The Complete Shakespeare: Twelfth Night

Twelfth Night, or What You Will

Summary:
Twins Viola and Sebastian are caught in a shipwreck, separated and nearly drowned. Thinking her brother to be dead, Viola disguises herself as a man and enters the service of the local Duke Orsino, who is attempting to woo Countess Olivia. Olivia instead falls for Viola in disguise, while Viola finds herself falling for the Duke. Things grow even more confused when Sebastian returns and is repeatedly mistaken for Viola, but in the end all is revealed, with Viola marrying the Duke and Sebastian the Countess. Meanwhile, the servants of Olivia’s household play a nasty trick on Malvolio, her prudish steward.

What It’s About:
True love is selfless

Twelfth Night, like all of Shakespeare’s comedies, concerns itself with love. The principal conflict of the play, complicated by Viola’s cross-dressing and the confusion it causes, is remarkably simple: Orsino wants to win the heart of Olivia, and Olivia has sworn off all suitors following the death of her brother. Viola stumbles into the midst of this, disguising herself as a man to enter the employ of the duke since Olivia is not currently accepting applications, and finds herself Orsino’s preferred messenger to the Countess, delivering his ornate speeches and professions of affection. She’s a great fit for the role because, in her disguise as a man, Olivia falls for her instantly, and in contrast to all the Duke’s previous messengers continually invites ‘Cesario’ (Viola’s assumed name while she’s in disguise) to come back and visit her again. Meanwhile, Viola has fallen hard for Orsino, and so is in the terrible position of needing to win her own heart’s desire the heart of another. It’s a classic love triangle, and one that should be immediately familiar to modern viewers; as with last week’s Much Ado About Nothing, this is the kind of plot that’s a staple in modern sitcoms.

The play gets a lot of mileage out of contrasting these various loves, and in doing so approaches what I think to be its central thesis, comparing the self-centered and self-aggrandizing love of Orsino, and to a lesser degree Olivia’s steward Malvolio, with the self-sacrificing love of Viola. Orsino is a wonderful character to see performed because in general his speeches lay it on thick; he clearly sees himself as the tragic romantic hero, so consumed by love and longing that he can’t eat, can’t sleep, can’t do anything but think about his beloved. And yet throughout all his speeches he rarely makes mention of Olivia herself. Rather, his focus is on his own passion, his own furor, and the strength of his own feelings. Malvolio too longs for Olivia, but his fantasies all focus on the power and prestige he’d gain as the husband to a countess, elevated beyond his lowly station. Their love is selfish, and their thoughts only focused on how it affects them. In contrast, Viola’s love is all about self-sacrifice. She pines for the Duke, but loves him to such a degree that she’s willing to plead his case and court Olivia on his behalf, at the cost of her own happiness with Orsino. Repeatedly, she puts her own wishes aside in the hopes of making the Duke happy, and even when it’s clear she has Olivia’s favor and eye - something literally every other character in the play chases - she rejects it in favor of serving the Duke. This selfless love is also personified in Antonio, the pirate that rescues Viola’s brother Sebastian and serves as the only real paragon of virtue within the play beyond Viola herself. Antonio loves Sebastian deeply (and depending on the director, often romantically - this is by far Shakespere’s most LGBTQ-friendly play), and is willing to risk arrest, injury and even death in order to protect him. Antonio’s love is ultimately unrequited and his story is not truly resolved in a satisfactory way, but in a play where so many characters make very poor decisions, he stands out as one who is kind, devoted, and unfailingly in the right.

If This Were A Movie:
As with most Shakespearan comedies this naturally hews to the line of a modern rom com, but more than that this play feels like a farce. It has an oddly zany undercurrent, and is primarily about mistaken identity and irony. Viola’s disguise and the ultimate confusion between herself and her twin brother Sebastian are central to this. Viola constantly drops hints, asides, and lines with double meanings referring to her true sex gender.

Beyond that, the play’s supporting cast adds to the farcical feel, with Feste the clown, Sir Toby & Maria, all members of Olivia’s household, getting up to what can only be described as hijinx in the background of all this courtly love. They prank Malvolio, milk the visiting knight Sir Andrew for cash, and generally sow chaos throughout the scenes, especially in the later acts of the play when the pace begins to pick up. Feste in particular should be noted - he has a number of speeches throughout the play littered with puns, wordplay, and delightfully circular logic. However, he’s also the only character that’s revealed to know Olivia’s true identity, contributing to the sense that, though perhaps not the architect of all this madness, he’s certainly its conductor - keeping a steady time and moving all the other players about in a mad little dance.

The Lines From The Play That You Know:

If music be the food of love, play on - Twelfth Night, 1.1.1

The opening line of the play, spoken by Duke Orsino in full-on pining for love mode. It’s entered into the popular lexicon as a kind of romantic sentiment, speaking to the ability of music to move the heart. That said, as mentioned above Orsino’s love is of the courtly, selfish variety - more in love with being in love than truly in love with Countess Olivia - and this speech is one of the prime examples of that. Despite professing boundless affection for Olivia, she doesn’t come up in his first lines; rather the Duke’s subject is his own rapture and passion - what a romantic figure he is, lying there listening to the music and dreaming of his lady love.

Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ‘em. - Twelfth Night, 2.5.126-128

The other truly notable quote from the play comes from the Malvolio subplot, and like the above loses something in context. While the quote is often used as an aspirational message, the kind of thing for motivational posters and inspiring speeches, within the play it’s part of a rouse to trick the prudish Malvolio into putting on airs and acting above his station - behavior that ultimately gets him locked up for insanity. It’s a solid quote to throw out every once in a while, but just make sure you’re actually reaching for greatness, and not being tricked into overstepping your bounds.

The Lines You Should Know:

Orsino: Still so cruel?
Olivia: Still so constant, lord. - Twelfth Night, 5.1.103-104

Two lines that summarize the entirety of Orsino and Olivia’s storyline throughout the play. Despite their ‘courtship’ being the central action of the play, the two don’t meet until the fifth act. Orsino asks if she is still cruelly rejecting his advances, and Olivia’s response? I don’t owe you anything. Though this is obviously a very modern reading of the play and one not supported by the original text, there is a lot to be mined in portraying Orsino’s anguished love as the modern ‘nice guy,’ who pines after a girl and feels that, because he’s so invested in her, she owes him reciprocation. Nothing could be further from the truth, and Olivia’s reply makes that clear here - she has been constant in her response to Orisno’s advances. She’s not interested, and he needs to move along.

Notable Adaptation:

So far in this series, we’ve been working with pretty faithful adaptations, and specifically ones that remain true to the original text. This week we’re talking about She’s The Man, so that’s out the window. The 2006 film, which is quite loosely based on Twelfth Night, updates the setting to a modern high school, ups the comedy by a lot, and most notably was one of Channing Tatum’s first big starring roles. Is it the best way to learn the text of the play? No, of course not. But as I said above this play feels like a farce, and nothing captures the essence of that like an early 2000s teen comedy.

It’s also an excellent example of just how flexible these plays can be when it comes to adaptation, in terms of setting, style, character, and even textual fidelity. To steal a football metaphor, Shakespeare bends but it doesn’t break; you can twist the words, rewrite the characters, add or remove whole subplots, but the themes and stories are so classic, so universal, that despite these transformations the work shines through. And because of that, they are a great anchor to set your story to - a grounding mechanism for whatever point you are trying to make, even if that point is ‘Channing Tatum should do more comedies.’

General Notes:
Let’s talk briefly about how, despite the fact that this is clearly a comedy (it ends with three weddings), the ending can be distinctly melancholy depending on the adaptation. First and foremost, with the exception of Viola, no one ends up with the person that they loved. Olivia ends up marrying Sebastian, Viola’s twin; yes, they look the same, but he is distinctly not the person she fell in love with over the course of the lay. Moreover, they rush to the altar the first time Sebastian and Olivia meet due to the case of mistaken identity - he has literally no idea who she is, but suddenly finds himself betrothed to this strange woman who’s fawning all over him. And Orsino clearly does not win the hand of Olivia, the woman he spends five acts pining over; instead he quickly agrees to marry one of his pages that he believed to be a man for the length of the play. Now, there’s a lot that can be done with this in terms of showing the chemistry of Orsino and Viola when she’s in disguise - and many plays chose to amp this up and have a great deal of fun with this increasingly physical attraction. Nonetheless, it’s possible - and many adaptations choose - to play this ending as more than a little unsatisfying.

This whole problem is amplified by the Malvolio subplot. Malvolio is Olivia’s puritanical steward, and as mentioned above the various members of her household, including Feste the clown, play a series of pranks on him, tricking him into believing that Olivia is in love with him (something he fantasizes about), and in general spurring him on to a variety of lunatic behaviors. They trick him into dressing oddly, belittling the staff around him, and generally making inappropriate advances towards Olivia, all of which land him in solitary confinement in prison, where Feste and the others proceed to TORTURE HIM. It escalates quickly.

Eventually the deception is revealed, but Malvolio is less than forgiving, promising that he’ll “be revenged on the whole pack of you” (Twelfth Night 5.1.364). As a character he’s much abused, and there’s been some thought as to whether he should be portrayed more sympathetically. Textually, though I think he’s supposed to be an object of scorn: the puritans, in Shakespeare’s time, were strong opponents of the theater, thinking that it was ungodly and encouraged idleness. As such, I’m of the opinion that this is Shakespeare having a bit of a go at some of his critics. This is supported by the fact that Feste the clown (the entertainer within the play, not unlike an actor or a playwright), is revealed to have taken part in Malvolio’s torture because Malvolio shunned him at the beginning of the play, deriding fooling as a profession and claiming it was useless, ungodly and idle. Sound familiar?

A Monologue For the Road:

This fellow is wise enough to play the fools
And to do that well craves a kind of wit.
He must observe the mood on whom he jests,
The quality of persons, and the time,
And, like the haggard, check at every feather
That comes before his eye. This is a practice
As full of labor as a wise man’s art.
For folly that he wisely shows is fit,
But wise men, folly-fall’n, quite taint their wit. - Twelfth Night 3.1.53-61

The Complete Shakespeare: Much Ado About Nothing

Much Ado About Nothing

Summary:
Freshly home from war, Don Pedro and two of his men, Claudio and Benedict, stay with a local lord Leonato, along with his daughter Hero and niece Beatrice. Claudio and Hero fall quickly in love, while Benedict and Beatrice engage in a merry war of words, seemingly at each other’s throats. Benedict and Beatrice are tricked into confessing their love for each other, while Claudio is tricked into leaving Hero at the altar, believing her to be unfaithful. These lies are brought to light and all ends happily, with both couples whisking off to be married.


What It’s About:
Love triumphs over deceit

The play's primary theme is the interplay of love and deceit, and how both are facilitated through the titular 'noting' - in Shakespeare's parlance the words noting and nothing were near-homophones, and as such the title becomes a many-layered pun that's more or less lost on modern audiences. The play is much ado about noting - characters taking note of conversations happening around them, eavesdropping and being misled. It’s also much ado about nothing - that is, things that are insignificant. These conversations are often false, or tricks being played on the listener meant to deceive; they amount to nothing. Add to that the fact that nothing was Elizabethean slang for vagina, and that much of the conflict in the play centers around accusations made against Hero’s chastity and faithfulness - accusations that ultimately prove to be unfounded and thus, much ado about nothing.

All that is to say that characters eavesdropping, spying, and gossiping about others, often misunderstanding or being misled, makes up the primary action of the play. Benedict and Beatrice's romance, spurred by Don Pedro tricking both into noting conversations about the other, and Claudio's abandonment of Hero at the altar thanks to Don John (Don Pedro’s villainous brother) tricking him into noting one of Hero’s maids indulging in a dalliance at Hero's window the night before her wedding are the most egregious examples. However, minor instances liter the play. Hero is initially wooed by Don Pedro in a mask, who acts on behalf of Claudio. Benedict also talks with Beatrice at that party, hiding behind a mask to gather her opinion on him. And at the resolution, Hero is presented to Claudio behind a veil, as he believes her to be dead and that he is instead marrying her cousin. Trickery runs concurrent with love throughout the play - sometimes it aids, often it hinders, but the two seem to be indelibly linked. However, it's only once the masks are removed and all stands revealed that we can have our two weddings and dancing that lightens hearts and heels.


If This Were A Movie:
This is about as modern a play as Shakespeare ever wrote, and frankly reads like the script of an early 2000s Rom Com once you know how to parse the language. Benedict and Beatrice will be very familiar to modern readers - two quick-witted, sarcastic characters who constantly mock both each other as well as the very concept of love. They’re especially fond of heaping scorn on each other, and the pair do not share a scene where there isn’t some form of sharp-tongued verbal banter. Unsurprisingly, there’s also a fair amount of textual evidence that despite this banter the two are deeply attracted to each other, and may have even been involved before - how much this is played up varies depending on the adaptation. But it will come as no shock to the modern reader that they ultimately end up together - that acerbic couple always winds up admitting their love at the end of the rom com.

It’s also interesting to note that, to modern sensibilities Benedict and Beatrice read like one of the few couples in Shakespeare that seem like they could exist in the 21st century. Courtly love and arranged have fallen out of style, but the concept of two sharp-tongued people who refuse to admit their true feelings and hide behind sarcastic quips? That’s something we’re all quite familiar with.


The Line From The Play That You Know:
Oh God, that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the marketplace. - Much Ado About Nothing 4.1.302-303

For such a witty and dialogue-driven play, there aren’t a whole lot of lines that have entered into the popular lexicon. The above is probably closest, from Beatrice’s ‘Kill Claudio’ scene, wherein both she and Benedict confess their love for each other, and wherein she implores Benedict to hold Claudio to account for the slanders he’s lobbied at her cousin Hero. Such a massive ordeal being made about Hero’s ‘purity’ - that is, her virginity - is definitely an artifact of the time, and can easily make Claudio into the least sympathetic character in the play, to the point where his eventual reunion with Hero at the play’s end feels a bit unearned. Various adaptations have tried to dance around this, and some even rewrite the ending, but as it stands it turns Beatrice’s speech into one of the strongest and most sympathetic bits within the play for an actress to sink her teeth into.


The Line You Should Know:
Only this commendation I can afford her, that were she other than she is, she were unhandsome; and being no other but as she is, I do not like her. - Much Ado About Nothing 1.1.142-144

No one delivers an insult quite like Shakespeare. This is Benedict’s line speaking of Hero, whom Claudio has fallen rapturously in love with, and speaks to both his generally pithy disposition as well as the fact that his eyes are clearly elsewhere. Benedict here is trying to talk his best friend and general running buddy from the war to calm down and not immediately leap head over heels for this girl. In his estimation, Hero is beautiful but hardly worth immediately going to the church over. Of course, this falls on deaf ears, otherwise there wouldn’t be a play.


Notable Adaptation:

Joss Whedon’s 2013 Much Ado About Nothing (available on Prime video) perfectly encapsulates how modern the text feels, as it is hands down the funniest adaptation of Shakespeare I’ve ever seen. The film was essentially shot over the course of 12 days during a contractually mandated break from editing Avengers, and given that context it's easy to see why it is such a light, breezy, and frankly slightly tipsy film. Whedon essentially got all of his friends and frequent collaborators, brought them to his house for two weeks, got them a bit liquored up (per the director’s commentary those glasses aren’t filled with water), and shot a movie. You can tell everyone involved is simply having fun, and that sense of fun pervades the entire project as a result.

This is also one of my favorite adaptations for showing just how much context actors can bring to Shakespearean dialogue. Despite being a self-professed nerd for these plays, I’ll be the first to admit that the text is hard to understand from the perspective of a modern English speaker. Here, the cast does so much work with their physicality and non-verbal expression in conveying the meaning that the lines land, even if you don’t have a perfect understanding of what phrases like “hang my bugle in an invisible baldric” mean.

General Notes:
Let’s talk a bit about Benedict and Beatrice, as they are really the breakout stars of the play and, at least in modern adaptations, have come to overwhelm everything else. Despite this, they are not the leads, or at least they're not central to the primary conflict of the play: Claudio being tricked into believing Hero has been unfaithful and abandoning her at the altar. They certainly circle around this action, with Beatrice remaining by Hero’s side and Benedict coming to her defense and ultimately challenging Claudio to a duel over the fact that he has slandered Hero. However, neither is in any way critical to that plot, and the majority of their story is resolved entirely separately. In fact, past stagings of various Shakespeare plays (notably Measure for Measure) have lifted Beatrice and Benedict whole cloth, and dropped them into entirely different works with no ill effects on the storyline.

How much does this matter? It's possible (and most modern adaptations go this way) to treat Claudio and Hero as, at best, a B-plot; background events over which Benedict and Beatrice engage in their merry little duel of wits. While this may not be the most faithful adaptation of the work, it’s certainly the most entertaining. Both characters are clearly written as the stars of the piece, getting all the best lines, and usually get top billing when it comes to casting. It also is the most attractive way of adapting the source material for a modern audience. As mentioned above, the Claudio/Hero plot rings a bit oddly to modern ears in its approach to gender politics, while the Beatrice/Benedict romance feels distinctly modern - the kid of witty, will they/won’t they banter that moderns sitcoms can grind three seasons’ worth of material out of. For good or bad, this is how the text has evolved over the years. However, I can’t help but believe that Shakespeare knew what he was doing - that in some ways this was all intentional. He was (spoilers) a pretty good writer, and there’s no way any writer worth their salt could write two characters like Beatrice and Benedict and not realize that they were the ones the audience was going to fall in love with.

A Monologue For the Road:
I didn’t even get to mention Dogberry, so I’ll leave you with this.

Dost thou not suspect my place? Dost thou not suspect my years? Oh, that he were here to write me down an ass! But masters, remember that I am an ass. Thought it be not written down, yet forget not that I am an ass...I am a wise fellow, and which is more, an officer, and which is more, a householder, and which is more, as pretty a piece of flesh as any is in Messina - Much Ado About Nothing 4.2.66-73

The Complete Shakespeare: Macbeth

As a bit of a personal project, I've resolved to read every Shakespeare play (ideally one a week) over the next few months. I'll be sharing some reflections on these plays here, along with a few recurring bits to break down the plays for those who might not be as familiar with the works. Up first:

The Tragedy of Macbeth

Summary:
Macbeth, a Scottish Thane (essentially a Duke), comes across three witches who deliver a prophecy foretelling that he will one day be King. With the encouragement of his wife, he takes matters into his own hands and murders his way to the top. His ambitions make him new enemies however, and ultimately lead to his own death and fall from power.

What It’s About:
Ambition sows the seeds of its own destruction 

The play is famously the story of a man corrupted by ambition - at the start of the play Macbeth receives a prophecy that accurately predicts his spoils from a recent war - he’ll be named Thane of Cawdor, and that calls for a greater crown to come to his head as well. Spurred by this prediction and by his wife, the famously bloodthirsty and all-around incredible character of Lady Macbeth, he takes matters into his own hands and murders his way to the top. Of course, once you start killing those who oppose you it gets harder and harder to stop, and so in the process of removing witnesses and claimants to his throne Macbeth ends up drenched in blood, and with enemies on all sides.

There’s also a fair amount within the text about guilt, and the weight of both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s bloody actions on their respective consciences. They come to realize that their actions don’t exist in a vacuum, but rather follow one another in a downward spiral of death and violence - “blood will have blood” (3.4.151). The weight of this drives both to the brink of insanity, with Macbeth rarely sleeping throughout his reign as King, and Lady Macbeth so haunted by her actions she delivers the play's most famous line and ultimately kills herself.

If This Were A Movie:
I’m a big proponent of the idea that Shakespeare’s plays were the big-budget films of their time - in the 17th century the theater was a populist medium enjoyed by people across classes, not the highbrow stuff we’ve come to know it as in our day. Shakespeare himself was wildly successful as a playwright, and honestly should be compared in modern terms to someone like Stephen Spielberg - critically acclaimed yes, but also very strong at the box office.

Macbeth is one of Shakespeare’s more bloody works, with not only multiple murders but also several full-on battle scenes. As such, the closest modern comparison is probably a war drama - think something like Dunkirk or (appropriately Scottish) Braveheart. It’s not a big budget action film, but the play’s quiet drama scenes are nonetheless driven by the bloody conflicts happening around them.


The Line From The Play That You Know:
Given its position in the canon, there’s a few. Arguably the most famous...

Double, double, toil and trouble
Fire burn and cauldron bubble - Macbeth 4.1.10-11

The witches’ famous chant, which has become synonymous with three crones hovering around a bubbling pot casting spells. In general, the witch imagery of this play informs so much of the modern ‘Halloween-esque’ conception of witchcraft, and is some of the most enduring in terms of its saturation into pop culture. The witches also get the best lines - see also: “By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.” Some Shakespeare scholars even argue one of their scenes (3.5, with Hecate) was added by a later author because they were just that popular with 17th century audiences - in our modern day, they probably would have gotten a spinoff.

Out, damned spot! Out, I say! - Macbeth 5.1.37

Lady Macbeth’s line from the end of the play as she sleepwalks through the royal castle, frantically miming washing her hands. Lady Macbeth is one of Shakespeare’s juiciest female roles for actors, and has a number of speeches that, in good hands, are showstoppers. She’s also a terrifyingly ruthless character, resolved to bloody violence well before Macbeth and instrumental in leading him down the road to murder the King. Here, the guilt and agony from all those deaths she’s orchestrated has become too much to bear, and in her sleep she frantically tries to wash the blood from her hands. Four scenes later she’ll have thrown herself from the castle battlements because of this same guilty conscience.

The Line You Should Know:

I am in blood
Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o'er. - Macbeth 3.4.168-170

Easily my favorite line in the play, in no small part because it’s a perfect trailer one-liner for a modern adaptation of the work. Delivered after Macbeth has killed the King and had Banquo murdered, he comes to the realization that there is no peace in his newly won crown and prestige - that despite all the blood he’s shed to win his place, there is still much more to come. He acknowledges that this is the point of no return, and accepts his role as villain and tyrant. To this point, Macbeth has shown remorse and regret for his actions - for killing a king and friend that trusted him. From here on out he is resolved to hold the crown no matter the cost.

Notable Adaptation:
These are plays, and as such you can only get so much from reading them - they are meant to be seen and heard, meant to be performed.

For Macbeth, I’d recommend the 2015 film starring Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard - it is a period war drama set in 11th century highland Scotland, and captures so much of the essence of the play. There are other more inventive adaptations, others that put a unique spin on the material - this is simply Macbeth Classic. It’s also as good an example as any that this play is like catnip for actors - there is so much good material to work with, and most anyone who’s playing either of the lead roles will hand in a truly stunning performance. Fassbender and Cotillard are no exception. The film is available on Prime video here.

General Notes:
This section is going to be far more relevant as we get to the more obscure stuff. As it stands; it’s Macbeth. It’s part of the Big Four tragedies (along with Hamlet, Othello, King Lear), and it’s there for a reason: it’s GOOD. The story is relatable yet specific, speaking to universal truths about the human experience that transcend the setting, as evidenced by the diverse adaptations of the work. “Ambition sows the seeds of its own destruction” - it’s about as simple a thesis as you can get, and yet because of that simplicity it has transcended its time, its place, and in some ways its authorship.

I’m not going to sit here and try to give you a unique take on this play, because it’s been written about to the ends of the earth. I will say I’m a fan of the theory that Macbeth’s ultimate downfall is motivated by Duncan’s transgression in naming his son as heir, as expanded upon in the essay prefacing the Complete Pelican Shakespeare publishing of the play. Essentially, the Scottish kingship at this time in history was more adoptive then hereditary, and the idea of enshrining power in dynastic succession would have been, in many ways, a massive slap in the face to the nobles that formed the basis of the then-King’s court. However, this is a historical reading that doesn’t quite gel with the rest of the frankly ahistorical text. Moreover, I think it’s a modern reading, ascribing modern sensibilities to Shakespeare - an easy and common mistake to fall into with an author that so often seems ahead of his team despite the fact that we know so little about who he was as a person.

However, the power of the play (as with so much of Shakespeare’s work) is that it’s open enough to support multiple interpretations. Even if this wasn’t necessarily the intent of the author, it’s a reading of the text that holds up, and can be made manifest by staging and decisions from the actors in the roles. In many ways, this is the true power of Shakespeare, and why his work has stood the test of time. Regardless of authorial intent, the subjects covered are so universal and themes so well developed that they can persist through modifications to motivation, character, setting. It’s no accident these plays have endured for nearly 400 years, and despite how you might have felt about them in high school English, they remain well worth reading.

A Monologue For the Road:

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing. - Macbeth 5.5.22-31