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.

From The Merchant of Venice:

Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh?

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

On these eight days, just as white snow blankets outside, we light menorahs, witness joyous children amass presents, and comment on our history and freedoms. Here, we beam feats of Judah Maccabee, who defied, and so defeated, the manacles of Seleucid antisemitism.

This website wants to wish you a Happy Hanukah season.

Yesterday’s Cake War prompted me to think about what Shakespeare had to say about pastries and revenge. I came up with the scene where Titus tells his enemies that he’s going to bake them into pies and serve them to their mother. Enjoy!

From Titus Andronicus:

Hark! villains, I will grind your bones to dust,
And with your blood and it I’ll make a paste;
And of the paste a coffin I will rear,
And make two pasties of your shameful heads;
And bid that strumpet, your unhallow’d dam,
Like to the earth swallow her own increase.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Initially, a Nonny Nu did hail my King Lear cake as unpalatable, until I had W flip her off on her site. A mad armada from both sides, we would post the worst insults.

So, our feud oath lasted a day. Tomorrow, I will know better. The cake had proved wiser than us all.

From A Midsummer Night’s Dream:

Fetch me that flower; the herb I show’d thee once:
The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid
Will make or man or woman madly dote
Upon the next live creature that it sees.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Would these instant loves be hollow? Or is the market in cue for the demand? They let freewheeling pharmaceutical elements hoot with joy to fix date-rape medicine.

The blog was getting a lot of hits looking for living descendants of Henry VIII, so I posted an answer, and followed up with an anagram version of the answer.

Now, because those words appear on the blog, I’m getting a lot of hits looking for living descendants of Shakespeare.

You can check out the Shakespeare family tree yourself, or you can just read this week’s Shakespeare anagram.

From Love’s Labour’s Lost:

Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives,
Live register’d upon our brazen tombs,
And then grace us in the disgrace of death;
When, spite of cormorant devouring Time,
The endeavour of this present breath may buy
That honour which shall bate his scythe’s keen edge,
And make us heirs of all eternity.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Our favorite ultra-premium poet has no living descendants.

Firstly, he begat three basic little prizes (smart trio!) with his gal Anne Hathaway.

Thereafter, son Hamnet fathered none because he kicked it young.

Furthermore, both daughters had children, but none of those unveiled any themselves.

The Shakespeare Geek and Satia have been hating on King John this week.

But when I did my own rankings, I listed it as my 13th favorite Shakespeare play, ahead of The Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night, Romeo and Juliet, and even The Taming of the Shrew.

So I thought it would be a good time to say a few words about why I ranked it so high. And because today is Saturday, I think I’ll do it as an anagram.

From King John:

Grief fills the room up of my absent child,
Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,
Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,
Remembers me of all his gracious parts,
Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form:
Then have I reason to be fond of grief.
Fare you well: had you such a loss as I,
I could give better comfort than you do.
I will not keep this form upon my head
When there is such disorder in my wit.
O Lord! my boy, my Arthur, my fair son!
My life, my joy, my food, my all the world!
My widow-comfort, and my sorrows’ cure! 

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Why do I build up King John?

Hamnet’s death fills our Bard with sensitivity to how parents suffer the loss of children. This monologue of Constance seems to be ripped from his sad soul. Wow.

Unlike whiny crummy dorky wimpy gruff bastards from Much Ado or Lear, suaver Falconbridge is a wise fool. Welcomed to the royal family, he is a merry commentator of events, to mystify or befuddle foes with wry whimsy.

The odd solipsism in Mommy plus the portrayal of young Arthur are also why I recommend this history.

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.

I’m heading out later this morning to go see Ian McKellan in King Lear, so perhaps this would be a good day for a Lear-related anagram. Let’s see what happens if I rearrange Lear’s powerful storm monologue into a glib weather forecast.

From King Lear:

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drench’d our steeples, drown’d the cocks!
You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,
Strike flat the thick rotundity o’ the world!
Crack nature’s moulds, all germens spill at once
That make ingrateful man!

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Now, the AccuLuck rundown. AccuLuck has a glacial tornado-threshold unsure storm advisory tomorrow. We suggest to shun rain and lack hail. Shut up in a lovely daughter’s house. Thursday’s outlooks have staler luck with a sure percent chance of buckling king madness by lunch, but a likely redemption tilt at night. Friday, expect cutthroat deaths and restored order in time for the long weekend.

A quick word of explanation may be needed for this one.

Beatrice and Benedick both have speeches in which they “realize” that the other is in love with them and they decide to requite the love. Just for fun, I condensed and reworked Benedick’s speech to be an anagram of Beatrice’s.

Who says anagrams can’t be romantic?

From Much Ado About Nothing:

What fire is in mine ears? Can this be true?
Stand I condemn’d for pride and scorn so much?
Contempt, farewell! and maiden pride, adieu!
No glory lives behind the back of such.
And, Benedick, love on; I will requite thee,
Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand:
If thou dost love, my kindness shall incite thee
To bind our loves up in a holy band,
For others say thou dost deserve, and I
Believe it better than reportingly.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Love me! why, ’twill be kindled. They hinted the lady is dandy: ’tis so; and wise, but for that she loves: say ’tis no indictment to her folly; I can horribly love her in turn. I could chance have some odd dumb quirk in divine wit undertaken, for I railed so long against marriage; but do not desires change? Can invented paper bullets of the brain divide man from the career of his hope? No; the continents must be peopled.

If you like, you can compare it to the original speech here (around line 90).

Sonnet LV:

Not marble, nor the gilded monuments
Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rime;
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone, besmear’d with sluttish time.
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
And broils root out the work of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword nor war’s quick fire shall burn
The living record of your memory.
‘Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room
Even in the eyes of all posterity
That wear this world out to the ending doom.
So, till the judgment that yourself arise,
You live in this, and dwell in lovers’ eyes.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Through brilliant sonnet rendered fifty-five,
Our poet really gives his honored trust,
In vows to quill his subject still alive,
While royals’ crypts in stone shall fall to dust;
But in short times who really truly knew,
Some simpler verse should many moons endure?
Imagine what this tribute should construe,
If real immortal fame were promised sure.
Fans read with universal lilting rote,
To wonder who that dreamboat could have been
Who should inspire this sonorous rhymed note,
As boy Fate slyly’s rolling such a grin:
All fame went to the author of that rhyme,
And not this unknown person lost to time.