No 3567 Set by Leonora Casement
We asked you for explanations to literary questions that remain unanswered.
Report by Grace Elegy
This competition was set, according to the records, between 1945 and 1954, and is to be found in that decade's compilation, edited by Arthur Marshall. Stanley J Sharpless was up on the "Honours Boards", as were Yorick, Fergie, Little Billee and PM. This time, rather than the prose answers from "literary critics" I was expecting, many of you sent in entries in the style of the original. I allowed both. £15 to the winners, hon menshes to El Basilio and Phil Pott; the champagne is awarded to David Silverman.
And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England's mountains green?
And was the Holy Lamb of God
On England's pleasant pastures seen?
Not likely, mate - that ancient geezer
Placed no feet inside this Nation.
No one with a foreign visa
Would have got past Immigration.
Unless by Providence, or luck
On angel's wings was smuggled over -
Or hidden in an ancient truck
Got dropped off somewhere outside Dover.
And as for Albion's sacred earth
And England's pleasant pastures green -
The inside of old Harmondsworth
Is all of England He'd have seen.
"I don't care who you say you are,
Young Dominus terrae et caelum,
Or who you say's your ma or pa -
You don't come here seeking asylum."
David Silverman
When shall we three meet again
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
Good evening. Well, the answer is all three, I'm afraid. A case of "fair is foul and foul is fair" for Scotland this weekend. Lots of nasty showers to begin with, but hail or sleet will develop as the play goes on. A slow-moving, intense thunderstorm is moving over the Western Isles as I speak, with flash flooding and bursts of lightning over Glamis, Cawdor and Dunsinane. Methinks 'tis not a night for broomsticks. If there are any witches out and about, brew carefully! And now for the detailed forecast to 0900 hours.
The storm will bring three-quarter-inch or larger-diameter hail; cold airflow; severe wind shear; macrobursts and gust fronts; rapid cloud dissipation; forked lightning and severe apparitions; hurricane-force winds near Birnam wood. Our Eye of Newt in the Skye tells us there's a cold precipitation moving in from west to east over the Hebrides; also surface winds from the south at 18mph, indicating double, double toil and trouble throughout the kingdom. The skies will have lots of portents. There's no doubt about it, these are murderous conditions. Perhaps not as bad as Hurricane Lear - but quite uninviting, all the same. However, the weather will eventually clear, leaving a lot of devastation behind. Be extra careful out there in the kingdom, thanes! Goodnight to you all.
John O'Byrne
Old Shakespearean criticism was content with abstract formulae and sterile confrontation. New Shakespearean criticism realises that there's no point having the best rhetoric in the world if you're talking to an empty room.
When Hamlet's question "To be or not to be?" was put to a focus group of 20 people from the nice end of Notting Hill, it became clear that existence can no longer be seen as a universal benefit. Asked to apply the question to themselves, no less than 95 per cent opted for the former alternative (Derek shouldn't have invited the lady from the Euthanasia Society). The figure fell to 35 per cent for Noel Edmonds, 20 per cent for Stephen Byers and 5 per cent for the management of Virgin Trains (I'm not sure Branson is a typical voter).
When we applied the question to the House of Lords, the importance of the Third Way became obvious. "To be" is impossible, since hereditary privilege is incompatible with modern democracy; "not to be" is equally impossible, since it clashes with inclusiveness and respect for national traditions. Hence the full relevance of the eldest son of a ghost who can't make his mind up and delivers long speeches when nobody is listening.
Ian Birchall
Do you remember an inn, Miranda?
Clearly a rhetorical question. Miranda is not there to answer and will almost certainly avoid reading any poem by this particular author. As soon as they returned to civilisation, she gave Belloc a piece of her mind, which included the determination never to see him or speak to him again. Since then, the poor girl has undoubtedly made a determined effort to erase the memory of the whole experience that he dragged her through. Getting to this isolated spot in the high Pyrenees must have been a tiring, chilling journey to start with. Then the hostelry: a dark, poky room, wine that tasted of tar, drunken muleteers who insisted on being bought such wine, and music that even the besotted romantic cannot but call a "din". The mind boggles at the class of musician and dancer - especially the latter - who would be offering their talents in such an out-of-the-way and insalubrious posada. And to crown it all, having to sleep on straw bedding, alive with fleas. Could anyone ever forget the bloody place?
Giles Ewing
No 3570 Set by Margaret Rogers
What would Shakespeare have thought of Shakespeare in Love? Could we have reviews from the bard himself on the film. Max 200 words and in by 11 March.
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