From King Richard II:

For God’s sake, let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings:

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Plantagenet’s ass took to the dirt and thus sighed OK eulogies for snuffed lords.

UPDATE: A more family-friendly version…

Plantagenet’s tush took to the dirt and so asked eulogies for snuffed lords. (Sigh!)

First, read the rules of the game.

This week’s challenge is Sicko filmmaker Michael Moore.

I was able to link Michael Moore to Sir Francis Bacon in six degrees or fewer, though that shouldn’t stop you from posting a longer response, or looking for a shorter one. Entries will be accepted until midnight on Thursday, July 5.

Good luck!

And congratulations to Lee for winning last week’s challenge by linking Tony Soprano to Sir Francis Bacon in five degrees:

Tony Soprano > Junior Soprano > Dominic Chianese > Gilbert and Sullivan > William Shakespeare > Sir Francis Bacon

Tony Soprano is the nephew of Junior Soprano, who was played by Dominic Chianese, who appeared in the work of Gilbert and Sullivan, whose Yeoman of the Guard resembled the language of William Shakespeare, who is believed by some to be Sir Francis Bacon.

I’m a family of fishes – bright orange, my roe;
They collect me by dipping a net where I grow;
I’m the way you get metal when ore rock must go;
And I’m how you inspected your vintage Bordeaux.

Who am I?

UPDATE: Riddle solved by Brian. See comments for answer.

I wanted to clear up that my post last week, Lies Like Truth, was criticizing the article in the Scotsman and not necessarily the academics being cited. If, in fact, they are making the claim that the article says they are, they are included in my critique, but I suspect the article doesn’t do justice to their positions. If I had to guess, and this is only conjecture, I would say that they are simply stating that the version of history told by Shakespeare first appears in Wyntoun. No big deal. The only reason it’s worth mentioning is that they were about to say so on a radio special. But that wouldn’t make a good story for the Scotsman, and thus this whole business of being “lifted, almost word for word in places” rears its ugly head.

Case in point: here’s another story from DailyIndia.com and NewKerala.com from Asian News International that seems to have been “lifted, almost word for word in places” from the original story in the Scotsman. Look at the two stories side by side and the ANI piece, appearing the next day, reads like a high school student clumsily paraphrasing from an encyclopedia. But upon closer inspection, the ANI article makes some bold statements that the Scotsman was careful only to imply, despite the fact that the Scotsman article was clearly its one and only source.

For example, the Scotsman plants the idea of the authorship question like so:

In a radio programme to be aired today, Scots historian Fiona Watson and literary expert Molly Rourke claim the story of Macbeth was penned by a Scottish monk on St Serf’s Island in the middle of Loch Leven 400 years before William Shakespeare even drew breath.

Shift around the letters, and the ANI version becomes:

Scots historian Fiona Watson and literary expert Molly Rourke are claiming that the credit for ‘Macbeth’ doesn’t belong to the Bard of Avon, but to a Scottish monk named Andrew de Wyntoun from St Serf’s Island in the middle of Loch Leven who wrote the play 400 years before Shakespeare was even born.

So we go from the idea that Wyntoun penned the story of Macbeth (the man), which is true, to the idea that Wyntoun wrote Macbeth (the play) instead of Shakespeare. Quite a leap. I can only imagine, but I hope I’m right, that Watson and Rourke would be horrified to see these claims attached to their names.

Even the title of the ANI article is dodgy:

Did a Scottish monk write Macbeth instead of Shakespeare?

Oh, I can answer that one.

No!

The Shakespeare Geek points us towards a blog called The Master of Verona and a post he has about Macbeth’s “Tomorrow and tomorrow” speech. He suggests that Macbeth may be reading a suicide note written by Lady Macbeth, possibly written while she was asleep. I love the idea, and he gives strong textual support to make his case. I would look at this more as a bold directoral choice, rather than an argument that this is the way the text demands it must be, but that seems to be largely where he’s coming from as well.

If you look at that scene from the Folio (via the wonderful Furness Collection at the University of Pennyslvania), you may notice that Seyton doesn’t have an exit. Editors generally have provided him with one. But in the original, there is a cry of women, Macbeth has a speech, he asks Seyton “Wherefore was that cry?”, and Seyton responds “The Queen, my lord, is dead.” How does he know? I’ve heard the argument that Seyton is a dark, supernatural being (with a deliberate play on his name), but he’s always struck me as too minor of a character to carry this much import. This reading would add another interpretation. Someone has brought Seyton the suicide note while Macbeth is talking. Then, he hands Macbeth the note as he says his line.

Fun stuff. And I’ve been looking through this guy’s archives. His last post is some Shakespeare limericks. Earlier on, he gets snippy with Slings & Arrows because he takes issue with the character’s interpretations of the Shakespeare. And even earlier he casts the kids in South Park in King Lear and all-Muppet productions of both Lear and Much Ado.

Oh, I so have a new blog to read.

Excerpts from a mock trial questioning Shakespeare’s authorship:

For more on the authorship question, check out this 1964 article by William Murphy.

Rowan Atkinson and Hugh Laurie show us how it really happened:

I think I’ll make the anagram a regular feature on Saturdays.

From Antony and Cleopatra:

The barge she sat in, like a burnish’d throne,
Burn’d on the water; the poop was beaten gold,
Purple the sails, and so perfumed, that
The winds were love-sick with them, the oars were silver,
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
The water which they beat to follow faster,
As amorous of their strokes.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

The brave Enobarbus talks of when that temptress Cleopatra had tea, perched on her boat — a pimped-out ride that suffused the great M. Antonius.

How her skillful work there rushed Antony’s desires like the River Nile itself.

How he was so hooked that he often went to her website at http://www.misscleo.org/.

First, read the rules of the game.

This week’s challenge is everybody’s favorite mob boss, the gruff but lovable Tony Soprano.

I was able to link Tony Soprano to Sir Francis Bacon in six degrees or fewer, though that shouldn’t stop you from posting a longer response, or looking for a shorter one. Entries will be accepted until midnight on Thursday, June 28.

Good luck!

I do not live in Russia, but am in Algiers;
I am absent in laughing; I’m only in tears;
You won’t see me in months, but will surely in years;
And I’m never in calm, I live only in fears.

Who am I?

UPDATE: Riddle solved by Duane. See comments for answer.