Hi Jetsam,jetsam wrote:geo wrote:
SCENE IV. A camp in Wales.
Enter EARL OF SALISBURY and a Welsh Captain
This scene is just a conversation between a Welsh captain and the Earl of Salisbury, but one that shows the cosmic significance of a King being deposed, representing a shift in the Great Chain and a world that suddenly goes topsy turvy.
Meteors occlude the stars, the moon appears bloody, rich men look sad and ruffians dance and leap.
I enjoyed reading this segment again here, and I too always enjoy Shakespeare in this mode. But Shakespeare is also capable of poking a bit of fun at this stuff. There's that wonderful passage in Henry IV between Glendower and Harry Percy where Glendower keeps calling up images of meteors, earthquakes and shooting stars, stampeding animals and spirits from the depths, all to impress young Percy, and Percy won't have a bar of it, treating it all as so much mumbo jumbo. Very amusing scene.
I wonder if Shakespeare is parodying a stereotypical view of the Welsh. The Celts are temperamentally different to the Anglo-Saxons.
The Celtic oral Bardic tradition of stories,songs and poetry lent itself to flights of fantasy. You get the impression they are considered fantasists who are practically unreliable.
In both cases the Welsh fail to turn up for the battle proper.
Being Irish myself,I'm well aware of our long history of being on the wrong end of battles with England. I'm not sure who coined the phrase but someone said of the Irish that "all their wars were merry,and all their songs were sad."
This I suppose, reflecting the gusto with which they fought and the same melancholy results most of the time.
Perhaps the most famous of the Irish bards was Turlough 'O Carolan the blind harpist. They were usually commissioned to write pieces for wealthy patrons.
O' Carolan was a sophisticated composer blending classical baroque with traditional styles. Here's a piece which may be of interest to Chris here at booktalk since it was commissioned by a Mr 'O Connor.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htolggwtluE
Shakespeare himself has long been given the monicker "The Bard" so I'm sure he was not completely unsympathetic to the artistically creative side of things.