Hello,
So sorry if this isn’t the place for this, but I am in need of help. I am part of a group that reads Shakespeare monthly, and we would like to read Coriolanus soon. The particular books we use are the No Fear Shakespeare books (makes it more accessible for anyone who wants to join) but I’m having trouble finding these. The version for Coriolanus is few and far between, and what is available is like $50 a copy and that is, frankly, not in my budget right now. I was hoping that someone might have (or know someone who has some) who might be willing to part with them for a reasonable price. If you can, please comment or DM me. I know there are pdfs but many of the folks who come aren’t the most tech literate so we’d have to print them, and once again that gets expensive. I figured it can’t hurt to ask! Thank you!

Edit: missing word (Alarum'd)

This isn't a homework question, but it would help me with my study of Macbeth. I am genuinely interested in this play though.

Anyway, in his Is this a dagger which I see before me soliloquy, Macbeth references "Tarquin", the son of the last Roman king, who raped a noblewoman, Lucretia. Shakespeare seems to have a particular interest in this story, as he wrote a narrative poem (The Rape of Lucrece) on it and references it in multiple plays. I'm struggling to make a thesis on this passage

Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
The curtain'd sleep; witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecate's offerings, and wither'd murder,
Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf,
Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace.
With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design
Moves like a ghost. [...]

Is this passage comparing lust to ambition, as both are not innately bad, but easily lead to evil acts? Or is it saying that regicide is such an evil act that it should be compared to rape? I've also discovered that Tarquin was a guest of Lucretia's house, so could Shakespeare be implying that him killing Duncan is especially bad since he is he is Macbeth's guest? I'm also struggling with the exact translation. We do get one, but the one we get given is way too modern and watered down, and some parts are just omitted, so a better translation could be helpful. We also get reference to a sentinel, so this might support the host-guest argument. Of course, in this passage we already have a semantic field of death, sleep and witchcraft, so it could be said that this could be reinforcing that.

I'd really love to know as this story has piqued my interest and I would a. want to explore it and b. use it in an essay. Mainly, I want a translation more than analysis because I can do that independently.

Edit 2: Omg I saw a really good idea, since because of the scandal, the Roman Empire lost the king and shifted dramatically politically, it could foreshadow him being killed by Macduff, which was the end of a tyrant and led to a fairer society,

I hate that I had to do this, but since last time I posted here I was accused of using AI, when I clearly didn't, as could be demonstrated by using a detector, I've gone and scanned it for you lot so, if you're not interested in conversation, you can leave the post instead of making ageist, untrue claims, with a lack of evidence (rather the evidence points to the contrary):

Hi everyone,

A local seller has these 4 books for an affordable price, I've never read or watched Shakespeare and is a personal goal of mine to be get a strong introduction.

Many people recommend Folger but this bundle is close to my home and is quite cheap, any recommendations would be really appreciated.

Thanks!

This is my first time posting, but I am in a dilemma as I get ready for my external exam (YEAY). My opinion of Hamlet is unpopular with most readers. I am extremely unempathetic towards him and view him as a narcissist. While I am not equipped to diagnose someone, it seems like a fitting word for Hamlet. Here is my reasoning:

• Gertrude: He is extremely judgemental of his mother and condemns Gertrude for remarrying his uncle. But he fails to consider why a woman in the Elizabethan era would NEED a man. Additionally, he generalises Gertrude's behaviour to the whole gender. He also speaks very fondly of her and King Hamlet's marriage, but again he fails to examine why a woman supposedly in love would remarry so quickly. (It could be due to idealisation, but if he assumes he is reliable, then he demands to be understood, without considering the feelings of his OWN MOTHER). 
• Ophelia: He is so insensitive for a man so sensitive. He expresses his anger at being manipulated, controlled and betrayed multiple times. Yet, when Ophelia is also entangled in the surveillance organised by Polonius, he cannot see her as a person. Hamlet understands that Ophelia is a trap, so she is unable to act independently, but he still attacks her. He recognises manipulation when he is the victim, but is less willing to recognise the vulnerability of someone who becomes an instrument. 
• Polonius: Hamlet becomes the very thing he hates. He kills Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and says, "They are not near my conscience".  Hamlet's experience of being manipulated does not prevent him from manipulating others when the balance of power shifts in his favour.
• Grave scene: I don't really have evidence for this, but Hamlet treats the grief of Ophelia as competition. Laertes says, "The devil take thy soul!" then Hamlet feels the need to one-up him and say, "I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers could not". This overshadows the depth of a person's death; Hamlet makes it about himself, again!
• Revenge: Hamlet judges himself; he is frustrated when he is unable to act and compares himself to figures who can act. He is so concerned about failing to perform the role, rather than the REASON he is doing it for. 
• Impact of Polonius' death: Polonius is not an innocent man. But he is a father. Hamlet drove Ophelia mad and into her death. But he never apologised; even worse, he made a joke out of her funeral. He treated Laertes as an obstacle to tackle after he had killed his father. Hamlet couldn't see the parallel between himself and Laertes. Hamlet later apologises in the duel, but an apology too late is no apology at all.

I kept it as brief as I can but i hope you guys can understand. It seems to be Hamlet's world, and everyone lives in it. PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU GUYS THINK. I would love some insight.

Macbeth is my fav Shakespeare story and so naturally I look around for different adaptations, but so many of them are obsessed with making the Witches as scary and serious as possible, which rlly sucks all the humor and character outta them. Of course, in the play, the Witches are meant to be somewhat scary/spooky, but they're also (more importantly) meant to be comedic intersex women who set up the play's themes of gender subversion.

And yes, the Witches are intersex. They're straight up said to have beards and generally aren't very "womanly" despite having some sex traits that do indicate them as female. And them being intersex is important bc the whole play is abt the subversion of traditional gender roles (Macbeth being too kind and submissive to his wife, Lady Macbeth literally wanting to become a man so she can become more efficient at killing and dominating, Macduff technically not being "born of a woman" and instead being brought into the world through artificial means).

Beyond this, there's also the comedic element of the Witches. They have plenty of funny/silly moments but I find that there's one joke of theirs that gets butchered the absolute most in adaptations. The whole joke goes like this: WITCH 1, "A sailor’s wife had chestnuts in her lap. And munched and munched and munched. 'Give me,' quoth I. 'Aroint thee, witch,' the rump-fed runnion cries. Her husband’s to Aleppo gone, master o’ th’ Tiger; But in a sieve I’ll thither sail, And, like a rat without a tail. I’ll do, I’ll do, and I’ll do...I myself have all the other, And the very ports they blow; All the quarters that they know I’ th’ shipman’s card. I’ll drain him dry as hay. Sleep shall neither night nor day. Hang upon his penthouse lid. He shall live a man forbid. Weary sev’nnights, nine times nine, Shall he dwindle, peak, and pine. Though his bark cannot be lost, Yet it shall be tempest-tossed...Here I have a pilot’s thumb, Wracked as homeward he did come. Drum within."

Basically Witch 1 is talking abt this time when a sailor's wife (rudely) refused to share her chestnuts with the Witch, so the Witch decides to get back at the wife by torturing her husband. The Witch messes with the winds (presumably so the sailor's ship turns wildly off-course), then she says she'll drain him dry, deprive him of sleep. In this context, a lotta modern scholars interpret these lines as a sex joke, she's draining him dry and depriving him of sleep through having nonstop intercourse with him for weeks and weeks ("Weary sev’nnights, nine times nine"). This interpretation would especially explain the "He shall live a man forbid" line. That line means that the sailor will live, but he will become cursed or outcast from normal human life. Why would he be outcast from humanity if he's an innocent man who got tortured by a witch? Well it's bc it wasn't normal torture, it's bc he cheated on his human wife and had abnormal sex with a witch. Finally the Witch crashes his ship and steals his thumb.

Obviously ppl will disagree with this interpretation, but I think this does make a lotta sense and does add to the theme of the Witches being intersex women; they don't just have the beards of men but the libidos of men as well (I'm aware that irl intersex ppl don't behave this way, this is just how intersex ppl are often portrayed especially in older stories). Regardless of how you interpret these lines tho, it's definitely meant to be a darkly comedic story; the Witch tortures someone's husband over smth as petty as a handful of nuts. It's also meant to be subtle foreshadowing of Macbeth becoming mad and sleep deprived himself. Yet despite all this, a lotta adaptations just have the Witch deliver these lines as if they mean nothing at all. There's no emphasis, humor, or enthusiasm, they just say them as if they're any other line.

I was reading the graphic novel version of Macbeth and when they got to the Witch's story I just stopped reading cuz, again, these important, funny lines are delivered as if they're nothing more than random spooooooky lines that don't serve any other purpose besides being random and spooky.

I’m doing my drama dissertation on gender in Shakespeare - can anyone recommend me any modern Shakespeare plays with actors whose genders don’t match the character they’re playing? Thank you so much

🔥ALBUM REVIEW🔥 Blending the worlds of prog rock, orchestral and choral music, as well as elements of jazz, Christopher Gordon’s Macbeth was originally commissioned as a full-length ballet by the Royal New Zealand Ballet and West Australian Ballet. It is Gordon’s compelling musical response to one of Shakespeare’s darkest and most enduring tragedies. Here is my in-depth review.

I just think he could have handled things better than he did

I noticed that four consecutive verse lines in the First Folio’s Cymbeline (1623), p. 390, first column, spell PATH through their initial letters:

Pisanio might haue kill’d thee at the heart,

And left this head on. How should this be, Pisanio?

Tis he, and Cloten: Malice, and Lucre in them

Haue laid this Woe heere. Oh ’tis pregnant, pregnant!

. The reading runs downward through four consecutive, column-aligned lines, with no lines excluded.

The context interested me. Imogen has awakened beside a headless body she mistakenly believes to be Posthumus’s. She tries to reconstruct what happened, blaming Pisanio and Cloten and identifying “Malice, and Lucre” as their motives.

PATH could suggest the course of her reasoning: she moves from “How should this be?” to apparent certainty, while the audience knows she has misidentified the body. The possible irony is a path of explanation leading to a false conclusion.

There is also an earlier passage in which Imogen herself uses the word while approaching an unfamiliar cave: “Here is a path to’t: ’tis some savage hold: I were best not to call; I dare not call.” — Act 3, Scene 6

That parallel is an association worth considering, rather than evidence by itself that the initials were deliberately arranged.

Facsimile reference: https://digitalcollections.folger.edu/img33434

I’m treating intentionality as an open question. PATH is a short, common word, and the connection between a “path” and a course of reasoning is interpretive rather than explicitly stated in these four lines. Has anyone encountered this alignment before? Does its placement at a moment of confident misinterpretation make it interesting, or is the thematic connection too flexible to distinguish it from coincidence?

I noticed a left-margin alignment in the First Folio’s Cymbeline (1623), p. 375, second column, and would appreciate feedback on whether the reading is defensible.

These five line openings spell TAMIA:

To take them in protection.

And pawne mine Honor for their safety, since

My Lord hath interest in them, I will keepe them

In my Bed-chamber.

Attended by my men: I will make bold

These are not five consecutive printed lines. The reading follows the column’s left margin, passing over two indented speech openings: “Imo. Willingly:” after the first line, and “Iach. They are in a Trunke” before the last. The original page image shows the arrangement.

What caught my attention is the context. Imogen agrees to safeguard supposed valuables in her bedchamber; the trunk will conceal Iachimo. Ancient Greek ταμία (tamia) means “housekeeper,” and the related place-noun ταμεία (tameia) means “treasury,” suggesting a possible connection with her role as keeper or with the protective space itself.

The same Roman-letter spelling also appears in Francis Meres’s Palladis Tamia, Wits Treasury (1598). That is a further association, rather than evidence of a deliberate reference.

I’m treating this as a possible acrostic, with intentionality an open question.

Has anyone encountered this alignment before? Is following the left margin while passing over indented speech openings a defensible method here? And what evidence would help distinguish an intentional acrostic from coincidence?

Ok. I now the plot on the fairies and things are not correct. But that's not what I'm here to say.

This play is set in ancient Greece, but they talk about Diana's alter. Diana is the Roman version of the greek goddess Artemis!

Tell me what you think about this topic!

I'm actually fuming that I have to disclose this, but I'm not using AI. I'm actually concerned that people in the world of Literature see someone use proper punctuation and assume it's AI. I don't know whether this is rooted in ageism or hypervigilance, but it's completely unfounded. The only robot that helped me with my work is Spellcheck. That's not AI. I'm a good writer - I've got A\s in 3 out of 4 of my humanities and an A in the other. I can write analytically and honestly I'm just offended that people assume that I'm an AI-using lowlife.*

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Edit 2: Accidentally wrote Macbeth instead of Shakespeare, but yeah I still used AI apparently.

Here's the post now:

I'm currently studying Macbeth, which I'm loving, and I'm also loving the character of Lady Macbeth. However, I feel we as a modern society may be making Shakespeare out to be more progressive then he actually was.

For his time, undoubtedly, Shakespeare was progressive. From the idea of a dark-skinned lover shown throughout his sonnets to writing strong and intelligent women in his plays, Macbeth was progressive for his time. It should be noted - however - that he had spent most of his career under Elizabeth I, who proved to be an effective leader, despite prejudicial thoughts based off her sex.

Moreover, undoubtedly Shakespeare explores themes of gender in Macbeth:

• LM: "What quite unmanned in folly?"
• LM: "Are you a man?"
• LM: [emasculation] "the sleeping and the dead / Are but as pictures: 'tis the eye of childhood / That fears a painted devil"
• LM: "When you durst do it, then you were a man; [...] so much more the man"
• LM also subverts the role of motherhood and hence gender norms
• LM "Come you spirits / That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here"
• LM: "take my milk for gall"
• Macbeth: "Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck" - in a similar vein, Macduff: "gentle lady [...] / 'tis not for you to hear [...] / The repetition in a woman's ear / Would murder as it fell"
• Macbeth "I dare do all that may become a man; / Who dares do more is none" - not entirely sure whether this is using the gendered form of man or general form (human)
• Macbeth's also described violently but this is presented as a good thing
• *"*Dispute it like a man" "feel it like a man"

And many more examples can be found in the play

So, it would be implausible to suggest Macbeth doesn't explore gender.
However, many take the position that gender roles are explored in Macbeth to explicitly challenge them, and here is where I disagree.

Despite him being progressive for his time - as I stated earlier - he was also a business owner, and an educated man who was funded by the nobility. It would be totally out of the picture for someone of his description to outwardly challenge gender norms so radically and not lose his royal funding or perhaps be kicked out the country. Like his other tragedies, one of the main lessons is don't stray from social expectations. Straying from these expectations always ends badly for these characters, whether it be Romeo, Mark Antony, Juliet, etc. they all face repercussions for doing such a thing. And Macbeth is no exception. Remember, the monarch wants to maintain social order, and both were patrons of Shakespeare.

Sure, there's some subtle challenging in "feel it like a man", but we need to first examine who don't fit in their gender stereotypes. We have:

• the witches (through their appearance - Macbeth: "you should be women, / And yet your beards forbid me to interpret that you are so")
• Lady Macbeth (I don't feel anymore statement is needed here)
• and Macbeth, who was once noble, loyal and patriotic, but loses these traits over the course of the play.

And how do they end up? The Macbeths both die, with the one who more radically subverts these gender roles (Lady Macbeth) losing her sanity and peace, despite her not actually committing the regicide. And the witches? They are witches in Jacobean times, with the - very religious - reigning monarch having a particular hate towards them, culminated in Daemonologie.

Furthermore, Lady Macbeth isn't completely shown as a brutal, cold and unfeminine character. Even from the start, her dialog saying "I [...] know / how tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me" or "had he not resembled my father..." imply that her core nature is feminine, and that innately, biologically she is meant to be feminine. It's implied that this hate for femininity is rather because of the grief of losing her child ("fruitless crown", "barren sceptre", "I have given suck...").

Overall, I don't think it's sensible to suggest that Shakespeare was outwardly challenging gender norms to the extent that some indicate that he does. Rather, I think his exploration of gender is more so to uphold societal cohesion, in such a radical time - indeed the Civil War only occurred 3 decades after his death.

Though, I haven't got a PhD in Shakespeare, so I may be completely wrong. What are your thoughts?

Nature only lends, she never gives it away,

When the final audit comes, how you gonna pay?

No te guardes la belleza, no seas avaro,

Que la cuenta de la vida cobra muy caro.

Don't be a profitless usurer, don't keep it all inside,

There's no wealth in a tomb where your beauty goes to hide.

Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend

Upon thyself thy beauty's legacy?

Hermosura derrochona, ¿por qué gastas

Solo en ti mismo la herencia de tu gracia?

Nature's bequest gives nothing, but doth lend,

And being frank, she lends to those are free.

La naturaleza no regala, solo presta,

Y, siendo generosa, presta a quien tiene mano abierta.

[The Loan]

¡Oye el contrato! He thinks the beauty is his to keep.

¡Es un préstamo, no un regalo!

Exacto. "...but doth lend." You don't own that face, you're just renting it.

¡Paga la deuda!

La naturaleza es un banco estricto: si te da capital, es para que lo inviertas. "She lends to those are free."

¡Invierte el capital!

Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuse

The bounteous largess given thee to give?

Hermoso tacaño, ¿por qué abusas

De esa inmensa riqueza que te dieron para dar?

Profitless usurer, why dost thou use

So great a sum of sums, yet canst not live?

Usurero sin ganancias, ¿por qué usas

Tan gran suma de sumas, y aun así no puedes vivir?

[ The Audit]

"Profitless usurer." ¡Usurero sin ganancias! Un usurero presta para ganar; tú solo te prestas a ti mismo.

¡Tacaño, tacaño!

You hoard the beauty, but you can't take it with you. Escucha la pregunta de Shakespeare: "What acceptable audit canst thou leave?"

¡La auditoría final!

When Nature calls you to go, when your balance sheet is due... ¿qué cuentas vas a entregar?

¡Cuenta en cero! ¡Cuenta en cero!

For having traffic with thyself alone,

Thou of thyself thy sweet self dost deceive.

Por hacer negocios solo contigo mismo,

A ti mismo te engañas y te robas.

Then how, when nature calls thee to be gone,

What acceptable audit canst thou leave?

Cuando la naturaleza te llame a partir,

¿Qué balance aceptable dejarás?

[The Executor]

You see? Keep it all, lose it all.

¡Se pierde en la tumba!

"Thy unused beauty must be tomb'd with thee." La belleza que no usas se entierra contigo.

¡Pero si la usas!

"Which, used, lives th' executor to be." Usada, ¡tu belleza sobrevive como tu albacea, tu heredero!

¡Firma el testamento!

Thy unused beauty must be tomb'd with thee...

Tomb'd with thee...

Which, used... lives th' executor to be.

Tu heredero...

Don't die with your account full. Use it. Pass it on.

───

SONNET 4 · William Shakespeare (1609)

───

Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend

Upon thyself thy beauty's legacy?

Nature's bequest gives nothing but doth lend,

And being frank she lends to those are free.

Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuse

The bounteous largess given thee to give?

Profitless usurer, why dost thou use

So great a sum of sums, yet canst not live?

For having traffic with thyself alone,

Thou of thyself thy sweet self dost deceive.

Then how, when nature calls thee to be gone,

What acceptable audit canst thou leave?

Thy unused beauty must be tombed with thee,

Which, used, lives th' executor to be.

Greetings, fellow fans of the Bard of Avon! I was wondering how many of us are part of a Shakespeare society open to the general public and what form that might take.

I'm in the Glasgow Shakespeare Society and, as secretary and compiler of our newsletter, I'm interested in reaching out across the world to find other Shakespeare societies. We recently traced the existence of a Shakspere Society (sic) in Glasgow to as far back as 1872, although the current version has been running for 54 years. We study 4 plays a year from October to April and end with a Bard's Birthday Bash every 23rd April. I also know that the University of Glasgow also has a society for students, which is more performance-based

Are you in a society? Where and how long has it been running? How many members do you have? How do your meetings run? Thanks in advance for any information!

Hair is everything.