Who Let the Dogs Out?

When I read The Tempest, I came across a  brief description about K-9's... Dogs... chasing Trinculo,
Stephano and Caliban. In the play these mutts were said to have been "... divers Spirits in shape of dogs and hounds..."

Now it got me thinking. And I'll get to my thought shortly after I touch on what I mentioned earlier about the island that Prospero is stranded on. I said that the island was Bermuda. Which is considered to be one of the unsolved mysterious found on the American continent.

Another unsolved mystery on that continent is a creature that is known for sucking blood.
No not Vampires, and especially NOT the sparkling ones.

 

The blood that this creature sucks is from goats! Yes you guessed it. The infamous "goat-sucker", also known as the Chupacabra!

Now I know what you're thinking. What does a Chupacabra have to do with the dogs that I mentioned earlier? Rest assured my friend, it will all make sense in the end.  Knowing Shakespeare, he tends to have minor connections in his play, especially with Greek Mythology.

The reason I bring up Greek Mythology in this is because of the "hounds" that were talked about in the play. Now think of a mythical creature that is a type of hound. I'll give you a hint. They're found in Disney's Hercules and Harry Potter... Yes you got it! Hellhounds!

It would make sense that these dogs are Hellhounds because of not only Shakespeare's knowledge in Greek Mythology, but also the association he demonstrated with Prospero's sorcery and dealings with various spirits outside of the earthly realm.




Hellhounds are described as being paranormal guard dogs of the entrance to the afterlife. In folklore it is said that they have fire-based ability.

 

Now you're probably wondering, where's the connection? I will get to that! Chupacabras were believed to have been some vampiric humanoid reptiles that terrorized Puerto Rico by sucking the blood of goats. 

Recently it has been made clear that the culprit was in fact a type of dog that had mange. Mange is a skin disease found on mammals that is caused by parasitic mites which generally resulted in making their skin very itchy. Due to the over excessive scratching, the animal would lose hair and their skin would become "inflamed" and raw. Did you catch the connection there?

In conclusion the dogs and hounds, that Prospero owned, were Hellhounds that are now known as Chupacabras! I guess that answers the question "Who let the dogs out?"

Isles of Wonder

As I re-read and research the play "The Tempest", I discover more and more intriguing "Easter eggs" that Shakespeare purposely left behind for us to find. For this post, I would like to pinpoint the location of the island that Prospero is stranded on.





Since the play itself doesn't tell us the name of the island, other than being called "The Isles of Wonder." I'm going to obviously use the ancient script, but at the same time explore historical facts to find the mysterious island.

It is believed that the play was written in 1610-1611, that was a few years after John Smith met up with Pocahontas in what is now America. Speaking of America, The play was written a little over one hundred years after the continent was discovered, but we'll touch back on that later.

 In "The Tempest" it gives vivid descriptions of what the island looks like. I'm going to use the words from the characters in the play, to paint a picture of the island. Starting with Caliban.

Caliban said that the island had "...fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place and fertile..." He continues by explaining the witchcraft that his mother, Sycorax, took part in before she died. "All the charms Of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you!" Caliban even went has far as describing the island's beauty along with it's strange occurrences:

"Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices..."





Miranda, Prospero's daughter, tells us of "...wild waters..." near the island after Prospero did is sorcery. Speaking of sorcery, it was constantly used on the island from both Prospero and Sycorax.

Ferdinand, Miranda's love interest,  hears singing(from Ariel) on the island, but he cannot find the source:
"Where should this music be? i' the air or the earth?
It sounds no more: and sure, it waits upon
Some god o' the island."

Ariel, servant to Prospero, is a spirit on the island. In one scene from the play, Ariel appears to the stranded survivors, as a harpy, and makes their swords too heavy to lift. When you read this scene, it sounds like some form for paranormal activity is going down. Adding to Ariel's ability to make the swords weigh a ton, the spirit can also shape-shift to various elements found on the island. As if that's not creepy enough. Also Ariel is not the only spirit on the island. There are at least three known spirits with names; and they are: Iris, Ceres and Juno. The other inhabitants are Nymphs and Reapers(I have a feeling I'll be talking about that on my future blog). Ariel has another passage about the island that clearly gives it away, but before I share that; I would like to touch on something that I mentioned in my previous post.

Before, I said that Caliban's name originated from the Carib people, and as we know the Carib people were located in the Caribbean area. That being said, the island is somewhere close to that region. Not only that, but what was brought up prior to my explanation; is that the island had a lot of strange things happening: witchcraft and sorcery, "the isle is full of noises", "voices", "wild waters" and even the whole play is about a group of people being shipwrecked on an island. You're still not sure where this mysterious island is? Maybe Ariel can shed some light on this subject. 

When Prospero asks Ariel where the survivors were placed, Ariel responds by saying that they're near "Bermoothes". Very interesting! That word is strangely similar to the word "Bermuda"! Not only is it close with the spelling, but from some of the variety of languages that I've come to know; the language Tamil and Singhala proves that this word is one in the same. In both of these languages the Sanskrit symbol for the letters "d" and "th" normally make the same sound, the same goes for "u" and "oo" and even the letter "e" can sound like the letter "a" depending on it being part of the prefix or the suffix of the word.

Remember when I talked about the discovery of the American continent? During the time of this

play, there were a variety of explorers still venturing the "New World". One of the first explorers, for the Europeans, was Christopher Columbus. In fact on October 11, 1492; Columbus has one of the first accounts of something wired happening on Bermuda. His log said he saw "... strange dancing lights on the horizon..." He also wrote about how his compass was giving bizarre readings. Because of these unexplained occurrences Bermuda bore another name, "The Devil's Triangle!" As if that's not scary enough.

In conclusion, the island that the characters were stranded on was Bermuda. Mystery solved!

Sycorax: "She's a Witch!"

Despite what you know about Doctor Who and his dealings with an alien race called Sycorax. He wasn't the person that inspired Shakespeare to include that name for one of his plays. Sorry Whovians... but I will tell you who Sycorax is, and where her name came from.

Like my previous post regarding Queen Mab, Sycorax is first mentioned in literature by William Shakespeare, in his last play "The Tempest".

Sycorax is only mentioned in flashbacks described by Prospero(the main character) and Caliban(the deformed slave to Prospero and son of Sycorax). We learn form scholars that Prospero and Sycorax actually had a history together. Meaning that before the play was initiated, they both were at war with each other to claim the island that they were on. They were exact opposites of each other. Prospero was a "great sorcerer" that dealt with white magic, he had a daughter named Miranda, and was of royal descent. Sycorax on the other hand was a witch who practiced black magic, had a son with The Devil and named the child Caliban, and she was from Algeria. The only thing they had in common was that they were both banished for witchcraft.

Within this back-story, Sycorax had Ariel as a slave, because of Ariel's misbehavior, Sycorax placed Ariel in a pine tree(where Ariel was moaning and groaning for everybody to hear, including Prospero). Later on, Prospero obviously defeated Sycorax, freed Ariel and gained Caliban as a slave.

This flashback would be interesting to see portrayed on the big screen. It would make the play "The Tempest" more epic! Since Shakespeare didn't write a part of Sycorax, the whole back-story could just be inaudible, with awesome instrumentals in the background and non-stop action of witchcraft duels! I'd pay to see that!

I touched on earlier that Sycorax is from Algeria, but what I failed to mention was the description of her ethnicity. Prospero described her as being a "... blue eyed hag." Schoolars have argued that it was another way of saying that she had blueish rings around her eyes due to tiredness or pregnancy(possibly with Caliban), while others have said that she was a race that could not be defined.
I however, I have come up with a theory to those opinions. Knowing that Sycorax is from Algeria, historically and geographically she would be black, but why would an African woman be described having "blue eyes"? It is highly possible that Sycorax's distant relatives were Caucasians on both sides of her family, making her eyes appear "blue". She could have even been an Albino African for all we know. With Sycorax's detailed illustration in Shakespeare, and limited knowledge regarding cases like that back then, it makes more sense.

Going back to the possibility that Sycorax was pregnant with Caliban while on the island with Prospero. It says in the play she "... was banish'd: for one thing she did They would not take her life." What was that "one thing"? And why did they(the Algerians) "not take her life"? Scholars have said that she either defended her people from an invasion of Charles V to escape being put to death, or she was pregnant with Caliban. At that time, if you were a female criminal and happened to be pregnant, you basically have a "get out of  execution card". Let's take a step back on this. Sycorax avoided execution by her own people, because she defended them from an invasion. I'm sorry, that doesn't make any sense. I mean why was she still banished to an unknown island for such a heroic act? Here's my theory that is more logical. Sycorax did witchcraft among the people in Algeria, due to that act, she was forced to face execution, but she became pregnant with The Devil's child, which changed the situation by having her banished instead. It doesn't specify what island she was banished on with Prospero, but it is evident that he knew Sycorax after she had the child, meaning Prospero's description of her being a "blue eyed hag", didn't mean that she was pregnant, it meant that she was an African woman with blue eyes.

 Now let's get to the meaning and origin behind Sycprax's name. Shakespeare got most of his unusual names from Greek. In that language the name is a combination of two words sus ("pig") and korax ("crow"). In a loose translation it's from a Greek phrase "the Scythian raven". It also appears again in the Greek word for "heartbreaker" psychorrhax, it might even be a play on words with the word psychoraggia "death struggle". In Hebrew the closest word they have that resembles Sycorax is Shokereth which means "deceiver". One thing that I found interesting is that scholars have pointed out that the name Sycorax resembles the magical Circe from Greek mythology as well as perhaps a version of "Circe" found in the mythology of the "Coraxi" tribe in what is now Georgia(the country not the state). Interesting... "Circe" and "Coraxi", if you say it fast it sounds like... "Sycorax!"

Another fictional character that has some historical proofs to separate fact and fiction!

Top Ten Songs Inspired by Shakespeare

I've decided to do another Top Ten. This list will involve popular songs that were inspired by Shakespeare's writings. This list will be based not only on it's popularity but it's clever usage in making his works musical. Listed below will be the name of the song followed by the musician and the Shakespeare play it is referencing. Here we go:
 
10-"Cruel To Be Kind" by Letters to Cleo- "Hamlet"

I liked this song because it is not only written by one of my favorite girl punk bands, but it is also part of soundtrack of one of my favorite 90's movies "10 Things I Hate About You". Hey! Ironically, it happens to be number ten on the list!

9- "Sigh No More" by Mumford and Son's- "Much Ado About Nothing"

This band is slowly growing on me. I'm glad that they made a Shakespeare reference in their songs, especially from one of my favorite Shakespeare movie adaptions "Much Ado About Nothing". 

8- "Don't Fear The Reaper" by Oyster Cult- "Romeo & Juliet"

 I didn't even know that this song referenced Shakespeare. It took me a double take, but with that "take" I have now learned to like it more. "More Cowbell"? Yes please!

7- "Ariel" by October Project- "The Tempest"

What's not to like about this song? It is a duet by two women, their voices are very melodious and it tells the story about Ariel's imprisonment as a slave to Prospero from "The Tempest". 

6- "Miss Macbeth" by Elvis Costello- "Macbeth"

 This song was a bit unique. It was very upbeat and it too told the tale of a Shakespeare character. Lady Macbeth!

5- "Hey There Ophelia" by MC Lars- "Hamlet"

 I love this one! The whole song sums up the long play of "Hamlet"! You also feel well educated in Shakespeare's work after listening to it.

4-  "Check Yes Juliet" by We The Kings- "Romeo & Juliet"

It is by an awesome band that is basically telling a girl that if she loves a boy to run away with him, and leave her parents behind. Just be careful, "Romeo & Juliet" is not a happy ending.

3- "Double Trouble" from the movie "Harry Potter: And the Prisoner of Azkhaban"- "Macbeth"

All right Harry Potter fans, this is a perfect theme song for the witches in "Macbeth"! What's not to like about this? It is totally "Wicked"!

2- "Wytches Brew" by Omnia- "Macbeth"

This is another song that tells a tale. This one focuses on the evil witches in "Macbeth" and their plot to ruin a future king's downfall. Perfectly modernized and fits the theme of pagan worship and ritual that the witches were obviously practicing.

1- "Sigh No More" from Joss Whedon's "Much Ado About Nothing"

 The reason this gets number one is because of it's adaption with the ancient sonnet and modern music. They both worked perfectly well with each other and sounded beautifully as one. Plus this song has some family sentimental value to me.

Blemmyes Mentioned in Shakespeare

What are Blemmyes(Blem-mēs)? In both "The Tempest" and "Othelo", these creatures are briefly mentioned as being cannibalistic "headless" monsters! In other historical writings they are not only "headless" but "brainless" as well. I know what you're thinking. Headless? How do these creatures survive if they have no head? Here is what Shakespeare described what these "Legen(wait for it)dary Creatures" looked like:

"And of the Cannibals that each other eat, The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads
Do grow beneath their shoulders." -Shakespeare, Othello

The Greek word "Anthropophage" literally means "People eater." No, not the "One Eyed One Horned Flying Purple People Eater". Strictly cannibals.The word "Blemmyes" has a meaning as well. It is of  Greek origin too, which literally translates "gazing from middle". When we think "gaze" we think "seeing with our eyes". Now when it comes to the word "middle", it can go both ways. It can mean "middle" of the face or "middle" of the body. With the definition of this context, it is too broad to know which "middle" it means. 








 
Anyway, going back to the "no heads" part, legend says that their faces appeared on their torsos. Another Shakespeare reference supports this:

"Who would believe that there were mountaineers Dew-lapp'd like bulls, whose throats had hanging at 'em Wallets of flesh? or that there were such men Whose heads stood in their breasts?" -Shakespeare, The Tempest

We see that in "Othelo", they are described as being "cannibals" and "... men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders." In "The Tempest", they're "... men whose heads stood in their breasts." Now with these illustrations, it paints a vivid picture of what they are supposed to look like.

Now you're probably wondering how this legend of Blemmyes came to be. With my research, I have a theory and a conclusion to back this up. Originally, they were a nomadic Nubian tribe that dwelt in areas in Africa such as Nubia, Kush or Sudan around the 3rd century A.D. Despite what the legends say about them being cannibals, the Blemmyes were a peaceful monotheistic people whom prayed to a god named Mandulis. They also had continues wars with the Romans for years.

There are no writings to indicate how reality slowly turned to fiction, but here are some of my theories. Remember when I talked about the Blemmyes being "headless" and "brainless"? There is a condition called "Anecephaly" which is when a baby is born missing a huge part of their "brain" and even the skull. When we see these conditions, and compare them to the descriptions found in ancient literature, it makes sense that their legends weren't that far from the truth.

My other theory, which might be more logical, is that the Blemmyes were short people of African descent whom wore shield sized masks for war and rituals. In Africa alone, there are a number of cultures that ware huge elongated masks that would look like real scary faces. Some of the masks would cover the whole torso, much like the character Big Face from the PC game "Abe's Odyssey".

So are Blemmyes mythical cannibalistic headless creatures or nomadic peace warriors misunderstood? I'll let you decide.

Top Ten Shakespeare Villains

 After doing my Top Ten Shakespeare Plays, I decided to do yet another Top Ten. This time I decided to do Top Ten Shakespeare Villains. So here we go:

10- Sebastian, Antonio & Caliban- The Tempest
Sebastian is the brother of Alonso. Antonio is the brother of the main character, Prospero. They both try to murder Alonzo and Gonzalo while they were stranded on the island. They are then stopped by Ariel's subtle influence and even forgiven by Prospero for their wrongs. As a result no casualties were present.

Caliban is the offspring of the witch Sycorax, and the devil himself. Being half devil and half witch, it gives him more reason to be ALL evil, but because he is a slave to Prospero he is limited to act on his evil intentions. Again no casualties.

 9- Don John, Conrade and Borachia- Much Ado About Nothing
Don John is the bastard brother of Don Pedro, and is the chief villain in the play. Out of pure jealousy, he literally wanted to make everybody "miserable like unto himself." As we all know "misery loves company." Don John had his servants Conrade and Borachio try to help him succeed in this selfish act. They fail in this because of one's big mouth.

 8- Regan & Goneril- King Lear
Regan and Goneril are the rude daughters of King Lear. They lie to their own father about loving him, just to get their share of the kingdom. They even kick King Lear out of his own humble abode. They clearly had dad issues.





7- Tybalt- Romeo & Juliet
Tybalt is the cousin of Juliet(whom we will be talking about later). He is described to be fiery-tempered, especially when things don't go his way. He hates the whole house of Montague with a passion. Tybalt even considers Romeo a "villain" for loving his cousin, Juliet. He later kills Romeo's friend, Mercutio. Heck... he even hates the word "peace"!

6- The Weird Sisters AKA The Witches and Lady Macbeth- Macbeth
The Weird Sisters are the catalyst that later initiated Macbeth's lust for the future crown of Scotland. Their soothing words were music to Macbeth's ear holes. Those words even rang true to Lady Macbeth, of whom strongly encouraged her husband to make the prophecy come true by force. Due to this horrible act, it lead to sleepless nights and the fear of being caught "red handed"!


 5- Tullus Aufidius- Coriaolanus
Tullus Aufidius is the leader of the Volscians. He is also the arch-enemy of Coriaolanus. He later becomes a brief ally to Coriaolanus.
Both Tullus and Coriaolanus loathed each other entirely. When Coriaolanus was betrayed by his own people he decided to switch sides to seek revenge on the people that wronged him. Tullus embraces him with opened arms, but later ended Coriaolanus' life because Coriaolanus had a change of heart for "two drops of salt!"




4- Aaron, Tamora, Chiron & Demetrius- Titus Andronicus
Aaron is an evil moorish character in the play. With his villainy, he incites most of the other evil characters to carry out violence against the house of Andronicus.

Tamora is the evil queen of the Goths. After Titus sacrificed one of her sons to pay for the loss of his men, Tamora swore to avenge her son's death, but needed help from a cunning moor, and her remaining two sons.
Speaking of her sons. Chiron and Demetius are best known for raping and mutilating Titus' daughter Lavinia. Leaving her with no "helping hands" and literally "speechless".

3- Claudius- Hamlet
Claudius is the uncle and stepfather of the main character, Hamlet. He murdered his own brother to take the crown, married his brother's wife, and when his dark secrets were beginning to unravel he had his nephew Hamlet killed by Laertes with a poisoned tip of a sword. Speaking of poison, The irony in that act, eventually was the cause of his death. Talk about bad karma.

Now for first and second on the list it was going to be a close tie, but based on one being a fictional character and the other being an actual historical figure; reality took the lead. But before we get to that, here are some Honorable Mentions:

My friend Nathan Hatton suggested that Shylock from The Merchant of Venice should be in the list of Shakespeare Villains. This is what he had to say:

"Okay, my reasoning for Shylock is that he is the only anti-villain in Shakespeare's works. Even though his speech at the end during the trial would not have conjured sympathy from the audience, it was still present. That is what makes his case so special. And now today we have the opportunity to use hindsight in order to gain a better appreciation for Shylock's plight. He is probably the only 'villain' in Shakespeare's works that readers can actually understand why he did what he did. He's an incredibly complex character and I love that. Not to mention seeing Pacino's performance as Shylock is simply brilliant and worthy of the sympathy he deserves."

My friend Cody Christensen, was not only humorous, but also had some logic behind it. He convinced me that Juliet from Romeo & Juliet, was a perfect villain for this list. Here is what he had to say:
"I think it is totally Juliet from Romeo and Juliet. She made Romeo fall in love, kill her cousin, and even tricked him into thinking she was dead so he would kill himself. What a shrew! (Pardon my old English)."
Well played... well played!








 2- Iago- Othelo
 Iago is one of Shakespeare's most sinister villains ever created. Due to the unique trust that Othello places in him, Iago uses this to eventually betray Othelo while maintaining his reputation an honest guy. A perfect example of leading a double life
Iago is a schemer and a manipulator. He is very skilled in deceiving other characters so that his suspicion is covered by his act in being truthful.

Andrew Morrison said:
"My favorite villain in all of Shakespeare would have to be Iago from "Othello". The brilliance of the character is that! Were not for his asides and soliloquies, we would be in the same boat as Othello and believe that he is only serving Othello."


Britney Whipple adds in:
"He seems to do evil just because he can. It's a game to him. He's always jealous of Othello which is his justification for the crap he does."

Cody Christens concludes:
"I second Iago he is awesome and his only excuse is that he is a bastard."


1- Richard III- Richard III

Though Iago did lead Othelo astray with his trickery. Richard III did more then that! He ordered people to be killed, killed as well and to make it worse he even killed his own blood!

Rebecca Pearson went on by saying:
"Richard III for me [took] it to a whole new level considering he was a REAL person! I don't think he was as evil as Shakespeare paints him, but I think it's incredibly plausible that he may have killed his nephews. For me that just makes him an even more interesting character because it's fun to pick at what is exaggerated and what may be based on fact. Previously, few believed he was hunchbacked like in the play until they found his bones a few months ago..."

To add on to that. I think back then, when they said Richard III was 'twisted', it meant that he was 'pure evil'... 'twisted' if you will. Historians in the past took it quite literally, and pictured him with a hump on his back. 



Do you agree with the list? What is your Top Ten Shakespeare Villains?