From Richard III:
Today shalt thou behold a subject die
For truth, for duty, and for loyalty.
Shift around the letters, and it becomes:
O, your frothy bully Don had to jab the adults that told facts, “You’re fired!”
It’s hard to meet people these days. You may have even seen some online lists of pick-up lines, quick conversation starters for approaching women in bars.
But what if the object of your affection is a Shakespeare fan? Below you will find a list of sure-fire Shakespeare-themed pick-up lines that are guaranteed to breed love’s settled passions in her heart.
Note: This is a parody. Always treat others with respect, and never actually use any of these rude pick-up lines on a real woman in a bar*.
Good luck, and have fun!
—
*I have actually used all of these lines on a real woman in a bar.
Evidence of Donald Trump’s racism has not been particularly subtle to find for those willing to see it. One could point to moments throughout his pre-presidential life, such as renting discrimination, attacks on the Central Park Five, or his shameful participation in the birther movement. One could look to his policies that disregard the humanity of immigrants and people of color. Or, one could notice a pattern of references to minority populations that assume that they are less important and valuable than whites.
What is it, then, that distinguishes the latest set of tweets from Exhibits A through Y? Last week, the Republican president posted the following to Twitter (three consecutive tweets are concatenated here, but are otherwise unedited):
So interesting to see “Progressive” Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run. Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how it is done. These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough. I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!
The difference is that up until now, the racism, though transparent enough, has all been in subtext. Republicans who didn’t subscribe to his hateful messages but still wanted to defend him out of loyalty to Team Red could at least hide behind a veneer of deniability. This is now a thing of the past. Setting aside the fact that the four Congresswomen in question are all United States citizens, and that three of them were born in the United States, telling people to go back where they came from is textbook racism. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission even cites “Go back where you came from” as an example of discriminatory language. There’s simply no debate here.
So of course, there’s a debate here, with many of the president’s apologists rushing to explain why his racist tweets aren’t racist. A handful of Republicans have denounced the comments, but not nearly enough. Others have remained conspicuously silent. And my advice for that last group is that they read themselves some Shakespeare. And while that’s usually my advice for everyone, I recommend that these quiet Republicans direct their attention to the Duke of Buckingham.
Buckingham is a character in Shakespeare’s King Richard III. He is based on a real person, but I am going to focus on the character that Shakespeare created. The play follows the journey of Richard, Duke of Gloucester. Richard starts the play fifth in line to the throne, but through a combination of a can-do attitude and a ruthless campaign of cold-blooded murder, he is able to become king. His partner in crime is the Duke of Buckingham, who is willing to support Richard’s heinous treachery in order to ingratiate himself to power.
At one point, Buckingham makes a suggestion that Richard likes, and the latter responds “My other self,” which is the highest praise a narcissist can offer. Richard continues to express appreciation for the support, and tells Buckingham “when I am king, claim thou of me/ The earldom of Hereford,” as a reward.
Richard ultimately becomes king, but it’s not enough. His late brother’s sons are still alive and could one day make a claim to the throne. He brings the issue up to Buckingham, expecting Buckingham to be the one to suggest killing them.
RICHARD
Ah, Buckingham, now do I play the touch,
To try if thou be current gold indeed:
Young Edward lives; think now what I would speak.BUCKINGHAM
Say on, my loving lord.RICHARD
Why, Buckingham, I say I would be king.BUCKINGHAM
Why so you are, my thrice-renownèd lord.RICHARD
Ha! Am I king? ’Tis so—but Edward lives.BUCKINGHAM
True, noble prince.
Richard becomes angry that Buckingham seems to no longer be his other self. He expresses his desire to kill the princes. This is a step too far for Buckingham, but he still lacks the courage to stand up to Richard.
RICHARD
O bitter consequence
That Edward still should live “true noble prince”!
Cousin, thou wast not wont to be so dull.
Shall I be plain? I wish the bastards dead,
And I would have it suddenly performed.
What sayst thou now? Speak suddenly. Be brief.BUCKINGHAM
Your Grace may do your pleasure.RICHARD
Tut, tut, thou art all ice; thy kindness freezes.
Say, have I thy consent that they shall die?BUCKINGHAM
Give me some little breath, some pause, dear lord,
Before I positively speak in this.
I will resolve you herein presently.
At this point, an observer notes “The King is angry. See, he gnaws his lip.” Richard wastes no time before finding another lackey to do his dirty work. As for Buckingham, Richard is finished with him.
RICHARD [Aside]
The deep-revolving witty Buckingham
No more shall be the neighbor to my counsels.
Hath he so long held out with me, untired,
And stops he now for breath? Well, be it so.
And that’s all it took, a moment’s hesitation. At this point, all that Buckingham did to put Richard on the throne is forgotten. Only the most recent test of loyalty counts. Richard denies Buckingham the promised and well-earned earldom of Hereford. Buckingham flees. Richard has him captured and executed. So much for him.
And there is a lesson here for those who would defend Trump over the objections of the better angels of their nature. These tweets are not going to be the end of it. It will get worse. So the question you really have to ask yourself is: how far are you willing to go? Because once you hesitate, stop for breath even once, Trump will forget everything you’ve done for him up until that point. The rest of us won’t.
Consider all of the people who are forever tainted with this dark chapter of American history. I’m not talking about people like Stephen Miller, who uses the administration to promote his own white nationalist agenda. I’m talking about people who otherwise might have had distinguished careers, enjoying some kind of public perception of integrity. I’m looking at you, Sean Spicer. I’m looking at you, Sarah Huckabee Sanders. How’s it going, Kellyanne Conway? Everything okay, Lindsey Graham? What’s the first thing you think of when I say “Kirstjen Nielsen”? How will history remember Bill Barr? Who else wants to join the list?
And, literally while I was writing this, our Republican president attacked Representative Elijah Cummings and the city of Baltimore. Are you prepared to take this train all the way to the end? If not, this might be your stop.
Happy 455th Birthday to Shakespeare!
In honor of the occasion, I present… Shakespeare Memes!
So President Trump directed Attorney General Jeff Sessions to fire Andrew McCabe, the acting director of the FBI.
McCabe was set to retire anyway, but the administration chose to fire him so he wouldn’t get his full pension.
The president then crowed about the firing in a tweet.
Ranting and raving about new lows for this administration can get tiring after a while. Maybe that’s the point. Fortunately, I am constitutionally empowered to anagram passages from Shakespeare to express my disapproval, so that’s what I’m going to do.
I chose the speech from Richard III where Hastings laments his capricious treatment by Richard. Richard has sentenced him to death for a transparently minor offense, when the real reason is that Hastings doesn’t support Richard to become king. Hastings notes the dangers faced by others in the circle who may be enjoying his misfortunes thinking they’re safe.
From Richard III:
I prophesy the fearfull’st time to thee
That ever wretched age hath look’d upon.
Come, lead me to the block; bear him my head:
They smile at me who shortly shall be dead.
Shift around the letters, and it becomes:
Trump, he hotly tweets: McCabe, he led the FBI. He’ll be fired home.
He’s married to a Democrat, so Trump kept heatedly asking how he voted as a loyalty oath theme.
Oh, hell.
That’s actually true.
Oh, hell.
In Macbeth, King Duncan receives a report on the execution of the Thane of Cawdor, who had betrayed him in the war against Norway. Duncan notes his own surprise at the deception:
There’s no art
To find the mind’s construction in the face:
He was a gentleman on whom I built
An absolute trust.
No art to find the mind’s construction in the face? Is it really possible that nobody in Shakespeare’s time (or even Macbeth’s time) had thought to study this? And if not, where is Shakespeare getting the idea from? My Arden Macbeth (Sandra Clark and Pamela Mason, eds.) says that it is proverbial, but that only raises more questions about what is meant by it. In all honesty, I think it’s time to bring back the Shakespeare Follow-Up.
First of all, the idea that different emotions would register in an observable way has always been as plain as the smile on your face. If anyone wants to doubt that, they need only look at the types of masks used in ancient Greek theatre to represent comedy and tragedy and see if they can tell which is which.
So the idea of finding the mind’s construction in the face was well known in Macbeth’s time. But what about someone who intends to deceive? How could Duncan have uncovered Cawdor’s treachery?
As long as there have been liars, there have been techniques attempting to reveal them, which have had various degrees of accuracy. In ancient China, they used to put dried rice in a suspect’s mouth and ask them to spit it out. If they were lying, their mouths would be too dry to spit out the rice. At least, that’s what they said on The Unit (see 5:30 to 7:10 below):
In the clip, Jonas mentions the witch trials, and indeed, the trial by ordeal was a common method of uncovering deceivers throughout medieval Europe, whether by water, combat, fire, or hot iron. As Europe approached the Renaissance, these beliefs began to slowly evolve, marking a significant gap between the worldviews of Macbeth’s time and Shakespeare’s.
Shakespeare himself seemed intrigued with the idea that one could alter one’s own face to conceal evil intentions. Hamlet has an epiphany that “one may smile, and smile, and be a villain.” And in Henry VI, Part Three, the future King Richard III actually brags about being such a villain:
Why, I can smile, and murder whiles I smile,
And cry ‘Content’ to that which grieves my heart,
And wet my cheeks with artificial tears,
And frame my face to all occasions.
Could Shakespeare have been influenced by the writings of French philosopher Michel de Montaigne? In his late 16th-century essay Of Physiognomy, Montaigne muses on this very question, ascribing moral implications to a false aspect:
The face is a weak guarantee; yet it deserves some consideration. And if I had to whip the wicked, I would do so more severely to those who belied and betrayed the promises that nature had implanted on their brows; I would punish malice more harshly when it was hidden under a kindly appearance. It seems as if some faces are lucky, others unlucky. And I think there is some art to distinguishing the kindly faces from the simple, the severe from the rough, the malicious from the gloomy, the disdainful from the melancholy, and other such adjacent qualities. There are beauties not only proud but bitter; others are sweet, and even beyond that, insipid. As for prognosticating future events from them, those are matters that I leave undecided.
Sorry, Duncan.
The 18th-century actor David Garrick turned this vice into a virtue, developing great fame for his repertoire of facial expressions that could be used to convey a wide range of emotions on stage. Charles Darwin, in his 1872 work The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, identified a specific set of facial expressions that he believed to be universal to humans as a product of evolution. Today, we know that, while many facial expressions are generally universal, they can be profoundly influenced by culture.
In the 20th century, the rise of the polygraph machine added an extra level of science to lie detection. The machine registers physiological responses the subject exhibits while answering questions. It’s not infallible, and it’s not unbeatable, but it just might have been able to reveal the Thane of Cawdor’s treachery, had it been available to apply.
But as far as finding the mind’s construction in the face, we should turn to the poker community, which has made a small science of identifying expressions, statements, and actions that reveal the strength or weakness of a players hand. When there’s money on the table, every advantage matters. These “tells” are catalogued, studied, observed, and – of course – faked when the opportunity arises. Some poker players, to defend against being read in this way, will conceal their faces with visors, hoodies, or even sunglasses. Interestingly enough, sunglasses were first invented in 12th century China, where they were originally worn by judges to assist them in concealing their emotions during a trial.
But the master of the art of finding the mind’s construction in the face would have to be Dr. Paul Ekman. Ekman is mostly famous for discovering the “micro expression,” a facial tell that sweeps across the face for a fraction of a second, betraying the subject’s true emotional state. They cannot be hidden. They cannot be faked. They also cannot be read without deep training, which Ekman provides.
Ekman and his research became the inspiration for the Fox crime drama Lie to me*. On the show, Tim Roth plays Dr. Cal Lightman, a fictionalized version of Ekman. Each episode shows Lightman and his team using micro expressions and other scientific tells to find out the truth for desperate clients. If you’ve read this essay this far, you might enjoy the show:
So, with all of these clues available, how well does Duncan learn from his experience with the traitorous Thane of Cawdor? He grants the now-available title to Macbeth, and then Macbeth kills him. If there was an art to find the mind’s construction in the face, Duncan was very, very bad at it.
There’s a lot going on this week, but the story that stands out most for me is Montana Republican Greg Gianforte being elected to the United States House of Representatives a day after witnesses watched him grab a reporter by the neck and throw him to the ground.
From Richard III:
I do the wrong, and first begin to brawl.
The secret mischiefs that I set abroach
I lay unto the grievous charge of others.
Shift around the letters, and it becomes:
The idiot congressman-elect’s sorry for a bad hate wrath.
But if he regrets rough fight violence, what is to be his action?
From Richard III:
And is it thus? Repays he my deep service
With such contempt? Made I him king for this?
Shift around the letters, and it becomes:
Trump’s mad they think the timing which he fired Comey raises deep vast suspicion.
In honor of Shakespeare’s birthday, I am pleased to share with you an out-take from one of his most popular histories, King Richard III. Historians remember that Richard had a press secretary named Sean Spicer. This is no coincidence – he was a distant ancestor of the current White House Press Secretary! And all of this is well-recorded in the history books.
But what you probably don’t know is that an early Quarto version of Shakespeare’s play includes a scene with the famous spokesman.
Enjoy!
SPICER: And this is how we know that King Richard had the most attended coronation in English history. Period. Now, I’ll take a few questions before we go.
PRESS: Sean, how does the King respond to allegations that he had his brother Clarence murdered in the Tower?
SPICER: Well, I would remind you that this was something that happened under the previous administration. It was King Edward who ordered Clarence’s execution, and these were the orders that were carried out. Nobody was more upset to hear the news than King Richard. Nobody.
PRESS: The Earl of Richmond is reportedly claiming today that the entire York line is illegitimate and the throne was usurped from the House of Lancaster. Any comment?
SPICER: You have to remember that these were horrible, horrible people. I mean, if you look at what happened with Rutland, with the Duke of York… they killed their own people. You didn’t even see that in the Spanish Inquisition.
PRESS: They didn’t kill their own people in the Spanish Inquisition?
SPICER: No, only the Jews. I, of course, do realize that many Jews were… were invited in for conversion interviews, and all the stuff that was going on. But it’s nothing like the behavior we saw with the Lannisters.
PRESS: The Lancasters?
SPICER: Yes.
PRESS: But if the York line is legitimate, wouldn’t King Edward’s son, young Prince Edward, be next in line, and not Richard?
SPICER: You say that Edward is King Edward’s son:
So say we too, but not by Edward’s wife;
For first was he contract to Lady Lucy,
The Duchess lives a witness to his vow,
And afterward by substitute betroth’d
To Bona, sister to the King of France.
These both put by, a poor petitioner,
A care-craz’d mother to a many sons,
A beauty-waning and distressed widow,
Even in the afternoon of her best days,
Made prize and purchase of his wanton eye,
Seduc’d the pitch and height of his degree
To base declension and loath’d bigamy:
By her, in his unlawful bed, he got
This Edward, whom our manners call the prince.
All these are facts and you can look them up.PRESS: What?
SPICER: No more questions.
The scene ultimately had to be cut from the play, not because of historical accuracy, but because the Master of the Revels had objected to the character of Sean Spicer being played by a woman.
However, we still have the scene as it exists in the Quarto, and it’s amazing how it still feels relevant to our world today!
I’m a basketball game where you’re calling your shot;
I’m worth something in trade and — to Richard — a lot;
I’m the measure of power your vehicle’s got;
And equipment for vaults, fit with handles or not.
Who am I?
UPDATE: Riddle solved by Asher. See comments for answer.