What the Text Really Means
“Hateful liquor”: most scholars, this editor included, and the brunt of Eastern’s campus, are confused by this notion that an alcoholic beverage could be in fact unpleasant.
“And in that paste let his vile head be baked”: baking human heads into meat pies was in fact a contemporary English, not a Roman, practice. Although the culinary technique was discontinued in the mid-1980’s, it has left a linguistic mark: even today some still call the English population “pasty-faced”.
“Moor”: it has been since been discovered by the Reduced Drama Society that the historical Othello’s first name was Les; hence the theatre expression “Les is Moor”.
“Double Double toil and trouble”: pertaining to the double double piece of this segment we of the RDS believe that the witches in this famous scene are not, in fact, stirring a caldron, but shooting craps.
In Macbeth the RDS has found through a school trip to Edinburgh that pissing off Scottish people is, especially in their own country, actually in very bad taste. In light of this notion we have omitted two of the three most widely known Scottish Stereotypes from our version of Macbeth. These two are: that Scottish people look ridiculous in kilts (picture one on Thayer and or Tyler and you’ll know what I’m talking about), and that they like to run around saying ”Captain, the engines canna take any more. We need more power.” What we left in this play was that all the Scottish population unnecessarily, and sometimes annoyingly trill their R’s far to long.
“Et tu Brute” According to some Scholars, Shakespeare new very little Latin and even less Greek, and it shows in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Tyler’s research into Plutarch’s Lives indicates that the full dialogue between Caesar and Brutus probably went something like this:
Latin English Translation
BRU: In tempore praeterito plus quam BRU: People will soon have to refer to you
perfecto de te mox dicent, Caesare! in the past perfect tense, Caesar!
CAE: Di! Ecce hora! Uxor mea me necabit. CAE: Golly, look at the time! My wife
Abeo! will kill me. I’m outta here!
BRU: Ecce! Spiritus Elvis! BRU: Look! The ghost of Elvis!
CAE: Ubi? CAE: Where?
(Caesar caeduntur) (Caesar is stabbed.)
CAE: Et tu, Brute? Ad domum adligaris, et CAE: Even you, Brutus? You’re grounded,
nullam ultravisionem spectabis per septem and no television for a week. Suddenly,
dies! Subito minime valeo. O, obesa cantavit! I don’t feel so good. O, the fat lady has sung!
(Mortuus est.) (Dies)
“The Bad Plays”: among the other Apocrypha are many which didn’t make it into the standard accepted list of Shakespeare’s Complete Works. These include the tragedies Sir Thomas Moore, and a Yorkshire Tale, as well as the comedies, such as Ye Odd Couple and early musicals such as Ye Cats, Ye Miserables, and Joseph and Ye Amazing Technicolor Dreamdoublet.
Troilus and Cressida: in Japan this play is well-known and often revived, although the title is generally altered, for commercial reasons, to Toyota and Cresida.
“A horse a horse my kingdom for a horse”: one of the most famous lines in all of Shakespeare, first made popular by Katherine the Great late one lonely night in St. Petersburg.
“Comes before me”: scholarly debate over the author’s intent in this line is extensive. Does Hamlet “come before” Ophelia in space, or in time? That is, does he enter the room half undressed, and, grimacing ‘as if he had been loosed out of hell,’ bring himself to orgasm before her? Or do they engage in sexual congress, during which Hamlet experiences premature ejaculation, leaving Ophelia unsatisfied? Female scholars by and large argue the latter, while male scholars tend toward the former, interpretation. A synthesis of sorts was acheived in the recent XXX film adaptation of Hamlet, entitled OFeelYa Up! wherein both interpretations were explored simultaneously by two Hamlets and three Ophelias while Laertes and Gertrude watched. Dan disagrees with all these interpretations, and notes, ‘obviously, Hamlet and Ophelia have been shagging in the closet.’ Why he thinks this scene has anything to do with carpeting is entirely beyond this editor.
