and Men. |
|
28 Jan 03 - 05:48 PM (#876976) Subject: RE: BS: Bush=Ahab+Hamlet From: Kim C You're right. It's been a long time since I read Hamlet... obviously... |
|
28 Jan 03 - 06:24 PM (#877008) Subject: RE: BS: Bush=Ahab+Hamlet From: Sam L Um, okay, I see how you've dispersed it. I was fuddled because I think Hamlet might be the most intelligent character in literature, Dubya's Dad was not killed, and I don't see a clear-cut Horatio on hand. I can see some Moby, some Scottish play, but can't work out Hamlet, unless it were more the Ur-Hamlet revenge play, which only Tolstoy seems to have preferred. Or unless Gore was Hamlet? Just hope it doesn't turn out all Titus Andronicus in the Coriolanus. If anyone can explain how Stub--I think it was--kept his pipe lit out in that sea-spray, I'd like to know. I read that book recently but don't remember it near as well as Kim C does. All the knots, the first harpoon, and second, and how they were tied. I wanted to know about that guy's pipe. |
|
28 Jan 03 - 06:37 PM (#877018) Subject: RE: BS: Bush=Ahab+Hamlet From: Stilly River Sage In this spirit of this pan-Shakespearean tragedy, Karl Rove must be Iago. And Ashcroft is Caliban. Ronald Reagan is King Lear. |
|
28 Jan 03 - 06:53 PM (#877033) Subject: RE: BS: Bush=Ahab+Hamlet From: kendall TB or not TB. That is the congestion... |
|
28 Jan 03 - 09:35 PM (#877185) Subject: RE: BS: Bush=Ahab+Hamlet From: Art Thieme Kendall, That was a direct quote from Jimmie Rodgers I'm pretty sure. And you really did sound great on the Mudcat CDs.. Art. |
|
28 Jan 03 - 11:15 PM (#877237) Subject: RE: BS: Bush=Ahab+Hamlet From: Art Thieme Well, my thread is pretty stupid now that I look at it. Sorry about that people. I was trying to make the point that being obsessed with GETTING revenge is rarely a good idea and many innocents might be hurt. Thanks anyhow. I'm just at a loss to find a way to get a handle on the events of these times. Art |
|
29 Jan 03 - 12:18 AM (#877272) Subject: RE: BS: Bush=Ahab+Hamlet From: katlaughing No, Art, it's a great idea. My mind is reeling and the world seems wrapped in a mist of disbelief, horror, etc....the stuff of great dramas as you've brought up, for I am unable to get a handle on the events of these times, too. Please keep going on this. I don't remember enough of either of them to add anything. kat |
|
29 Jan 03 - 03:33 AM (#877361) Subject: RE: BS: Bush=Ahab+Hamlet From: alanabit Polonius would have been a real latter day politician. Great soundbites and foolish actions. |
|
29 Jan 03 - 09:28 AM (#877550) Subject: RE: BS: Bush=Ahab+Hamlet From: Sam L I'm sorry, didn't mean to dampen the enterprise, but Hamlet was so thoughtful, wanted to be sure. The play within the play and troupe of players would be weapons inspectors I suppose. |
|
29 Jan 03 - 10:09 AM (#877577) Subject: RE: BS: Bush=Ahab+Hamlet From: Kim C Hmmmmm..... King Lear...... hmmm......... |
|
29 Jan 03 - 10:32 AM (#877586) Subject: RE: BS: Bush=Ahab+Hamlet From: Amos The events of these time are writ larger than Hamlet, or Moby Dick -- the kingdom of Denmark pales in comparison to the vectors feeding into and leading into the future from this crux in history. We are up against a collision of the worlds, in a way that echoes the history of the world, the jihads, crusades, and major empires from Egypt, Macedon and and Persia all the way through Rome and England. The fall of the Twin Towers was a symptom that could easily be said to have a tectonic infrastructure. At one level it is a collision between the haves and the have nots, the creators and the createes, those who play and those who live their lives as pieces. From another level it is a battle of relilgions and the towering icons behind them. It is also a collision between the methods of control and the methods of tolerant freedom -- governments by patriarchy and authortiy versus governments by consent and bottom-up consensus. I can see old man Bush muttering "Now is the winter of my discontent made brilliant summer by this son of Greenwich". Or perhaps the mythic treatment Art is looking for is something along the lines of Star Wars. We live, indeed, in interesting times. But the thing that breaks my heart about it is the individual suffering that is going on now, and will go on a thousand times multiplied, because of Bush's determination to break the back of Iraq's authoritarian regime. Fathers and brothers and lovers are going to be torn up and spit out. There will be individual pain beyoond imagining and family suffering that will never be consoled. There will be murder on this path which Bush rationalizes so very well. Even in times of cosmic displacement, I am not satisfied his rationalizations should be honored in action. He claims he is confronting actual massive destructive impulse by the evil powers in the world. His reluctance to explicitly say what he sees is legendary and was opnly slightly offset by his sketchy vignettes of horro in the SoU address. Frankly, I am less convinced than he would like. Enough -- I have to go put food on my family. A |
|
29 Jan 03 - 10:43 AM (#877595) Subject: RE: BS: Bush=Ahab+Hamlet From: Stilly River Sage Art and Amos, I think we were all casting around for representations of the aspects of these modern day despots that would serve as intellectual shorthand to what we see happening. Your attempt to put it in a framework is laudable. I suggested Reagan as Lear because in the end his selfish acts cause the nation a lot of pain, and he couldn't see what was in front of him. With Dubya, I see someone without Aldzheimer's aiming at besting Reagan's attempt to bust unions and make the rich richer. Dubya is blinded by his empire-building hubris. Alexander the Great got away with it. Others didn't--so who were they, that we can use as examples? You've given us a lot to think about. Too bad those "average" Americans who won't actually get squat in tax breaks aren't doing the math, they're being lulled by the demogogery. I remember a placard that rotated in a frame, various sayings that my junior high school English teacher wanted us to learn. "Demogogue: Copperhead with a golden tongue." Bush's tongue sure ain't golden, but it's amazing how many people are buying into his Doublespeak! SRS |
|
29 Jan 03 - 11:02 AM (#877612) Subject: RE: BS: Bush=Ahab+Hamlet From: Charley Noble Art and Amos- The challenge is to write the play before the curtain comes down... Sigh, Charley Noble |
|
29 Jan 03 - 12:27 PM (#877688) Subject: RE: BS: Bush=Ahab+Hamlet From: Stilly River Sage I spelled that wrong. It's "demagogue: a leader who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power." |
|
29 Jan 03 - 12:48 PM (#877700) Subject: RE: BS: Bush=Ahab+Hamlet From: Cluin I always saw Hamlet as a vacillating wimp who should have gotten on with the business at hand... namely taking out Claudius as quickly and bloodily as he could. Shit! His Daddy had to come back from the grave to try and make a man of him. Never had much sympathy for the "melancholy Dane" myself, even though the play does have some of the best lines the Bard set to paper. I much preferred MacBeth. He may have struck in the dark, but at least he had the conscience to feel bad about it. And when he found himself in deep, he sucked it up and dealt with it like a man. (I also know the historical MacBeth was a far cry from the literary one) The Scottish play has a few good lines too. I see what you were getting at here, Art. It does have possibilities, but we maybe need a bit more breathing space from things to do it justice. |
|
29 Jan 03 - 01:27 PM (#877725) Subject: RE: BS: Bush=Ahab+Hamlet From: Little Hawk Obsessively seeking revenge is never a good idea...but it makes for a great dramatic storyline! I prefer it in fiction, though. It's too dangerous in real life. - LH |
|
29 Jan 03 - 04:14 PM (#877876) Subject: RE: BS: Bush=Ahab+Hamlet From: Don Firth Thread creep (sort of). I had an English Lit prof at the UW who disagreed with the usual interpretation that Hamlet was wimpy and indecisive. She pointed out that one of the questions Hamlet had to answer to his satisfaction was the nature of the ghost that appeared in the form of his father. At that time it was commonly believed that goblins, or even the Devil himself, could appear in whatever guise they wished, and deceive someone into doing something which would damn their souls to Hell. In Act I, scene 1, when the ghost first appears to Hamlet and wants him to follow it to where they can talk alone, Horatio warns him not to, for fear the ghost would assume "a pleasing shape" and lead him to the edge of the tower and lure him to fall to his death. Then the big question: Hamlet asks the ghost if it is "a spirit of health or a goblin damned?" That, she said, was the question Hamlet had to answer before he knew whether he should off Claudius. After all, he was grief-striken over the death of his father, and he was furious at the hasty marriage ("Within a month!") of his mother and his uncle. He would be vulnerable to the evil temptations of some demon in disguise, and he knew it. Hamlet pokes around, trying to verify what the apparition told him. Did Claudius murder his father, or didn't he? The fortuitous appearance of the players gives him an opportunity to put Claudius to the test. Present a play about the way the ghost said the murder took place, and see how Claudius reacts. Claudius loses it. Now Hamlet knows. The apparition was telling him the truth. It really is the ghost of his father. Immediately following the play, Hamlet could have killed him, but Claudius, in an agony of guilt, was praying. Hamlet wants Claudius to burn in Hell for what he did, and if he kills him while he's praying, he would go straight to heaven. So he awaits another opportunity. Plot complications follow, preventing Hamlet from carrying out his revenge, but on his return to Denmark, he looks for a good opportunity to do the deed. After all, now he knows that Claudius is trying to kill him, too. The fencing match gives him a possible chance (he's confident that he can win against Laertes because, as he tells Horatio, he's been practicing daily). But Claudius and Laertes conspire, and they cobble the fencing match. As a result of this treachery, both Laertes and Gertrude wind up dead. And although Hamlet is dying from a scratch from Laertes' poisoned weapon, he picks up the poisoned sword ("The point, envenomed, too. Then, venom, do thy work!") and runs Claudius through with it. Wow! Bodies all over the stage. Not indecision, the prof said. Hamlet had to play detective. The indecision thing was the interpretation of a famous eighteenth century actor (whose name I forget) who was copied by other actors. For what it's worth. Don Firth |
|
29 Jan 03 - 04:53 PM (#877903) Subject: RE: BS: Bush=Ahab+Hamlet From: Cluin That's right. Young Hammy manages to kill or cause to die just about everybody else in the story first (including those poor tools Ros. and Guild.) before he finally settles up with Claudius at the last possible moment before he croaks himself. What a massive fuck-up he was! |
|
29 Jan 03 - 06:21 PM (#877970) Subject: RE: BS: Bush=Ahab+Hamlet From: Sam L Cluin, I always thought Macbeth's remorse revealed how perfectly spiritless a snake he was. It went something like--to kill? sure, good career move, okay but to kill ...a guest? Gad. I don't know, it seems poor manners, bad form, somehow, rather rude. Or at least I saw it acted in a way that struck in that direction, and Macbeth seemed like any shallow, ambitious, yuppie. But nobody ever notices that Hamlet could and did act, killed the King, as far as a question of his character goes. It's only an accident it turned out to be Polonius. People read things differently, plays and events. Still hope it won't turn out Titus (horrible and bloody) in the Coriolanus (in the end). |
|
29 Jan 03 - 06:59 PM (#878005) Subject: RE: BS: Bush=Ahab+Hamlet From: Don Firth Foul! Foul accusation, sir! Foul, I say! When Hamlet goes to see his mother (after the play), he hears someone lurking behind the arras (big tapestry hung on the wall in Gertrude's bed chamber). He stabs the blob and the blob slumps to the floor. It's Polonius, there to eavesdrop. Hamlet thought it was Claudius ("I took thee for thy better," i.e., of higher rank, namely, the king). Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern were in on Claudius' plot to kill Hamlet—or have him killed. Hamlet discovered it, and in the best James Bond manner, switched letters on them, so they took the hit that was intended for him. They kinda asked for it. Ophelia died primarily because she was pretty loosely wrapped. Can't blame that on Hamlet. Granted, his rejection was a bit harsh, but he did love her, and he was trying to keep her out of the mayhem that he knew was to follow. In the cobbling of the fencing match, Claudius and Laertes replaced the foil that Laertes was to use with a foil (a foil is a blunt practice weapon) that had had the point sharpened, then added a lethal poison to that. In addition, just in case the well-practiced Hamlet should win all three hits, Claudius kept a cup of poisoned wine set aside, which he intended to offer Hamlet as refreshment. While they're resting for a moment between bouts, Laertes, who has already lost two of the three bouts ("A hit! A palpable hit!" and "A touch, a touch, I do confess!"), takes a swipe at Hamlet with the poisoned sword ("Have at thee, now!"). Hamlet, surprised, notes the scratch on his arm, then realizes that there's more afoot here than a fencing match. Laertes' weapon is sharp. He goes at Laertes, disarms him, and takes the sharp weapon himself. In the ensuing bout, he nails Laertes, whom, he now realizes, is trying to kill him in the guise of a friendly match. In the meantime, Gertrude, to Claudius' horror, chugalugs the cup of wine. The dying Laertes confesses to Hamlet what they were up to. Hamlet, knowing he's dying, figures "now or never" and skewers Claudius through the giblets. All fall down. "All I did was kill a man who was fixin' to kill me." Polonius was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern got caught in the trap they helped set for Hamlet. Ophelia came unglued and actually died accidentally. Gertrude also died accidentally, but that was the fault of Claudius and his little pack of Kool-Aid.. Hamlet killed Laertes basically in self-defense (after all, Laertes had tried to kill him), and then Claudius, who had pretty well established by that time that he had it comin'. Suggestion:— rent or get from the library the 1940s Lawrence Olivier film of Hamlet. Ignore Olivier's voice-over at the beginning of the film ("This is a story about a man who couldn't make up his mind."), because Olivier doesn't actually play it that way. Although the play is somewhat condensed, (R. and G. don't actually figure), it's still the best movie rendition out there. You'll see all the elements I'm talking about. Great play!! Don Firth |
|
29 Jan 03 - 07:07 PM (#878009) Subject: RE: BS: Bush=Ahab+Hamlet From: Cluin Ah, but Rosenstern and Guildencrantz didn't know they were part of Claudius plot to have Hamlet whacked in England (unless you've read Tom Stoppard). They were just supposed to take him on holiday. And I maintain that if Hamlet did the deed in the beginning none of the others would have been through so much suffering. Hamlet basically drove Ophelia mad. Well, him and her father's using her to run interference. |
|
29 Jan 03 - 07:19 PM (#878018) Subject: RE: BS: Bush=Ahab+Hamlet From: Cluin By the way, I think the best production of Hamlet is still the musical one Gilligan and the other islanders put on for Ginger to impress Hollywood Director Phil Silvers. I can still hear the Skipper, as Polonius, singing to the music from "Carmen": Neither a borrower nor a lender be Do not forget: Stay out of debt Think twice And take this good advice from me Guard that old solvency There's just one other thing You ought to do To thine own self be true |
|
29 Jan 03 - 07:29 PM (#878025) Subject: RE: BS: Bush=Ahab+Hamlet From: Little Hawk I'm with Don Firth on this one. Hamlet acted courageously, and with full justification throughout, albeit he was a moody and melancholy sort. Moody and melancholy heroes make for good tragic storylines. For that, Hamlet is about as good as they come. Ye scabby and malodorous varlets who would slander his name from a safe office chair are merely vexed because he did cut a far more valorous figure in both life and death than ye shall ever do, methinks! Thieves and cutpurses all, may ye perish in foulest perdition and be the scorn of street mendicants and alehouse drunkards! - LH |
|
30 Jan 03 - 12:39 AM (#878220) Subject: RE: BS: Bush=Ahab+Hamlet From: Art Thieme Fascinating points made here. Like some of you, I guess I was thinking of the fact that Ahab took everyone except Ishmael to their deaths. His maniacal quest did them all in. Hamlet dragged everyone off this motal coil as well. Hamlet and Bush are both, in the end, doing their father's bidding----. Hamlet's father was murdered. George W's father was turned out (killed metaphorically) by the voters after letting Sadam off the hook.------- Since I just watched a DVD of Richard Burton's take on Hamlet, I think it was just on my mind. I'd jalso re-wound MOBY DICK on a VHS video after looking for the spots where A. L. "Bert" Lloyd sang the anchor up. But you folks have extended my unthought out ideas here admirably. -------- Still, I see no practical use to this exercise other than to help us see our own points of view on this issue in which I feel so fucking powerless. How to change the inertia of our seeming headlong plunge into the fires of Mount Doom---"that is the question". The answer has to be, for all of us, "to be" !!! Art Thieme |
|
30 Jan 03 - 04:32 PM (#878602) Subject: RE: BS: Bush=Ahab+Hamlet From: Don Firth Sorry, Art. It looks like this thread has been hijacked for purposes of literary discussion, but be of good cheer. If we stir this caldron enough, something of contemporary relevance may come gurgling to the surface (eye of Newt Gingrich?). Like the Bible, a lot of Shakespeare becomes clearer if you have some grasp of the customs and beliefs that were extant at the time the plays were written. For example, MacBeth's extreme reluctance to take what appeared to be a golden opportunity to remove King Duncan from the path of his (or was it Lady MacB's?) ambition. First, kings were thought to be anointed by God. To kill a king was a mortal sin—in spades. If one slew a king, one could be certain of one's Eternal Destination, and it was not regarded as a nice neighborhood. Also, princes killed other princes with great reluctance. It set a bad precedent. This was one of the reasons that Elizabeth I kept Mary Stuart on ice for so long (what was it; twenty years?) before she sent her to the block. Second, you personally were considered morally responsible for the welfare and protection of any guest under your roof. If anything untoward happened to that guest, it was a powerful reflection on your honor. They went to great pains to blame it on the two lackeys; in hopes of taking at least some of the stain off the honor of the house of MacBeth. It's noteworthy that when MacDuff came to avenge the murder of his family, it was MacBeth himself who took up sword and buckler. No one else would do his fighting for him. These were the days when national leaders (e.g., Richard III, Henry V, etc.) were expected to put on their armor, take up their swords, and lead their troops into battle. Is there any way we can revive that system? Don Firth |
|
30 Jan 03 - 04:49 PM (#878617) Subject: RE: BS: Bush=Ahab+Hamlet From: Amos Don, that is brilliant. I'd LOVE to see GWB in MOPP gear!! He'd look and sound like the Michelin man or the puffy-biscuit baby!! LOL!! A |
|
30 Jan 03 - 05:10 PM (#878632) Subject: RE: BS: Bush=Ahab+Hamlet From: Art Thieme You've got me remembering Dukakis (not Olympia) riding on that tank. ;-) *****HUGE SMILE PLUS A BIG GUFFAW**** And if killing a king got you a "GO DIRECTLY TO HELL" one-way ticket, it's good to know that the fellow convicted of killing the good Dr. M. L. King is in flames and feeling the highest level of excruciating pain possible even as we speak. Art Thieme |
|
30 Jan 03 - 06:33 PM (#878679) Subject: RE: BS: Bush=Ahab+Hamlet From: Sam L I very much like Kenneth Branaugh's Hamlet, big and intimate, although the ghost is poorly done. (The ghost in Zeferelli's Mel Gibson version was nice.) There's another in that post-modern illustration style, with Hamlet as a grunge dude, I can't take. Whatever the customs of the time, it still rings odd that Macbeth reflects on the guest thing, and the way he falls into bickering with hired killers seems very revealing of what kind of man he is. How 'bout My kingdom for a floating casket? |
|
30 Jan 03 - 06:38 PM (#878684) Subject: RE: BS: Bush=Ahab+Hamlet From: Don Firth Now there's a thought! Olympia Dukakis in 2004! Don Firth |