Cupid has a Gun! And me a Sword!

Cupid's butt-shaft is too hard for Hercules' club, and therefore too much odds for a Spaniard's rapier.  Adieu, valor; rust, rapier; be still drum, for your manager is in love.

O how we wage war with cupid and most often lose! Give up school, dry off the ski, put away the swimsuit, your new manager is LOVE! And to him alone wilt thou serve!

Shakespeare Festival, Cedar City

One Good and One Bad

One of the major contrasts of the play The Winter's Tale is the contrast between winter and summer. This is one theme that was given life through the stage production on Saturday.  

We have all had the experiance of reading a book or play and then viewed a director's interpretation of that work, only to have our eyes opened and to be utterly captivated by the work.  A reason for this treat is that a film or play involves all the senses, save a couple, where reading a work invoves none.  A interpretation literaly gives breath and life to a work.  

Indeed, The Winter's Tale, froze the audience in its winter and revived them in its summer.  But why was this interpretation able to capture its audiance in its seasons?  In sicilia the play began with a tense mood.  Already one could see the termoil in Leonties, he was on edge and tense to both Hermoine and Polxenies.  The stage was decorated with formal chairs and dim lighting.  Every member of the stage was dressed in dark formals painted against a cold blue background.  The dialog was true to writ, the first part full of accusations, thickening plots, and murderous desires.  It left the audience in a state of anxed and gloom.  This catatonia being broken only briefly by the angelic shepherd and son, as part one of the play drew to a close.

At the beginning of act two the blue funk still held its maliced iron grip on the throat of the audience.  Then came, after a short plot between Polxenies and Camillo--Autolycus.  He bounded on the stage singing, the lights came up bright with reds and purples, greens and orange.  It was as if the blue metal giant had all of a sudden been vanquished and cool, clean air now ran into the lungs of every member.  The air almost smelled of spring as strings of flowers hung from the rafters of the stage.  Shakespeares winter and spring masterfully conveyed!  The audience felt the cold of winter and warmth of spring.  While reading the song of Autolycus was nothing, but on stage with the contrast of winter, it was the sun and nectar of a radiant summers day! It was air when there was none.

It was the set and actions of each character that brought the seasons of The Winters Tale to life.

Men Vs. Women -- The Rant Revisited

The Ramayana

One the oldest text in Idia--Valmiki's Sanskrit people, a heroic epic seeking to convey the perfect society.
Quick Summery

~Shakespear Vs. Valmiki~

How do these two view the differences between man and women?

Shakespeare-> The Winter's Tale (Florizel and Perdita)

and

Valmiki-> Ramayana (Rama and Sita)

In the winter's tale Shakespeare creates the picture of women analyzing and logically overturning the moment in which Florzel confesses the perfect truth of his love.  He is solid and fixed on this undiying truth, come hell itself he declares his love.  Peridia can't quite admit, she questions his love: 

O, but, sir,
Your resolution cannot hold, when 'tis
Opposed, as it must be, by the power of the king:
One of these two must be necessities,
Which then will speak, that you must
change this purpose,
Or I my life.

She turns and looks at every reason why it cannot work--her life(she's a commoner), the Kings will...

He is jumping in and she is thinking about it. "We[women] kill things with our thoughts! Overanalyze everything to death! But when guys know or decide something, they know it and go for it."(1) 

So how does this idea compare with that of early Hindu culture?

Here is a fascinating twist!  It is the men that are intellectuals and thinking things through and the women who are fickle and prone to rash decisions.  Here sita captivated by a beautiful deer requests to have it. While her husband, Rama, is gone after the deer Sita and Laksmana, Rama's brother, hear a cry for help.  This cry is a demon striving to lure Laksmana away from Sita.  Sita upon hearing the cry looses control and goes into a rage.  Laksmana tries to calm her he knows that it was not Rama and if he leaves he knows that no good will come.  Sita upon trying to get him to leave accuses him of the worst crime ever:

Surely, you are the worst enemy that Rama could have had.  I know now that you have been following us, cleverly pretending to be Rama's brother and friend. For I know now that your real motive for doing so is either to get me or you are Bharata's accomplice.  Ah, but you will not succeed. Presently, I shall give up my life.  For i cannot live without Rama.

Utterly disturbed and cut to the quick by this accusation  Laksmana responds back, revealing their view of women's nature:

You are worshipful to me: hence I cannot answer back.  It is not surprising that women should behave in this manner: for they are easily led away from dharma; they are fickle and sharp-tongued.  I cannot endure what you said just now.  I shall go.  The gods are witness to what took place here.  May those gods protect you.  But I doubt if when Rama and i return, we shall find you.

Sita is then captured by Rhamana  the demon king.

It struck me how different these two views of women are, but then again how alike.  In a Winter's Tale Perdita is over thinking the situation trying to avoid a decision and in Rhamayana Sita is over thinking the situation driving an action.  Either way over thinking a situation can lead to tainted view of reality and therefore a poor decision or lack thereof.

So maybe this is a true stereotype?

The Original Rant

_996_Second Chance_Reincarnation_Destiny_Christianity

To find the Magic

O, she's warm! If this be magic, let it be an art 
Lawful as eating.

O, how things in which are opposed to faith are considered to be magic.  If one can't explain it, it is magic!  How we like Leonties when we run into something that can't be explained we make it magic. We have all yearned for magic when we lacked faith. But here in the same breath when it's good we pray that it's an art--something beautiful and worth while, something of skill and good.  We Like Leonties hope that it is as needed, common, right, and good as eating.  We desire it to be right and above reproach be we desire to keep it.

When we see such performances we long to witness the magic in our own lives. We picture what we miss, like the Lord explaining the reunion of two friends over the discovery of a loved and missed daughter:

Then have you lost a sight, which was to be seen,
cannot be spoken of. There might you have beheld one
joy crown another, so and in such manner that it
seemed sorrow wept to take leave of them, for their
joy waded in tears. There was casting up of eyes,
holding up of hands, with countenances of such
distraction that they were to be known by garment,
not by favour.

We believe in magic...

The Winter's Tale Act Four

S1: Time tells of the passing of years.

S2: Camillo desires to go home to Sicilia and expresses this desire to the king.
      1) He wishes to comfort the king.
      2) He wishes to die in Sicilia--It's home.
~ The king and Camillo talk of the princes absence and of a plan to disguise themselves to discover the truth.

S3: Clown on the way to buy spices runs into Autolycus who picks his pockets.

S4: There are festivities. The king reveals himself as have discovered Florizel and Perdita's affair the king curses      the Shepard to hang and Perdita's beauty to be removed.
~ With Camillo Florizel and Perdita conspire to flee to Sicilia.
~ Autolycus learns of the whole plan as well as the Shepherds plan to reveal Perdita's secrets to the king.  ~Hoping for some gain Autolycus decides to scam the Sheperd and Clown to Florizel and let him deal with what  they want to do.

Even here undone!

I was not much afeard; for once or twice 

I was about to speak and tell him plainly, 

The selfsame sun that shines upon his court 

Hides not his visage from our cottage but 

Looks on alike. Will't please you, sir, be gone?

I told you what would come of this: beseech you, 

Of your own state take care: this dream of mine,— 

Being now awake, I'll queen it no inch farther, 

But milk my ewes and weep.

Here again we have the conceit of dreams!  This longing desire for that which is not.  I love the line 'i'll queen it no inch farther'.  Here she has stated that she will give up this dream and give into the truth, the light of day, but in the same line mixes her fate with queen.  She still longs to see her future as queen her reality mixed with this dream.  In one line of words one feel the tumult of her soul as she strives to do what she believes to be right in the riot of what feels right.  What makes this work Shakespeare is the moment of great turmoil was not written --
Perdita. Life sucks. I'll be a milk maid and you a king.

From Shakespeare's words, prose, and poetry we get part in their dream and they in ours.

Why a Dream?

    ...To Dream or not to Dream...

Not only are dreams toys, as Antiogonus so elegantly states, but sometimes "dreams" determine how we see the world.

Why dose Shakespeare refer to Leonties condition as a living dream and what dose it do for the play...Why was it said that way?

Your actions are my dreams
You had a bastard by Polexines

How different would Leonties actions have been if instead of fitting Herminoe into a dream, it would have been i saw you, i caught you, and other know it too.  Your actions have witnessed against you, but instead the rub was your actions are my dreams.  I have dreampt of you and Polexines and now you are in the role, you have been cast without consent.  His dream--a succession of images, thoughts, or emotions that pass through the mind (wik). He has seen Hermione with Polenxines, he has seen the vial deed, contemplated the thoughts, painted perfectly the picture, felt the emotions and now reality is swallowed in the image.  Herminoe living and breathing in front of him is in his dream.  He has welded them together in such a way it is reality.  He has seen it, caught her, and the others are blind and dishonest.  Shakespeare along with his character has trough the word dream captured the maleficence of dreams. 


We too, like Leonties, can be consumed by this so called paradox.  "For as a man thinketh in his heart so is he" (lds.org).  We reap that which we sow.  That which we dream about too often becomes our reality because we begin to make choices that organize it and breath life into it. The dream then takes shape as ones future.  Ones happiness and accomplishments are commanded by ones dreams and ones dreams are commanded by one!


As a society we can fall to the lie of the dream, thinking that success and happiness come from power and beautiful things.  One can craft that Paradise as a quiet grove of trees, moist with the morning dew and sweet with the smell of evening rain, brushed with the rays of golden sun light, and with a path down the middle to lead ones way.  However the living breathing loving reciprocating family at one's side might go unenjoyed and over looked.

Are dreams evil? Certainly not, for without vision the people perish, but one must define them what they are.   Dream big! Aim high in hope! But love what is given, take reality and embellish it with dream and beware dream embellish with reality.

Leonties is ?Fake

You know it's just kind of interesting how we are sometimes like Leonties. I have a friend that has decided that he doesn't need to finish his education despite the fact he is only 1 yr from finishing.  Every time we bring up the fact he should finish Leonties's logic comes blasting out: Apollo will only confirm my words, if i only had honest servants, it's plain to sight, stoke the fire, and he starts throwing people in jail and committing murder on every illegitimate thought purposed to him.  I was prone to snuff off how rash Leonties is but his character is diffidently present today.

MEG's thoughts on Leonties

More

The Winter's Tale Act Three

S1: Cleomenes and Dion discuss their meeting with the Oracle Apollo and wish the queen to be acquitted of her accusations.

S2: King hold a trial in which he is judge.  The accusations are placed in adultery and treason and conspiracy to kill the king.
~ Clemenes and Dion arrive with the word from Apollo clearing Hermione of all charges as well as friends.
~ Clemens even at these words doubts and kicks against the words.
~ New then comes that the kings son is dead and Hermione passes away shortly thereafter.

S3: Antigonus arrives near bohemia to dump off the child.
~ Antigonus tells of a dream he had seeing Hermione.
~ Anitgonus is killed by a bear and the ship is swallowed in the sea.
~ A shepherd and clown find the girl.

Just noticing some of the structure of these scenes.  Scene one is a few people with a hopeful tone, while scene two is many many people and turns very dark and sad with the passing of Hermione and her son.  Then scene three the weather portrays the mood--a horrible storm.  Scene tree is a few people and the death of every member of the ship and Anitgonus.

The Winter's Tale Act Two

ACT II

S1: Mamilius begins to tell a story to his mother and ladies.
~ Leonties sends Mamilius away and passes judgement on Hermione.
~ Honourable grief...burns...which tears cannot drownd.
~ Leonties is convinced of her guilt to the point that he says the Oricles will only put the ignorant worries of other to rest.
~ Antigonus feels they would be laughed to scorn if the actual truth were made known.

S2: To make no stain a stain which will never come out.
~ Sight of pure innocene persuades when speaking fails.
~ Coucils to take the babe to the king and speak to him boldly -> Paulina

S3: The king cannot rest -- goes so far as to think that if the queen were dead he would be able to rest.
~ Mamilius is sick. King believes that it is because of the queens dishonor.
~ Revenge only in the heart of the king.
~ Paulina proposes that Honesty and Truth are the medicine that will cure the sistuation.
~ Paulina declares if I a man I would fight you to name Harmine good.
~ She calls the king a Tyrant.

~~> I love the words that are used by Paulina in telling the servant why she should be let in to the king.  In responce to their words that he is not seeing anyone and he has not slept:
'Tis such as you,
That creep like shadows by him and do sigh
At each his needless heavings, such as you
Nourish the cause of his awaking: I
Do come with words as medicinal as true,
Honest as either, to purge him of that humour
That presses him from sleep.

She blames them for the horrors that are conspiring.  Tells them that they should like Camillo stand up for what they know to be right, instead of bowing, creeping shadows, sighing with him.  She says that the cure for the ails of this cheating, conspiring, lusting business is Honesty, Truth.  Truth that the kings is in error and that his actions are tyrannical and barbarous.  In act one the ills of the queen and polixenes were a disease and now Shakespeare offers the cure.     

Another thing that i thought was witty about this act was that Shakespeare in this play is telling a fairy tale and in Scene One Mamilius is asked to recount a fairy tale. A tale of sprites and goblins... It's interesting. It is almost a reminder that the story as a whole is a fairy tale.

The Winter's Tale Act One

S1: Camillo and Archidamus discus the great friendship of Leonties and Polixenes. The also discuss the great future of Mamilius, Leontie's son.
S2: Leonties and Hermione council with Polixenes to convince him to stay a while longer in Sicilia. Hermione tells him that he can either stay as a guest or as a prisoner--he can choose.
~ Polixenes consents to stay.
~ Leonties then begins to question Polixenes motives.  He accuses Polixenes of cheating with his wife.  He questions his son, asking him if he is really his son and then finally commanding in Camillo his suspicions and the charge to murder Polixenes.
~ Camillo defies the king at first and then agrees to poison Polixenes only if Leonties will then take Hermione as if nothing happened.
~ Leonties agrees that this was his plan all along.

I think one theme that Shakespear continually uses is the idea that things are not always as they appear.  The idea that one's view or perception of things is not always correct.  Here we have Leonties accusing Polixenes of cheating with his wife, he states that the offense is in sight, use a looking glass to get the details or just use one's plain eye and the truth will be seen.  Polixenes also uses this idea to confirm Camillo's words and settle on a course of action.

Leontes condemning Camiollo for not seeing the truth:
Leontes. Ha' not you seen, Camillo,—
But that's past doubt, you have, or your eye-glass
Is thicker than a cuckold's horn,—or heard,—
For to a vision so apparent rumour
Cannot be mute,—or thought,—for cogitation
Resides not in that man that does not think,—
My wife is slippery? If thou wilt confess,
Or else be impudently negative,
To have nor eyes nor ears nor thought, then say
My wife's a hobby-horse, deserves a name
As rank as any flax-wench that puts to
Before her troth-plight: say't and justify't.
Is whispering nothing?
Is leaning cheek to cheek? is meeting noses?
Kissing with inside lip? stopping the career
Of laughing with a sigh?—a note infallible
Of breaking honesty—horsing foot on foot?
Skulking in corners? wishing clocks more swift?
Hours, minutes? noon, midnight? and all eyes
Blind with the pin and web but theirs, theirs only,
That would unseen be wicked? is this nothing?
Why, then the world and all that's in't is nothing;
The covering sky is nothing; Bohemia nothing;
My wife is nothing; nor nothing have these nothings, If this be nothing.

I say thou liest, Camillo, and I hate thee,
Pronounce thee a gross lout, a mindless slave,
Or else a hovering temporizer, that
Canst with thine eyes at once see good and evil, 

Camillo. Who does infect her?
Leontes. Why, he that wears her like a medal, hanging
About his neck, Bohemia: who, if I
Had servants true about me, that bare eyes
To see alike mine honour as their profits,...

Polixenes then is convinced of Camillo's warning of the king's desires because of what he saw in the kings countenance:
Polixenes. I do believe thee:
I saw his heart in 's face.
Yet Shakespear shows us that Leonties couldn't have been more wrong the situation was indeed different than Leonties perceived it to be.  


Another fascinating element that Shakespears uses in this play and act is the personification of the idea of treachery(cheating).  He calls the idea of cheating with the Hermione a disease. 

There is a sickness
Which puts some of us in distemper, but
I cannot name the disease; and it is caught
Of you that yet are well.

A sickness caught of me, and yet I well!

What incidency thou dost guess of harm
Is creeping toward me; how far off, how near;
Which way to be prevented, if to be;
If not, how best to bear it.

This personification lends well to vial feeling of the accusation and of the evil subtly of it. It is something that one cannot prevent but once caught affects oneself and those around one. All of these things are conveyed in simple referring to cheating as a disease.

Hamlet Act 4

S1: Gertrude tells Claudius that Hamlet has killed Polonius.
~ Claudius tells R & G and sends them to fetch Polonius's body.
S2: R & G find Hamlet
~ Hamlet contends with  Rosencrantz calling his person and authority a sponge.
S3: Claudius questions Hamlet to no real avail.
~ Hamlet acts as mad as ever.
~ Claudius sends Hamlet to England and perchance will have him killed there.
S4: Fortinbraus and men have arrieved and have new for the king.
~ Hamlet somewhat inspiried by the sight of Fortinbraus sware that his thought will be bloody, or be nothing wroth.
S5: Gertrude and Claudius exchange with Ophelia. She has gone mad.
~ Leartes comes in like a storm with company swearing he will over through the king and dam his soul to avenge his fathers murder.
~ Claudius offers his kingdom if his truly in the wrong and asks Learties patience and he explains the matter.
~ He tells Leartes he did not try Hamlet becusae the people love and because of his mother.
S6:  A sailor gives messages to Heratio
~ Hamlets tell of capture to thieves and a story Heratio must hurry to hear.
S7: Claudius and Learties plot Hamlets death.
Gertrude announces Ophelia's death.

Hamlet always talks about what should be done or what needs to be done and somehow manages to do nothing.  Once again one gets a speech from Hamlet about action, yet he is acted upon by the king and walks off to England.
How all occasions do inform against me
And spur my dull revenge!

   He watched a actor tear with emotion performing a scene he(the actor) knew personally not, he now sees a army marching to war for land and honor.  His fathers Ghost has come again to wet his blunted purpose.  Hamlet still retreats from action and fails to act in spite of all these blaring occasions.

A beast, no more.
Sure he that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and godlike reason
To fust in us unus'd.  

   Archaically discourse means the ability to reason or the reasoning process (dictionary.com).  Hamlet is stating that the creator has given to each a great ability to think and reason--Godlike even.  Yet the creator gave it not to us to get old and musty unused. One is to reason, come to a conclusion, and then act.

Now, whether it be
Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
Of thinking too precisely on th' event,-
A thought which, quarter'd, hath but one part wisdom And ever three parts coward,- I do not know

  Here Hamlet fleshes out his flaw stating wither its some inhuman forgetting or timid moral, it's thinking too precisely on the event.  He is over thinking the matter.

Witness this army of such mass and charge,
Led by a delicate and tender prince,
Whose spirit, with divine ambition puff'd,
Makes mouths at the invisible event,
Exposing what is mortal and unsure
To all that fortune, death, and danger dare,
Even for an eggshell. Rightly to be great
Is not to stir without great argument,
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw When honour's at the stake.

   He gives example of the occasion to spur his revenge.  These men stand strong and bold with bright strong spirits because of there ambition.  They go to war for an eggshell or in other words nothing, yet he says when it comes to honor even straw is worth quarreling over. 

How stand I then,
That have a father kill'd, a mother stain'd,
Excitements of my reason and my blood,
And let all sleep

  Hamlet states his motivation relative to the princes--His father and mother, yet he lets all sleep while the arm marches.  He dose nothing.

while to my shame I see
The imminent death of twenty thousand men
That for a fantasy and trick of fame
Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot
Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,
Which is not tomb enough and continent
To hide the slain? O, from this time forth,
My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth! 

  Once again Hamlet swears to his mission of killing the king.

That was an attempt at translating Shakespeare.  However i think what makes this such a remarkable soliloquy is that it puts blood in Hamlets character it gives his soul flesh and bone and his form breath.  We can see that his character is real--one can it feel rather.   Ones own life is but a series of events and choices that are influenced by our thoughts and others actions.  Here Hamlet has been spurred to action by his fathers ghost to kill Claudius, yet this act doesn't appear to be in his nature.  His is a school boy, no athlete, no gladiator.  So how dose he react to the charge, he tries to study the situation out to fuel his thoughts into action.  Indeed every thought he has is on this quest and how natural to turn every situation back to his haunting, bloody mission.  He sees an army 'off to war' and of course his disposition goes to the deed he has yet to perform.  He has been drafted and yet to report.  He sees those who have reported as honored men, proud and ambitions, what he currently feels he is lacking.  Then he turns the plot back to himself trying to incorporate what he has learned: My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth! Yet still it is interesting to note the term thoughts...he is still struggling falling short of action.  Just like a human!!
 

Hamlet Act 3

S1: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Report to the king on Hamlet.
~ Ophelia goes in a plot with her father and king to return Hamlet's letters -> Hamlet see through the act and confesses to Ophilea he never loved her and tells her to get to a nunnery.
~Polonius and Claudius conclude to send Hamlet away after his mother questions him one last time.

S2: Hamlet coaches the actors.
~ The play runs.
-> The King runs out after the talk of poising the player king.
~ Guildenstern strives to confide in Hamlet once more. Hamlet rebukes Guildenstern and tells him that his shall not play him like a pipe.
~> One gets the sense that things are not always as they appear, that people play many roles as they go through life. One must be careful of the motives of other.

S3: The faculties of Ambition
~ Claudius remorses to himself seeks repentance with no avail for he cannot bring himself to give up the rewards of his evil--his wife and kingdom.
~Hamlet finds him praying, finally "resolved" to kill him, yet decides he will wait till Claudius is not clean and ready to meet his maker.

S4: Hamlet confronts his mother.
~Polonius spy on the affair and cries out in a moment of disarray and is killed by hamlet.
~Hamlet was hoping it was Claudius behind the curtain.

One of the points that I thought was interesting is when Hamlet is speaking to the players before the play. He tells them not to overdo the act:

I had as live the town crier spoke my lines. Nor do 1885
not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all
gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and (as I may say)
whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a
temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the
soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to 1890
tatters, to very rags, to split the cars of the groundlings, who
(for the most part) are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb
shows and noise. I would have such a fellow whipp'd for o'erdoing
Termagant. It out-herods Herod. Pray you avoid it.

Be not too tame neither; but let your own discretion be your
tutor. Suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with
this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of
nature: for anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing,
whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 1900
'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show Virtue her own feature,
scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his
form and pressure. Now this overdone, or come tardy off, though
it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious
grieve; the censure of the which one must in your allowance 1905
o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. O, there be players that I
have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly (not to
speak it profanely), that, neither having the accent of
Christians, nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so
strutted and bellowed that I have thought some of Nature's 1910
journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated
humanity so abominably.

He tells them to let nature act as nature, if one is to act virtue, passion, anger, or norm let them look as such. And later in the play he speaks with Horatio and commends him for not being passions slave.

and blest are those
Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled
That they are not a pipe for Fortune's finger
To sound what stop she please. Give me that man 1950
That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart,
As I do thee.

It is interesting that in these two passages he is commending the idea of restraint and patience, yet he is quickly becoming the unbridled passion he is counseling against. In a moment to avenge his father’s death--seeing the king praying alone in his room--hemlet decides to postpone his action yet again. This time however not for uncertainty but because he thinks the king will ironically go to Heaven if killed while praying. Hamlet in passion and revenge and hate now chooses to wait for a time when he thinks Claudius will be ripe to go to hell and suffer the most. He wants Claudius to pay for what he has done. This growing passion leads to Polonius's death while spying in the queens chamber, upon a cry Hamlet hopes it to be his 'father' and stabs blindly into the drapes killing him.

There is a lesson here on passion and ambition. Claudius's ambition leads to the death Hamlet's father the true king. Hamlet's passion has led to the death of Polonius. Both have killed in the name of passion and ambition. Who’s to say now they both don't deserve the same fate? Unbridled passion and ambition is not a good thing!
One more thought: Hamlet calls the play to expose Claudius's evil 'Mouse Trap’. Hamlet as compels his mother not to fall for Claudius's evil seductions any more saying 'Not this, by no means, that I bid you do:
Let the bloat King tempt you again to bed;
Pinch wanton on your cheek; call you his mouse;'
In both place when there is one leading the other into one's will they are referred to as mouse. Hamlet is playing with the king and the king with Gertrude.

Shakespeare! -- Experience and Interests

My experience with Shakespeare is rather limited.  During high school i enroled in a class taught by Skip Gardner.  He was a stonch and rigid professor.  As far as high school classes were concerned, his was no high school class, one was to earn the AP English name.  In his class i studied a vast voriety of works, some of which Shakespeare was included.  We studied Mechbeth, Hamlet, Mush Ado about Nothing, Romie and Juliet, and Othello.  I have watched several of these plays on vedio, most of them staring Kenneth Branagh. The thing i remember most of these classes and decisions is the climax of analysis of the plays characters, their personalities and traits, as well as the plot and over all design.  Since then i have been fascinated by Shakespeare and the greater depth and view his works can bring to ones life.

My interest with Shakespeare includes learning of and understanding what makes his writing great.  What is it that makes Shakespeare's works last through the ages, what makes them masterpieces.  I love to talk about and see the fragmented pieces of pure human nature ruggedly exposed in his characters and stories.  I love to learn of the architectural design of his plays that makes them engineering marvels. I love to see the pitfalls of human character and culture vividly exposed in writ.  My interest is in a class experience to see these traits come to fruition.   
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