Month: May 2011

Over on Shakespeare Answers, somebody asked Why Iago asks Roderigo to kill Cassio. In writing up my answer, I noticed something that strikes me as an odd gap, almost like Shakespeare did it on purpose.

Check out the end of Act 4, Scene 2:

IAGO

Why, by making him uncapable of Othello’s place;
knocking out his brains.

RODERIGO

And that you would have me to do?

IAGO

Ay, if you dare do yourself a profit and a right.
He sups to-night with a harlotry, and thither will I
go to him: he knows not yet of his horrorable
fortune. If you will watch his going thence, which
I will fashion to fall out between twelve and one,
you may take him at your pleasure: I will be near
to second your attempt, and he shall fall between
us. Come, stand not amazed at it, but go along with
me; I will show you such a necessity in his death
that you shall think yourself bound to put it on
him. It is now high suppertime, and the night grows
to waste: about it.

RODERIGO

I will hear further reason for this.

IAGO

And you shall be satisfied.

Iago has stated to Roderigo that to keep Othello and Desdemona for leaving for Mauritania, they need to remove Cassio from the picture (since he would be the one left in charge). When Roderigo asks why he has to do it, Iago says “I’ll show you why he has to die, and you’ll be in such agreement that you’ll want to be the one to do it.”

When we next see them, however?

RODERIGO

I have no great devotion to the deed;
And yet he hath given me satisfying reasons:
‘Tis but a man gone. Forth, my sword: he dies

I must be missing something, because on this rainy Monday morning that reads almost comically to me – I envision Iago putting his arm around Roderigo, walking off stage saying “Let me explain it to you…” and then 2 seconds later them coming back on stage with Roderigo saying, “Oh, ok, I understand, that makes sense.” It’s like Shakespeare didn’t really have a good answer to that question so he phoned that one in.

What am I missing?

http://www.flocabulary.com/muchado
There’s lots of projects like this floating around the net, but I like and link this one for a few reasons:

* It comes with an animated video
* It’s about Much Ado About Nothing, not R+J or Hamlet or the other most common ones
* It’s actually good. 🙂
They call me Shakespeare and I’mma make clear
When I write it’s on, my pen is my rapier
Dug for “pen is mightier than the sword” reference, even if that isn’t Shakespeare. 🙂

Question for a Friday : Which play spans the longest amount of time on stage? Stories and flashbacky sorts of things about what once happened don’t count, I mean “In Act 1 scene 1 the time is X, and in Act 5 the time is X + a whole bunch.” Does Winter’s Tale win, where Time “slides o’er sixteen years”?
On the flip side, which play takes the shortest amount of time? Doesn’t The Tempest span just as couple of hours, from the time of the shipwreck to the time of reuniting?

So it only took a day for the search engines to spot my new site, Shakespeare Answers. People are doing exactly what I expected, they’re searching for questions and they want answers. For those folks out there who’ve been helping me generate content by answering questions, here’s the list of questions that people have searched, that have landed them on my page. If you get a moment and are looking for an excuse to write some stuff, can I beg you to add your two cents on these? The more content on the page, the more engaged our google visitors will become.
Here they are. It’s an interesting mix!

While answering questions over at the new place, I found an angle on the big fight scene in Act 3. What, exactly, do you think is Romeo’s plan? I realize that he wants to prevent the fight – but more specifically, is he trying to keep Mercutio from hurting Tybalt? Tybalt from hurting Mercutio? Does he even think that far?
It’s probably unanswerable, but that’s never stopped us. I think it makes for an interesting take on the character, because if he thinks “I need to hold back Mercutio before he kills Tybalt,” well then he’s basically just sold out his best friend, hasn’t he? It could be, of course, that Romeo simply went for the logical person – Tybalt was trying to kill *him* (Romeo) after all, and if Romeo suddenly stepped in from of Tybalt’s sword, that would likely not have ended well.
While we’re on the subject, can we talk about exactly what Romeo’s mistake is, here? I’ve always sort of thought of the big moment as “Romeo grabbed Mercutio.” But why, is the question. Romeo appears to walk into that fateful encounter thinking “I no longer see the Capulets as my enemy, therefore the Capulets are no threat to me.” That’s a big lapse in character judgement. Tybalt has never been a threat because he’s a Capulet. He’s a threat because he’s a bad guy. This, ironically, is something that Mercutio knew all along. Mercutio didn’t hate Tybalt because Tybalt was a Capulet. Mercutio hated Tybalt because he *is* a good judge of character, and knew that Tybalt was trouble.