Author: Mawr Gorshin

I'm merging the variety of topics I've blogged about--which include literary and film analyses, anarchism, socialism, libertarian-leaning Marxism, narcissistic abuse, and psychoanalysis--into a coherent philosophy centred on dialectical materialism, dialectical monism, and object relations theory. Now, one dialectical opposition is that between the erotic and the ascetic, so accordingly, my writing encompasses the sexual as well as the philosophical; the former can be found in my publications on the Literotica website, as well as my self-published (erotic) horror writing on Amazon.

Detailed Synopsis of ‘King Lear’

Act One:  King Lear, an octogenarian monarch of pre-Christian England, has assembled all of his nobles to discuss the future rule of his kingdom after he relieves his aged self from its burdens.  Before he arrives with his daughters and their husbands, the Earls of Kent and Gloucester discuss how they think Lear will divide the kingdom.  Will it be equally divided?  If not, which son-in-law will be favoured with a better portion?

Edmund, who is with the two earls, now becomes the subject of discussion.  Gloucester tells Kent that Edmund is his illegitimate son, describing with lustful glee how much he enjoyed the night he slept with Edmund’s mother.  All Edmund can do is quietly, patiently listen to his father speak disrespectfully of his mother to Kent (one can safely assume Edmund’s had to put up with this kind of thing his whole life).

Lear and the others arrive.  Lear tells Gloucester to get the King of France and the Duke of Burgundy, suitors to Lear’s youngest daughter, Cordelia.  Gloucester leaves to get them.  Lear announces his plan to retreat from the burdens of rule (though he’ll keep the title and dignity of king), and to give those responsibilities to his daughters and their husbands.  Whichever daughter loves him the most, and can thus express that love the best (see Quote 1 from my ‘Analysis of King Lear‘), will receive the best third of the kingdom.

Goneril, the eldest, speaks first, giving a flowery speech about how she loves her father more than words can say, more than any of the most basic human needs.  Flattered and contented, Lear gives one third of the kingdom to her and her husband, the Duke of Albany.

Nervous Cordelia doesn’t wish to flatter her father with phoney speeches of love just to gain land.  She’d rather “Love, and be silent.”

Regan, the middle-born daughter, is next to speak.  Like Goneril, Regan gives her father a honey-tongued speech of her ‘love’ for Lear, going so far as to say Goneril’s speech describes Regan’s very love of her father, though her own love surpasses Goneril’s by far.  Regan says nothing else gives her happiness but Lear’s love.

Again pleased, and not at all aware of how fake these speeches are, the vain king gives Regan and her husband, the Duke of Cornwall, their third of the kingdom. Though Cordelia doesn’t want to flatter the father she so dearly loves, she’s confident he’ll know the sincerity of her love well enough to overlook her laconic expression of it.

Unfortunately, she’s wrong, for he turns to her and, since she’s his favourite daughter, he expects an even more poetic speech from her, resulting in the best third of the kingdom.

She insists that she has “Nothing” to say; he warns her that the lack of a pretty speech will result in the lack of a third of the kingdom (see Quote 2 from my ‘Analysis’).  She says that she returns his love as is fitting a daughter, “no more nor less.”  She adds that when she marries, half of her love will go to her husband; she finds it odd that her married sisters give all their love to Lear.

Angered by Cordelia’s bluntness, the vain king suddenly disowns her.  Shocked, the Earl of Kent intervenes and passionately pleads for her, saying she loves Lear no less than Goneril or Regan, but rather doubtlessly loves him much more, given the phoniness of the elder sisters’ speeches.  Lear warns Kent not to continue, but Kent does, arguing that Lear’s actions are dangerously foolish, and Kent has always done everything he could to protect his king, faced every danger, and even now does so, risking the king’s displeasure, to protect him from his “hideous rashness.”

Lear can no longer endure Kent’s upbraidings and banishes him, giving him five days to leave England.  Kent leaves after wishing Cordelia well and hoping, though doubting, that Goneril’s and Regan’s treatment of Lear will match the words of their gushing speeches of love.

Gloucester enters with the King of France and Duke of Burgundy.  Lear offers Cordelia to them, but with no dowry, indicating only his “hate” for her as his reason.

The King of France is shocked to hear this change in Lear’s attitude, for the French king knows Cordelia was always Lear’s favourite daughter, and he wishes to know what monstrous thing she could possibly have done to deserve no dowry and such hate.  Cordelia says it is no sin not to flatter, and that, though she’s unhappy to have displeased her father, she’s glad she has no glib tongue.

Impressed with her virtue and honesty, valuing them over a lust for land and power, the French king would happily have the dowerless bride.  He asks Burgundy if he would have her, for “She is herself a dowry.”

Burgundy will have her only with the dowry, but Lear coldly says, “Nothing.”  Burgundy apologizes to Cordelia, regretting that she must lose a father and a husband in himself.  Knowing he wants only the dowry, she sees no loss in Burgundy’s ended suit.  He leaves with Lear.

The King of France accepts her as his queen, and before they leave, he’d have her say goodbye to her sisters.  She asks them to take good care of Lear, though she has every reason to believe they won’t.  When Goneril and Regan tell her not to prescribe to them their duty, we see the evil daughters’ true colours for the first time.  Cordelia and the French king leave; then Goneril and Regan discuss Lear.  They worry about how rashly he has disowned his favourite daughter, knowing it’s because his aged mind is going, and that he has little knowledge of his true self.  They plan to correspond regularly with each other, informing each other of any volatile changes in his mood that could be a danger to them.  They leave, as does everyone else.

Edmund is alone in Gloucester’s castle, expressing his resentment over custom’s unfair preference of legitimate children over those, like him, born out of wedlock.  Envying his legitimate brother Edgar, Edmund plans to cheat him out of his inheritance from their father.  Edmund holds a letter he’s forged, one imitating Edgar’s handwriting, one that purports to persuade Edmund to help Edgar kill their father and take all of his land and property.

Gloucester enters, and Edmund hides the forged letter, doing so in a way so as to attract Gloucester’s curiosity about its contents.  When Gloucester asks what the letter is, Edmund guiltily says, “Nothing,” and continues to seem reluctant to have his father read it, though of course he very much wants Gloucester to read it.

Gloucester insists on reading it, and Edmund sheepishly gives it to him, saying he hopes Edgar is merely testing Edmund’s loyalty to their father by writing it.  Gloucester is shocked when reading the contents, calling Edgar an “Abominable villain!”  He then hopes Edgar doesn’t really feel the way the letter makes him seem to feel.  Edmund pretends to hope the same thing.  They will note Edgar’s future words to see if they match his words in the letter.

Gloucester then mentions Kent’s banishment for the crime of “honesty”; he imagines an unfavourable astrological influence is to blame for everyone’s recent misfortunes.  Gloucester leaves, then Edmund speaks contemptuously of people’s foolish faith in astrology.

Edgar enters, and Edmund now speaks as though he himself believes in astrology.  Then he tells Edgar that their father is mad at him.  Edgar rightly assumes someone has done him wrong; Edmund, of course, agrees that there’s an unknown villain among them, and advises Edgar to avoid their father for his safety.  Edgar leaves, knowing he’ll stay in Edmund’s home; Edmund gleefully contemplates his imminent inheritance of Gloucester’s land.

A month later, and in Goneril’s castle, she complains to her servant Oswald about the noisy, troublesome hundred knights Lear has with him; she also tells Oswald to slacken in his service to Lear, as should the other servants.

Kent has shaved, changed into the clothes of a poor man, and will speak in a different accent to disguise himself while in Lear’s presence; thus he’ll be able to continue to serve his king.  He’ll call himself ‘Caius’.

Lear enters with his retinue of one hundred knights.  ‘Caius’ introduces himself to Lear and offers the king his services.  Lear accepts, and asks where his fool is; the Fool is so saddened over the disowning of Cordelia that he’s avoiding others’ company for the moment.  Oswald walks by, and Lear calls to him, but he ignores the king.  Furious, Lear has a knight fetch Oswald back, but the knight returns without Oswald, and sadly tells Lear that he doesn’t believe the king is any longer being given the ceremonial respect he deserves.

Oswald finally comes back, and Lear stops him angrily, asking him who Lear is; Oswald impudently says Lear is Goneril’s father, rather than the king, which angers Lear even more.  ‘Caius’ then trips Oswald and scolds him for his lack of deference.  Oswald runs off, and Lear pays ‘Caius’ for his service.

The Fool enters, offering his coxcomb to ‘Caius’ for following a foolish king.  The Fool continues to indulge in a series of witticisms, indicating how Lear is the real fool for giving all his power to Goneril and Regan, and for disowning Cordelia, the only daughter he can really trust.

Goneril enters, complaining to Lear about his noisy, riotous hundred knights.  Lear insists they’re well-behaved, but she would have half the number dismissed, leaving Lear with fifty to follow him.  Lear is enraged at this.  The Duke of Albany, having just entered the room, is at a loss as to what has angered Lear so.  Lear curses at Goneril, wishing either sterility on her, or for her to bear children as cursed with thanklessness as she is; then he leaves her for Regan’s castle.  ‘Caius’, the Fool, and Lear’s knights follow, ‘Caius’ to rush ahead with letters for Regan and Gloucester, preparing them for Lear’s arrival.

The Fool continues his witticisms with Lear, explaining that Lear shouldn’t have gotten old till he’d become wise.  Lear hopes he won’t go mad.

Act Two: In Gloucester’s castle, Edmund warns Edgar of their father’s wrath, and before Edgar runs away, he and Edmund act out a brief sword fight, Edmund yelling for help.  Alone, Edmund cuts his arm, and when Gloucester and his servants arrive, Edmund tells his father that Edgar has wounded him.  Gloucester tells his servants to chase after Edgar.

Regan and her husband, the Duke of Cornwall, arrive.  Gloucester expresses his grief at Edgar’s apparent disloyalty; Regan tells of how she doesn’t wish to receive Lear at her castle, having received letters from Goneril of Lear’s rage, something with which neither daughter sympathizes.

‘Caius’, having already arrived at Gloucester’s castle, sees Oswald come, and he speaks abusively to Oswald, knowing the knavish servant of Goneril is no friend to Lear.  ‘Caius’ then threatens physical violence against Oswald, who cries for help like the coward he is.

Gloucester, Regan and Cornwall arrive, asking what the matter is.  Oswald claims that ‘Caius’ is a ruffian whose life he’s spared out of respect for his age; ‘Caius’ says Oswald is a cowardly knave.  Having no sympathy for ‘Caius’, Cornwall asks what Oswald’s fault is, then says ‘Caius’ is the real knave, since he affects “a saucy roughness” and is proud of his bluntness.  Cornwall and Regan have him put in the stocks, his legs bound; ‘Caius’ says it’s a shocking thing to stock the king’s messenger, but Cornwall will gladly take responsibility for that.

Everyone leaves ‘Caius’ after Gloucester has apologized for Cornwall’s excessive punishment.  Alone, ‘Caius’ takes out a letter he’s received from Cordelia, one which says she’s raising the French army to invade England and restore Lear to the throne.  He falls asleep.

Having run a long time to escape his father’s pursuing servants, Edgar is in the open country, and in a soliloquy discusses his plan to remove his clothes and cover himself with mud.  He’ll pretend to be ‘poor Tom’, a mad Bedlam beggar, so no one will know his true identity.

Lear, the Fool, and the knights arrive at Gloucester’s castle, shocked to see ‘Caius’ in the stocks.  Lear can’t believe his daughter and son-in-law would dishonour him by stocking his messenger, but ‘Caius’ insists they have.

Lear has Gloucester fetch Regan and Cornwall, so they can explain themselves; Gloucester returns, saying they say they are tired from travelling long (a feeble excuse not to obey their king) and won’t come at the moment.  Enraged that he is being treated with the same lack of respect he received in Goneril’s castle, Lear demands that Gloucester go back and fetch them.  Embarrassed, Gloucester goes back to get them.

‘Caius’ is released from the stocks, and Lear is angry to know that Cornwall, having finally arrived with Regan, is indeed responsible for stocking ‘Caius’.  When Lear complains of Goneril’s attitude, Regan rationalizes her sister’s actions and asks Lear to return to her castle with only fifty knights.  When furious Lear says Goneril has his eternal curses, manipulative Regan tearfully complains that he’ll curse her when he’s again in a rash mood; but he reassures her that he never will.

Goneril arrives, to Lear’s dismay, and he is further chagrined to see Regan hold her sister’s hands, loyal to her rather than to him.  He says that Goneril is his only in the sense that a disease or a boil on the skin belongs to someone, out of unfortunate necessity, rather than out of love.

Goneril and Regan rationalize the reduction of knights to fifty, saying it would be almost impossible to provide for one hundred men, and that fifty should be more than sufficient.  Furthermore, Goneril’s and Regan’s servants should be sufficient to attend to Lear’s needs.  This upsets the king all the more.

Regan finds attending to even fifty knights to be too burdensome, and says she’ll reduce Lear’s number to twenty-five.  Since Goneril’s love seems to double Regan’s, he says he’ll return to her; but even Goneril won’t accept fifty knights now.  She and Regan wonder why he needs even twenty-five knights, or any at all!

Now without even one knight, Lear knows he has lost all power and authority, and in his feelings of having been betrayed, he’s even losing his sanity.  In a fury, he leaves the castle with ‘Caius’ and the Fool.

A rainstorm has begun outside, and Goneril, Regan, and Cornwall fear that Lear and his dismissed knights may storm the castle.  Gloucester is ordered to lock his castle doors, leaving the old king homeless in the storm at night.  Gloucester reluctantly does so.

Act Three: Out in the rainstorm, Kent tells a gentleman about the division between the Dukes of Albany and of Cornwall, and about the plan to take Lear to Dover, where the French army will be, to help settle the dispute.

In his madness, Lear rants and raves while being soaked in the rain and wind.  (See Quote 3 from my ‘Analysis’.)  He insists that he finds no fault with the inclement weather, since he gave nothing to it, as he gave Goneril and Regan, who should be grateful.  He “will be the pattern of all patience”; he will endure whatever harshness the wind and rain hits him with, for his daughters’ wickedness is far more insupportable.  (See Quote 4.)  ‘Caius’ and the Fool urge Lear to find shelter, but the mad king insists on braving the weather still.

In Gloucester’s castle, Gloucester tells Edmund of the plan to restore Lear to the throne, the French army having landed in Dover.  Though Gloucester assumes Edmund won’t tell Goneril and Regan about what they will consider treason, he of course will.

Still standing in the storm, Lear imagines the suffering of the homeless during this night; his heart aches to know that he, their king, has done too little for them.  To be in their wretched condition seems therapeutic to Lear, for he can truly pity them, and by becoming their equal, he knows justice is finally being done for them.

The Fool goes into a hovel where he and ‘Caius’ hope Lear will soon take shelter, but the Fool is frightened by a madman in there; both come out.  The madman is really Edgar, covered in mud and calling himself ‘poor Tom’.  He rants and raves wildly about all the devils he’s known and been possessed by.  Lear assumes ‘Tom’ is mad because his daughters have betrayed him, as Lear’s have him.  As ‘Tom’ continues ranting about devils (Quote 5), Lear is impressed, imagining the madman to be a “Noble philosopher.”

Gloucester has come out to them, and he leads them to an outhouse nearby his castle, where they can sleep for the night.

When Cornwall learns of Gloucester’s colluding with Lear and the French army, Gloucester is deemed a traitor.  Cornwall promises to make Edmund the next Earl of Gloucester; Edmund pretends to be sad about betraying his father.

In the outhouse, Lear gives an imaginary trial for Goneril and Regan.  Edgar, noting the real insanity of Lear, finds relative comfort in how his own sufferings aren’t as severe.

In Gloucester’s castle, when Goneril and Regan learn of Gloucester’s treason, the former suggests plucking out his eyes.  Goneril, Edmund, and Oswald leave, while Gloucester is searched for.

Gloucester, now apprehended, is brought in and pinioned to a chair by two or three servants.  He demands of Regan and Cornwall why he, the host of his castle, is being so mistreated by his guests.  Regan and Cornwall call him a traitor; Regan plucks his white beard contemptuously.  She and Cornwall ask where “the lunatic king” is being sent.

Gloucester tells of receiving a letter from “a neutral heart”, and of sending Lear to Dover.  When they angrily demand why to Dover, Gloucester says he’d not have them pluck out poor old Lear’s eyes.  Though he hopes to see the day of Lear’s revenge, Cornwall says he never will.

Cornwall puts out one of Gloucester’s eyes, leaving him with only one.  One of the servants fights with Cornwall, trying to stop him from putting out Gloucester’s other eye.  Cornwall is mortally wounded, but Regan takes a sword and kills the rebelling servant.  Cornwall goes back in pain to Gloucester and puts out his other eye.

In his agony, Gloucester calls out for Edmund, but Regan tells him that Edmund, having informed them of Gloucester’s treason, hates him.  Now Gloucester, like Lear, despairingly knows which of his offspring to trust, and which not to.  Regan has him thrown outside.  Cornwall dies of his wound, though Regan, secretly in love with Edmund, doesn’t care.

The servants, pitying Gloucester, will get flax and egg-whites to apply to his eyes.

Act Four: Outside, Edgar is horrified to see an old servant guiding blind Gloucester, who in his despair doesn’t want any help.  Gloucester has no way to go; having distrusted the wrong son, he stumbled when he saw.  If he could only have Edgar with him again, it would be as though he had eyes again.

The heaviness of Edgar’s sorrow returns to see his father in such a wretched condition.  Still all covered in mud, he’s still known to everyone as ‘poor Tom’, the mad beggar.  Gloucester imagines a similar cruelty inflicted on ‘Tom’ as on himself, a cruelty the gods inflict on all of us (Quote 6).  He tells the servant to find clothes for ‘Tom’, since he wants the madman to lead him from now on.  After all, only a madman would willingly lead Gloucester to a cliff in Dover, from which the suicidal blind man hopes to jump.

Before Albany’s palace, Oswald tells Goneril of how the Duke of Albany, her husband, is gladdened by the arrival of the French army, and saddened by her coming.  She assumes Albany acts this way out of cowardice and weakness.  Secretly in love with Edmund, as Regan is, Goneril gives him a love-token and a kiss.  Edmund leaves, and Albany enters; the latter has even more contempt for her than she has for him, knowing what she, Regan, and Cornwall have done to Lear.  He’s then horrified to learn that Gloucester’s been blinded, and though Albany must help fight against the French invaders, he hopes to avenge Gloucester for his eyes.

Kent and Lear have arrived at the French camp near Dover.  Kent speaks with a gentleman about the current situation, and about Cordelia, who is deeply distressed for her father.  They must prepare for the armies of Albany and Cornwall; Kent will take the gentleman to where Lear is.

Also in Dover, Cordelia has her men search for her mad father, whose head is crowned with weeds, hemlock, nettles, cuckoo-flowers, etc.

Regan, aware of Goneril’s love of Edmund, and therefore jealous, tells Oswald to give Edmund a note she’s written.  She says that since she is now a widow, Edmund is more appropriate as a husband for her than for Goneril, who obviously doesn’t love her husband.  She also tells Oswald that if he should find Gloucester, he should kill him–he’ll be rewarded for such service.

Now also in Dover, Edgar leads Gloucester to what he says is a cliff; to look down at such a deep fall, Edgar says, is frightening.  Gloucester gives ‘poor Tom’ a jewel in a purse and tells him to leave.  Edgar steps back, whispering that his plan is to cure his father of his despair by pretending to indulge it.  Gloucester says some loving words for Edgar, then jumps.

The ‘cliff’ that Gloucester has fallen from is nothing of the sort; he’s done little more than fallen down.  Edgar, now pretending to be a man in the country (for that’s where they actually are), comes over to Gloucester and praises the gods for preserving him after such a long fall.  Gloucester is confused as to whether he’s actually fallen or not; Edgar says that a vile-looking devil at the top of the cliff was with Gloucester when he fell.  Edgar says the gods, in preserving Gloucester’s life, surely want the blind old man to continue living.

Edgar and Gloucester find mad King Lear, dressed in weeds.  Lear rants on and on about how Goneril and Regan lied in their professing of their love for him.

Gloucester, recognizing Lear’s voice, asks if he’s the king; Lear affirms this, as if it were obvious (Quote 7).  Lear continues ranting insanely, imagining he’s forgiving men for adultery, since illegitimate Edmund seemed better to Gloucester than legitimate Goneril and Regan were to Lear.  Besides, he needs soldiers, so he would have “copulation thrive”.  Edgar can only pity Lear’s “Reason in madness!”

A gentleman and attendants come to get Lear and take him to Cordelia; but first they have to chase after the mad king, for he suddenly runs away.

Oswald then finds Edgar and Gloucester, and brandishing a sword, prepares to kill the blind old man, who welcomes the thought of being put out of his misery.  Edgar fights Oswald and mortally wounds him.  Before Oswald dies, though, he tells Edgar of a letter Goneril has written for Edmund to read.  Edgar reads it, scowling from learning of her plot to kill Albany and marry Edmund.

In Cordelia’s tent, Lear has been bathed, changed into clean clothes, and tended to by doctors, who have used medicines to treat him.  He is sleeping.  Cordelia thanks Kent for his efforts to take care of her father; he doesn’t want her to reveal that he’s Kent until he deems the time fit to do so.  She continues to worry about her father.  The doctor would have Lear wake, since he’s been sleeping for a long time.

Lear wakes up and looks at her; he’s not sure, but he thinks she’s Cordelia.  She tearfully affirms this, while he assumes she hates him for disowning her; she, of course, can easily forgive his rash treatment of her at the beginning of the play.  He now knows that, underneath all the kingly pomp, he’s just a foolish old man.

Act Five: At the British camp near Dover, Goneril and Regan continue in their jealous rivalry over Edmund, bickering with each other, with him and Albany present.  The sisters and Edmund leave.  When Edgar, still in a poor man’s rags, has a chance to speak alone with Albany, he gives him Goneril’s incriminating letter.  Albany reads the letter, and is horrified at his wife’s treachery.  Edgar says a man will challenge Edmund to a duel after the war; he leaves Albany.

Edmund has promised himself to both Goneril and Regan.  Whichever sister he chooses, he knows the power he’ll acquire mustn’t be threatened by Lear or Cordelia, whom he plans to have executed after the war.

The war happens, and the French lose.  Edgar tells Gloucester they must leave, for Lear and Cordelia have been taken prisoner.  Gloucester is still in bad thoughts, and his son must continue to try to comfort him.

Though Lear is Edmund’s prisoner, he’s content to have Cordelia’s love, and so he says that, in prison, they’ll “sing like birds i’ th’ cage.”  She asks if he wants to see Goneril and Regan; he says emphatically that he doesn’t, and guards take them away.  Edmund gives a captain a note, telling him to have the two prisoners executed.

Albany enters, demanding to have Lear and Cordelia under his protection.  Goneril and Regan continue in their bitter rivalry over Edmund, though Regan is ill.  (In an aside, Goneril admits to having poisoned Regan: see Quote 8.)  Regan, growing sicker, leaves.  Albany accuses Edmund of treason; if after a trumpet blows, and no man appears to challenge Edmund to a duel, Albany will.

The trumpet blows, and a masked man appears, accusing Edmund of disloyalty to his family and to his country.

The two men fight, and Edmund is mortally wounded.  Goneril is hysterical over dying Edmund.  Albany produces her incriminating letter, and she runs away to kill herself.

Dying, Edmund asks who the masked man is.  The mask comes off, and it’s Edgar, who then tells the story of how he took care of their blind father; then, when he finally revealed himself as Edgar, Gloucester died of a heart attack, being caught between extremes of joy and grief.

Edmund is actually moved to hear the story of his pitiful father.  A gentleman holding a bloody knife informs all that Goneril has killed herself with the knife, and Regan has died of the poisoning.  Kent appears, no longer as ‘Caius’, and asks where his king is.  Edmund tells them that Lear and Cordelia are to be executed; in spite of his nature, Edmund will do some good in reversing the order of execution.  A servant rushes off with Edmund’s sword as proof of the order’s reversal.  Edmund is borne away.

While Lear has been saved, it’s too late for Cordelia.  A wailing Lear enters carrying her lifeless body (Quote 9).  Lear would have a glass put by her mouth; if by chance the glass fogs up with her breath, she’ll still be living.  He killed the servant who hanged her.  Kent, Edgar, and Albany watch the king in horror and profound pity for his suffering.

A messenger enters, mentioning the death of Edmund.  Albany dismisses his death as a trifle in comparison to the tragedy he’s watching with Kent and Edgar.

Lear says his “fool is hanged”: is this the Fool, or his daughter (i.e., his ‘foal’)?  He asks why an animal should be allowed to live, but not Cordelia.  Then suddenly, Lear thinks he sees her lips moving; in a confusion of joy and grief similar to that of Gloucester, Lear dies of a heart attack.

Kent is amazed that Lear was able to endure for so long.  Albany imagines the rule of England will be divided between Edgar and Kent; but Kent, hearing the voice of Lear’s ghost, must kill himself to continue serving his king in the afterlife.

Edgar concludes the play by saying we must “Say what we feel, not what we ought to say.”

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Analysis of ‘King Lear’

King Lear is a tragedy Shakespeare wrote between 1603 and 1606.  It is based on the legendary King Leir of Britain, an ancient pagan king who foolishly gives his power to his two evil daughters, Goneril and Regan, while banishing his good daughter Cordelia for not flattering him as her sisters have.  After Leir has lost everything due to the wickedness of her sisters, Cordelia–having married the King of France–raises the French army, invades England, and restores the throne to Leir.

Shakespeare replaced the legend’s happy ending with a heartbreakingly tragic one, shocking his audience, who were used to the original story.  Because his version was too sorrowful for most people at the time to bear, a happy ending was created by Nahum Tate later in the 17th century, after the Restoration; this version–in which Lear’s throne is restored (a fitting reference to Charles II’s own restoration), the Fool is omitted completely, and Cordelia lives and even marries Edgar–was used until the 19th century, when Shakespeare’s ending was reconsidered and restored.

Now, the tragic ending is not only preferred, but is considered, along with the rest of the play, a supreme artistic achievement, on a level with Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, or Michelangelo’s Pieta.  King Lear is a profound analysis of human suffering in all its forms, therefore justifying the tragic ending.

Here are some famous quotes:

1. “Which of you shall we say doth love us most?” –Lear, Act I, scene i, line 50

2. “Nothing will come of nothing: speak again.” –Lear, Act I, scene i, line 89

3. “Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks; rage, blow./You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout/Till you have drench’d out steeples, drown’d the cocks./You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,/Vaunt-couriers of oak-cleaving thunder-bolts,/Singe my white head.  And thou, all-shaking thunder,/Strike flat the thick rotundity o’ th’ world;/Crack nature’s moulds, all germens spill at once,/That makes ingrateful man.” –Lear, Act III, scene ii, lines 1-9

4. “I am a man/More sinn’d against than sinning!” –Lear, Act III, scene ii, lines 59-60

5. “The prince of darkness is a gentleman.” –Edgar, as ‘poor Tom’, Act III, scene iv, line 139

6. “As flies to wanton boys are we to th’ gods–/They kill us for their sport.”  –Gloucester, Act IV, scene i, lines 37-38

7. “Ay, every inch a king.” –Lear, Act IV, scene vi, line 107

8. “If not, I’ll ne’er trust medicine.” –Goneril, on having poisoned Regan, Act V, scene iii, line 97

9. “Howl, howl, howl, howl!  O, you are men of stones!/Had I your tongues and eyes, I’d use them so/That heaven’s vault should crack.  She’s gone for ever./I know when one is dead and when one lives;/She’s dead as earth.  Lend me a looking-glass;/If that her breath will mist or stain the stone,/Why, then she lives.” –Lear, Act V, scene iii, lines 257-263

As was mentioned above, this play is a profound exploration of human suffering in many forms. One form in particular is loss.  Lear loses everything in this play: by first giving up his kingdom to his two wicked daughters, foolishly thinking they love him, he loses the one hundred knights he reserved for himself.  Then he loses all his power and authority as king.  When he’s locked out of Gloucester’s castle during a stormy night, he’s lost the protection of shelter.  Reduced to the status of a homeless beggar, and realizing his foolishness in trusting evil Goneril and Regan, but not good Cordelia, Lear loses his sanity.

After he’s taken to Dover and restored to health by a doctor Cordelia’s provided, Lear temporarily regains his mental health, as well as gets her back, of course.  But after her army loses the war against that of Goneril and Regan, and she is hanged, Lear loses that so fragilely regained wellness of mind; and finally in his heartbreak over losing her forever, the old man loses his life with a heart attack.

He does gain one thing, though: self-knowledge.  Underneath the royal pomp, he’s just an old man…and a foolish one, at that.  His lack of self-understanding at the beginning of the play is noted by Goneril and Regan, who say he’s only “slenderly known himself.”  Later, Lear himself says, “Who am I, sir?” to impudent Oswald, and then to Goneril et al, “Does any here know me?  This is not Lear./Does Lear walk thus?  Speak thus?  Where are his eyes?/Either his notion weakens, or his discernings/Are lethargic.–Ha! waking? ‘Tis not so.–/Who is it that can tell me who I am?”

He isn’t the only one to suffer loss, though.  In a subplot that parallels the Lear story, the Earl of Gloucester is deceived by his evil, bastard son Edmund into believing that his good, legitimate son, Edgar, is plotting to kill him to gain his land.

Later, when Edmund betrays Gloucester for trying to help Lear against the machinations of Goneril, Regan and her husband, the Duke of Cornwall, they accuse him of treason, and Cornwall puts Gloucester’s eyes out.  Only then does he brokenheartedly realize which son is the good one, and which the bad.

Edgar, taking care of his blind father after he’s been thrown outside as Lear was, manages to dissuade Gloucester from committing suicide; but when Edgar reveals himself, Gloucester also has a heart attack, and loses his life.

With all of the loss and suffering, we come to another important theme in the play: nihilism.  As we have seen, Lear and Gloucester are reduced to nothing.  Other characters to die are, as we have seen, Cordelia, Goneril, Regan, Cornwall, Oswald, and Edmund, though we may not mourn the loss of those last five so much. The kingdom of England all but falls to pieces by the end of the play, its fragile state to be restored by Edgar and the Duke of Albany.  The Earl of Kent will kill himself, since he senses the ghost of Lear requiring his continued services in the afterlife.  Words of negation, like ‘nothing’ and ‘never’, are stated many times throughout the play.  Then there is mad Lear’s shout, “kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill!”

Sometimes when we compare levels of suffering, one can find comfort for oneself in pitying the greater suffering of another, as Edgar does in a soliloquy in a shelter Gloucester has provided for homeless Lear et al.  Edgar’s witnessing of Lear’s real madness in the storm, as opposed to Edgar’s feigned insanity in his role as ‘poor Tom’, makes him realize his persecution by his father isn’t so bad a situation to be in.  But the next day, when he sees his eyeless father driven to despair, the heaviness of Edgar’s sorrow returns.

One particularly striking feature of this tragedy is how it inhabits an upside-down world.  In this world, as in Macbeth, what is normally bad is good, and what is normally good is bad.  Those who speak bluntly or rudely (Cordelia, Kent, and the Fool) are good, and they are censured, punished, and even banished by the wicked Cornwall or foolish king.  Those who speak politely, who flatter, are evil, as Goneril, Regan, and Cornwall are (see also Quote 5).  To be a traitor against England, as Gloucester is against the rule of Goneril and Regan, is good; to be loyal to their rule is evil, as Oswald is.  To invade England, as Cordelia’s French army does, is good.

Good sons and daughters are confused with evil ones, as we have seen.  Sons and daughters switch roles with parents, since Goneril and Regan are supposed to give shelter to retired Lear in their castles, while Cordelia actually takes care of him in Dover, and Edgar protects his blind father.  The Fool even notes the switch of parent/daughter roles, mentioning the foolish notion to Lear: “…e’er since thou mad’st thy daughters thy mothers; for when you gav’st them the rod, and put’st down thine own breeches…” (Act I, scene iv, lines 170-173)

To disobey an edict of banishment is good, as Kent does in disguising himself as Caius and continuing to serve Lear, and Cordelia does in coming back to England with the French army.

A king is reduced to a beggar: in his homelessness in the rainstorm, he contemplates his meagre charity to other wretches in the same plight.  He says, “Poor naked wretches, wheresoe’er you are,/That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,/How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,/Your loop’d and window’d raggedness, defend you/From seasons such as these?  O, I have ta’en /Too little care of this!  Take physic, pomp:/Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,/That thou mayst shake the super flux to them,/And show the heavens more just.”

The feigned madness of ‘poor Tom’ seems like philosophy to deranged Lear.  Indeed, as Edgar is maniacally ranting, Lear wishes to continue listening to “this philosopher”, “this same learned Theban”, “Noble philosopher”, and “good Athenian”.

When Lear has his sanity, he foolishly and vainly believes Goneril’s and Regan’s empty words of flattery are truth; in his madness, he finally knows the wicked daughters’ true nature.  A sane Lear banishes Kent and disowns Cordelia: fatally foolish mistakes.  In his mania, he realizes they are his true friends, as is the blunt Fool, who, no real fool, speaks only witty wisdom throughout the play, telling Lear of his folly.

When Gloucester has his eyes, he is blind to Edmund’s slanders about Edgar; in his blindness, eyeless Gloucester knows which son is truly good, and which truly evil.

When Cordelia refuses to flatter her father, she is truly loving, for she won’t speak loving words just to gain land and power; Goneril and Regan gush with speeches of love, but think only of gaining his land.  Kent is similarly rude to his king, but loves him and cares for him so much, he’ll kill himself to serve his master’s ghost.

Illegitimate Edmund will gain his father’s land, but legitimate Edgar, forced to flee his home, is hounded by his father’s servants.

All of these examples of an upside-down world indicate its chaos, symbolized by the storm that occurs appropriately right in the middle of the play, when the king is made into a beggar.  Small wonder Akira Kurosawa called his Japanese movie version of King Lear by the name of Ran, meaning ‘chaos’, ‘disorder’.

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Bring It On

We all want a just society, and disaffection with the increasingly fascist nature of the world is reaching epidemic–nay, pandemic–proportions.  There have been demonstrations in the streets of America, Brazil, Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Egypt, and elsewhere.  More and more people are getting fed up.  Some call our oppressors ‘The Illuminati’; others, like me, simply call them the ruling class.  Many of us want revolution, and find the usual political, ‘democratic’ solutions no longer valid.  We certainly don’t want things to get worse.

Well, maybe I shouldn’t include myself in that last sentence…at least not fully.  I’d hate to have to put up with even worse injustice, but at the same time, I’d also hate it if things got ‘comfortable’ again, and we all got used to the situation, and were no longer agitating.  The ruling class thrives on our apathy and laziness, and if we become content with a ‘tolerable’ level of oppression, they can continue getting away with their crimes against us.

Imagine a full economic recovery…until the next crisis, say, five or ten years later.  By that time, most of our present anger will have probably subsided, and we’ll have to build up the revolutionary spirit all over again.  The ruling class would love that.

Imagine we re-elected some kinder, moderately left-wing parties, and they brought back social programs for the poor, and everyone was happy again, except the conservatives, of course.  But after a decade or so of socialism, what if the leftist parties were to suffer scandals, and right-wing parties got re-elected?  And what if they were to take away those social programs, and the poor were right back to where they are now.  Again, the ruling class would win another ten years or so of no real threat to their power.

Now let’s imagine another possible scenario: the ruling class, instead of temporarily backing off, gets even more arrogant, and continues trampling on our rights, paying the cops extra well to give us the beatings even more ruthlessly when we try to protest; they ratchet up the internet surveillance to nab more dangerous agitators; wages continue to go down for workers; union activity is crushed; we’re increasingly poisoned by Monsanto ‘food’; more foreclosures increase the number of the homeless; and the mainstream media continue to lie and distract, even though most of us finally know they’re lying.  What then?

In our hopelessness, knowing we have nothing to lose, we, after careful planning, finally rise in worldwide revolution.  Part of me is scared at the thought, for indeed, it would be bloody, chaotic, and violent.  But part of me would love that courageous fight for liberation, too.  Before that can really happen, though, we anarchists have to deal with an annoying group who has bastardized the words ‘anarchist’, ‘libertarian’, and now, even, ‘exploitation’.

This problematical group, one that either fancies themselves as, or pretends to be, revolutionaries, call themselves ‘anarcho-capitalists’ (an-caps).  They euphemistically call capitalism the ‘free market’, imagining that consumer preference will magically steer businesses away from corruption by choosing not to buy products from exploitative companies, as if most consumers are motivated primarily by anything other than the desirability of the product, or are even aware of exploitation in its various forms.

Worse than that, many an-caps are trying to invalidate the Marxist idea that bosses exploit workers by keeping the surplus value (profits) instead of sharing it with workers.  An-caps, in what amounts to nothing more than a word game (and a clumsy one at that), try to turn the Marxist argument upside-down and claim that, when a business suffers a loss and workers continue to be paid the same wages, the workers must be exploiting the boss!  Since even an-caps know this to be a ridiculous assertion, the Marxist inverse, apparently, is equally absurd.

It shouldn’t be necessary to disprove this laughable an-cap idea, but what is not so laughable is how this disingenuous assertion is not only being taken seriously by many, it’s also being used to justify keeping workers’ wages low.  So I’ll debunk the argument now.

An-caps are essentially denying the hierarchical, power-based relationship between boss and worker, imagining instead that being hired to work for wages is ‘voluntary’ (an-caps love that word) and therefore fair.  Workers, apparently, are free to accept or reject any job offers they are given.

The problem with this argument is that workers, when ‘freely’ rejecting bad job offers, put themselves at risk of poverty or starvation, a problem that gets more pressing during harsh economic times.  In other words, workers have little choice, whereas bosses can freely choose from potentially many other people ‘willing’ to work for less pay, and bosses can obviously take advantage of, or exploit, this situation.  Workers’ ‘willingness’ to work for less comes from nothing other than their desperate need to survive, not from a lack of greed.  Greed is far more often the boss’s vice than it is the worker’s.

The boss, being the one with the power, has much more choice than the workers: he or she makes the decision as to how much to pay the workers–the workers have no such choice.  Accordingly, he pays them as little as he can get away with.  If the business succeeds or fails, he’s the one who makes the decisions as to the company’s direction, not his workers.  If the business suffers losses, his incompetence or bad luck is what’s at fault.  As for incompetence or laziness in his workers, he’s free to fire them.  They have no choice.

Profit or loss does not determine the direction for exploitation to go in: power does.  The closest workers have ever come to having power is when in strong unions; the strongest they ever get is when companies are collectivized, when everyone’s equal–even in such an optimal situation, individual workers still don’t have ascendancy over individual managers, because worker and manager are one and the same thing.

One cannot debunk the idea that the profit-making boss exploits workers by turning it upside-down and saying workers exploit the boss in a company that’s losing money, but not lowering wages.  Workers gain no financial advantage just because the boss isn’t making profits.  In such bad times, he isn’t the only one at risk of losing something; they are also at risk of losing something–their jobs.

When profits, especially big profits, are being made, that the boss is exploiting his workers–by continuing to pay them a paltry wage–is so obvious that the argument shouldn’t need to be spelled out to the an-cap.  It’s not that an-caps cannot see this reality (Why else would they want to preserve capitalism?  They either are bosses, or hope to be filthy-rich bosses in the future.); it’s that they are in deep denial.

All we need to see is the wealth and opulence super-successful businessmen enjoy–wearing Armani suits, buying jewelry and fur coats for their wives, driving in Porsches, etc.–and to know that this wealth comes from the sweat of their inadequately remunerated employees, to see the obvious exploitation.  Then we see the squalor so many of those workers live in, and the exploitation is even more obvious.

There is no parallel exploitation, nor is there a parallel non-exploitation, between profit-making and loss-suffering in companies.  When a company is suffering losses, it’s not like the workers are getting wages for nothing–they’re still working.  That an-caps would see paying workers, while not making profits, as ‘exploitation’ shows what worth capitalists see in their employees: we are nothing more than profit-making machines to them; we’re not even human.

Of course, an-caps will throw the rationalization at us that, since the boss puts up the money to start the business, the profits made are rightfully his.  But here’s a crucial question: where did the boss get the money to start the business?  Did he or she get a bank loan?  Did he get it from his rich Mom and Dad, the profits from their business having come from underpaying their employees?

In the case of the bank loan, the money owed can be reimbursed through the profits of the company, properly understood as money rightfully owned by the workers collectively, as a product of their labour; then the business can be seen as collectively owned, rather than privately so.  If there is to be compensation for the rich Mom’s and Dad’s money, the money should be repaid to the workers that Mom and Dad ripped off, not to Mom and Dad.

If it’s proven that the boss actually paid for the means of production from money he scrimped and saved, every cent being earned by the sweat of his own brow, and not somebody else’s, an appropriate portion of the profits can be given to him to reimburse him, then the business can be collectively owned; for any profits after that compensated amount should be considered collectively owned.  When we consider how difficult it is to scrounge up the money to start up a business without assistance from anyone, it is safe to assume that the great majority of businesses are initially financed through either bank loans or help from one’s wealthy family; this is why the poor usually stay poor, and the rich tend to stay where they are, too.

Put another way, the problem of poverty will be solved not through the poor working harder–that only helps the rich.  The problem will be solved in a meaningful way only through the abolition of private property.  Yet, if the capitalists and their friends in government still have a problem with this radical solution, then I say to them, “Bring it on!  Hit us with as much exploitation as you like.”  For one day, we workers will all get fed up with them, and losing our chains at last, we’ll gain the world.  The ruling class’s arrogance being more outrageous will only accelerate the inevitable revolution.

WORKERS OF THE WORLD, UNITE!!!

Detailed Synopsis of ‘Julius Caesar’

Act One: The citizens of Rome are celebrating Caesar’s defeat of Pompey, having Caesar’s statues “deck’d with ceremonies”.  Flavius and Marullus, tribunes sympathetic to Pompey and annoyed with Caesar’s growing power, rebuke the people and tell them to disperse and end the celebrations.  After the people leave, the two tribunes start taking the “trophies” off the statues.

Caesar, his wife Calpurnia, his friends Brutus and Mark Antony, Cassius, and Casca enter, triumphant after Pompey’s defeat.  Mark Antony is to run a race in the celebratory games of the Lupercalia.  A soothsayer warns Caesar of the upcoming March 15th (see quote 1 of my ‘Analysis of Julius Caesar‘), the day Caesar was murdered in 44 BC.  The soothsayer is ignored, and Mark Antony goes to run the race, being followed by all except Brutus and Cassius.

Cassius asks Brutus why he seems not to show him friendship as he had before.  Brutus insists he’s never grown cold to Cassius, but rather is preoccupied with his own personal issues.  They hear, from over where the race is being run, cheers for Caesar.  Brutus says he fears the people will make Caesar their king.  Emboldened, Cassius begins discussing Caesar’s alarming rise to power (see quote 2 of my ‘Analysis’).  He tries to convince Brutus of Caesar’s unworthiness of such ascendancy, citing two examples of weakness in a younger Caesar: once, Caesar in a swimming race with Cassius, gasped for help when almost drowning; another time, Caesar complained of sickness.  “And this man/Is now become a god,” gripes Cassius.

Brutus, a good friend of Caesar’s, says he will consider what Cassius has said.  Caesar and all the others return.  Caesar looks with suspicion on Cassius, and tells Mark Antony of his misgivings.  Mark Antony tells him not to fear Cassius.

Casca meets with Brutus and Cassius. He tells them of what happened during the race.  When Brutus and Cassius ask Casca what the cheering was about, Casca explains that Mark Antony three times offered Caesar a small but kingly coronet; Caesar refused it each time, though each refusal was weaker and weaker.  Casca, as much as Cassius, fears Caesar’s rise to power.  He says that Cicero gave a speech in Greek, something some of the others understood, but not Casca (see quote 3).  Then Casca mentions the arresting of Flavius and Marullus for having removed garlands from Caesar’s statues.

Casca, leaving, accepts an offer to dine with Cassius and further discuss these matters, if the meal is good.  Brutus also leaves.  Cassius, alone, tells of his plan to forge letters complaining of Caesar’s disturbing rise to power, and to have them delivered in the windows of Brutus’ home; this deceit, Cassius hopes, will convince Brutus to join the conspirators.

On the night before the ides of March, there is a terrible, frightening storm, full of omens portending the assassination of Caesar.  Casca fearfully discusses these portents with Cicero and Cassius.  Cassius has fellow conspirator Cinna cause a few more forged letters to be in Brutus’ possession.

Act Two: Brutus, troubled and unable to sleep, walks about his home, thinking about his friend Caesar and his problematic ascent to dictator.  While Brutus sees no actual evidence of ambition in Caesar, he recognizes the reality of ambition in most politicians, and their contempt for those below them.  Lucius, Brutus’ young servant, gives him one of Cassius’ letters; the boy then confirms that the next day will be the ides of March, and he goes to the door to let in the just-arrived conspirators.

Cassius introduces them to Brutus: they include Casca, Cinna, Trebonius, Decius Brutus, Metellus Cimber, and Ligarius.  Cassius suggests killing Mark Antony along with Caesar: Brutus rejects this idea, preferring to minimize violence and seeing no need to fear Mark Antony.  They agree to this and leave.

Brutus isn’t alone again for long; Portia, his wife, comes to ask him what’s troubling him.  He denies feelings of inquietude.  She insists that if he truly honoured her as his wife, he would tell her: though regarded as women are in this patriarchal society, she is of noble birth.  She proves her constancy to him by showing him a wound she’s given herself in the leg.  He wonders how he can be worthy of such an honourable wife.

The next morning, in Caesar’s home, Calpurnia complains to her husband of a terrible nightmare she’s had.  Reminding him of the recent ill omens, she begs him not to go to the Capitol that day.  Caesar insists he has nothing to fear; she insists he’s over-confident (see quote 4).  The entrails of a slain animal are examined for omens: the beast has no heart.  Finally, to allay her fears, he says he won’t go.

Decius Brutus arrives in Caesar’s home to take him to the Capitol, but Caesar refuses to go.  Decius Brutus asks for a reason: not wishing to seem weak, Caesar says, “The cause is in my will: I will not come.”  Then Caesar tells him of his wife’s dream–a statue of Caesar spouting not water but blood, in which many Romans wash their hands.

Decius Brutus reinterprets the dream, saying it symbolizes how Caesar will suck reviving blood of Rome; he need fear no danger at the Capitol, where the Senate will offer him a crown.  They may change their minds, however, if he doesn’t go: this piques Caesar’s ambition, and now he is embarrassed at having listened to his fearful wife.  He is resolved to go to the Capitol.

The other conspirators arrive, as does Mark Antony.  They go with Caesar to the Capitol.

Artemidorus, a Sophist, has written a letter for Caesar to read, warning him of the conspirators.

Portia has her servant, Lucius, go to the Capitol to see if Brutus is well.  She speaks with the soothsayer about whether Caesar is at the Capitol or not.  The soothsayer wishes to warn Caesar again.  She continues to fear for her husband and his plot against Caesar.

Act Three: Caesar, Brutus, Cassius, Casca, Decius Brutus, Metellus Cimber, Trebonius, Cinna, Mark Antony, Lepidus, Artemidorus, and the soothsayer are before the Capitol.  Caesar says to the soothsayer, “The ides of March are come.”  The soothsayer says, “Ay, Caesar, but not gone.”

Artemidorus tries to give Caesar his letter, but Decius Brutus stops him by having Caesar read a letter of Trebonius instead.  Cassius then tells Brutus his fears that the conspiracy is publicly known; Brutus reassures him that all is well, for Popilius Lena is taking Caesar aside.  Trebonius similarly takes Mark Antony aside, distracting him.  All preparations are being made to ensure that the assassination runs as smoothly as possible.  Caesar and the conspirators enter the Capitol.

Metellus Cimber begs Caesar to repatriate his banished brother Publius; Caesar refuses to.  The other conspirators kneel before Caesar one by one, asking of him the same repatriation; of course, they’re really distracting him.

Finally, Casca says, “Speak, hands, for me!” and gives Caesar the first stab.  The other conspirators brandish their blades and stab him; Brutus, the last one, stabs Caesar, who gasps his feelings of betrayal before dying (see quote 5).  The conspirators triumphantly proclaim liberty for Rome, promising no harm to any of the stunned senators still in the Capitol.

Brutus tells the conspirators to bathe their hands in Caesar’s blood.  Cassius imagines actors in the future performing plays of this great moment in history.  The conspirators plan to go outside to appease the terrified citizens and explain why they killed Caesar.

Mark Antony enters the room and coolly shakes the hands of the conspirators; though outraged, he must hide his fury for the sake of his safety.  He claims to be their friend, asking only for a just reason for Caesar’s murder.  Brutus promises to be generous with such reasons, and allows Mark Antony to honour Caesar’s memory in his funeral, so long as the conspirators aren’t vilified.

Cassius takes Brutus aside, saying it will be dangerous to allow Mark Antony to address the crowd.  Brutus reassures him that allowing Caesar’s friend to speak for him in his funeral will make the conspirators look generous.

The conspirators go outside to speak to the people and to calm them.  Alone, Mark Antony finally expresses his rage, begging Caesar’s pardon for being “gentle with these butchers.”  Over Caesar’s wounds, he prophesies all of Rome rising in civil war to avenge Caesar’s murder, killing scores of men to appease Caesar’s ghost (see quote 6).

Outside, Brutus addresses the people, explaining that while he was friend to Caesar, he was more friend to Rome in killing him, out of a fear that he would turn tyrant.  Only those un-Roman enough to want to be slaves to Caesar would be offended at Brutus’ slaying of him.  The easily manipulated crowd now sympathizes with Brutus.

Mark Antony comes out with Caesar’s bloody body.  Brutus asks everyone to stay and listen to Mark Antony; Brutus leaves.

The angry crowd, now hating Caesar, at first refuse to listen to his friend’s cries for their attention (see quote 7).  In a masterstroke of political rhetoric, Mark Antony turns the crowd’s sympathies back to Caesar and away from the conspirators by only sarcastically calling them “honourable men/Whose daggers have stabb’d Caesar” (see also quote 8), and reminding the people of Caesar’s generosity to them.  By the end of Antony’s speech, when he’s disclosed Caesar’s will–giving all Romans the freedom to enjoy walking about his private parks and orchards, and giving each Roman 75 drachmas–after teasingly delaying the will’s revelation, the people riot in the streets.  Mark Antony is content to have this disorderly rage, for he can use it to his political advantage.

The rioters find a poet who, after revealing his name to be Cinna (unluckily also a name of one of the conspirators), is killed by them.

Act Four: Mark Antony, Octavius (the future emperor Augustus) and Lepidus form the Second Triumvirate, and check off a list of those to be executed for their involvement in the conspiracy against Caesar.  After Lepidus is sent off to Caesar’s home to fetch the will, Antony disparages him as the weakest of the three triumvirs.  Octavius defends Lepidus, calling him “a tried and valiant soldier,” though Antony won’t acknowledge this.  (In the interactions between Antony and Octavius, there is a hint of the antagonism that would be fully developed in another Shakespearean Roman tragedy, Antony and Cleopatra.)  They will prepare their armies to fight those of Brutus and Cassius.

Cassius comes to where Brutus’ army is, and angrily enters Brutus’ tent.  He says Brutus has done him wrong in accusing soldiers in his army of taking bribes.  Brutus is not at all moved by Cassius’ sword and threats, for Brutus is “arm’d so strong in honesty”, and despises all corruption, be it that of Caesar or of Cassius.

Cassius is thus put in his place, and shocked when Brutus speaks of Portia’s suicide by swallowing fire, after worrying so much of her husband’s fortunes.  Titinius and Messala enter the tent, and the four men discuss the coming battle: Cassius believes they should wait for the enemy to come, tired from marching, while their own armies are well-rested; Brutus, not wanting the enemy to gain the aid of the men “in a forc’d affection” between the armies of the enemy and those of Brutus and Cassius, would have their armies march ahead to meet the enemy (see quote 9).  Messala tells Brutus of Portia’s suicide: Brutus responds stoically.

Brutus is left alone in his tent at night; his weary servant, Lucius, plays a tune on his harp, but falls asleep in the middle of playing.  Brutus, wishing to be kind to the boy, lets him sleep, then begins reading a book.

Caesar’s ghost appears to Brutus, saying they’ll meet again in Philippi.  Frightened Brutus wakes the boy and two other servants of his, asking if they’ve seen or heard anyone: they haven’t.

Act Five: Antony and Octavius meet with Brutus and Octavius, exchanging harsh words before preparing for battle.  Brutus and Cassius say farewell, knowing this may be the last time they see each other.

The battles begin, and though Brutus’ army is fairly successful at first, Cassius’ is clearly losing.  When he mistakenly thinks his best friend Titinius has been captured by the enemy, he feels ashamed to be still living, and has Pindarus stab him with the sword he used on Caesar.  Titinius returns with good news of the battle, but seeing his good friend Cassius dead, kills himself.  Brutus comes by and sees the two dead men; he notes the power of Caesar after death, causing his enemies to kill themselves.

In the final battle, Brutus’ army is losing, and he asks soldier after soldier to hold his sword while he runs on it; all of them refuse except Strato.  As Brutus is dying, he hopes Caesar’s spirit will rest in peace (see quote 10).

Mark Antony and Octavius arrive and look down on Brutus’ body.  Antony praises Brutus, the only conspirator to act not out of envy of Caesar, but for the good of Rome.  Octavius calls for rejoicing over their victory.

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Analysis of ‘Julius Caesar’

Julius Caesar is a tragedy Shakespeare is believed to have written in 1599; the play is based on the assassination in 44 BC of the ancient Roman dictator and its aftermath in the Battle of Philippi.  While Dante, in his Inferno, portrayed both leading conspirators, Brutus and Cassius, as traitors whose treachery is comparable to that of Judas Iscariot, Shakespeare portrays Brutus as being the only conspirator who acted selflessly, for the good of Rome.

Here are some famous quotes:

1. “Beware the ides of March.” –Soothsayer, Act I, Scene ii, line 18

2. “Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world/Like a Colossus, and we petty men/Walk under his huge legs, and peep about/To find ourselves dishonourable graves./Men at some time are masters of their fates:/The fault, dear Brutus, is  not in our stars,/But in ourselves, that we are underlings.”    –Cassius, Act I, Scene ii, lines 135-141

3. “…but for mine own part, it was Greek to me.” –Casca, Act I, Scene ii, around line 282

4. “Cowards die many times before their deaths;/The valiant never taste of death but once./Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,/It seems to me most strange that men should fear;/Seeing that death, a necessary end,/Will come when it will come.” –Caesar, Act II, Scene ii, lines 32-37

5. “Et tu, Brute?  –Then fall, Caesar!” –Caesar, Act III, Scene i, line 77

6. “Cry ‘Havoc!’ and let slip the dogs of war.” –Mark Antony, Act III, scene i, line 274

7. “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;/I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him./The evil that men do lives after them;/The good is oft interred with their bones;/So let it be with Caesar.” –Mark Antony, Act III, Scene ii. lines 73-77

8. “But Brutus says he was ambitious,/And Brutus is an honourable man.” –Mark Antony, Act III, Scene ii, lines 86-87

9. “There is a tide in the affairs of men/Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;/Omitted, all the voyage of their life/Is bound in shallows and in miseries./On such a full sea are we now afloat;/And we must take the current when it serves,/Or lose our ventures.” –Brutus, Act IV, Scene iii, lines 216-222

10. “Caesar, now be still:/I kill’d not thee with half so good a will.” –Brutus, Act V, Scene v, lines 50-51

The main theme of this play is constancy versus inconstancy, everyone in the play manifesting varying combinations of these two opposites.

First, we’ll look at examples of constancy.  At the end of the play, Mark Antony honours Brutus for being the one conspirator who acted not out of envy, but for the good of Rome.  Indeed, his constant loyalty to Rome even outweighs his loyalty to his friend, Caesar.  In all of Brutus’ speeches, be they public or private, he always puts Rome first.  In his home at night, before the other conspirators arrive, he speaks of how those who gain power often ignore the base degrees from which they’ve climbed.

“Th’abuse of greatness is, when it disjoins/Remorse from power; and to speak truth of Caesar,/I have not known when his affections sway’d/More than his reason.  But ’tis a common proof/That lowliness is young ambition’s ladder,/Whereto the climber-upward turns his face;/But when he once attains the upmost round,/He then unto the ladder turns his back,/Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees/By which he did ascend.  So Caesar may.” (Brutus, Act II, Scene i, lines 18-27)

During the plotting with the conspirators that night, Brutus rejects Cassius’ recommendation to kill Mark Antony, too, feeling their “course will seem too bloody”.  Only Caesar has to die.  After killing Caesar, Brutus tells the other conspirators to dip their hands in Caesar’s blood, and to plead their cause to the people: killing Caesar was for the good of Rome, not for the conspirators’ private profit, and they are to reveal themselves proudly as liberators from Caesar’s growing tyranny (Act III, Scene i).

Later in that scene, Brutus’ constancy is so full that he would allow Mark Antony to honour Caesar in his funeral for the good he did in his life; this generosity, of course, is a risk Brutus is taking, and one that ultimately leads to his death, but it also shows how constant he is.

When Brutus learns of officers in Cassius’ army taking bribes, he shows his opposition so openly that he wounds Cassius’ pride, resulting in a quarrel (Act IV, Scene iii). Brutus’ duty to Rome outweighs his kindness to his friends; such noble constancy is rare.

Finally, when all is lost in the wars between Brutus’ army and those of Mark Antony and Octavius (later Augustus), Brutus runs into his sword, accepting the continuing power of Caesar even after his death (see quote 10).

Portia, Brutus’ wife, is offended that he won’t tell her what’s troubling him and keeping him awake at night (Act II, scene i); she feels he doubts her constancy, which she proves by cutting a wound in her leg.  Later, when she fears for him and his shaky fortunes in the wars after killing Caesar, we learn she’s killed herself by swallowing burning coals, or fire, as it says in the text (Act IV, scene iii).

Julius Caesar’s constancy seems the greatest of all.  Though fearing suspicious types like Cassius, he insists “always I am Caesar” (Act I, scene ii).  He says “I am constant as the northern star” when he is asked for pardon for the banished brother of Metellus Cimber, one of the conspirators (Act III, scene i).  The conspirators, of course, almost immediately after, in the same scene, show their inconstancy to Caesar by stabbing him to death.

His power lives on after his death, though, for Mark Antony and Octavius act as his avenging agents.  His ghost appears to Brutus (Act IV, scene iii), showing us how Caesar still exists, even if no longer in physical form.  Brutus acknowledges the constancy of Caesar’s power when his avengers defeat Brutus and Cassius in the battles toward the end of the play, causing Cassius and his loyal friend, Titinius, to kill themselves.  “O Julius Caesar, thou art mighty yet!/Thy spirit walks abroad and turns our swords/In our own proper entrails.” (Brutus, Act V, scene iii, lines 93-95)

Now we’ll examine inconstancy, of which there’s plenty in this play.  Cassius’ inconstancy is particularly blatant.  He fears the growing power of Caesar, but is inconstant with the truth when he forges letters of complaint about Caesar’s tyranny, and has them tossed in the windows of Brutus’ home to trick him into joining the conspirators.  “I will this night,/In several hands, in at his windows throw,/As if they came from several citizens,/Writings, all tending to the great opinion/That Rome holds of his name; wherein obscurely/Caesar’s ambition shall be glanced at.” (Cassius, Act I, scene ii)

Cassius is opposed to Caesar’s corruption, but is lenient over the bribery his soldiers are guilty of; hence Brutus’ accusation that Cassius has an “itching palm” (Act IV, scene iii, line 10).

Cassius is constant, though, towards his friend, Titinius, when he, believing his friend has been taken by the enemy, kills himself.  “O, coward that I am to live so long/To see my best friend ta’en before my face!” (Cassius, Act V, scene iii, lines 34-35)  When Titinius, having not been taken, returns and sees Cassius lying dead on the ground, he kills himself, too.  “Brutus, come apace,/And see how I regarded Caius Cassius./By your leave, gods.  This is a roman’s part./Come, Cassius’ sword, and find Titinius’ heart.” (Titinius, Act V, scene iii, lines 87-90)

Conflicted Brutus is constant in his loyalty to Rome, but inconstant is his loyalty to his friend Caesar; hence, after his reluctant stab at Caesar, the betrayed, dying dictator gasps out his last words, “Et tu, Brute?” (Act III, scene i, line 76)

When Brutus, Cassius, Titinius, and Messala discuss the battle plans against the army of Mark Antony and Octavius, there is disagreement over where to meet the enemy: should they wait for them to arrive, tired from long marching, while their own armies are well-rested and ready, or should they march on and face the enemy farther ahead?  Cassius argues for the former, while Brutus argues the latter, based on the principle of inconstancy.

“The people ‘twixt Philippi and this ground/Do stand but in a forc’d affection;/For they have grudg’d us contribution./The enemy, marching along by them,/By them shall make a fuller number up,/Come on refresh’d, new-added, and encourag’d;/From which advantage shall we cut him off,/If at Philippi we do face him there,/These people at our back/…You must note beside/That we have tried the utmost of our friends,/Our legions are brim full, our cause is ripe./The enemy increaseth every day:/We, at the height, are ready to decline” (Brutus, Act IV, scene iii, lines 202-210, 210-215; then see Quote 9 above)

Brutus wants to fight Mark Antony and Octavius while his and Cassius’ armies still have the men “‘twixt Philippi and this ground” on their side, for, being “but in a forc’d affection”, those men may switch to the enemy’s side if Mark Antony and Octavius meet them before the battle.  If Brutus’ and Cassius’ armies cut the enemy off before they can meet those men in between, inconstancy won’t have an opportunity to give those men over to the enemy.

Elsewhere, Mark Antony seems constant in his loyalty to Caesar and to Rome in his “Friends, Romans, countrymen” speech, in which he passionately demonstrates Caesar’s love of the Roman people while sarcastically parroting Brutus’ “honourable” intentions.  Once he has the ever-malleable crowd following him, however, he seems happier to use this support for his own political ascendancy than for Caesar’s revenge.

“Now let it work.  Mischief, thou art afoot,/Take thou what course thou wilt,” Antony says as he watches the people of Rome riot, loot, and search for revenge for Caesar’s death (Act III, scene ii, lines 261-262).

Caesar himself is mostly constant, though he fears “lean and hungry” Cassius, and wants fat men about him; almost in the same breath, however, he says, “always I am Caesar”.  Also, he thrice refuses a kingly crown, though, as Casca reports, he refuses it less and less.  (Act I, scene ii, lines 220-240, etc.)

On the day of his murder, he allows the entreaties of his wife, Calpurnia, to make him stay at home (Act II, scene ii) when she tells him of a dream she’s had, seeming to portend his bloody death; yet when Decius Brutus gives a misleadingly positive interpretation of the dream, Caesar quickly changes his mind and leaves home with the conspirators.

The most blatant example of inconstancy, however, is that of the crowd of common Romans outside the Capitol after Caesar’s murder.  At first, they’re shocked and horrified that their beloved leader has been assassinated in a conspiracy (Act III, scene ii); Brutus quickly sways their opinion in his favour in a brief speech:

“If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of Caesar’s, to him I say that Brutus’ love to Caesar was no less than his.  If then that friend demand why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my answer: Not that I lov’d Caesar less, but that I lov’d Rome more.  Had you rather Caesar were living, and die all slaves, than that Caesar were dead, to live all free men?”

Then Mark Antony sways the people’s opinion back against the conspirators in his repeated ironic reference to Brutus, Cassius, et al as “honourable”, during his “Friends, Romans, countrymen,” speech.  All of this swaying of public opinion happens in the same scene, within a period of about a half hour.  How quickly a mob can be manipulated.  As passionate as they may be, they are rarely constant.

Detailed Synopsis for ‘The Taming of the Shrew’

Induction: Christopher Sly, a drunken tinker, rudely refuses to pay for his ale in an alehouse in England, annoying the hostess.  He falls asleep at his chair.

A lord and his men come to the alehouse after a hunt.  They see Sly asleep, and regarding him as contemptuously as the hostess has, the lord decides to play a trick on him.  He tells his men to carry the drunkard to his bedchamber.  There, they will trick him into thinking he’s a lord.

The lord has his page, the boy Bartholomew, dress up as a woman and pretend to be Sly’s dutiful, obedient wife.  When Sly wakes up, he finds himself wearing a lord’s bedclothes, and lying in a luxurious bedchamber.  Naturally confused, he insists he’s Christopher Sly the tinker; they say his identity as a tinker is the result of a dream he’s had during a fifteen-year coma, from which he’s just woken, to the tears of joy of his long-suffering wife.

The lord says Sly will now watch ‘a pleasant comedy’ that a group of actors has prepared.  Sly’s doctors say the entertainment will be good for his recovery.  The play begins:

Act One: Lucentio and his servant Tranio are entering Padua, since Lucentio is to study at the university there.  They see Baptista Minola and his two daughters, the shrewish Katherina and her younger sister Bianca.  Two suitors to Bianca, the elderly Gremio and foolish Hortensio, are disappointed to hear that Baptista won’t allow any wooing of Bianca until a husband can be found for Katherina.

Lucentio falls in love with the pretty Bianca instantly, forgetting all about his studies while focusing all his energy on winning her love.  Though Baptista won’t allow her to be married until the ‘too rough’ Katherina is wed, he wishes to find music and poetry teachers for both his daughters.  Lucentio thus plans to disguise himself as a Latin poetry teacher, calling himself ‘Cambio’.  Tranio is to pretend he’s Lucentio, and woo Bianca in the real Lucentio’s stead.  Master and servant swap clothes in the street, when Biondello, another servant of Lucentio’s, arrives, all confused to see his master dressed as Tranio, and vice versa.  Lucentio explains the whole plan to Biondello.

(The actors note that Christopher Sly, bored with the play, is nodding off.  He politely insists that he’s enjoying the performance, asking if there’s more…Actually, he wishes it was already over.)

Petruchio and his servant Grumio enter Padua.  Petruchio would have Grumio knock at the door of Hortensio’s home; and when Grumio grows argumentative over Petruchio’s ambiguous words, Petruchio threatens to knock his servant over the head.  When Grumio shouts in fear of his ‘mad’ master, Hortensio appears.

Petruchio and Hortensio greet each other, and Petruchio explains that his father has died, and he, without money, hopes to marry a woman and get a generous dowry.  He doesn’t care what the bride is like, as long as he gets lots of money.  The fact that Petruchio is Hortensio’s good friend is a deterrent from Hortensio telling Petruchio about the shrewish Katherina.  Still, Petruchio would get a good dowry from Baptista, so he willingly accepts.

Delighted with the hope of Katherina soon being married off, Hortensio tells Petruchio of his plan to disguise himself as ‘Licio’, a teacher of the lute.

Gremio comes with ‘Cambio’, hoping the would-be Latin teacher will woo Bianca on his behalf.  When Hortensio tells Gremio of Petruchio’s intention to marry Katherina, Gremio worries that Petruchio will change his mind when he learns of “all her faults.”  Petruchio reassures the others that he, being used to the harsh sounds of war, has no fear “of a woman’s tongue.”

Tranio appears, calling himself ‘Lucentio’ and telling everyone of his plan to woo Bianca, to the annoyance of Gremio and Hortensio.    All the men go to the Minolas’ house.

Act Two:  Angry and envious Katherina has Bianca’s hands tied, and demands that her sister tell her which man she loves the most.  Bianca says that she doesn’t love any particular man yet.  Katherina hits her.  Baptista comes over to break up the fight, pitying poor Bianca and unbinding her hands.  She leaves.  Katherina grows more enraged, imagining their father loves Bianca more, and that Bianca will be married first, thus shaming elder Katherina, who leaves in a fury.  Baptista laments his ill fortune as a father.

All the suitors arrive.  Gremio greets Baptista, and Petruchio asks about Katherina, praising her “beauty and her wit,/Her affability and bashful modesty./Her wondrous qualities and mild behaviour.”  Everyone hearing these words cannot believe his ears.  Petruchio introduces ‘Licio’ to Baptista as the girls’ music teacher.

Gremio introduces ‘Cambio’ to Baptista.  ‘Lucentio’ introduces himself as a suitor to Bianca.  A servant leads ‘Cambio’ and ‘Licio’ to the girls to begin their lessons.  Petruchio asks Baptista of the dowry he’ll receive for marrying Katherina.  Baptista offers a generous dowry, which more than satisfies Petruchio.  The only challenge will be gaining the shrew’s love.  Petruchio has no fears of not gaining it.  (See the first quote from my ‘Analysis of The Taming of the Shrew‘.)

‘Licio’ enters the room, his head beaten.  He explains how he tried to explain the proper fingering of the lute to Katherina, who’d gotten it wrong.  Angry with his corrections, she broke the lute over his head.  Petruchio is delighted, saying he loves her all the more, and eagerly wishing “to have some chat with her.”

Baptista goes to send her over to meet Petruchio.  As he is waiting, Petruchio goes over his plan to deny her every word of nastiness or unwillingness to marry him.  He’ll insist she’s sweet and gentle instead, as well as eager to marry him.

Katherina arrives: Petruchio addresses her as ‘Kate’.  She says she’s known as Katherina, but he insists she’s ‘Kate’.  She scoffs at his plans to marry her.  The arguing between them escalates till she slaps him for making a lewd joke.

When Baptista returns with Gremio and ‘Lucentio’, Petruchio denies Katherina’s reputed shrewishness and unwillingness to marry him, claiming her nastiness is all just an act she puts on in public, while privately she’s sweet and mild (and the only time to know a woman for real is in private).  They’ll be married on Sunday.  (She’d have him hanged then instead.)

The others would much prefer Petruchio’s story to hers, so the wedding is settled.  Now gleeful Baptista is ready to accept the best dowry offer of Gremio or ‘Lucentio’.  The latter offers a better one, so as long as ‘Lucentio’ can prove that his father can pay the dowry, Baptista prefers him as a husband for Bianca.  Baptista and Gremio leave.  Now Tranio must find someone to pretend to be Vincentio, Lucentio’s father.

Act Three:  ‘Cambio’ and ‘Licio’ are vying over who gets to teach, and therefore woo, Bianca.  ‘Cambio’ wins, slipping in his wooing words between Latin phrases; meanwhile, ‘Licio’ is tuning his lute.  Bianca tells ‘Cambio’, in Latin phrases alternating with her responding words, that he must try harder to win her heart, but not give up, for she clearly prefers him.  ‘Licio’ increasingly suspects him to be a suitor rather than a teacher; he also increasingly realizes he’s losing the suit.

On Sunday at the church, everyone is waiting for the very late Petruchio to arrive.  Katherina complains that everyone will say, “Lo, there is mad Petruchio’s wife,/If it would please him come and marry her!”  Indeed, Baptista acknowledges that she has good reason to be angry.

Finally, Petruchio and Grumio arrive, but they are dressed absurdly.  Biondello describes Petruchio as wearing “a new hat and an old jerkin; a pair of old breeches thrice turn’d; a pair of boots that have been candle-cases, one buckled, another lac’d…”, et cetera.  The others chide Petruchio for his clothes, and offer him better ones to change into.  He insists Katherina’s marrying him, not his clothes.  She very unwillingly goes with him into the church.

The comical goings-on during the ceremony are described by Gremio.  Petruchio “swore so loud/That, all amaz’d, the priest let fall the book;/And as he stoop’d again to take it up,/This mad-brain’d bridegroom took him such a cuff/That down fell priest and book, and book and priest.”

Petruchio and Katherina come out of the church, but he refuses to attend the wedding party, claiming he has urgent business to attend to back home.  Katherina won’t go with him, and the others sympathize with her; but he insists she’s his ‘goods’, his ‘chattels’, his ‘any thing’.  Acting like a madman, he pretends the others are trying to take her away, and he and Grumio, brandishing swords, claim to be protecting her as they take her with them to Verona.  An exasperated Baptista allows them to go.

Act Four: In Petruchio’s country house in Verona, Grumio arrives first, telling Curtis, another servant, of Petruchio’s mad, ungentlemanly treatment of Katherina during the journey from Padua to Verona.  She fell off her horse and into the mire, and he wouldn’t help her back on; he beat Grumio instead.  Grumio then tells Curtis to have all the servants ready to meet their master and Katherina.

Petruchio soon arrives with his filthy, exhausted, and starving bride.  He bullies his servants into making dinner quickly for them.  Dinner is served, but Petruchio rants and raves like a maniac that the meat is burnt (it isn’t).  A terrified Kate tries to reason with him; he then throws all the meat at the servants.  Poor Kate must now do without supper.

He plans to be similarly abusive when he sees the condition of her bed, not letting her sleep in it.  In a soliloquy, he tells of his plans to tame Kate (see quote 2 of my ‘Analysis of The Taming of the Shrew‘), saying that all of his depriving her of food and sleep is out of perfect love for her, since the rejected necessities haven’t been worthily prepared for so fine a wife.  He’d be happy to see if anyone knows a better way to tame a shrew, for “‘Tis charity to show.”

Tranio (still pretending to be Lucentio) and Hortensio (no longer pretending to be Licio) speak of how ‘Cambio’ is successfully courting Bianca: they watch the two lovers walk by.  Hortensio speaks of his plans to marry a wealthy widow instead, then leaves.  Tranio is now speaking with Lucentio and Bianca, and all three are happy to be “rid of Licio.”

Biondello comes, telling of a pedant whom they can use in their plans.  The pedant arrives, saying he’s from Mantua; but Tranio tells him “‘Tis death for any one in Mantua/To come to Padua.”  For the dukes of each city have a ‘private quarrel’ now publicly proclaimed.  The pedant, to protect himself, must disguise himself as Vincentio, a man of Pisa, and help Lucentio in promising to pay the dowry for Bianca’s hand in marriage.  The pedant agrees to do so.

In Petruchio’s country house, poor Kate continues to go hungry and without sleep.  (See quote 3 of my ‘Analysis’.)  Grumio tortures her by speaking of delicious meats, then denying her the food, claiming “it is too choleric a meat.”  She begins beating him when Petruchio and Hortensio arrive with meat.  Petruchio offers her the meat, which he has lovingly prepared himself for her; he is sure his ‘diligent’ work deserves some thanks.  She reluctantly thanks him, but he’d have Hortensio eat it instead.

Since Bianca is about to be married, Petruchio and Kate are to wear their finest clothes and go to Padua.  He’s had a tailor and haberdasher prepare a gown and hat for her to wear; she loves the clothes, but he is quick to find fault with them.  She insists that all gentlewomen wear hats like the one made, but he won’t have her wear one until she learns to be gentle.

When he says the gown hasn’t been made in accordance with his instructions, the tailor insists that it has, and even shows Petruchio and Grumio them in writing; but they both deny this.  So Kate won’t have the dress, either.  She and Petruchio will have to go to Padua in their modest attire instead; the clothes don’t make the man (or woman), anyway.

Petruchio claims it is seven o’clock, but when she says it’s about two, he says they won’t go to Padua unless she agrees with his incorrect estimation of the time.  Defeated, she agrees with it.

In Padua, the pedant as ‘Vincentio’ helps Tranio (as ‘Lucentio’) with the promising of payment of the dowry in a scene with Baptista.  Plans are made for the real Lucentio to marry Bianca in a church.

On the road to Padua with Hortensio, Petruchio looks up at the sun and calls it the moon.  When Kate says it’s the sun, he threatens to take her back home unless she says it’s the moon, which she now does.  Then he corrects her, saying it’s the sun, and she says it’s whatever he wants it to be.  Hortensio is impressed, hoping he can similarly tame his shrewish new wife, the wealthy widow!

They see an old man approaching, and Petruchio calls him a pretty young maiden.  He tells Kate to “embrace her for her beauty’s sake”.  Kate immediately greets the “Young budding virgin, fair and fresh and sweet”.  Petruchio now corrects her, saying she’s spoken to an old man.  She begs his pardon for her “mad mistaking”.

The old man, having overcome his surprise and confusion at the ‘merry’ woman,  then introduces himself as Vincentio of Pisa, on his way to Padua to visit his son.  Since Petruchio and Kate are going there too, they all decide to go there together.

Act Five: In Padua, Lucentio and Bianca prepare to get married, when Petruchio, Katherina, Vincentio, and Grumio arrive.

Vincentio is enraged to find the pedant pretending to be him, and even more so to find Biondello, Tranio (dressed in Lucentio’s clothes), and Baptista all confirming that the pedant is ‘Vincentio’, while Tranio is ‘Lucentio’.  Convinced of his servants’ villainy, Vincentio accuses them of having murdered his son.  Tranio, wishing to protect himself from getting into trouble, calls for an officer to have Vincentio arrested.  Baptista agrees with ‘Lucentio’ that the old ‘dotard’ should go to jail.

Lucentio and Bianca, now married, arrive, apologizing to Vincentio and explaining away all the disguises and deceit.  Now Baptista is angry that his daughter has married a man without her father’s consent.  All will be explained and resolved when they go.

Kate wishes to follow them and watch the resolution: Petruchio agrees, but wants her to kiss him first.  She is too shy to kiss in public, so he threatens to take her back to Verona.  She now agrees to kiss him.

Finally, all are in Lucentio’s house, celebrating at the wedding party.  Bianca, and especially the widow, prove themselves to be even more shrewish than Kate.  Indeed, Kate is quite annoyed with the widow’s meanness.  At one point, the three women leave the room, and all the men assume Kate to be still the most shrewish of the three.  Petruchio denies this, confidently entering a wager with Lucentio and Hortensio.  Each man will call his wife back into the room; the first wife to come, thus being the most obedient, will cause her husband to win the wager.

Overconfident Lucentio goes first, telling his father he’ll pay in full if he loses.  He has Biondello fetch Bianca; the servant returns without her, reporting that she says she is busy and cannot come.  All are shocked.

Hortensio nervously has Biondello entreat his wife to come.  Biondello returns, saying the widow refuses to come; she’d have her husband come to her!

“Worse and worse; she will not come!” Petruchio says to this.  The other two husbands insist, though, that Kate will be the most disobedient of all.  Petruchio is sure she will obey, and he tells Grumio to tell Kate that he commands her to come.  Grumio fetches her, and she comes immediately, in all submission.  Everyone is amazed.

Petruchio tells her to get the other two wives, and bring them back, by force if necessary.  She goes to get them.  Petruchio promises to show the stunned spectators more proof of the obedience of his transformed wife.  She returns with Bianca and the widow.  Petruchio tells Kate to remove her cap, as he doesn’t like how it looks on her, and drop it at her feet.  She immediately does so, to the continued amazement of all in the room.

Bianca and the widow find Kate’s obedience silly; Lucentio wishes he’d gotten such silliness from Bianca, so as not to lose the large sum of money he’s lost in the wager.  Bianca calls him a fool for relying on her obedience.

Petruchio tells Kate to tell “these headstrong women/What duty they do owe their lords and husbands.”  The widow will hear none of it; Petruchio demands she listen.  Kate chides Bianca and the widow in a long speech about why wives should obey their husbands.   (See quote 4.)

Petruchio is touched and appreciative of Kate’s love and duty (quote 5).  He triumphantly leaves the party with Kate, while the others are left wondering how he succeeded in taming her.

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Analysis of ‘The Taming of the Shrew’

The Taming of the Shrew is an early Shakespeare comedy, believed to have been written between 1590 and 1592.  Though this farce has always been a popular one, it isn’t without controversy.  The traditionalist attitude towards women that is depicted, especially in Katherina’s closing speech–about a wife’s required obedience to her husband, was problematical even back in Elizabethan times.  For this reason, modern productions try to soften the perceived sexism in various ways: for example, at the end of the Franco Zeffirelli film version, Katherina (played by Elizabeth Taylor) walks out on Petruchio (Richard Burton) without his permission; and in the 1929 film version with Douglas Fairbanks Jr. (Petruchio), Katherina (played by Mary Pickford) gives Bianca an ironic wink during the closing speech.  There is always an indication that Katherina’s feisty spirit hasn’t been, and never will be, broken by any man.

I will argue, however, that there is absolutely no need to alter the ending for feminism’s sake.  What must be remembered is that the Petruchio and Katherina story is just the play-within-the-play, a farce staged for Christopher Sly, the main character of the Induction.  Though all too often cut out of productions, this Induction is, in spite of its brevity, the real story of the play.

Here are some quotes:

“I am as peremptory as she proud-minded,/And where two raging fires meet together,/They do consume the thing that feeds their fury.” –Petruchio, Act II, scene i, lines 130-132

“Thus have I politicly begun my reign,/And ’tis my hope to end successfully./My falcon now is sharp and passing empty,/And till she stoop she must not be full-gorg’d,/For then she never looks upon her lure.” –Petruchio, Act IV, scene i, lines 172-176

“What, did he marry me to famish me?”  –Katherina, Act IV, scene iii, line 3

“FIe, fie!  unknit that threatening unkind brow,/And dart not scornful glances from those eyes/To wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor./It blots thy beauty as frosts do bite the meads,/Confounds thy fame as whirlwinds shake fair buds./And in no sense is meet or amiable./A woman mov’d is like a fountain troubled–/Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty;/And while it is so, none so dry or thirsty/Will deign to sip or touch one drop of it./Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,/Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee,/And for thy maintenance commits his body/To painful labour both by sea and land,/To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,/Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe;/And craves no other tribute at thy hands/But love, fair looks, and true obedience–/Too little payment for so great a debt./Such duty as the subject owes the prince,/Even such a woman oweth to her husband;/And when she is froward, peevish, sullen, sour,/And not obedient to his honest will,/What is she but a foul contending rebel/And graceless traitor to her loving lord?/I am asham’d that women are so simple/To offer war where they should kneel for peace;/Or seek for rule, supremacy, and sway,/When they are bound to serve, love, and obey./Why are our bodies soft and weak and smooth,/Unapt to toil and trouble in the world,/But that our soft conditions and our hearts/Should well agree with our external parts?/Come, come, you froward and unable worms!/My mind hath been as big as one of yours,/My heart as great, my reason haply more,/To bandy word for word and frown for frown;/But now I see our lances are but straws,/Our strength as weak, our weakness past compare,/That seeming to be most which we indeed least are./Then vail your stomachs, for it is no boot,/And place your hands below your husband’s foot;/In token of which duty, if he please,/My hand is ready, may it do him ease.”  –Katherina, Act V, scene 2, lines 136-179

“Why, there’s a wench!  Come on, and kiss me, Kate.”  –Petruchio, Act V, scene 2, line 180

The Induction is the key to understanding this play, for it is the real story, not the Petruchio and Katherina one.  The Induction’s brevity should not distract us from its centrality.  The play staged before Christopher Sly should be regarded as no more important than the plays-within-plays in A Midsummer Night’s Dream or Hamlet.  The length of the Petruchio and Katherina farce, admittedly covering the vast majority of The Taming of the Shrew, nonetheless shouldn’t deflect us from the conclusion that it’s of secondary importance to the Christopher Sly story.

It is unfortunate that the Induction is so often trivialized as a mere appendage, or framing device, that can easily be discarded from productions as superfluous.  It is key to understanding the play’s themes of deception, illusion, and denial of reality.

The shrew of the Petruchio story may be Katherina, but Christopher Sly is the shrew of the Induction.  We must remember that, in Shakespeare’s day, a shrew could be a nasty person of either sex, not just a woman, as ‘shrew’ is understood today.  Sly, a drunken oaf who refuses to pay for the ale he’s drunk at an alehouse in England, is just the kind of charmless fellow in need of a good taming.  In fact, he will be so well tamed that he’ll nod off during the performance of the play.

A lord and his men come to the alehouse after a hunt, and they see the drunken slob sleeping at a table.  As contemptuous of Sly as the annoyed hostess is, the lord decides to play a trick on him.  Sly is carried to a bedchamber in the lord’s house, carefully so as not to wake him.  When he wakes in bed, he’s been changed into the clothes of a lord, and a boy is dressed like a woman, pretending to be the lord’s obedient wife (!).  This tricking of Sly, that he’s a lord, should clearly indicate what we are to think of the ‘lord’ of any house, and of his ‘obedient’ wife: it’s all an act.

Sly is told that all of the life he remembers, that of a tinker, is a mere dream he’s had while being in a coma for fifteen years.  His life as a lord, into which he has woken, and surprisingly so, is his ‘real’ life.  His real life has been an illusion, apparently.

Next, he is to watch ‘a pleasant comedy’, since his would-be doctors say such entertainment would be conducive to the restoration of his health.  The play, that of the Petruchio and Katherina story, is so long that we, the audience, forget about the main story, the Induction, and are deceived into thinking that this mere play-within-a-play is the real story.  This switching of real and illusory events (i.e., Induction and play-within-a-play) parallels the trick played on Sly, whose sense of reality and illusion are also reversed (i.e., his comatose dream-life as a tinker versus his supposedly actual life as a lord).

We must always remember how sensitive the Bard was to the illusory nature of theatre, a notion he exploited for artistic effect in several of his plays.  The Taming of the Shrew is no exception to this: the play-within-a-play is to be understood as mere theatrical illusion, while the Christopher Sly story is the real one.

Another thing about Shakespeare: with his deep, penetrating insight into human nature, one of the main reasons his plays have endured for so many years, it is inconceivable that he could have had so simple-minded a view of humanity as to think that men are the natural rulers of women, however dominant such a bigoted view may have been in Elizabethan times.  The Taming of the Shrew, far from being a sexist play, very subtly satirizes male chauvinism, particularly in the Induction.

The play staged before Sly, being mere theatrical illusion, needn’t–and mustn’t–be taken seriously.  It’s just a farce, and its attitude towards women is accordingly absurd.  The themes of deception and denial of reality within the Petruchio and Katherina story only reinforce the absurd illogic of sexist thinking.

When Lucentio sees and falls in love with Katherina’s pretty younger sister Bianca, he cannot woo her, for their father Baptista insists on finding a husband for shrewish Katherina first.  Lucentio thus disguises himself as a teacher of Latin (‘Cambio’), while his servant Tranio pretends to be Lucentio.  Lucentio and Tranio even exchange clothes in the street, this seeming role reversal astonishing Biondello, Lucentio’s other servant.  Servant is master: this can be seen as a subtle indication of the true husband and wife relationship.

Similar to Lucentio’s deception, another suitor to Bianca, Hortensio, disguises himself as a music teacher, ‘Licio’.  When Baptista agrees to have ‘Lucentio’ marry Bianca (after Petruchio agrees to marry her nasty sister), a pedant from Mantua, deceived by ‘Lucentio’ into believing Mantuans’ presence in Padua is illegal (on pain of death), agrees to pretend to be Vincentio, Lucentio’s father, and pretend to agree to pay the dowry for Bianca’s marriage.  All acting and pretending, just like the chest-thumping, ‘dominant’ husband of traditional marriage.

Speaking of dominant husbands, Petruchio quickly shows himself to be as much of a shrew as Katherina (see quote one).  He beats his servants, shouts at them abusively, and behaves like a madman.  He denies reality throughout the story, pretending that his bride’s real name is Kate, that she’s sweet and gentle, and that she wants to marry him as much as he does her (she of course doesn’t want to marry him at all).

More denial of reality comes after their marriage.  When Kate is in his house in Verona, he raves wildly at his servants that his dinner is badly cooked (it’s fine) and her bed is unfit for her to sleep on (it’s also fine).  Later, he rejects a beautiful, perfectly good dress Kate would have worn to Bianca’s wedding, claiming the tailor got the measurements wrong (the tailor hadn’t, and insisted he had the correct measurements from Petruchio, while Petruchio’s servant Grumio denies it, knowing full well that no mistake was made).

Petruchio pretends the time is seven o’clock, when it is actually about two; he insists that she agree with his deliberate inaccuracy (Act IV, scene iii).  On the way to Padua to attend Bianca’s wedding (Act IV, scene v), Petruchio pretends the sun shining in the sky is actually the moon, and that an old man (the real Vincentio) is a pretty young woman, again demanding that Kate go along with his bizarre distortion of reality.

All of these caricatures of reality symbolize the phoniness of male dominance of women, a phoniness that is most clearly shown in the final scene, when Bianca and a widow prove themselves to be even more shrewish towards Lucentio and Hortensio than Kate has ever been.  When Kate gives the final speech about obedience to husbands, we should clearly see that this is the ultimate denial of reality: wives are, always have been, and always will be, thoroughly indomitable.  Shakespeare knew–he just pretended he didn’t.

Detailed Synopsis for ‘Macbeth’

Act One: Three witches are in an open place, discussing how they’ll meet again before the sun sets, after Scotland wins a war they’re waging against Norway and Ireland, when they’ll meet Macbeth.  (See first quote from my ‘Analysis of Macbeth’.)

King Duncan, his sons, and some Scottish nobles discuss the outcome of the war with a wounded soldier, who praises Macbeth’s valour; he mentions how Macbeth confronted the enemy and killed him with his sword–he “unseam’d him from the nave to th’ chaps.” The king has the soldier taken away to be treated for his wounds.

The Thane of Ross discusses Scotland’s victory against Norway and Ireland, the heroism of ‘Bellona’s bridegroom’ (Macbeth), and the traitor Macdonwald, Thane of Cawdor, who has been captured and will be executed.  Duncan tells Ross and the other nobles to confer on Macbeth the title of Thane of Cawdor.

The three witches meet again on a blasted heath, waiting for Macbeth to appear.  One speaks of a woman who munched on some nuts.  When the witch asked for some, the woman shouted at her to go away, calling her a witch.  The witch will have her revenge on the woman by causing her husband to suffer in a tempest at sea.

Macbeth and Banquo walk together towards where the witches are.  (See second quote of my ‘Analysis’.)  The witches accost them, each greeting Macbeth with the titles ‘Thane of Glamis‘ (his original title), ‘Thane of Cawdor’, and ‘king hereafter’.  He is shocked, even frightened, by such a ‘prophetic greeting’.  Banquo asks of his future; the witches predict that he will beget a line of kings, though he himself will be none.  The men demand that the witches explain their meaning more clearly, but the three mysteriously vanish.

The Scottish nobles greet Macbeth with the title ‘Thane of Cawdor’, thus confirming one of the witches’ predictions.  Macbeth is dazed with his growing ambition to be king, and his fear of it.  (Quote 3)  The nobles explain that Macdonwald, the original Thane of Cawdor, gave aid of some sort to the enemy, thus deserving execution for treason, and making Macbeth his replacement.  They leave to meet the king.

With the king now, Macbeth and Banquo are honoured for their valour during the war.  Malcolm, Duncan’s son, tells of the execution of Macdonwald.  Malcolm is made Prince of Cumberland: Macbeth knows this appointment is an obstacle to his becoming king.  They will go to Macbeth’s castle to celebrate the victory and stay the night.

At his castle, a letter he’s written is being read by his wife, Lady Macbeth.  She reads of one of the witches’ prophecies coming true, thus making that of his becoming king also quite possibly true.  Now her ambition has been fired up; but she knows her husband is “too full o’ th’ milk of human kindness/ To catch the nearest way”, so she must be especially ruthless to compensate for his weakness.  She calls on devils to fill her “from the crown to the toe, top-full/ Of direst cruelty.”

Macbeth arrives at his castle, greeted by Lady Macbeth as “Great Glamis!  Worthy Cawdor!”  They plan to kill Duncan that night in Macbeth’s castle.  This is too perfect an opportunity to pass up.

When Duncan arrives, he says, “This castle hath a pleasant seat.”  Lady Macbeth cordially greets him, and a feast is prepared.  During the banquet, Macbeth goes off alone, and in a soliloquy expresses his doubts and fears.  He notes the kindness of the king, who’ll plead for mercy like angels if Macbeth cruelly kills him.  He realizes that only his ambition pushes him to want to kill Duncan. (See fourth quote.)  He resolves not to do it.

Lady Macbeth finds him and asks him why he isn’t with the others.  When he remorsefully says he won’t kill Duncan, she questions his manhood and reassures him that they can succeed.  The men guarding Duncan’s prepared room for the night will be given drugged wine, which will knock them unconscious when Macbeth is to kill Duncan; Macbeth is to put the bloody daggers in the sleeping guards’ hands to incriminate them.  Macbeth is turned back toward the plan.

Act Two: There is a brief scene between Banquo and his son Fleance; then Banquo and Macbeth chat about the witches.  Banquo speaks of dreaming about them, while Macbeth lies that he doesn’t even think about them.  Banquo and Fleance leave to go to sleep.

Macbeth is alone, about to go to Duncan’s room.  He hallucinates, seeing a dagger hovering in front of him.  (See fifth quote.)  It seems as real as the daggers he has to kill Duncan with, but it seems to be “a dagger of the mind”, a product of his stress and fear.

As he continues on to Duncan’s room, Lady Macbeth is emboldened by the wine she’s drunk, though an owl’s hoot briefly frightens her.  Nonetheless, all is ready: Duncan’s guards have drunk the drugged wine, and they’re unconscious.

Macbeth returns with bloody daggers, shaking after having murdered Duncan.  (See sixth quote.)  Lady Macbeth tries to calm him, but is shocked to see the daggers in his hands.  He doesn’t dare return to the murder scene, so Lady Macbeth takes the daggers from him and puts them in the hands of the sleeping guards.  Now her hands are as bloody as Macbeth’s.  They hear a knocking on the front door of the castle, so they must quickly wash the blood off their hands and remove all evidence linking them to the murder.  Still, Macbeth is too scared to move, the loud knocking continues, and Lady Macbeth must push him to action.

A porter goes to answer the knocking.  His scene is one of comic relief.  He jokes about being porter to the gates of Hell, and speaks of a damned ‘equivocator’, among other unrepentant sinners.  He opens the door and in come Macduff and Lennox who, needing to speak with the king, ask why the porter is so slow to answer the door.  The porter explains how everyone in the castle was drinking wine and celebrating till late; then he jokes about how wine equivocates by provoking sexual desire, but taking away the male ability to perform sexually.  Macbeth appears, and takes Macduff to Duncan’s room.

Horrified to see the king murdered, Macduff shouts and wakes everyone up.  Lady Macbeth feigns fainting to hear the news, and Macbeth confesses to having killed the guards out of a fit of passion (actually, to silence them).  Now plans must be made to learn who “suborn’d” the guards, and to crown Duncan’s successor.  (Speaking of whom, the king’s sons, Malcolm and Donalbain, plan to flee immediately to England and Ireland respectively, for fear of their lives.  Later this will cause them to be suspected of plotting their father’s murder.  The way is clear for Macbeth to be the next king.)

Act Three: Macbeth is now king.  Banquo is impressed with the accuracy of the witches’ predictions, but he wonders if Macbeth “play’dst most most foully for’t.”  He also remembers the prophecy that his descendants would be kings.  He tells Macbeth he has urgent business to attend to, and will be late for a banquet Macbeth has invited all the nobles to that night.  Banquo leaves.

Macbeth also remembers the witches’ prophecy about Banquo, and he fears the future of his own rule.    Macbeth hires two murderers who, hating Banquo for past injuries he’s done them, are to kill him and his son Fleance when they approach Macbeth’s castle that night.  Lady Macbeth worries about how Macbeth has changed from a good man into a power-obsessed ruler.

That evening, Banquo and Fleance are nearing the castle while the murderers, suddenly and awkwardly joined by a third, lie in wait.  The three murderers surprise Banquo and Fleance, killing the father while the son escapes.

One of the murderers tells Macbeth at the banquet that Banquo’s ‘throat is cut’ (which the reporting murderer himself did), “With twenty trenched gashes on his head”, but Fleance escaped.  Macbeth is not pleased with the latter news.  He joins his guests and drinks a toast to Banquo, who he says sadly isn’t with them.

The Thane of Ross asks Macbeth to sit with them, but Macbeth sees someone sitting at the chair Lennox gestures to.  No one else sees anyone sitting there, but Macbeth insists the chair isn’t vacant.  He looks closer, and is shocked to see Banquo’s ghost.  Everyone is surprised at Macbeth’s wildly fearful reaction, since only he sees the ghost.

Lady Macbeth takes him aside, demanding that he control himself.  She makes up an excuse to their guests that Macbeth has suffered a psychological condition from childhood, causing momentary fits that will soon pass.

The ghost disappears, and Macbeth is calm again.  He confirms Lady Macbeth’s excuse about his ‘infirmity’, then he drinks another toast to absent Banquo, whose ghost suddenly reappears.  Macbeth’s manic reaction shocks everyone so much that Lady Macbeth tells everyone to leave.  The guests wish good health on the king before leaving.

As Macbeth is calming down (the ghost is gone), he wonders why Macduff never attended the banquet.  Macbeth also says he wants to visit the witches again.

(An apocryphal scene has the goddess Hecate reprimanding the three witches for using their art on Macbeth without involving her.)

Lennox and a lord discuss the current, wretched state of Scotland: word is out that Macduff has joined Malcolm in England to raise up an army to invade Scotland, kill the increasingly suspect King Macbeth, and give Malcolm the crown.

Act Four:  The witches prepare a spell, throwing such ingredients as ‘Eye of newt’, ‘Nose of Turk’, and ‘Liver of blaspheming Jew’ into the cauldron (Seventh quote.).  One of the witches says, “By the pricking of my thumbs,/Something wicked this way comes.”  “Open locks, whoever knocks,” when Macbeth arrives.

He asks them of his fate.  Their ‘masters’ tell Macbeth, in visions, three prophecies: beware Macduff, the Thane of Fife; none of woman born will ever kill Macbeth; and he won’t fall until Birnham forest moves to high Dunsinane hill, where his castle is.  The second two prophecies give him a false self-confidence, since he imagines it impossible for them ever to be manifested.

Then he asks of Banquo’s future.  The witches reluctantly show him a vision of Banquo’s descendants, a long line of kings that seems to stretch out till the end of time.  This upsets Macbeth terribly.

He learns, from Lennox, of Macduff joining Malcolm in England: this makes Macduff a traitor.  Macbeth would have Macduff’s castle surprised, and his family slain.

At Macduff’s castle, Ross has informed Lady Macduff of her husband’s flight to England.  She is upset that Macduff could abandon his whole family so suddenly.  Ross leaves.   She talks with her son about Macduff.  The boy’s clever remarks about traitors are touching to hear; this makes the coming tragedy all the more heartbreaking.

A messenger warns her of hired murderers coming to kill them; he leaves, making her wonder where she could go.  She imagines that, being innocent, she needn’t fear danger; but in this corrupt world, it is often the innocent who are harmed, while the guilty prosper.

The murderers arrive and call Macduff a traitor.  The boy angrily calls his father’s accuser a ‘shag-ear’d villain’, and is stabbed.  Then they kill Lady Macduff.

In England, Macduff tries to convince Malcolm to fight for his right to the crown.  Malcolm, testing Macduff’s loyalty, pretends to be unworthy of being king.  He claims his lust and greed are limitless; then Macduff says they can find plenty of willing women and gold to satisfy Malcolm’s thirst for them.  Malcolm then insists that he has no virtues to compensate for his vices.  Macduff despairingly laments the dismal fate of the country he’s exiled himself from.

Satisfied that Macduff has proven his loyalty, Malcolm disavows all the vices he’s claimed to have had.  Macduff, surprised, finds it difficult to reconcile these opposing self-characterizations.

Ross arrives with bad news from Scotland, still mired in Macbeth’s tyranny.  When Macduff realizes evil has come to his family, he demands Ross tell him quickly.  Ross delays as best he can, then finally tells Macduff his whole family has been “savagely slaughter’d”.  Malcolm tries to comfort Macduff, who in his shock at first can’t seem to believe what he’s heard.  Malcolm advises him to “let grief/ Convert to anger”.  They all resolve to raise an army to invade Scotland.

Act Five: At night, a doctor has been asked by a gentlewoman to watch Lady Macbeth, who has been sleepwalking and confessing her and Macbeth’s crimes.  The doctor and the lady watch sleepwalking Lady Macbeth enter the room; she seems to be washing her hands in imaginary water.  Her eyes are open, but she sees only her dream.  Guilt is overwhelming her.

She despairs that she can never get the blood off her hands (8th quote).  The doctor and lady are shocked to hear Lady Macbeth confess to the murders of Duncan, Banquo, and Lady Macduff.  Lady Macbeth imagines she’s hurrying Macbeth out of the room, as she had on the night he’d killed Duncan.

Lennox and other nobles have shifted their loyalty away from ‘the tyrant’ and towards “Malcolm,/ His uncle Siward, and the good Macduff” in England.  They know that Macbeth’s men obey him only from fear, not from love.  They plan to meet the English army at Birhnam wood, and join them in the invasion of Scotland.

In his castle, Macbeth receives messages of the army from England coming to challenge him.  Macbeth is still overconfident, remembering the second and third prophecies of his fate.  He asks the doctor why he can’t cure Lady Macbeth of her “mind diseas’d”.  The doctor says only she can do that for herself.  Macbeth curses medicine as useless.

Malcolm leads the English army to Birnham wood, where he tells them to cut off branches of the trees, and carry them to Dunsinane, to hide their soldiers’ numbers.  The men do so.

As Macbeth and the men in his castle prepare for war with the English, the cry of  women is heard.  Seyton goes to find out what’s happened.  He returns, telling Macbeth, “The queen, my lord, is dead.”

Macbeth gives a speech on the meaninglessness of life (9th quote).  A watchman calls out that he sees trees from Birnham forest moving as a group toward the castle.  Macbeth threatens to kill him if he’s lying.  Now he begins to see the worthlessness of the witches’ equivocal prophecies.  He tells his men to prepare for battle, knowing that at least they’ll die bravely.

Malcolm, Macduff, and the English soldiers arrive at Dunsinane.  Malcolm tells them to throw away their branches.

The battle begins.  Macbeth, though fighting fiercely, wonders in frustration who wasn’t born of woman.  Macbeth fights young Siward, who, fighting bravely, is soon killed by Macbeth.  The king says, “Thou wast born of woman.”

It’s clear that all is lost for Macbeth.  Macduff, knowing the ghosts of his family will haunt him forever if he doesn’t avenge them, frantically searches for Macbeth.  They find each other.

Macbeth remembers he must beware Macduff, and after fighting awhile, Macbeth proudly says he bears “a charmed life, which must not yield/ To one of woman born.”  Macduff tells him to despair of his charm, for Macduff was born of Caesarean section.  Macbeth now is too afraid to fight.  Macduff says Macbeth will thus be publicly shamed as a coward before the rabble.

Now Macbeth’s pride is piqued, and he’ll “try the last”, that is, fight to the death, preferring that to dishonour.  They fight, and Macduff kills him.

In the final scene, Macduff brings the severed head of Macbeth to Malcolm and the others to see.  They note that Lady Macbeth is also dead, a presumed suicide.  Sympathy is shown to old Siward for the slaying of his son; the father, however, is comforted knowing young Siward fought bravely.  Malcolm will be crowned king at Scone.

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Analysis of ‘Macbeth’

Macbeth is a tragedy Shakespeare is believed to have written between 1603 and 1607.  The play’s Scottish war hero turned tyrannical king  is based on, but bears little actual resemblance to, King Macbeth of Scotland (reigning from 1040 until his death in 1057); the historical king is believed to have actually been a good and able king.

The play includes many magical incantations thought to have been taken from real witches without their permission, angering them and causing them to curse the play in revenge.  For this reason, the play is considered unlucky.  Accordingly, when actors are rehearsing the play, referring to it or the title character by name is taboo.  Instead, one calls it ‘the Scottish play’, ‘MacBee’, etc.  If one accidentally says ‘Macbeth’ in a theatre, there are cleansing rituals that can be done to avert disaster, one example being spinning around three times as fast as possible, spitting over one’s shoulder, and uttering an obscenity.  Disastrous performances from the play’s history have contributed to the superstition.  The BBC comedy ‘Blackadder the Third’ did a hilarious sendup of this superstition in the episode, ‘Sense and Senility’.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h–HR7PWfp0

Macbeth is the shortest Shakespeare tragedy, with a quick-moving first act and, apart from the title character himself, minimal character development, causing some scholars to believe we don’t have a complete copy of the play.  Banquo’s son Fleance is supposed to have begot a line of kings leading up to James I, the (as of the writing of the play) new king of both Scotland and England, after the death of Queen Elizabeth I: this long lineal connection to Fleance is thought to be a politically-motivated praising of the new king.

Here are some famous quotes:

‘Fair is foul, and foul is fair;/Hover through the fog and filthy air.’ –3 Witches, I, i, lines 10-11

‘So foul and fair a day I have not seen.’ –Macbeth, I, iii, line 38

‘Two truths are told/As happy prologues to the swelling act/Of the imperial theme.’ –Macbeth, I, iii, lines 127-129

‘I have no spur/To prick the sides of my intent, but only/Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself/And falls on the other.’ –Macbeth, I, vii, lines 25-28

‘Is this a dagger which I see before me,/The handle toward my hand?  Come, let me clutch thee.’ –Macbeth, II, i, lines 33-34

‘Methought I heard a voice cry, Sleep no more!/  Macbeth does murder sleep.‘ –Macbeth, II, ii, lines 35-36

‘Double, double, toil and trouble;/Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.’ –3 Witches, IV, i, lines 10-11

‘Out, damn’d spot! out, I say!’ –Lady Macbeth, V, i, about line 34

‘Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow/Creeps in this petty pace from day to day/To the last syllable of recorded time;/And all our yesterdays have lighted fools/The way to dusty death.  Out, out, brief candle!/Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player/That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,/And then is heard no more.  It is a tale/Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,/Signifying nothing.’ –Macbeth, V, v, lines 19-28

Three prophecies for Macbeth’s fate:

I) Beware Macduff, beware the Thane of Fife.

II) None of woman born shall harm Macbeth.

III) Macbeth shall never fall till great Birnham wood come to high Dunsinane hill.

One important theme in Macbeth is that of fertility versus infertility, or of life versus death.  Banquo’s fertility allows him to begin a line of kings that continues right up to the reign of King James, almost six centuries later, and during Shakespeare’s time.  Macduff, the one eventually to kill Macbeth, has several children, ‘all [his] pretty chickens’, whom Macbeth has had killed.  Macduff observes that Macbeth, however, ‘has no children’.

Macbeth is defeated when Birnham wood comes to Dunsinane; all those tree branches, symbols of life and fertility, coming to Macbeth, symbol of death and infertility, to end his reign of terror.

The most important theme of Macbeth, however, is that of equivocation, perfectly embodied in the quote, ‘Fair is foul, and foul is fair.’  These opposites appear several times throughout the play, as in the second quote above.

Other examples include when Banquo asks why, upon hearing the witches prophesy of Macbeth being Thane of Cawdor and the future king of Scotland, Macbeth starts in fear on hearing of things ‘so fair’.  Later, when Macbeth has been crowned king (having murdered Duncan, the previous king, to get the throne), Banquo correctly suspects that Macbeth ‘play’dst most foully for’t.’

The beginning of the play is ‘So foul and fair a day’, for it is foul with the smell of the blood of war, and yet fair with Scotland’s victory over Norway and Ireland, thanks to Macbeth’s valour.

Macbeth says the witches’ prophecies ‘Cannot be ill; cannot be good’; for if bad, how do they result in good for him, making him Thane of Cawdor?  If good, why do the prophecies frighten him with the firing up of his murderous ambition?  Macbeth shudders over the ‘fair’ prophecies of his being Thane of Cawdor and the future king, for these spur his ‘Vaulting ambition’, his tragic flaw, which will change him from the fair war hero at the play’s beginning to the foul tyrant who must be killed at the play’s end.  Indeed, even though the play ends happily with Macbeth killed and Scotland restored, it is still a tragedy in how a good man is turned into a bad man, who ultimately must be destroyed.

Banquo’s prophecies are also foul and fair.  He is, according to the witches, ‘Lesser than Macbeth, and greater’; ‘Not so happy, yet much happier’.  For though Banquo won’t be a king himself, his descendants will be, right up to King James, and as Macbeth imagines, possibly ‘to th’ crack of doom’.

Macbeth and Lady Macbeth switch the roles of foul and fair midway into the play, when he is crowned king.  Before that, he is still somewhat good in his feelings of guilt and fear over the plotting of King Duncan’s murder; Lady Macbeth, meanwhile, relishes in her wickedness, even calling on evil spirits to keep her constant in her ambition.  After he’s crowned, however, it is Lady Macbeth who is fearful and remorseful, while he is grinning in his machinations.  He frowns only from his fears of losing his power; he never repents.  Though Banquo’s ghost frightens him, the witches’ prophecy–that ‘none of woman born’ will kill him–gives him a false ‘fair is foul’ kind of confidence.  (More on that later.)

Lady Macbeth, after disposing of the bloody daggers her husband has used on King Duncan, says ‘How easy is it’ to wash the blood off; later, during the sleepwalking scene, the imaginary blood she has on her hands is impossible to remove, as is the erasing of her guilt.  The fair of easy becomes the foul of impossible.

Even the porter speaks of equivocation in bawdy humour.  Wine’s effect on a man ‘provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance…makes him stand to, and not stand to; in conclusion, equivocates him in a sleep,…’ etc.

Finally, the second two prophecies of Macbeth’s ultimate fate are equivocal in his destiny being both foul and fair at the same time.  That he will never lose his power till the forest of Birnham moves to his castle sounds as though he’ll be king forever…fair.  How can the trees be uprooted and made to move up to Dunsinane hill?  Macbeth doesn’t consider, however, that the English army, led by Duncan’s son Malcolm, will cut off branches from the Birnham trees and carry them to Dunsinane, to hide their numbers.  Within the time frame of this play, these branch-carrying usurpers of Macbeth seem to come very soon, too…foul.  When Macbeth learns the truth of this, he begins ‘To doubt th’ equivocation of the fiend/That lies like truth.’

Furthermore, the cocky self-confidence Macbeth gains from the prophecy ‘none of woman born’ will kill him (that is, none born by going through his mother’s birth canal) makes him forget all too easily the first prophecy, ‘Beware Macduff’, who wasn’t born of woman, but ‘was from his mother’s womb/ Untimely ripp’d’, that is, born by Caesarian section.  Again, what makes Macbeth feel invincible–fair–should actually make him feel most vulnerable–foul.

Detailed Synopsis of ‘As You Like It’

Act One: Forced by his elder brother, Oliver, to do menial work, Orlando complains of him to Adam, the family’s aged servant.  Though Orlando’s late father, Sir Rowland de Boys, gave an inheritance to all three of his sons, Oliver, the eldest, refuses to let Orlando, the youngest, have his share.  Orlando will no longer endure this unfair treatment.

Oliver enters, scorning Orlando when he demands his inheritance.  The brothers fight, and Orlando has Oliver in a headlock, not letting him go until he says he’ll give Orlando the inheritance.  Let go, Oliver speaks abusively to Adam, who protests the abuse.  Oliver leaves angrily.

Elsewhere, Oliver meets with Charles, a big, strong wrestler who’s killed men in wrestling matches.  Charles mentions the usurped Duke Senior and his men, who are living like Robin Hood in the forest of Arden.  Charles also says that Orlando wishes to fight him in a wrestling match, and warns Oliver that Orlando will most likely be killed in the fight.  Oliver, though saying he will try to dissuade Orlando from wrestling Charles, secretly would like his brother to die in the match, of course.

In the next scene, Rosalind complains to her cousin and good friend Celia of how sad she is that her father, Duke Senior, has been usurped and banished by Duke Frederick, her uncle and Celia’s father.  Celia tries to cheer her up by speaking with her about love.  Touchstone the jester enters and makes some witty remarks.  Then Le Beau, a courtier, arrives, and tells them all about the wrestling match between Charles and Orlando.  They all go over to watch it.

The girls meet Orlando and try to dissuade him from fighting the much bigger and stronger Charles.  Orlando says he doesn’t care if he dies, for he has no friends, nor anything to live for, and his absence will give more room to the rest of the people of the world.  He and Rosalind are already beginning to have feelings for each other.  Charles arrives, as does Duke Frederick.  The match begins.

At first, Charles is clearly winning, though Orlando won’t give up.  Celia wishes she could be invisible and trip Charles.  Orlando, however, gets lucky and wins the match, injuring Charles badly enough that other men must life the heavy wrestler and carry him off.

Duke Frederick congratulates Orlando and asks him his name.  When Orlando says he’s the son of the late Sir Rowland de Boys, a friend of Duke Senior, Frederick leaves angrily.

The girls go to speak with Orlando, congratulating him.  Rosalind gives him a necklace to remember her by, and they’re already in love, though they haven’t said so.  The girls leave him.

Alone with Celia, Rosalind tells her of her love for Orlando, and that, since her father and his were friends, that makes her love of Orlando all the luckier.  Celia says that her father disliked Sir Rowland de Boys, but that she likes Orlando no less for that.

Duke Frederick enters and tells Rosalind she’s banished from the dukedom.  When she asks why, he says it’s because she’s Duke Senior’s daughter.  Though he tolerated her before, for Celia’s sake, he now feels his power is threatened by the likes of her.  When Celia tries to defend her, he calls Celia a fool for not worrying about Rosalind as a threat to her future power.  He leaves.

Celia comforts Rosalind, insisting that her father has banished her, too, for she has no life without Rosalind’s company.  The girls plan to dress as poor people to avoid being enticing targets for highway bandits.  And since Rosalind is the taller of the two, she’ll disguise herself as a boy, and call herself ‘Ganymede’.  Celia will pretend to be ‘his’ sister, and call herself ‘Aliena’ (foreigner).  They’ll have Touchstone accompany them for protection, go into Arden, and look for Duke Senior.

Act Two: In Arden, Duke Senior speaks with his men of how much better life in the forest is, compared with the phoney court.  With the harshness of nature, one has honesty instead of flattery, and nature can impart much wisdom to us.  (See quote 1 from my ‘Analysis of As You Like It‘.)

He asks of the melancholy Jacques (pronounced ‘JAY-queez’), and is told that Jacques is weeping over the killing of a deer.

Back in the dukedom, Adam warns Orlando of Oliver’s plot to burn down Orlando’s home while he’s sleeping.  Orlando plans to flee into Arden; Adam wants to go with him, and offers him all the money he’s saved from his employment with the de Boys family.  Orlando is touched by the generosity of the older generation, a virtue he feels is lacking among the young.  They prepare to leave for Arden.

‘Ganymede’, ‘Aliena’, and Touchstone have been walking long to get to Arden, and are all exhausted.  They see two shepherds, older Corin and younger Silvius.  Silvius is complaining of his unrequited love for the shepherdess Phoebe, saying that Corin, in his age, has forgotten of the young’s pain from lovesickness.  Silvius leaves.

‘Ganymede’, affecting a boy’s voice and manner, asks Corin where ‘he’ and ‘his’ friends can find accommodation.  Corin tells them of the house of a churlish old shepherd who wants to sell it, and he takes the three tired travellers there.

After Amiens, a singer in Duke Senior’s company, and his backing musicians perform a song, Jacques adds a verse with the word ‘Ducdame’, explaining to them that it’s ‘a Greek invocation, to draw fools into a circle.’  Amiens sings the new verse.

Orlando and Adam are entering the forest in the evening.  Adam is deathly tired, and desperately needs rest and food, which Orlando searches for.

Duke Senior and his men arrive at the camp with the food from their hunt.  Jacques enters, laughing and saying he’s seen a jester in motley clothes going about in the woods.  He chatted with the jester, and Jacques laughed at the fool’s witty remarks.  Now Jacques wishes he were a fool: ‘Motley’s the only wear.’

Orlando, brandishing a sword, surprises them, demanding they give him their food.  Duke Senior gently says he is free to eat with them if he wishes.  Disarmed by their unexpected gentleness, Orlando blushingly sheathes his sword and apologizes for his roughness, saying he assumed rudeness was a universal trait in the forest.  He mentions Adam’s age and weakness, and his desperate need for food and rest.  Duke Senior promises he and his men won’t touch any of the food till Orlando returns with the old man.  Orlando hurries off to get Adam.

Duke Senior speaks of how we all suffer in the ‘wide and universal theatre’ of the world.  Jacques speaks of how we all are actors, playing the roles of seven ages throughout our lives.  (See the second quote from my ‘Analysis of AYLI‘.)

Orlando returns with Adam, and everyone eats that night while Amiens sings a sad song.

Act Three: Back in the dukedom, Duke Frederick is paranoid about everyone leaving the court to go to Arden; he forces Oliver to find and kill Orlando.  Oliver rushes off, glad to do the job.

The next day, Orlando, ecstatic with love for Rosalind, starts carving her name in tree bark and writing love poems, sticking the paper on which they’re written on tree branches.  He does this all over the forest.

Corin asks Touchstone how he likes the rustic life; the jester answers this question with his usual wit, comparing life in Arden with life in the court.  Celia finds one of the poems and reads it to Rosalind.  Touchstone hears, and begins improvising witty parodies of the poem, annoying Rosalind.  Celia realizes Orlando is the poet (third quote), and tells Rosalind, who is upset, since she’s still dressed as Ganymede.

Jacques meets Orlando, and they make a witty exchange, saying how displeased they are to have met; Jacques asks Orlando not to mar the trees with any more of his bad verses.  ‘Ganymede’ finds Orlando, and Jacques leaves.

‘Ganymede’ asks Orlando if he knows what the time is; when Orlando says he couldn’t possibly know in a forest, ‘he’ says that he couldn’t possibly be in love then, for lovesick people can know the exact time anywhere from counting every sad second of the day.  Also, a man in love would be ill-groomed.

Not knowing he’s speaking to Rosalind, Orlando insists that he loves her.  ‘Ganymede’ claims ‘he’ can cure Orlando of his lovesickness by ‘pretending to be Rosalind’ while he pretends to love ‘Ganymede as Rosalind’.

In another part of the forest, Touchstone hopes to marry the country girl Audrey, and he even gets a priest, Sir Oliver Martext, to marry them; but Jacques intervenes, advising Touchstone not to use Sir Oliver’s dubious services, and to find a church instead.  Touchstone thus dismisses Sir Oliver.

Back to where ‘Ganymede’ and ‘Aliena’ are, Rosalind complains of how Orlando hasn’t returned to meet her at the promised time.  Corin comes over and tells ‘Ganymede’ and ‘Aliena’ about a true ‘pageant’ of love.  He leads them to see Silvius complaining of his love to disdainful Phoebe.  ‘Ganymede’ scolds her for not realizing how lucky she is to have Silvius’ love, since she’s ‘not for all markets’.  Though Phoebe doesn’t like the rudeness of ‘Ganymede’, she sure fancies ‘him’, thus shocking Rosalind, who tries to discourage Phoebe’s advances.  After ‘Ganymede’ and ‘Aliena’ leave, Phoebe tells Silvius to help her write an angry letter complaining to ‘him’ of ‘his’ rudeness to her.

Act Four: ‘Ganymede’ and Jacques speak of the latter’s melancholy, whose uniqueness Jacques describes as having many diverse ingredients.  Orlando appears, and Jacques leaves.

‘Ganymede’ chides Orlando for being late.  (As the discussion continues, quote four appears.)  With ‘Aliena’ playing the role of priest, ‘Ganymede’ and Orlando have a mock wedding.  He says he’ll love Rosalind ‘For ever and a day’.  (Next comes quote five.)  Orlando then leaves, having promised not to be late for their next meeting.  Rosalind then tells Celia of ‘how many fathom deep’ she is in love, ‘But it cannot be sounded’.

Elsewhere in the forest, Jacques complains to the lords of their killing of another deer.  He demands they sing a song for the deer.

Back with ‘Ganymede’ and ‘Aliena’, Silvius gives ‘him’ a letter written by Phoebe, complaining of ‘his’ disdainfulness to her.  Oliver then appears; looking on ‘Aliena’, he’s quite taken by her beauty.  He explains to her and ‘Ganymede’ that Orlando can’t be there at the promised time, since he’s been injured by a lioness, having defended then-sleeping Oliver from the beast (and a snake).  Seeing Orlando’s bloody handkerchief as proof, ‘Ganymede’ faints.  Oliver tells ‘him’ to be more of a man.

Act Five: Touchstone learns of a country fellow named William who fancies Audrey.  Jealous Touchstone has a witty conversation with William (see quote six), then scares him off.

Now reconciled to Orlando, Oliver tells him of his love for ‘Aliena’, and of their plan to be married.  Though happy for his brother, Orlando is sad from lacking Rosalind.  He tells ‘Ganymede’ he can no longer pretend; ‘Ganymede’, claiming ‘he’ knows magic, claims ‘he’ can make Rosalind appear.

Silvius and Phoebe go over to ‘Ganymede’ and Orlando.  Phoebe tells Silvius to explain to ‘Ganymede’ what love is; Silvius speaks of the pain and devotion one feels, and that he feels that way for Phoebe, who says she feels that way for ‘Ganymede’.  Orlando in turn says he feels that way for Rosalind, while ‘Ganymede’ says ‘he’ feels that way ‘for no woman’.  ‘Ganymede’ can endure no more of this: ‘he’ promises to fix everything for all of them, saying that if Phoebe can’t love ‘Ganymede’, she must then love Silvius.  Phoebe agrees to this.  They will all meet again the next day.

Elsewhere in the forest, Touchstone and Audrey are visited by two singing boys.  Touchstone doesn’t like their performance.

The next day, everyone comes together where Rosalind will appear.  Duke Senior notes how ‘Ganymede’ looks rather like his daughter Rosalind.  Orlando agrees.  ‘Ganymede’ and ‘Aliena’ go into some bushes.  When Touchstone appears with Audrey, Duke Senior and Jacques talk with the jester, who has many witty things to say.  Jacques mentions again what ‘a rare fellow’ he is, ‘and yet a fool’.

Rosalind and Celia appear, in beautiful dresses, accompanied by Hymen, the god of marriage.  Everyone, especially Orlando, Oliver, Duke Senior, and Phoebe, stare at the three in amazement.  Hymen marries Orlando to Rosalind, Oliver to Celia, Silvius to Phoebe (who clearly has no intention of having a woman for her lord), and Touchstone to Audrey, a comically awkward match.

Celebrations are in order, with Amiens singing and everyone dancing.  Jacques, brother of Orlando and Oliver, appears and tells everyone of Duke Frederick coming into Arden with an army and planning to do war with them all.  Racing through the forest, however, the usurping duke met a religious man who dissuaded him from going ahead with his attack.  Instead, Frederick has given up his power and decided to be a religious man himself.  Duke Senior has his dukedom back.

Melancholy Jacques asks Jacques de Boys of the religious man, and would rather find him and receive his spiritual enlightenment than join the–to Jacques–empty-headed celebrations.  Duke Senior asks him to stay, but he won’t.  He leaves immediately.  The celebrations continue.

Epilogue: Rosalind ends the play with a few words to the men and women in the audience, entreating them, who love each other, to enjoy the play as much as it should please them.  During the speech, indirect acknowledgement is made to the fact that a boy actor is playing ‘her’.  ‘She’ asks the audience to bid ‘her’ farewell.