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Apr. 2nd, 2011 11:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pedantherApril Fool's Day was quiet this year. I only encountered one bit of foolery, Telltale Games' announcement of their new interactive gaming technology.
On a completely unrelated note, yesterday was crowded so I didn't get around to writing, as I'd intended, a few words about one of Shakespeare's lesser-known plays, Maclean. It's a minor work, concerning a fortress taken by bandits, and hasn't been produced in modern times since 1988, when RSC alumnus Alan Rickman gave an acclaimed performance in the role of the bandit leader. Many people know it only through a corrupt text in which missing passages were filled in arbitrarily with fragments from dissertations on the art of falconry and the cultivation of melons. The proper text is well worth seeking out, though, to get the true poetry of such famous scenes as the confrontation between the hero and the leader of the bandits:
G. My name thou knowest: who art thou? A man
Whose way is lost in tales of chivalry,
Who thinks himself another Lancelot,
An Arthur, or a Charlemagne?
M. Forsooth,
I'll none of these, but give me Dagonet.
Methinks a coxcomb would adorn me well.
G. Think thou to win, Sir Knight?
M. Thou art a knave,
And thine own mother would abhor thy deeds.
I'll fix my lance, and we shall see who bleeds.
On a completely unrelated note, yesterday was crowded so I didn't get around to writing, as I'd intended, a few words about one of Shakespeare's lesser-known plays, Maclean. It's a minor work, concerning a fortress taken by bandits, and hasn't been produced in modern times since 1988, when RSC alumnus Alan Rickman gave an acclaimed performance in the role of the bandit leader. Many people know it only through a corrupt text in which missing passages were filled in arbitrarily with fragments from dissertations on the art of falconry and the cultivation of melons. The proper text is well worth seeking out, though, to get the true poetry of such famous scenes as the confrontation between the hero and the leader of the bandits:
G. My name thou knowest: who art thou? A man
Whose way is lost in tales of chivalry,
Who thinks himself another Lancelot,
An Arthur, or a Charlemagne?
M. Forsooth,
I'll none of these, but give me Dagonet.
Methinks a coxcomb would adorn me well.
G. Think thou to win, Sir Knight?
M. Thou art a knave,
And thine own mother would abhor thy deeds.
I'll fix my lance, and we shall see who bleeds.
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Date: 2011-04-02 04:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-02 06:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-02 08:48 pm (UTC)Maclean, Part II is okay, but by Part IV Shakespeare was clearly churning them out because they were popular at court.