Macbeth

Macbeth plays, in short, like the political history of some African republic. It’s the actual true-to-life story of the assassination of Duncan II by his generalissimo Macbeth.

This is Patrick Stewart playing a modern version of Macbeth, but though it was too awesome to not put up here.

The story starts off with these 3 witches all huddling around this cauldron, which they’ve probably just dumped a small infant into, waiting for Macbeth. Macbeth and his bff Banquo ride up, and are like, “Dude, here’s some witches”. Now, personally, every play and movie of Macbeth portrays the witches as something that Dr. Van Helsing and any other sci-fi fanatic worth his salt would kill on sight. 

Srsly? Do they look like they know what they're talking about?

But I guess people in Scotland were pretty down with witches back in the day, and so Macbeth and Banquo stop to palaver with these hags. They prophesy three things:

1)      Macbeth will became Thane of Cawdor

2)      Macbeth will become King of Scotland

3)      Banquo will “get kings, though thou be none”

Macbeth and Banquo enjoy a good laugh and Banquo, like any sensible person, doesn’t think any more of it. Then the pair of them arrive at the castle where the king is holding his court, and Good King Duncan declares Macbeth Thane of Cawdor. At this, Macbeth goes all crazy-eyes on us, a condition he will suffer for the duration of the play.

He writes to his wife and tells her of all that’s going on at his end of the line. And instead of writing her hubby and telling him, “Just coincidence, dear, congrats on your promotion and please stay away from witches,” SHE goes all crazy-eyes on us, telling her husband that he has to kill Duncan, and tells him to invite Duncan to their castle, where they will murder him.

Btw, dictators of the world, take note: When the guy who is in charge of your army invites you over to his castle for tea and crumpets, DON’T accept. Seriously.

But Duncan is a pretty cool, calm, collected guy whom I like to imagine as smoking weed, surrounded by concubines and dudes in armor, flashing the peace sign at everybody like, “It’s cool man, I’d love to come hang out at your crib…”

Take a guess what happens. Yep, Bethy and his crazy wife murder this old dude while he sleeps and then blames it on the chamberlains (cause EVERYBODY knows the butler always does it). Duncan’s two sons, Malcolm and Donaldbain, get wise and flee the country.   

Macbeth about to kill Duncan with his Force Lightning.

Macbeth then gathers the nobles of Scotland together and basically gives them the speech Scar gives at that scene of the Lion King (except without the uber-cool Disney-villain musical number). But now that Macbeth has the throne, he remembers that the witches prophesied that Banquo’s KIDS will be king. So the obvious next step is to take a page from World Dictatorship 101:

“Rule #5: Upon seizing power, you must murder everybody around you who was EVER your friend. You are the dictator now, and friends are overrated. While you’re at it, murder their kids too.

-         World Dictatorship 101

Banquo gets shanked in the back by a bunch of Macbeth’s goonies, but like a good father, holds the guys to him even while they’re stabbing him to allow his son to escape.

O, treachery! Fly, good Fleance, fly, fly, fly!
Thou mayst revenge. O slave!

I think that’s as good a way to go as any, allowing your son to escape and telling him to avenge you…

Then, another nobleman, named MacDuff, gets all upset and, “Dude, killing the king is one thing, but killing Banquo too? That’s uncool… I’m out of here dudes…” Macbeth then swiftly layeth the Almighty Smackdown on him, sending soldiers to his castle to kill MacDuff. They kill his wife and kids, but MacDuff escapes.

Honestly, Macbeth was really bad at choosing his assassins. But I digress.

Macbeth, having now fulfilled the prophesy of the witches, decides they kinda are on a roll, and wants to get as much out of them as possible. He goes back to the witches and asks what they can see of his future now. They tell him two things:

Be bloody, bold, and resolute; laugh to scorn
The power of man, for none of woman born
Shall harm Macbeth…

Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be until
Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill
Shall come against him.

So basically, having been told that 1) Nobody born of woman can hurt him, and 2) He cannot be defeated in battle til Birnam Forest comes to Dunsinane, Macbeth is feeling pretty confident. He isn’t even phased when they tell him that Malcolm has invaded Scotland with an army, or even when his wife goes all crazy and kills herself. I mean, dude, that’s a red flag for me, but whatever rocks your boat.

Malcolm is marching through Scotland and suddenly has an epiphany. He has to assault this HUGe Castle, and he’s actually smart enough to figure out, “Hey; these guys are going to shoot at us… we’re gonna need some cover.” He orders his men to cut down the trees of Birnam Wood (which just so happens to be close by) and make giant shields to cover their advance upon Dunsinane Castle, where Macbeth has holed himself up Alamo-style, his nobles and allies abandoning him. Nobody really likes to hang out with the kid that kills the other kids and then takes their toys. Really.

So now Birnam Wood is, technically, advancing to Dunsinane. Macbeth is slightly unnerved at this, but he still sits confident that the whole “born of woman” thing is pretty all-inclusive. Even as the soldiers storm the castle and his men are deserting/defecting left and right, Macbeth is going berserker on these guys, running around and killing everyone in his path.

Why should I play the Roman fool, and die
On mine own sword? whiles I see lives, the gashes
Do better upon them.

This is the oldest illustration of Macbeth I could find, and I think it is probably the most accurate.

Then who should enter but MacDuff, who’s still kinda angry at the whole “Killed my wife and family” thing. Macbeth then laughs.

MACBETH
I bear a charm'ed life which must not yield to one of woman born!

MacDuff doesn’t even flinch or batt an eye.

MACDUFF
Despair thy charm;
And let the angel whom thou still hast served
Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother's womb
Untimely ripp'd.

In other words, C-Section.

Rats. Macbeth's rotten luck strikes again.

 MACBETH

Accursed be that tongue that tells me so,
For it hath cow'd my better part of man!
And be these juggling fiends no more believed,
That palter with us in a double sense;
That keep the word of promise to our ear,
And break it to our hope. I'll not fight with thee.

But MacDuff wasn’t going for the “I call times” rule and called him out. Macbeth then gives the most epic last words of a villain that I’ve ever come across.

...I will try the last. Before my body
I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff,
And damn'd be him that first cries, 'Hold, enough!'

PWND.

 MacDuff then kills Macbeth, and takes the head to Malcolm. Everybody breathes a sigh of relief that can only come when you’ve killed the homicidal maniac in the room (almost identical with the ones everybody gives at the end of a horror film when they FINALLY KILL the monster/demon/alien/whatever). Then they all decide to go crown Malcolm at Scone...

Then the play ends and nobody mentions anything about Banquo’s kid and whether or not they become kings of Scotland or really anything else about Banquo’s kids. At all. But whatever, I didn’t write the play.

Henry V

Henry V is probably the greatest historical play Shakespeare wrote, in my opinion. I know I’ve offended a lot of Hamlet-ites, but I promise I’m getting to him in a later article. But a lot of people don’t realize the greatest aspect of the Henry V story because they haven’t read Henry IV.

Basically, Henry IV is about Henry V (who for the sake of brevity I will refer to as V from now on) as a young man, with a little bit of father-son issues and basically living the college dorm life: drinking, carousing, and wenching with his homies Falstaff (whom Shakespeare writes a couple plays about in his own right, which I think is awesome), Pistol, Bardolf, and Nym. But then Henry IV dies and V is left with the burden of being just about the most powerful king in Europe, absolute power, global domination, that kind of thing. The first thing he does is ditch his drinking buddies and starts hanging out with all the Earls and Dukes and such, which some people interpret as harsh, but seriously guys, can you run a country while you’ve got a druggie still wasted in the bathroom? I mean, the line has to be drawn somewhere…

Anyway, the play starts off with V having his first conference with all the big-wigs of England. The Archbishop of Canterbury is there with a couple of bishops, along with the Duke of Exeter and the great nobles of the country. On a side note: Duke EX, can you eve ask for a better WWE name? but I digress.

Anyway, V has asked the Archbishop to examine his father’s (and consequently HIS) claim to the French crown to see if “I, with right of conscience, make this claim…”  

Archie does the right thing when it comes to medieval kings asking, “Can I have more power?” and answers, “HECK yeah, V, the crown’s totally legally yours!” We learn in the scene immediately before this that Archie is actually just trying to get on the king’s good side to avoid paying some stupid taxes, but V can’t really be blamed for that.

V calls in the French ambassadors in the next room to see if they have the answer to his VERY polite request for the French king to step down and give him the crown which is rightfully his. But then the Dauphin, the French prince, instead of just saying, “No” and puffing a cig’ like Clint Eastwood, has to go and try and pull off some kind of lame practical joke.

Just so you get the idea, here’s an excerpt from the IM session:

V: Hey dde, so can I hve the crwn now? I mn, I’m supposed 2 b king here.

Dauphin: no dude, but hre hve sOme TENNIS BALLs hurhurhr

Wht u say to that, bddy????

……

U still there?

V: im n ur base kllng ur d00dz. Pwnd, n00b.

Dauphin: 0_O?

            Dauphin has signed out of chat. Messages will be sent to his inbox.

V now goes total berserk on the Frogs, assembling one of the mightiest armies ever seen on England. He totally blows off some lame half-attempt of the French to assassinate him, and orders his best friend (who is one of the assassins) to death without so much as batting an eye. And then he sends the King of France a message:

That you divest yourself, and lay apart
The borrow’d glories that by gift of heaven,
By law of nature and of nations, ‘long
To him and to his heirs; namely, the crown…

And just in case they even THINK of messing with him:

Bloody constraint; for if you hide the crown
Even in your hearts, there will he rake for it:
Therefore in fierce tempest is he coming,
In thunder and in earthquake, like a Jove,
That, if requiring fail, he will compel;
And bids you, in the bowels of the Lord,
Deliver up the crown, and to take mercy
On the poor souls for whom this hungry war
Opens his vasty jaws...
 

[Shakespeare doesn’t say so, but I imagine the headless corpses of the would-be assassins probably accompanied the letter.]

Well, the King of France, after reading the message, hiccupped, had a heart attack, and soiled his underclothes all at the same time. He then spends the rest of the play pretty much just shaking in the corner like the pussy he is.

King: Think we King Harry strong;
And, princes, look you strongly arm'd to meet him.
The kindred of him hath been flesh'd upon us;
And he is bred out of that bloody strain
That haunted us in our familiar paths

Yeah, this guys is pretty much FREAKED OUT.  Anyway, V sets off and lays siege to this HUGE town of Harfleur and starts stabbing Frenchmen in the face until they die from it. Once, when his men were less than willing to do something as simple as “charge a GINORMOUS castle bristling with cannons and archers with only swords and a Home Depot ladder” V gets on his horse and shouts

Dishonour not your mothers; now attest
That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you!

And then delivers this epic wailin’ electric guitar solo that gets the WHOLE army more psyched up than a Marilyn Manson concert and simultaneously awes the poor French garrison so much that they throw open their gates and beg for mercy.

Then V runs into a problem; It’s a good problem for conquering badasses to have, but a problem nonetheless: He’s been so successful most of his soldiers are garrisoning the French castles he’s captured with his sheer bodacity. He only has like 5,000 soldiers at this little po-dunk town of Agincourt (which I also imagine surrendered to him after just looking at his face). But the French Army FINALLY arrives with a force that numbers “full 3 score thousand.” Besides, they’re all fresh from the spa and nail salons, or whatever it is French soldiers do on their off-days, and V’s dudes are exhausted after capturing all these castles and smashing blunt instruments of death into the spleens of uncooperative snail-eaters. Now, a lesser man would have gone, “Well, dudes, it’s been fun, but a man’s got to know his limitations,” and gone and maybe bartered a few of these castles back in return for his miserable life.

But V just doesn’t roll that way. He just calmly reaches for his sword and plays his +4 Hopeless Cause card and his trusty +10 French Wasting card.

He gets his army gathered, and delivers one of the singularly AWESOME AND EPIC speeches ever delivered. In fact, it is so Awesome I’m pretty sure he slipped in Elven once or twice because the English language just couldn’t handle 20 billion ml of PURE AWESOME all at the same time.

Watch it now. PLEASE. 

And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

Every time I hear that speech, I am filled with the nearly uncontrollable urge to go and find the nearest war and join it.

Anyway, the French are all smug, and decide to charge across this field to crush this miserably small army. Only problem: Nobody apparently bothered to check the field, and it turned out to be a swamp filled with knee deep mud. That’s not a good mix with men and horses in full armor…

V saw all these Frenchies drowning in a foot and a half of mud, and lined up his archers behind rows of stakes and had them begin raining POINTY INSTRUMENTS OF DEATH FTW on the huddled masses below. But he wasn’t content just to let the archers do all the work. Even when the French began to fall back after loosing a buttload of soldiers, Henry was like, “Dude, it’s only lunchtime; there’s no way we can stop now, we haven’t KILLED enough of these surrender monkeys!!”

Well have we done, thrice valiant countrymen:
But all's not done; yet keep the French the field!

The English then charges balls-out into the melee and generally pound the French into pieces of dough roughly the size of baguettes.

When all is said and done, V sits on a log and takes scope of the losses on both sides

French Dead:

This note doth tell me of ten thousand French
That in the field lie slain: of princes, in this number,
And nobles bearing banners, there lie dead
One hundred twenty six: added to these,
Of knights, esquires, and gallant gentlemen,
Eight thousand and four hundred; of the which,
Five hundred were but yesterday dubb'd knights:

The English Dead:

Edward the Duke of York, the Earl of Suffolk,
Sir Richard Ketly, Davy Gam, esquire:
None else of name; and of all other men
But five and twenty.

Like a BOSS. ‘Nuff said.

Well, the next scene is at the French capital where the French king is giving basically half his land and his only daughter to V, so we can assume the French got the message V was trying to send.

Henry then proceeds to romance the French princess who doesn’t even speak his language, but apparently is so debonair and suave that she winds up giving him a passionate kiss at the end of the play.

Which I think only adds to the man’s already insanely and  ridiculously large number of Man-Points.