It’s time once again to check in on what searches people have done to find themselves at Shakespeare Teacher, and to respond in the name of fun and public service. All of the following searches brought people to this site in the past week.

googleplex fridaysThis feature happens to share its name with the headquarters of Google Inc., located in Mountain View, California. I have no idea what goes on there on Fridays.

how come king james didn’t like macbethI don’t grant your premise, unless you are referring to the historical figure and not the Shakespeare play. In fact, you might say that the play was actually written specifically to appeal to the new king. Witches were a fascination for James, so he’d have been intrigued from the start. Also, James was a direct descendent of both the historical Malcolm and the historical Banquo. Notice that the witches make a prophecy that doesn’t actually come true in the play, which is an odd dramatic convention. They prophecy that Banquo will not be king, but will instead be the father to a line of kings. Later, Macbeth is shown a vision of eight kings along with the ghost of Banquo who points at them for his. The eighth king is meant to be King James, as he is the eighth king in the house of Stewart. The prophecy doesn’t come true in the play; it comes true in the audience.

presidents with the letter xSo far, it’s just Nixon, but the night is young.

shakespeare film 2010You do realize you’re skipping over a whole year, right? No interest in The Tempest with Helen Mirren as Prospero? Not anxiously awaiting the new Hamlet with Screech and the Chocolate Rain guy? Okay. From what I can tell, the Shakespeare film event of 2010 will be King Lear with Anthony Hopkins in the title role and Naomi Watts, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Keira Knightley as his three extremely beautiful daughters. Also, Eddie Murphy – I kid you not – is planning to do a version of Romeo & Juliet. I imagine he will be playing both roles, but that’s pure speculation.

shakespeare king henry lambasts halI was amused to see this one because I used the phrase “lambasts Hal” in my first Shakespeare Lipogram, and I chose the verb because it only has the vowel “A” in it. But I wonder if you’re really looking for that scene from Henry IV, Part One, or if you’re actually looking for this scene from Henry IV, Part Two. It’s one of the great scenes from one of Shakespeare’s lesser-known works and was even listed as #38 on my Top 50 scenes in all of Shakespeare.

Hal finds his deathly-ill father asleep, assumes he’s dead, and takes the crown off with him. When he returns, the King’s awake, and lambasts Hal. They reconcile, and Henry gives his son advice for how to be king. The language is… there’s no adjective I could use that you wouldn’t say “Well, yeah, it’s Shakespeare” but the language is particularly rich and evocative in this scene. I did an anagram of a quote from it a while back, but I’m surprised I still haven’t done the most timely quote of them all: “Be it thy course to busy giddy minds/ With foreign quarrels; that action, hence borne out,/ May waste the memory of the former days.” It’s even got a “Q” in it. I’ll have to save that one for a rainy day.

is macbeth is worth readingMost definitely. I suggest gathering a group of friends together, dividing up the roles, and reading it out loud. Trust me on this one. That’s how to read Macbeth.

I leave the task of responding to the remaining search terms to my readers:

why is shakespeare is one of the founding fatherswhat did the tudors bring back to England

was shakespeare a teacher?

slings and arrows on demand time warner

which president read macbeth before he die

how did shakespeare die on youtube

 

It’s time once again to check in on what searches people have done to find themselves at Shakespeare Teacher, and to respond in the name of fun and public service. All of the following searches brought people to this site in the past week.

shakespeare’s macbeth powerpointThe following image was found on a hard drive from a laptop that dates back to the early 17th century. Some have speculated that it might be from Shakespeare’s famous Macbeth PowerPoint, otherwise lost to history.

Oh, you probably meant a PowerPoint about Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Nevermind.

why did the tudors like king johnI’ll assume you meant the man and not the play, since Elizabeth was the only Tudor left by the time the play was written. But either way, the answer would probably be the same. In the early 13th century, King John showed open defiance against Pope Innocent III over church appointments in England. An ongoing battle of wills resulted in John’s excommunication from the church. When King Henry VIII willfully broke from the church in the 16th century, King John was a convenient symbol of English independence from Rome.

last line as you like it shakespeareHere it is:

If I were a woman I would kiss as many of you as had beards that pleased me, complexions that liked me, and breaths that I defied not; and, I am sure, as many as have good beards, or good faces, or sweet breaths, will, for my kind offer, when I make curtsy, bid me farewell.

It is the end of an epilogue spoken by the actor who played Rosalind in the play, who in Shakespeare’s time would have been male. In the play, Rosalind (a young woman) disguises herself as Ganymede (a young man), and then agrees to pretend to be Rosalind. The line “if I were a woman…” is funny because it reminds us that what we’ve just seen was a boy playing a girl playing a boy playing a girl.

who was the father of king henry the eighthKing Henry the Seventh.

how did shakespeare and king henry the 8th meetKing Henry the Eighth died before Shakespeare was born. But Shakespeare wrote a play about him.

shakespeare 6th grade which play?When I’m working with 6th-grade students specifically, I like to choose a play that has resonance with ancient civilizations, which is what they’ll be learning about in social studies. Julius Caesar is probably the most age appropriate selection of that group.

I leave the task of responding to the remaining search terms to my readers:

descendants of king arthurword that end with the letter x for 5 years old

“why did shakespeare use long speeches”

tudors william shakespeare what he
wanted to be when he was a child

what is the symbolic value of the ghost of banquo

i am drawn to the letter y what does it mean

I’ve done this feature before, but this is the first of what I hope will be a series of weekly opportunities to check in on what searches people do to find themselves at Shakespeare Teacher, and to respond in the name of fun and public service. All of the following searches brought people to this site in the past week.

when queen elizabeth died what
happened to king iago in scottlandOnly one reigning Queen Elizabeth of England has ever died, so I’ll assume you are asking about Elizabeth I. When she died in 1603, the crown was inherited by King James VI of Scotland, who then became King James I of England as well. This united the two kingdoms, and today we even refer to the nation as the United Kingdom.

Iago is a fictional character in Shakespeare’s Othello. There was also a 7th century Welsh King by that name.

obama shakespeareI’m not sure what you’re looking for, but I’m not surprised it brought you here. May I interest you in an anagram?

university teachers genghis khanAnd you thought the midterm was tough.

is teaching shakespeare good?Yes.

genghis khan gameHow come you always get to be Genghis?

wife of henry 8th that was ugliest women aliveAh, you must be thinking of Anne of Cleves, though that may be a bit harsh. Henry had arranged to marry her sight unseen so that he could form a political alliance with her family. But before he agreed to marry her, he sent Hans Holbein the Younger, the greatest portrait artist of his day, to go and paint her. When he returned, as the story goes, Henry liked what he saw and agreed to the marriage. Unfortunately, Henry didn’t realize he was looking at a picture painted by the greatest portrait artist of his day. When he saw the real deal, he was less pleased. The marriage was short, and (fortunately for Anne) ended in divorce.

I leave the task of responding to the remaining search terms to my readers:

book: bush tragedy and Falstaffwhy was shakespeare so successful riddle

how did shakespeare change history

letters to genghis khan from family

social justice of gilligan’s island

a good headline for a shakespeare play

I’m always curious to see what search terms bring people to this site. Here is a list of some of the search terms that brought people here today:

shakespeare and technology

 

tudor riddles

 

riddle for a waste paper basket

 

plays genres

 

josh lymon secret service codename

 

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what did the tudors find and bring back to England

 

descriptive word that starts with the letter y

 

knowledge in othello

 

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who is the more complex villain in king lear

 

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mary queen of scots descendants in Virginia

 

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descendents of the tudors to present day

 

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what did tudors do in there free space

 

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riddles in shakespeare

 

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queen elizabeth “i am henry …”

 

multiple choice test for king henry the 8th

 

in merchant of venice two fathers in post strike rules on their daughters

 

giant shakespeare crossword puzzle

 

boleyn living relatives

 

literacy in shakespeare’s time

 

a list of twenty things that shakespeare wrote

 

top 10 reasons to vote

 

where can i find information on the descendants of bloody mary

 

what is the coincidence that happened between shakespeare and cervantes

This is a partial list. I deleted several of the search terms, mostly looking for modern-day descendants of the Tudors.

I can tackle a few of these, and I’ll leave the rest to my readers. To the best of my knowledge, Josh Lyman’s Secret Service codename was never revealed on The West Wing. Yes, “smarter” is a word. And Bloody Mary did not have any children, and thus, no descendants.

I have taught Shakespeare to a wide variety of age groups, but never to four-year-olds. I defer to the Shakespeare Geek who is building an early appreciation for the playwright with his own daughters.

As for the Elizabeth quote “I am Henry”, I’m at a loss, though you may be thinking of the Queen’s reaction to a production of Richard II, which is about the deposing of a monarch. She was aware that the Earl of Essex commissioned the production in order to foment rebellion. Elizabeth I is said to have remarked “I am Richard II, know ye not that?”

Does anyone know which Shakespeare author was on The Daily Show? And would anyone like to address the questions about Merchant and King Lear?

From Henry VIII:

[H]ow may I deserve it
That am a poor and humble subject to you?

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

What did Obama say to Joe the Plumber?

“You have income. Trust.”

I did this one already, but I wanted to respond to a search that brought a reader here yesterday:

“how did queen elizabeth feel about shakespeare play king henry the 8th”

It’s a good question, since Henry was Queen Elizabeth’s father, and it would be interesting to get her reaction to the play that bears his name. But Elizabeth died in 1603, and it is believed that the play was first performed in 1613, so we can only speculate as to how she might have felt about it.

The play retains the pro-Tudor slant on history that characterized Shakespeare’s earlier history plays, and whitewashes some of the uglier aspects of Henry’s story. As for Elizabeth, her birth is depicted at the very end of the play, and the happy father swells with pride at the event.

From Henry VIII:

O lord archbishop!
Thou hast made me now a man: never, before
This happy child, did I get any thing.
This oracle of comfort has so pleas’d me,
That when I am in heaven, I shall desire
To see what this child does, and praise my Maker.

But if you shift around the letters, you probably get much closer to what he actually would have said:

O lord archbishop!

Fact: I wanted to have a son.

So I, cross Henry the Eighth, must kill this wife, Madam Anne Boleyn, with promptest speed.

So I shall, in a flash, remove and discard her doomed head apace!

I am Henry the Eighth, I am!

I’m always curious to see what search terms bring people to this site. Here is a list of all of the search terms that brought people here yesterday:

how shakespeare demonstrated “religion” in his plays

 

presidents with the letter y in their name

 

king henry viii shakespeare for children

 

who are the present day descendants of ann boleyn

 

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textual analysis of elizabath i letter to king james vi

 

what play of shakespeare hads the word shyster in it?

 

characterize ophelia in act 3 scene 1

 

open-ended question of the week

 

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sir francis bacon blog

The word “shyster” does not appear in Shakespeare. There is a character named Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, and a popular anti-lawyer quote in Henry VI, Part Two.

Several United States presidents have had the letter Y in their names. First name: Ulysses S. Grant, Harry S. Truman, Lyndon B. Johnson, Jimmy Carter; Last name: John Tyler, Rutherford B. Hayes, William McKinley, John F. Kennedy; First and Last Name: Zachary Taylor; Commonly Used Middle Name: John Quincy Adams, William Henry Harrison.

As for the Ophelia thing, do your own homework.

One of my favorite pieces of trivia is that John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died on the same day. What’s truly remarkable about this is that it happened on July 4, 1826, which was the 50th anniversary of the famous signing of the Declaration of Independence. John Adams’s last words are reported to be “Thomas Jefferson survives” – he did not know that his long-time friend and rival had died a few hours earlier. For us, then, knowing that Jefferson died first is an essential part of the story of these great founding fathers.

But what of the founding fathers of Western literature? Recently, we celebrated April 23 as Shakespeare’s birthday, but we also know it as his death day. Shakespeare died in Stratford on April 23, 1616. We do not know the time of his death, or his last words.

Miguel de Cervantes, author of Don Quixote, might likewise be considered one of the founding fathers of Western literature. Cervantes died in Madrid on April 23, 1616. We do not know the time of his death, or his last words.

And yet, it is possible to say, with some degree of certainty, which of the two authors perished first. And that, dear readers, is today’s Conundrum.

Who died first: Shakespeare or Cervantes? How do you know?

Feel free to speculate as to last words too, if that sort of thing amuses you.

UPDATE: Question answered by Neel Mehta. See comments for answer.

England has had eight kings named Henry, all before Shakespeare was born.

How many of the eight appear as characters in Shakespeare’s 37 canonical plays?

For your answer to be valid, please list each such Henry, and at least one play in which he appears. It is not necessary to list all of the plays in which each Henry appears, but maybe we can do that after the Conundrum is solved.

Note: The Henry does not need to have been king at the time – nor, for that matter, called Henry.

UPDATE: Question answered by K-Lyn. See comments for answer.

Earlier this week, I attempted to answer the question of whether Henry VIII has any living descendants, but I fear my answer may have been a bit too long winded. Perhaps I could deliver a more succinct answer if I made an anagram from the speech in Shakespeare where Henry talks about his daughter Elizabeth.

From Henry VIII:

O lord archbishop!
Thou hast made me now a man: never, before
This happy child, did I get any thing.
This oracle of comfort has so pleas’d me,
That when I am in heaven, I shall desire
To see what this child does, and praise my Maker.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Henry VIII has no descendants that live.

Hail papa! From each of the four mommies, the Eighth had a hip kid: Catholic Mary, bastard Henry, wise Bess, and little Edward.

These had no more. His chromosomal line was stopped. Gone.