Mojo, The Bard, & Me

 

My royal lord,

You do not give the cheer. The feast is sold

That is not often vouched, while ‘tis a-making,

‘Tis given with welcome. To feed were best at home,

From thence the sauce to meat is ceremony,

Meeting were bare without it.

-Lady Macbeth

Macbeth                  Act III, Scene iv, Line 68

 

Here’s the deal: A bunch of people are gathered at Macbeth’s hall for dinner, and he’s been talking to one of Banquo’s murderers, and consequently has not welcomed the guests for dinner. Here’s the footnote from my Shakespeare book edited by G. B. Harrison that explains pretty well what Lady Macbeth is saying in today’s passage.

feast…ceremony: there is no hospitality at a feast where the guests are not made welcome; without welcome, it is a mere bought dinner – one can feed better at home; when one is away from home, ceremony should accompany the feast.

I know, it’s a little hard to get that from Will’s text. I’m not sure what to tell you. I would have to think that if you were seeing this performed, the context and staging, etc would help in understanding what Lady Macbeth is saying. But I can certainly see why passages like this might be what dismays people from getting into Shakespeare. Well, all I can say is, don’t be dismayed.

Okay, the first pic is the book I use on a daily basis to pick my Totally Random lines from. And the second book is the GB Harrison book that I pulled that footnote from. And there’s an interesting connection here. My guy Jon gave me the first book for Christmas (or was it my birthday?) several years back. I wonder if he even remembers that? And then this summer when we went to visit our new grandsons, August and Otto, I went out to buy a book of Will’s works that I could keep at Jon’s house (because my wife is always giving me a hard time about dragging that HUGE Shakespeare book with me when we travel). Well, I found the GB Harrison copy at a used bookstore near Jon’s house and bought it with the intention of leaving it in Cally. But then after spending a few days with it, I realized that it had a lot of really good content (specifically the footnotes) that my first book doesn’t have, and so I took it home. But no worries: we’re going back to visit Jon and Karen and the boys in a few weeks for Christmass, so I’ll be back at that bookstore looking again. So, no worries Jon, I’ll hopefully have that complete works of Will on your bookshelf by Christmas. And by the way, Jon and Karen are the best hosts ever. They always give the cheer and much, much more.