Speccie: Take Two
 

I didn't compete in the Pretentious Tosh Stakes, which is just as well. The five winners were way beyond my competence. Bazza and Bill were worthily among them.

The new competition will surely have a huge take-up among Spherians.

No. 2669 Take two
You are invited to take one of Shakespeare’s soliloquies (please identify) and recast it in the style of the author of your choice. Verse or prose permitted: 16 lines/150 words max. Please email entries, where possible, to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 13 October.

Macbeth: If It Were Done… by A. A. Milne

I need to do it quick.
It has to be tonight.
Cos Nanny says so most pertick-
ly. Nanny’s always right.

I’d do it and be glad,
If no one ever knew,
And no-one told me I was bad.
I hate it when they do.

There’s Jesus, who is good,
He’ll know without a doubt.
You do what Jesus says you should,
Cos if you don’t, watch out.

One bad is all it takes,
And everything gets badder.
Your life becomes a lot of snakes
Without a single ladder.

Nice one, John, and I'm sure the highly contrasting style is the way to go. I've tried Sylvia Plath's version of "Oh that this too too solid flesh would melt..." But I suspect that the anguished Hamlet is too Plathy to begin with, and I'd have done better to try Betjeman or someone like that.

This stuff, all this flesh, I want it to melt
And turn to a dew.
Yes, I think I'll become a dew, but I do
Wish God was not so against the thing I'm good at.

Now the world has turned to a bad garden,
Swarmy with weeds. Because daddy, you bastard,
You died, and they stuffed you stiff
In wood, in a box like a piecase,
She and that crook, but look,
Before she's worn out those black slingbacks,
Her funeral shoes,so snug on her feet,
She's naked as a teacup and at it with him,
With my sexy uncle.

I seethe and I shriek at how quickly they started
Making the sheets messy.
But what can I do? Nothing.

I cant stand Plath and therefore I like your soliloquy mightily.

Some sort of Rock treatment? There was a dreadful something called 'Catch My Soul' which was 'Othello' transmogrified into something rich and strange. Well, strange anyway.

Is Elvis a poet?

I like Plath, but still think your poem is absolutely hilarious, George!

I wrote this for a Speccie last March. It didn't win then, but I might try it one more time since John and Bill won, so can't reuse theirs. I'm not that hopeful, though, since it didn't even get me an HM. Frank got an HM, so maybe he'll win outright this time.

TO BE, OR NOT TO BE
W.S. Gilbert

I am the very model of an indecisive Danish bloke.
I can't decide if I should live or end my life with just one stroke.
I wonder, is it nobler in the mind to suffer fortune's slings?
The problem is, nobody knows the consequence that dying brings.
If death were just an end to pain and heartache and a thousand shocks
you wouldn't see me hesitate to lie down in a plain pine box.
The rub may be the pain of life is better than what dreams may come,
enough to make a suicide in retrospect feel awfully dumb.
For otherwise who'd bear the whips and scorns of time, the law's delay,
and who would bear a fardel when we all know how much fardels weigh?
The native hue of resolution's sicklied o'er with casts of thought.
It's time to put away my knife until my father's killer's caught.
But was it just a fantasy, the words my father's phantom spoke?
I am the very model of an indecisive Danish bloke.

If there is anything wrong with yours, Roger, it is that it avoids the triple rhymes. That's what makes the original so good.

-the boy who can't even get an HM

Do the rules tend to be very literal? Would, for instance, a famous speech from Shakespeare ("All the world's a stage," "Hath not a Jew eyes") not be considered cricket if it isn't a soliloquoy?

I'd wondered about 'All the World's a stage' - but I doubt if anyone could beat Robert Conquest's limerick version:

Seven ages. First puking and mewling,
Then very pissed off with your schooling.
Then fucks and then fights,
Then judging chaps' rights,
Then sitting in slippers, then drooling.

Roger

I hereby, by the power not invested in me, sadly, declare you the winner.

Philip

Thanks, but my bookies tell me John is a better bet.

I don't know if this is proper for the contest, since I just strung together actual Woody Allen lines:

Woody Allen's Hamlet

To be, or not to be. I don't mind dying, I just don't want to be there when it happens. Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering - and it's all over much too soon. Yet death is one of the few things that can be done as easily lying down. It's impossible to experience one's death objectively and still carry a tune. My one regret in life is that I am not someone else. Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen to be dressed for it.

My Speccie arrived yesterday. Not having looked at this thread until now I find that I have gone for an almost exact match of John's sources. In view of his current form I may well not bother to submit ---

Is this a dagger that I see before me? (Act 2 Scene 1)

I think I may have found a knife.
Hooray! No ifs or buts.
Like bad King John I've always longed
for one that really cuts.

And if it really is a knife
my cares can all go hang,
'cos it's Auld Lang Syne for Duncan who's
the leader of our gang.

Dorothy Parker's Hamlet

Bodkins pain you,
nightmares may come
that drive you insane -- you
would surely feel dumb
to learn after croaking
that death's not so hot.
Self slaughter? You're joking.
I'd much rather not.


alternative:

Bodkins pain you,
nightmares may come
that drive you insane -- you
would surely feel dumb
to learn after croaking
what death has to give.
Self slaughter? You're joking.
You might as well live.

Roger, that's nice, and I don't think anyone else will have thought of Dorothy Parker. I'd push out a small bet on that one.

The man to watch, of course, is King Bazza aka the chap who won the top prize at the LitRev, and he has not spoken yet.

I tried a prose one in the style of Henry James, but actually S & J are
too close for comfort. I think John's is a winner.

This is just to say

My too too
solid flesh
has melted
thawed

and resolved
itself
to dew
on the kitchen floor

Forgive me
it was delicious
so sweet
and so cold
.
.
.

Rog - My money's on Dorothy #1, to place.

Frank

Yup! 1#'s the one!

Roger's G and S/Hamlet was excellent.
Here's Houseman on the same.


Since I can’t stand divisive,
I hear the shadows say:
“You should really be decisive
And end it all today. ”
But my other voice is musing
“No! No! I want TO BE!”
(It sounds a bit derisive.)
Which one of them is me?

Since I can’t stand divisive,
I hear them say again:
You’re so gosh darned two-sided.
You’re driving us insane!
You’ve coddled indecision,
Impartiality.
Now just look at what you’ve done:
Another’s come. There's three!

Here's "Now is the winter of our discontent..." by Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward

Summertime,
And the fighting is over.
Folks is dancin'
And I'm left high and dry.

'Cause I don't jig
And I ain't so good lookin'.
The dogs start a barkin'
When I pass by.

One of these mornings
I'm gonna prove me a villain.
I'll be starting some rumours,
I'll be watching them fly.

Oh George, Duke of Clarence,
Here's a something might harm you -
Your brother wants his piece of the pie.

Those are good ones. Lance, I love S1 of Houseman but I'm not sure what "three" means in S2. Maybe it's just me.

Here's another:


Joyce Kilmer

I think that I should like to be.
Or not. Which is it? Let me see.

To die might be like one long sleep.
But woe betide if it's not deep!

To die might end the law's delay.
But none alive can truly say.

If death is just as bad as life,
There's no point falling on my knife.

Life is lived by fools like me.
But God knows if it's good to be.

George, I've just sung your Wintertime aloud and I ended up laughing like a lunatic. If Lucy takes the time to do the same, you're in with a shout (!). I just see the scene with the crippled figure turning slowly to face the audience and giving forth with this campy-torchy number. It's hilarious!

Same soliloquy, new poet:


To Be The Verse
Philip Larkin

They fuck your mum, they kill your dad,
If what the ghost declared is true.
To be or not to be? Both bad,
So what's a boy like me to do?

To think about my uncle's deed
Sure makes my Danish blue blood boil!
If it were up to me, he'd bleed,
He'd shuffle off his mortal coil.

Yet maybe I should just give in
And stick my crown up on the shelf?
The deck is stacked. I cannot win.
I wonder, should I kill myself?

'Laughing like a lunatic'? Anne, you're my ideal reader.
You've imagined the stage picture perfectly - and of course he needs to be wearing Olivier's costume and wig.

Roger, that kills me. The first line should win something if there's any justice. How GOOD we all are!

I say, Levens and Slater, you rotters, it's Housman not Houseman. Bit of rannygazoo at the crossroads with the names of the great and dead is not on. (How did you guess I was thinking of doing The Seven Ages in Wooster-speak?)

Jerome, please! It's spelled reinikaboo. Wodehous(e) didn't know any better.

Larkin

To be, or reach the only end of being.
That’s not a question, it’s a way of seeing
clearly, what's really always been there: how
unresting death’s a whole act nearer now.
Procrastination does no good; it means
slouching about in tights for twelve more scenes.
Ends merely whinged at, though (don’t be mistaken),
beat any death that’s, you know, undertaken.
I think I’ll end this dark soliloquy;
it tangles like a cancerous peduncle.
It’s not enough my parents f—d up me;
we all got f—d up by my f—g uncle!


Hopkins

Blow, winds, and crack
your zephyr-flatulent, cumolo-corpulous cheeks! Wrack
all-in-a-raging, fissure-riven, river runnel downflying flow,
go!
Blue-blown cataracts and hurricanoes, - cor, I’m a little teapot – spout!
Out Out (O to be) Out!
Spit and stanch the stiff-standing, unquenched spires,
drown the cocks!
You sylphs of sulphurous thought-ex-
ecuting, flame-flickered fires,
Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving lightning,
Singe my, what with the hoary hair hided heap of it, white head! And thou, frightening,
all-shaking-shook foil fall of thunder’s van
hurl!
Fell me! Fall and smite mite-flat the ring-round-rotundity o' (Oh, the all of it) world!
Wreck, and rock nature's moulds, and gerbils hurl at once, that make ingrateful man!


Frank

Frank - talk about LOL humour! These are both f...ing brilliant!

The talent routinely displayed on these D&A threads is extraordinary!

Thank you all for the amazing entertainment, and the scraps of wisdom that get in through the cracks!!

Cally

Frank, love Larkin but I don't see how line 3 scans.

villainous thoughts
 

I can only spot a reversed opening foot. Not sure it reads comfortably, though.

Meanwhile:


Othello, Act I scene III, Iago: 'Thus do I ever make my fool my purse...' by Kipling

I'll use that bloomin' 'alf-wit to sharpen up my plan.
I wouldn't give 'im time of day, just chattin' man to man,
But 'e can 'elp me dish the Moor, 'oo as the gossip runs
Is at it with my missus like a pair o' gatling guns.

Call it just a barracks rumour, but to me it's all the same.
A man I 'ate I'll 'ate buckshee, regardless of the blame.
Yet a loyal and honest ancient is 'ow 'e thinks of me,
Which makes my scheme as easy as unwinding a puttee.

Now Cassio, 'oo's in my way – 'ow do I topple 'im?
'E scrubs well in uniform, although 'is lights are dim,
The ladies 'ave an eye for 'im, so what if I suggest
That Cassio's the cuckoo in Othello's little nest?

The Moor's still wet be'ind the ears. 'E thinks the best of folk.
You can lead 'im where you want 'im like an 'opeless plodding moke.
So there it is, a strategy straight from the pit of 'ell;
For me it's blissful vengeance, but for 'im it's bliss farewell.

Basil -
Brilliant. You've caught the true Kipling voice, which is so much harder than it seems.

Bazza, you're right. It goes 'Clearly, what's really always BEEN there'. Iago is very nice. He is, after all, an NCO.

[nevermind]

No, bring it back! I loved the punchline!


This Is Just To Say

I have shaken
these butchers'
hands who made
thy wounds

which like
dumb mouths
do ope their
ruby lips

O pardon me
I meant to cry "Havoc!"
and let slip
the dogs of war

(Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene 1, lines 255-276,
by William Carlos Williams)

Dr. Seuss's Hamlet

Today there's a thing that I'm dying to know,
A question that haunts me wherever I go:
A person's a person, no matter how small,
But is it worth being a person at all?
With all the bad things in the world that I'm seeing,
Would I be better off simply not being?
Maybe. Who knows? Here's the rub: we must dread
That maybe things do not improve once we're dead,
But bad as we find it to be a live person,
After we're dead things decidedly worsen.

So true, Cally! And I've also been enjoying Melissa Balmain's appreciation of John Whitworth (that evil scottish wanker, and as everyone knows, all wankers are scottish and evil) in the latest issue of LIGHT, and there's also a great parody of John's poem, "The Examiners," by J. Patrick Lewis. John's the featured poet, so there are lots of his poems. If you haven't seen it yet, John, it's all wonderful. Congrats!

Bob, do you know there's a movie "Green Eggs and Hamlet"? Made on a shoe-string budget by UCLA students (I think), it's pretty obscure, but it's a real gem. The story's the same, except there's a Sam-I-am character who goes around following Hamlet and offering him green eggs and ham. And the dialog is in the style of Dr. Seuss. If you can get a hold of it, it's worth seeing.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0134697/

Thanks, Marion. I never heard of it. I'll see if I can find it.

Mary, I wish you hadn't mentioned John in LQ. My issue hasn't arrived yet but I didn't know it should have. Now I'm going to be all impatient.

In submitting my Larkin entry with the f-word, should I just type the word or should I type f*ck or what? I don't want to offend Lucy or be filtered out by her spam program.