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Mike M writes:
Jansy, the seemingly unstable identities in Pale Fire are a bit of a
nightmare. Mostly I'm interested in the Shakespeare links, the internal
connections are subordinate. I realize that many of my contributions to
this list will sink without trace, justifiably so, but I'm inclined to
toss in even remote possibilities, on the off-chance that they may gain
traction.
So, for example, I forgot to mention that the "ululations" in the barn
might hint at another Macbeth allusion, since ulula in Latin means
'owl'. When Macbeth embarks on his regicide mission against King Duncan
-- regicide being 'kibote' in Zemblan, or so Shade claims -- Lady
Macbeth hears a faint noise, says "Hark! Peace! / It was the owl that
shriek'd, the fatal bellman / Which gives the stern'st good-night. He
[Macbeth] is about it". The morning after the murder, a Lord tells
Macbeth about the weird goings-on during the night: lamentations and
screaming, "the obscure bird / Clamour'd the livelong night". The owl
is the obscure bird, and is associated with Macbeth himself.
There is also the odd little tableau, imaginatively recreated by
Charles, of Hazel's final visit to the 'barn' with her parents. This in
itself is presented as a playlet, or a scene in a play, and in fact it
seems to parody another play. That play is Hamlet, if fact the opening
scene, where the skeptical Horatio is prevailed upon to see the ghost
of old King Hamlet. Marcellus is the one who persuades him:
"Horatio says 'tis but our fantasy,
And will not let belief take hold of him
Touching this dreaded sight, twice seen of us:
Therefore I have entreated him along
With us to watch the minutes of this night;
That if again this apparition come,
He may approve our eyes and speak to it."
Note that this will be the third time the ghost will be "seen". Charles
wrote: "There are always "three nights" in fairy tales, and in this sad
fairy tale there was a third one too. This time she wanted her parents
to witness the "talking light" with her." There's even a replication of
Bernardo's observation -- "Last night of all / When yond same star
that's westward from the pole / Had made his course to illume that part
of heaven / Where now it burns, " -- in Charles' 'stage direction':
"Fifteen minutes pass in silence. The eye begins to make out here and
there in the darkness bluish slits of night and one star."
Charles' observation on Southey's rat (note to 376-7) in the wake of
the threat of legal action is peculiar, coming out of the blue.
Assuming that the contentiousness over manuscripts alludes also to
Shakespeare's plays and sonnets, it's perhaps noteworthy that Hamlet,
after killing Polonius through the arras, exclaims "A rat?". In
Gertrude's later version it's "a rat, a rat". (Charles' note is
"Southey liked a roasted rat for supper - which is especially comic in
view of the rats that devoured his Bishop."). Later, Claudius asks
Hamlet where he's disposed of Polonius' corpse, and he replies:
"At supper.
KING CLAUDIUS
At supper! where?
HAMLET
Not where he eats, but where he is eaten: a certain
convocation of politic worms are e'en at him. Your
worm is your only emperor for diet: we fat all
creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for
maggots: your fat king and your lean beggar is but
variable service, two dishes, but to one table:
that's the end.
KING CLAUDIUS
Alas, alas!
HAMLET
A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a
king, and cat of the fish that hath fed of that worm."
Not claiming any direct connection here, just pointing out an
interesting coincidence. The "convocation of politic worms... emperor
for diet" refers to the Diet of Worms, a conference presided over by
Emperor Charles V in Worms in 1521 to discuss the Protestant
reformation. That Lord Burghley was born in 1521 gives comfort to those
who believe that the character of Polonius was a lampoon by Shakespeare
on Queen Elizabeth's senior advisor. If it's not a lampoon of somebody,
the passage is pointless and toothless.