Shakespeare makes life better.
Following up on today’s earlier Mercutio question, here’s one in search of a more specific answer from some of our students of the theatre:
Sometimes characters go out of their way to die offstage, Mercutio being a prime example. Why?
I’m assuming that there was some sort of structural framework that Shakespeare was following that required this. Why not have Mercutio die onstage? I’m guessing there’s a particular reason.
You probably see it quoted all the time: “Shakespeare invented the words assassination and bump!”
It is…inaccurate. What does it mean to invent a word? Can history ever really trace the first person to string together a series of letters in a way that no one else ever did?
It is more correct to say that Shakespeare represents the first recorded use of the word. In that case, the statement is true: assassination appears in Macbeth, and bump (as a noun, not like to bump into somebody) appears in Romeo and Juliet.
For the curious, here’s one of many lists of words that Shakespeare is first credited with using. I choose this list because it attempts to clarify how Shakespeare used each word when he used it in a way different than we do now. “Import”, for example, was just a different way for him to say “importance,” and that is not how we use it today.
Romeo + Juliet (the one with Leonardo DiCaprio) is playing in the background as I work in the home office. Can somebody tell me about Mercutio’s final moments, specifically the reference to worm’s meat?
He is a friend to the Montagues and defends Romeo’s honor in his last act. Yet his last words are, among other things, “They have made worm’s meat of me” and the more recognizable, “A plague on both your houses.”
Help me into some house, Benvolio,
Romeo and Juliet III.i.106
Or I shall faint. A plague o’ both your houses!
They have made worms’ meat of me: I have it,
And soundly too: your houses!
If people find this post looking for an actual explanation of that worm’s meat line, it’s an image that Shakespeare uses frequently. You die, you go in the ground, worms eat you. Look at how Hamlet describes what’s happening to a now-dead Polonius:
Not where he eats, but where he is eaten: a certain
Hamlet IV.iii.22
convocation of politic worms are e’en at him.
Or Sonnet 76:
No longer mourn for me when I am dead
Sonnet 76
Then you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled
From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell:
Pardon the pun, but Shakespeare and the people of the time were down to earth when it came to death. Death was a sad reality; people were dying all over the place. There could be plenty of taken of heaven and angels, to be sure. But when it came to what happens to your earthly remains? Shakespeare was very frank and often pretty gross about it.
In this particular version, Mercutio wanders offstage alone when he utters the worm’s meat line as if it is an aside. That changes it for me. I always thought he was saying it to Romeo, referring to the Capulets. But said like that, coupled with the “both houses” line, it seems more that he’s talking about both of them. In his final moments, it is as if he’s wondering, “Why did I get in the middle of that?”
I suppose it’s always been there, and he clearly says both your houses. I don’t think it fully sunk in for me before. He doesn’t blame Tybalt for killing him. He blames them both for getting him stuck in the middle. My point is that the worm’s meat line is more important than the “both houses” line. Imagine for a moment that Mercutio’s not dying. He’s just angry that he’s been wounded for a dumb reason. The “both houses” line can still be hurled at Tybalt and Romeo, but it has more of a “You can both go to hell” edge. But the worm’s meat realization – especially said to himself, where “they” is clearly “both of them”, changes it. Mercutio knows he’s dead. The man with something to say is left with nothing but a curse to deliver.
Via Twitter I hit up a couple of celebrities (one of whom follow me back!) to see if I could get them to mention Shakespeare on the air (they are both currently on television daily). I don’t expect much from that one, but hey, you never know what catches people’s attention :). Had my daughter’s sixth birthday party this weekend, and made sure to tell any parents that would listen about the local Shakespeare show coming to the library this week. Also, while at the market I made sure to point out the posters to my kids loudly enough that fellow shoppers could hear. “Look kids, there’s Daddy’s poster for the Shakespeare show at the library this week!” Who else? (I know some folks commented on the original Friday post. Consider this followup a guilt trip for those that read that post and didn’t pimp Shakespeare at all this weekend :))
The problem is mostly that it’s a terrible play. I’m not saying it wasn’t a decent play at one time or another during its history–I’m quite fond of the Fletcher-Shakespeare collaborations that weren’t ‘discovered’ by Theobald–but it certainly isn’t one now, and probably wasn’t one even when Theobald got his oft-travestied hands on it.
I’m not one of the geeks standing in line to see this “new” “Shakespeare” play (I couldn’t decide which word to stick air quotes around, they’re both equally incorrect :)), but Mad Shakespeare’s got the review. Although the reviewer has praise for the lead actress, the one doesn’t sound like the world’s been missing too much.
