But now I am cabin’d, cribb’d, confined, bound in

To saucy doubts and fears.

 

-Macbeth

Macbeth                      Act III, Scene iv, Line 25

Oh poor Macbeth. What do you suppose he’s talking about? What is so troubling him that he is confined to doubts and fears? In the lines previous to this he says that he would have been perfect, whole as the marble, founded as the rock, as broad and general as the casing air. What brought him from being whole to being penned in by fears? I’ll tell you what happened. The murderers that Macbeth sent out to kill Banquo and his son Fleance have come back to report that Banquo is dead, but Fleance got away. For sure, Banquo’s throat is cut and now safe in a ditch he bides, with twenty trenched gashes in his head. But Fleance got away and that’s what’s upsetting Macbeth.

Yes, Poor Macbeth. 

 

This is a pic taken from the bell tower of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Normally, being up this high up, with my fear of heights, would  make me quite cabin'd, cribb'd, confined, bound in to saucy doubts and fears. But for some reason that day I was founded as a rock. How about you? What makes you cabin'd, cribb'd, confined, bound in to saucy doubts and fears?

 

5/15/17

[Beneath] Swear.

-Ghost

Hamlet                        Act I, Scene v, Line 161

Hamlet is a pretty serious play, but I find this part a little bit comical. This is the scene where Hamlet has the conversation with the ghost of his father. At this point the ghost has finished talking and has exited, and Hamlet’s friends have rejoined him, Hamlet is swearing them to secrecy about what they saw. While he’s trying to get them to swear, the ghost, who’s no longer on stage but apparently is yelling from beneath the stage (that 'beneath' above is a stage direction), keeps reiterating ‘Swear’. He says it three or four times. Maybe I’m a little kooky, but I think it’s funny. And it’s made more funny by some of Hamlet’s comments about the ghost while this is happening.

I think it’s good to be able to find humor in odd places.

 

 

Now here's a perfect example of finding humor in an odd place. This is Jess in the bathroom of a fancy hotel in Pittsburgh, with Nina taking the picture. Now I have no idea what she's doing, or why it's funny, but they obviously found something funny about it. I guess the fruit didn't fall too far from the tree.

 

Monster, come, put some lime on your fingers, and away with the rest.

-Trinculo

The Tempest                Act IV, Scene i, Line 265

I’m not sure what ‘put some lime on your fingers’ refers to. I would guess that it’s something that was done by thieves and murderers to throw the hound dogs off their trail. But I do know that this is the scene where Prospero and Ariel put some fancy clothes out on the clothesline to trap Stephano, Trinculo, and Caliban. While Prospero and Ariel hide out of sight the three knuckleheads come on stage, see the clothes and decide to steal them. Caliban however is more interested in killing Prospero, and he knows the clothes are a trap. With today’s line Trinculo is trying to get Caliban (Monster) to join them in trying on the clothes. But Caliban will have none of it. And momentarily Prospero and Ariel will jump out at them with a bunch of hunting dogs and chase the three would be thieves/murderers off. Ah, I just realized: the lime and the hunting dogs! It goes together.

Now here’s the thing, I know this play almost by heart because I wrote a retelling, that is to say, a modernized version of it. In fact, this blog (not today’s post, the blog as a whole) is an offshoot of that retelling. You see, once we (I say ‘we’ because my brother Will worked on it with me as the illustrator) were pretty much done with the book I found out that if we wanted to publish and market a book we needed a platform, preferably in social media. And so I started this blog. And that’s the short version of why I know The Tempest so well.

Anyway, I’ve finally decided to move forward with that book so I’m hoping to have that out sometime in the latter part of this year. And so this blog may be turning toward our retelling of The Tempest sometime soon. And there’s something for you to look forward to!

 

  Now this is a fancy little piece of clothing that I almost purchased. And to be clear, I had no lime on my fingers at the time. Nor did I get chased by any dogs.