WS ABC: Imogen in 'Cymbeline'

"...THE HEART IS SORELY CHARGED"... Shakespeare as usual got it right. I spent the 401st anniversary of his (possible) birthday and of his definite deathday by lying on the operating table in Shaarei Zedeq (Gates of Righteousness) hospital in Jerusalem having a fantastic medical team probe around inside my heart and inserting two stents to clear two blocked arteries. That is my excuse for not having continued writing (despite previous promises) about the Bard and this ongoing WS ABC. So now, with no further ado, the letter 'I' and Imogen from Cymbeline.

Imogen, "a lady so tender of rebukes that words are strokes and strokes death to her" is the heroine in Cymbeline, one of Shakespeare's last plays, written c.1609-10. She is the daughter of Cymbeine, the King of Britain during the time of the Roman invasion some two thousand years ago. She is the beautiful and noble wife of the exiled 'poor but worthy gentleman' Post-humus Leonatus.

  Leaving Imogen behind in Britain, Posthumus goes to see friends in Rome where he makes a bet with an Italian called Iachimo that she will remain faithful to him during his enforced absence. Hoping to make a quick buck, Iachimo sails off to Britain where he discovers that Imogen has indeed been faithful. 

Nevertheless, he hides in her bedchamber and when she is asleep, sips her bracelet off her arm. He also notices a mole under her left breast.

 Iachimo returns to Rome with the bracelet and showing it to  Posthumus he tells him that his wife has been unfaithful. The distraught Posthumus then sends a servant to Britain to kill his allegedly unfaithful wife. She learns of this plot and runs away to hide in the Welsh hills. However, all's well that ends well and this evil plot is discovered. Posthumus disarms Iachimo in a battle between the Britains and the Romans and the latter confesses his guilt to Posthumus. Posthumus, being a noble and generous fella, forgives him, especially as he has shown remorse for his dastardly deed and tells Iachimo to "live and deal better with others." In the end, they all live happily ever after: Cymbeline is reconciled with his daughter and accepts her marriage and his two lost sons.

Two more images of Imogen (top one by Gustav Schmaltz)

Incidentally, according to the Oxford Edition (1986) of WS plays, Imogen's name should really be 'Innogen. They say that 'Imogen' is a typo dating from the time when the original scripts were first set in type. The Oxford Edition mentions the fact that Innogen is mentioned in the early editions of Much Ado About Nothing when she is paired with another character called Leonatus.

In Who's Who and What's What in Shakespeare, Evangeline Maria O'Connor has this to say about Imogen. (Paraphrase) She has the romantic enthusiasm of Juliet; the truth and constancy of Helen; the dignified purity of Helen and the tender sweetness of Isobel. She also has the self-possession and intellectuality of Portia but is not so passive as Desdemona. In conclusion, Imogen "while she resembles each of these characters individually, she stands wholly distinct from [them] all."

Next time: Isabella from "Measure for Measure."

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WS ABC Shakespeare's Insults & Ripe language (2)

Away, you three-inch fool! (Taming of the Shrew)
Since most of Shakespeare's income from the Globe theatre, (as opposed to his other businesses which involved sheep, wool and mebbe loan-sharking,) the Bard had to make sure that he had to keep the major part of his audience - the groundlings - happy. And what better way was there than doing this than by making sure he included a good number of sexual puns, innuendoes and insults? Many of these, from either his plays or his poems, were based on double-entendres and they sound as good, witty and clever today as they did when he first wrote them.

Here are some of his best:
Hamlet to Ophelia: Do you think I meant country matters?

 Dromio in "The Comedy of Errors": 
A man may break a word with you sir, and words are but wind. Aye, and break it in your face, so he break it not behind.

Malvolio in "Twelfth Night" while studying a letter written by Olivia:
By my life, this is my lady's hand. These are her very C's, her U's and her T's. and this makes her great P's.

Venus begging Adonis in the poem, "Venus and Adonis":
Graze on my lips, and if those hills be dry/Stray lower, where the pleasant fountains lie.

Petruchio and Katherine in "The Taming of the Shrew" at their first meeting:
Petruchuio: Come, come, you wasp; i'faith, you are too angry.
Katherine: If I be waspish, best beware of my sting.
Pet: My remedy then, is to pluck it out.
Kath: Aye, if the fool could find it where it lies.
Pet: Who knows not where a wasp doth wear his sting? In his tail.
Kath: In his tongue.
Pet: Whose tongue?
Kath: Yours, if you talk of tails; and so farewell.
Pet: What, with my tongue in your tail? nay, Good Kate, I am a gentleman.

Richard Burton (Petruchio) & (wife) Elizabeth Taylor (Katherine)

Perhaps, one of the best and also most sustained use of bawdy and geography occurs in The Comedy of Errors where Antipholus and Dromio of Syracuse are talking about the very fat kitchen wench who Dromio is thinking of marrying.

Ant: Then she bears some breadth?
Drom: No longer from head to foot than from hip to hip: she is     spherical, like a globe; I could find out countries in her.
Ant: In what part of her body stands Ireland?
Drom: Marry sir, in her buttocks; I found it out by the bogs.
Ant: Where Scotland?
Drom: I found it by barrenness; hard in the palm of my hand.
Ant: Where France?
Drom: In her forehead; arm'd and reverted, making war against her hair.
Ant: Where England?
Drom: I look'd for the chalky cliffs, but I could find no whiteness in them; but I guessed it stood in her chin, by the soft rheum that ran between France and it.
Ant: Where Spain?
Drom: Faith, I saw it not; but I felt it hot in her breath.
Ant: Where America, the Indies?
Drom: O, sir, upon her nose, all o'er embellished with rubies, carbuncles, sapphires, declining their rich aspect to the hot breath of Spain; who sent whole armadoes of caracks to be ballast at her nose.
Ant: Where stood Belga, the Netherlands?
Drom: O, sir, I did not look so low.

All of the above probably explains why one of the first WS plays that students learn in school is Julius Caesar since it is devoid of such language. This means that the teacher doesn't have to deal with hormone-filled kids and their wink-wink-nudge-nudge when they hear the 'dirty bits.'

Finally, for those who want to learn more on this topic, I recommend reading Shakespeare's Bawdy by Eric Partridge. This worthy and academic tome was first published by Routledge & Kegan Paul in 1947. Since then and probably until today, Eng. lit. teachers have tried to make sure it didn't fall into the hands of their grubby-handed dirty-minded students. They of course would claim that if caught, they were merely trying to improve their Shakespearean knowledge and insights. 

Next time, Imogen from "Cymbeline."

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WS ABC Shakespearean insults

After a month's break, I'm back. Please continue to read, enjoy and comment thereon. David.

Warning! You are advised that this page should not be read by anyone under the age of 40 - the age that the Kabbalah deemed a person to be fully and mentally mature!

First of all, we'll start off with a surprising fact. Our William never used the f-word in any way at all, (noun, verb, adjective or gerund) in any of his plays even though this very useful piece of vocabulary was in use during his own lifetime. However, when he did want to insult anyone in his plays, the unfortunate victim of his invective was certainly sure to know that he had incurred the speaker's displeasure. (Oh, how mealy-mouthed!)

I mean, how would you feel if someone said the following to you in the way that Lear screams at his daughter, Goneril?

Thou art a boil,
A plague-sore, or embossed carbuncle,
In my congealed blood.

Or would you be insulted if someone used the following at you like when Prince Hal calls Falstaff:

A huge hill of flesh, a trunk of humours, that boiling-hutch of beastliness, that swollen parcel of dropsies, that huge bombard of sack, that stuffed cloak-bag of guts, that roasted Manningtree ox with the pudding in his belly.

And once you have got over the picture of the Bard sitting in his Shoreditch (London) garret enjoying himself hugely as he puts quill to paper and chuckling quite happily to himself, you will notice that in the above, there are no 'rude' or insulting words. It's just that the whole is fantastically greater than the sums of its own individual parts. 

Other examples include such gems as:

Slave, soulless villain, dog!

Let's meet as little as we can.

More of your conversation would infect my brain.

Away! Thou art poison to my blood. 

And the above are mere one-liner insults.
 How about four-liner like the following one from The Comedy of Errors?

He is deformed, crooked, old and sere,
Ill-faced, worse-bodied, shapeless everywhere;
Vicious, ungentle, foolish, blunt, unkind;
Stigmatical in making, worse in mind.

Now throw THAT at someone and they'll really know that you are not pleased with them!

In his book, William Shakespeare: The World as a Stage, Bill Bryson says our William didn't use profanities [blasphemous] language to curse and that in comparison with his rival, Ben Jonson, the Bard was quite "prudish." I'm not sure I would agree that the man from Stratford was a prude [extremely proper, correct and easily shocked] but he never used Jonson's turn of phrase and refer to farts etc.

Next time: More about insulting and sexual language.

If you can guess where the above quotes come from, please write to me at: wsdavidyoung@gmail.com