I’ve been trying to think how I could top last week’s Shakespeare Anagram, where I took Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” speech and anagrammed it into adapted versions of five other Hamlet speeches. I decided to attempt to anagram one entire scene from Shakespeare into an adapted version of another scene from Shakespeare.

I thought it best to use two scenes with the same characters, so that the letters in the speech prefixes would even out, and of course I needed to find two scenes of roughly equal length. I went for two scenes between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, the one just before the murder of Duncan and the one right after. (I’ll call the two scenes Beforekill and Afterkill, which I think has a clarity that calling them I.vii. and II.ii. lacks.)

Well, I did not get very far. In fact, I didn’t get past the very first step, which is to do a letter inventory. It turns out that Beforekill has over 30 more instances of the letter W than Afterkill has. This is a lot, considering that the scenes themselves are only about 90 lines long a piece. So, unless I want to add a bunch of web addresses, it’s probably not going to work. There are only so many times you can work “How now!” into conversation before it gets tedious.

It’s not a length issue, as Afterkill is rich in Rs and Ss, letters that you would expect to appear frequently in a given passage. Also, Afterkill has quite a few extra Ys than Beforekill and, oddly, about 20 more Gs! So why such a big W disparity in the other direction?

Part of it is a deliberate use on Shakespeare’s part of W alliteration in Beforekill, as in “which would be worn now” or “will I with wine and wassail,” but I think it’s more than that.

W is the letter of question words. When? Which? Why? How? Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are debating and planning the murder and are challenging each other with questions. W also the first letter of We. They are in this together. “If we should fail?” “We fail.”

After the murder, it’s all about Get this and Go there and Give me the daGGers. The soft W is used for coaxing and hedging. The hard G is used for scrambling and panicking. Awesome.

So there won’t be any full-scene anagrams, at least not right now. But I enjoyed discovering the reason why not, and thought you might enjoy it too.

Ironically, the title character in what many consider to be Shakespeare’s central dramatic work is most famous for his long speeches. One speech in particular stands out as almost interchangeable with Shakespeare and perhaps even the theatre as a whole. The soliloquy manages to sum up, in just thirteen letters, the fundamental question of existence itself. Once we agree to tackle that question, then the rest of the speeches, well, they may as well just be anagrams of the big one…

From Hamlet:

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and, by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life…

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

O! that this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew;
Or that the Everlasting had not set
His precept ‘gainst self-slaughter! Rebuke! Rebuke!
How weary, foul, puffed, and abominable
Seem to me the questions of this place.
Fie on ‘t! O fie! ’tis a once heeded garden,
That’s left to pot; the rank and weed in nature
Possess it merely. But he should come to this!
Not four months dead: nay, half as much, but two:
As superior a man; so as, to this step,
Hyperion to a satyr; so caring to my mother
Permit he not beteem the beams of stars
Access her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!

You can compare it to the original speech here (starting at line 133).

Shift around the letters again, and it becomes:

I have of late, - but wherefore do not seek, - lost all my cheer, ashamed that the oddest mood upsets me so seethingly that our lush frame, at the earth, soon seems to me a detested sterile promontory; this aesthetic roof toasted by stoked mythical golden fire truthfully appears to me therefore as such a both foul and pestilent congregation of bath vapours. What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! in theme, how impressive and truthful! in action as an angel! and apprehension as a god! the beauty of the world! the crest of beasts! But, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?

You can compare it to the original speech here (around line 250).

Shift around the letters again, and it becomes:

O! what a rogue and peasant slave am I:
Is’t not monstrous that this player here,
Could force his soul so to the best esteem
That from her working feebled all his looks,
Have tears in eyes, add a tempest of bombasts,
A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
With forms to top esteem? and all for nothing!
Frets Hecuba to him for he to tear
That he so pretty sobs? What would he do
Had he not the uttermost cue for passion
As by me? He could drown the stage in tears,
Atone the guilty and appal the free,
Confound the temperate, and to quite impress
The seemly faculties of eyes and ears.

You can compare it to the original speech here (starting at line 382).

Shift around the letters again, and it becomes:

How all occasions do inform against me,
And spur my dull revenge! What’s a man,
If his chief hope and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? a helpless beast, thou.
Sure he that made us with much large esteem,
He looked from before to after, gave unto us not
That potential and smoothest reason
To fust in us effetely. Whe’r it be
Bestial petty sloth, or some softer scruple
To foresee too precisely on a theme,
A knot, which, quarter’d, hath but one part hero,
And also three parts coward, I see not
Why yet I be to say ‘This thing’s to do;’
Sith I have cause and lots of strength and means
To do ‘t.

You can compare it to the original speech here (starting at line 37).

Shift around the letters again, and it becomes:

Alas! poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of endless mirth, of most splendid fancy; he hath paraded me on his shoulders a thousand separate times; and now too detested in the greatest depths of my imagination it is! Here hung those lips that I have oft kissed. When be you at fatuous gibes? at gambols? at accents? at those deftest flashes of espoused merriment, that were wont to burst the tables on a roar? But not one to be sped now, to renounce reverence? quite chapfallen? Foot you to my lady’s chamber, tell her, let her protest, of this favour she must come; see her laugh at that.

You can compare it to the original speech here (starting at line 80).

I caused quite a bit of controversy in the academic world with my last anagram that demonstrated that Sir Francis Bacon may be the true author of Shakespeare’s works. Now, I make amends.

At the end of the play, Shakespeare sets the record straight about these hidden messages. I apologize for any inconvenience I may have caused by shaking up your worldview.

From A Midsummer Night’s Dream:

If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber’d here
While these visions did appear.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Tell this: I, dubbed William Shakespeare, penned the stuff.

The odd hidden author shifts you have been shown was a vivid dream.

Have you ever wondered about those “other” plays mentioned in the last act of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the options that Theseus doesn’t choose? The titles seem kind of random and nonsensical. Could they actually be anagrams of hidden messages? You be the judge.

From A Midsummer Night’s Dream:

The battle with the Centaurs, to be sung
By an Athenian eunuch to the harp.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Want the authentic truth?

Bacon’s the genuine author beneath the plays.- B.

From A Midsummer Night’s Dream:

The riot of the tipsy Bacchanals,
Tearing the Thracian singer in their rage.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Get it right.

I, Sir Francis Bacon, create entertaining theatre plays.

Hah! Hoh!

From A Midsummer Night’s Dream:

The thrice three Muses mourning for the death
Of Learning, late deceas’d in beggary.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Go get the true author. I feel I’m he.

Sir Francis Bacon engendered the lengthy dramas.

Let the games begin!

UPDATE: And what of the title of the play that Theseus did choose?

From A Midsummer Night’s Dream:

A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus
And his love Thisbe; very tragical mirth.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Vet the author of the plays.

I am. Sir Francis Bacon.

You disbelieved my genius. Grr.

After my last anagram about Shakespeare’s farewell to the theatre, Alan Farrar from Shakespeare Experience posted a comment that The Tempest wasn’t Shakespeare’s last play. Fair enough.

From The Tempest:

We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Duteous Alan Farrar would see me deluded, for this masterpiece wasn’t his finale.

From The Tempest:

We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Pure fans feel let down.

Will’s famous theatre adieu reduces histories and drama.

UPDATE: A clarification anagram.

From Measure for Measure:

He, who the sword of heaven will bear
Should be as holy as severe; 
Pattern in himself to know,
Grace to stand, and virtue go;
More nor less to others paying
Than by self offences weighing.
Shame to him whose cruel striking
Kills for faults of his own liking!
Twice treble shame on Angelo,
To weed my vice and let his grow!
O, what may man within him hide,
Though angel on the outward side!
How many likeness made in crimes,
Making practice on the times,
To draw with idle spiders’ strings
Most pond’rous and substantial things!

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

The former governor of New York State seemed like someone we might trust.

When he held the attorney general post, he had a reputation for upholding the law, so we dismissed character assassins and voted for his vision.

But now he’s fallen. He got caught lying, breaking the law, and dismissing morality.

What will we be thinking about seemly politicians that ask for votes or money now? How can we risk what misconducts one might be hiding? How do we tell smiling inspirational charm from hidden smug selfishness?

From Henry V:

But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make; when all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in a battle, shall join together at the latter day, and cry all, ‘We died at such a place;’ some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die well that die in a battle; for how can they charitably dispose of any thing when blood is their argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the king that led them to it, whom to disobey were against all proportion of subjection.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

The latest primary melee offered some hard choices. It was a moment for me to do what I really feel strongly about.

I like Hillary, and I’d help her win in a jiffy, but I heeded Barack Obama’s calm knoll for hope, and really prefer to see polls let him win.

Senator Clinton voted for the war and fogey Senator McCain’s philosophy is to keep goading it on.

I went for the fledgling Barack Obama because he had the most wisdom about the war when it was thought less than patriotic to challenge the president. That was the integrity and judgment that we need to see deciding in the White House.

However, any one of them would be better than goofball Bush.

I did this one already, but some felt that the O.J. Simpson reference was a cheap shot, so let’s try another anagram of the same passage.

From Othello:

Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice: then, must you speak
Of one that lov’d not wisely but too well;
Of one not easily jealous, but, being wrought,
Perplex’d in the extreme;

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Othello’s wanting absolution, but too bad. Never expunge the element of the fatal. No matter how many times he explains, we will not keep it out.

Is any spoken excuse good enough to justify a murder?

The 2008 Iowa caucuses, held earlier this week, prompted me to think about what Shakespeare had to say about populist politics and corn. Enjoy!

From Coriolanus:

They said they were an-hungry; sigh’d forth proverbs:
That hunger broke stone walls; that dogs must eat; 
That meat was made for mouths; that the gods sent not
Corn for the rich men only. With these shreds
They vented their complainings; which being answer’d,
And a petition granted them, a strange one,—
To break the heart of generosity,
And make bold power look pale,—they threw their caps
As they would hang them on the horns o’ the moon,
Shouting their emulation.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

The Iowa votes were hyped this week.

Fifteen worthy hotshots together hoped to get a trophy: the state’s trust.

Northerner Barack Obama won among the eight Democrats, with the wealthy Senator Edwards and dethroned Hillary Clinton behind.

Southerner Mike Huckabee won among the seven Republicans, leading smug Mitt Romney and haughty Fred Thompson.

The holders of the highest party totals might run a harsh slog against one another in ten months.