March 28, 2024 • 48 mins
Join us on an illuminating journey in the latest episode of Inscape Quest. We delve deep into the realm of Shakespearean text, analysing its recurring equestrian references. Our guest for this episode is none other than Andrew Jarvis, a distinguished British actor widely respected for his roles in Shakespearean theatre.
In an intimate discussion, Jarvis shares his profound admiration for Shakespeare's language, drawing from the historically significant Shakespearean Equestrian Collection established by Cuchullaine O'Reilly, this episode straddles the interplay between literature and the equestrian world. Jarvis beckons listeners on a voyage of discovery that just might reshape their perceptions of life itself.
This episode is an ode to the timeless relevance of Shakespeare's works, and how they continue to resonate with the present-day reality. Discover how Shakespeare's plays dissect the human condition, and portray an array of emotions and behaviors set against different cultural and political backdrops. Stay tuned to uncover Shakespeare's ingenious use of horses as a symbol, a motif that mirrors several aspects of human existence.
Whether you are a connoisseur of the written word, a horse enthusiast, or find yourself at the intersection of both, this conversation will stir your curiosity. From theoretical discussions about the physical attributes of horses inked in Shakespeare's works, to the metaphorical use of these majestic creatures to express raw human sentiment, this episode offers a rewarding exploration of how Shakespeare successfully intertwined equestrian elements into his evergreen narratives.
Prepare to immerse yourself in William Shakespeare's deep-seated fascination with horses and their recurrent symbolic presence in his timeless works. This thought-provoking conversation paints a detailed picture, touching on themes of power, beauty, freedom, and utility all intricately woven into the fabric of Shakespeare's works.
Listen in for a ride through the lens of Shakespeare's genius as we gallop through a world where literature and equestrian interests overlap in the most intriguing way.
Reference acknowledgements:
Mabillard, Amanda. Shakespeare on Horses. Shakespeare Online. Aug.2013
Fatout, Paul. Roan Barbary. The Shakespeare Association Bulletin, Vol. 15, No. 2 (April, 1940)
https://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/concordance
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to InScape Quests, where insightful conversations redefine perspectives.
I'm your host, Trudy Howley. Join me as together we delve into discussions about
relationships, work and passions.
Unlocking insights that may shape our lives, where the journey within meets
(00:21):
the quest for understanding.
Today, we're honoured to have the distinguished British actor Andrew Jarvis as our special guest.
Renowned for his unparalleled expertise in Shakespearean theatre,
both as an actor and director, Jarvis' grace stages with his mesmerising performances.
(00:43):
Beyond his illustrious theatrical career, he's also left an indelible mark on
the realms of film and television. vision.
In this episode, Jarvis delves into his profound passion for Shakespearean language,
captivating listeners with his recitations of passages,
drawing inspiration from the works of Cucullin O'Reilly, founder of the Shakespearean
(01:05):
Equestrian Collection and esteemed author of Queen Elizabeth II's Equestrian Biography,
Jarvis shares fascinating insights and discoveries discoveries that bridge the
gap between literature and the equestrian world.
Welcome, Andy. It's always such a pleasure to talk to you and have you back on this podcast.
(01:28):
Thank you, Trudy. Any talk about Shakespeare, for me, is the very best it can be.
Here we get to share both of our passions because today we're going to combine
a conversation about about Shakespeare and horses or equestrian references appear
in all of Shakespeare's plays.
And in Shakespeare's time, the great majority of English people rarely traveled.
(01:54):
When they did travel, they had two choices, either walking or riding.
Horses were a pervasive part of 16th century England.
Oh, yes, he does nothing but talk of his horse.
And where's that from, Andy? That is from the Voce de Venice.
(02:20):
And it is Portia talking about the suitors who are there to see if they can get a marriage to her.
And she's also talking about what she thinks about them all.
Wonderful. So let's keep talking about horses and invite our listeners to share
in our conversation today. I think it might be important just to touch on why
(02:44):
is Shakespeare relevant to us today?
That is a huge question. It's a wonderful question because he is clearly. Now, why?
Because he speaks to the human condition.
He understands and shares with us what it is like to be human,
(03:08):
and to go through all the things that we all go through.
And he actually illustrates through his plays every single permutation of human
behavior and every permutation of situation,
that can cause a difference to human behavior.
(03:31):
The joy, of course, overall, all, is that it's written in the most beautiful,
dramatic poetry that has ever been known to man.
There are lines hidden away in obscure works of Shakespeare,
which I have suddenly come across,
a phrase that I think, if I'd only ever written that particular phrase in my
(03:54):
life, I would die a happy man.
But that is buried away among the thousands and thousands of others.
So his mode of extraction is phenomenal.
But he talks, as I say, about our human condition. He understands human nature.
But more than that, he also talks about not just eternal ways that human behavior manifests itself.
(04:23):
So we can say he's written this in 1596, this play, and you hear a line from
the play, and we in 2024 go, oh, I always think that.
So there's a common kind of universal knowledge and recognition of what it is
to be human in certain situations.
(04:44):
But he goes further. He actually, through his plays, presupposes different cultural
and political situations.
So he says, this person may be in their character A, B, C, and D.
But let's see how that that character reacts in a very different kind of political situation.
(05:11):
So if you take the history plays, he puts it in the middle of the Wars of the
Roses in England, or he puts it in the tragedies. You take Macbeth,
a man who has always wanted to be king.
Now, he will have certain faculties that are eternally human.
(05:32):
He's scared of death. He's scared of life in some ways.
But in this particular context, he wants something. He wants to be king.
And Shakespeare then examines how people will end to behave within those very
particular cultural and political contexts.
So he gives us a whole range of possibility.
(05:56):
And that is why some Shakespeare plays come into fashion at some times and then go out of fashion,
and others come into fashion, Because the particular context he's talking about
is especially relevant or close to what we are going through today in our world.
So he has that relevance that is right across the board.
(06:18):
It is written in the most extraordinarily beautiful language.
Thank you so much for explaining that and with this general idea of the universal
themes of life and death being everywhere in Shakespeare.
I think incorporating this exploration of the horse both symbolically through
(06:44):
its expression in Shakespeare's text and then literally from from the historical
perspective of its utility.
Allows us for a bit more of this kind of awareness of connectedness with horses, with nature,
(07:04):
that can be brought into our current consciousness and hopefully expanded on
in a way that allows for new ideas to come forth.
I'm wondering if we can perhaps go to some symbolism of the horse that shows
(07:25):
up in some of the very first writings,
the Sonnet of Venus and Adonis.
There's a passage there.
Perhaps you could share that with us.
Indeed. One of Shakespeare's first pieces of writing, I believe, if that's correct.
It is. The strong-necked steed, being tied unto a tree, breaketh his rein,
(07:51):
and to her straight goes he.
Imperiously he leaps, he neighs, he bounds, and now his woven girths he breaks asunder.
The very earth that his hard hoof he wounds, whose hollow womb resigns like heaven's thunder.
(08:13):
The iron bit he crushes, wean his teeth, controlling what he was controlled with.
It would be great if you might just expand on that frenetic power,
that edge of being controlled, contained, and that edge of freedom.
(08:34):
It's absolutely amazing. It's to do with, obviously, the wild animal that is
controlled by humans, that is tamed, if you like, but nevertheless has the essential
of its nature still very much present,
so that under the right circumstance,
my dog does this, that there are certain moments when he wants to obey me,
(09:00):
he wants to do the right thing in human terms, what we have trained him to do,
but he will suddenly break loose.
He sees an animal a
rabbit or a cat and he goes that's it i'm
off and that is him breaking out
and saying that's who i am now here we
have the horse in venus and adonis who wants
(09:23):
to go straight to his mistress and what he does is no matter how you have tethered
him how you have tamed him How you think you have got him in the control at
that moment when the thought to get to his mistress comes in, he breaks everything.
He breaks not only the restraints that are holding him to the tree,
(09:46):
but in the way that he engages with the earth on which he is running,
that he even impacts to such a strong degree.
And it sounds like Evan's thunder and that he's still got the iron bit,
but he crushes it in his teeth because that no longer counts.
(10:09):
I am expressing my freedom. I am expressing my wants.
I am going to where I need to be without human constraint.
In this wonderful, symbolic explanation of what Shakespeare's talking about
here, the playwright also is very skilled in terms of describing the physical
(10:31):
characteristics of horses.
And I know that in Charles Flower in 1887, who helped create the Royal Shakespeare
Theatre, he had delivered a lecture entitled Shakespeare on Horseback.
Flower states that Shakespeare's equestrian wisdom was so profound that the
(10:53):
knowledge he had of horses, their good and bad points and characteristics,
was sufficient to have qualified him for a certificate from the College of Veterinary Surgeons.
That's wonderful. So if you could read a passage of how Shakespeare described
some of the physical attributes of a splendid horse. This is from Venus and
(11:17):
Adonis as well, isn't it, Trudy?
Yes. When a painter would surpass
the life In liming out a well-proportioned steed His art with nature's workmanship
at strife As if the dead the living should exceed So did this horse excel a
(11:39):
common one In shape, in courage,
colour, pace and bold.
Round hoof, short-jointed, fetlock, shag, and long,
broad breast, full eye, small head, and nostril wide, high crest,
short ears, straight legs, and passing strong,
(12:01):
thin mane, thick tail, broad buttock tender hide look what a horse should have
he did not lack save a proud rider on so proud a back,
Thank you so much. And having described such a beautiful horse,
(12:25):
Shakespeare likewise in his comedy The Taming of the Shrew compiled a long list
of the worst equine defects and actually mounted his hero, Petruchio, on such an unworthy nag.
Why, Petruchio is coming in a new hat and an old jerking, a pair of old britches thrice turned.
(12:49):
And a pair of boots that have been candle-cases, one buckled,
another laced, an old rusty sword taking out the town armoury with a broken hilt and shapeless,
with two broken points.
His horse hipped with an old motley saddle and stirrups of no kindred.
(13:15):
Besides, possessed with the glanders and liked to mose in the chine,
troubled with the lampers, infected with the fashions, full of wind-gores,
fed with sparrows, rayed with the yellows, fast fuel of the fives,
(13:36):
dark-spoiled with the staggers,
begorn from the bots, swayed in the back and shoulders shotten,
near-legged before, and with a half-cheeked bit and a headstall of sheep's leather, which,
being restrained to keep him from stumbling,
(13:57):
has been often burst and now repaired with not one girth six times feast and
a woman's crupper of the lure, which have two letters for her name.
(14:17):
I'm also thinking of Shakespeare expressing satire in Much Ado About Nothing
when he's describing Benedict and Beatrice sparring together and being rude to each other.
One-liners trying to put each other down. Do you recall one of those lines from that?
(14:41):
Much Ado About Nothing, amazingly, it is mostly written in prose,
which is unusual for Shakespeare because predominantly he writes in verse,
but he uses prose in a very particular way,
that he uses it as the language of the rational.
Verse is about the language of emotion, but not only is prose the verse of the
(15:04):
rational, It is the verse of pretentiousness, lack of sincerity,
wit, humor, people trying to impress each other.
In other words, it's pretty fair to say that it is less serious than the verse,
which shows the characters at their most sincere.
(15:26):
See it so in this case in much
and all about nothing we have beatrice and benedict who
we learn have been lovers in the past re-meeting
and actually scoring points of
each other by being extraordinarily rude to
each other with lines like why madam
(15:47):
are you still living and wonderful
for things like that in this one particular line where benedict
the man says to beatrice the woman i wish
my horse at the speed of your
tongue and it's important to
note in shakespeare's day that the horses were actually built for long steady
(16:11):
slow rides that there were no carriages in that that era was pack horses or
horses that may be traveling around three miles an hour.
This is quite an extraordinary thing to say in that context.
There were no well-maintained roads back then either.
(16:33):
So it's very different to what we know today.
Day i want to go back to the
joy and excitement of a
majestic horse there is a passage in henry the fifth i believe where shakespeare
goes on and on about this joy and i think it's something that listeners who
(16:56):
do ride horses might be able to connect to this feeling of excitement excitement.
Yeah. It's an interesting speech because it begins with, what a long night is this?
In this scene, we discover the French waiting for the Battle of Evincourt,
and it's the early hours.
There are still hours to go, and they're sitting around in their armor,
(17:18):
ready to go, and the Dauphin, who is the man who speaks, is very nervous.
He's a young chap, and he just wants to fill the silence of these hours with
talk about his fault. Anyway, this is what he says.
What a long night is this i will not change my horse with any that treads but on four pastures,
(17:45):
aha he bounds from the earth as if his entrails were hares le cheval de l'or
the pegasus she When I bestride him,
I swore I am a hawk.
He trots the air, the earth sings when he touches it.
The bassist horn of his hoof is more musical than the pipe of Hermes.
(18:11):
He's the color of nutmeg.
And of the heat of the ginger.
It is a beast for Perseus. and the dull elements of earth and water never appear
in him but only in patient stillness while his rider mounts him.
(18:32):
He is indeed a horse, and all the other jades you may call beasts.
Indeed, my lord, it is a most absolute and excellent horse.
As you've described that the genius of Shakespeare is that he can invite this
(18:56):
idea of moving beyond the physical world,
and he does use the word horse,
use the symbol of the horse to comment on human life.
And we see nobility, cowardice, courage, and treachery all on display through
(19:16):
the horses in Shakespeare's plays.
What do you make of some of the metaphors that Shakespeare uses around horses?
It's wonderful because they were held as the absolute, the most wonderful, the peons of their day.
It's the equivalent of talking about a horse in the same way they talk about a new car.
(19:40):
They want to boast because the horse embodies the majestic.
It embodies the power of nature.
A man wants to relate to that. He wants to relate to that not only so that he
can harness it for travel, for enjoyment even, riding around the countryside,
(20:03):
but also to feel that he has control over those huge, major elements that are
outside his own, her own personal experience.
So, the horse is the exemplar of an otherness, if you like, that is way beyond man's contemplation.
(20:25):
And the admiration for that otherness,
the longing to be a part of it, is why I think Shakespeare is taken over by
his admiration, by his whole relish in the enjoyment of nature as embodied in a horse.
(20:45):
And I love that really ties in with something very contemporary about humankind
boasting about cars in particular, the current horsepower.
And we saw that in the movie Barbie.
That was very apparent of using the symbol of the horse and horsepower there.
(21:09):
Also in that last speech from Henry V, where the Dauphin is basically saying
to the Constable of France and to the Duke of Orleans, you think you've got a good horse?
You haven't seen anything. Let me tell you about mine. He is up in the rain.
(21:30):
So it's that kind of showing off. And what about in Julius Caesar,
where we see Shakespeare using a false horse as a symbol of political treachery?
Ever note, Lucilius, when love begins to sicken and decay, it uses an enforced ceremony.
(21:53):
There are no tricks in plain and simple faith, but hollow men,
like horses hot at hand, make gallant show and promise of their mettle.
But when they should endure the bloody spur, they fall their crests and,
(22:14):
like deceitful jades, sink in the trial.
That is a wonderful kind of metaphor, what we were saying earlier about understanding
human nature, that he talks about the hollow man, the men that actually have no substance,
and there are horses who are hot at hand, they're there, ready to go, proud,
(22:37):
and as he says, making gallant show and promise of their mettle.
But I think Shakespeare is also saying, unlike those horses,
horses when the horses are showed
the bloody spur as he describes it
they rise to the challenge they follow
(22:58):
what is required of them but what
he is saying here is that when men are shown the equivalent of the bloody spur
they actually just collapse and like deceitful jades meaning the the horses sink in the trial.
(23:19):
But I think he's therefore inferring
that there may well be horses who let you down at the last moment.
But overall, he is saying that men are like those few deceitful jades,
the hollow men who actually collapse.
He's being very honest about them and saying that on first appearance,
(23:41):
the horse appears to be everything you would wish it to be.
But maybe when it is put in a position of dress or challenge, it fails to live up to it.
So typically horses, if you have a relationship with your horse,
they'll do anything for you, literally, in terms of loyalty and courage, and they'll keep going.
(24:08):
And the reference to jades here is a mix of undistinguished breeding.
They're not these refined English thoroughbreds that we later see.
The jades are more pedestrian, like clumsy and slow type of breeds.
They're not light and swift. Another...
(24:33):
Metaphor that I'd love to touch on is the way the horse can be symbolically
representing lust, which does show up in Antony and Cleopatra.
Yeah. And this is Cleopatra talking to the handmaid, Charmian, when Antony has left.
(24:55):
And basically she's going through all the, as we all go through,
that sense of loss. because I wonder what he's doing now.
Where is he? I want to do him here, but he's not here, so she needs to talk
about perhaps what he might be doing at this moment. So this is Cleopatra.
Oh, Charmian, where does thou think he is now?
(25:20):
Stands he, or sits he, or does he walk, Or is he on his horse,
oh, happy horse, to bear the weight of Antony?
Do bravely, horse, for what's thou whom thou movest?
The Demiatris of this earth, the arm and burgonet of men.
(25:46):
What actually does the burgonet mean? I'm not familiar with that.
I think it's the epitome, the highest rank.
But sorry, your listeners should look that up for themselves. Okay.
There's really a sexual reference there when Cleopatra says,
(26:08):
oh, happy horse to bear the weight of Antony.
That's right. And then it leads her into this eulogy about the great twelfth.
The greatest man that ever lived
so she moves it bearing the weight of anthony from that kind of as you say sexual
(26:29):
reference to do bravely horse be the opposite maybe of what you were just talking
about with the deceitful jades for what's he that that you are carrying,
The demi-atlas of this, it's an extraordinary, he is God to her.
(26:50):
That's what she's saying. But yes, she passes through that sense of their relationship
as well on the way to making that statement.
And in the first two lines, it really goes back to what I was saying about why
Shakespeare is relevant.
When she says, where thinks thou he is now? Stands he, or sits he,
or does he walk, or is he on his door? or my wife's away, I think,
(27:14):
I wonder what she's doing now.
Oh, perhaps she's listening to that lecture she was going to go to.
Or perhaps she's walking past the shops.
So it's a very human thought to have.
What are they doing now?
It really is wonderful.
So the Rhone Barbary, as a breed, is mentioned twice in Richard II.
(27:39):
II, and I'm wondering if you might share a passage from Richard II.
Indeed. The Barbary horse was a breed that was esteemed by Shakespeare,
and the Barbary was a North African desert horse, Paul Fatu.
(28:01):
He describes that the Libyan desert furnished the foundation stock for Egyptian,
Arabian, and all other Eastern horses.
It's wonderful language, which the second is full of some of the greatest poetry
that exists in Shakespeare.
Perhaps I should just say this is when, in the context of the play,
(28:24):
when Richard has been usurped by Bolingbroke,
And he's been sent to Pomfret Castle in Yorkshire and imprisoned.
And he's got a pretty fair idea that Bolingbroke, who becomes Henry IV,
is going to probably kill him.
He doesn't know, but he thinks that's where it's all going to end.
(28:48):
So the character he talks about, Bolingbroke, is the usurper,
the man who came back from exile, as happens in the early part of the play,
and takes the throne away from Richard and sends him to prison.
And here we have a groom who was a groom to his horses when he was king,
(29:10):
who has traveled all the way from London to Pontreux, which in our modern towns is called Pontefract.
It's in Yorkshire, quite near to Leeds and Bradford. he's travelled all that
way which would be a long time long distance probably on a horse if he was lucky
enough to be that rich or walk and he's come to visit Richard just to see him for the final time.
(29:37):
So this is the groom I was a poor groom of thy stable king when thou wert king,
who travelling towards York with much ado at length have gone leave to look
upon my sometimes royal master's face.
Oh, how it yearned my heart when I beheld in London streets that coronation
(30:04):
day when Bolingbroke rode on Rhone Barbary,
that horse that thou so often hast bestritt, that horse that I so carefully have dressed.
Wrote he, on Barbary, Tell me, gentle friend, how went he under him?
(30:26):
So proudly, as if he disdained the ground.
So proud that Bolingbroke was on his back.
That jade of the bread from my royal hand, This hand hath made him proud with
clapping him. Would he not stumble?
(30:49):
Would he not fall down, since pride must have a fall, and break the neck of
that proud man that did usurp his?
Ah, forgiveness, horse, why do I rail on thee, since thou, created to be awed
by man, wast born to bear?
(31:12):
I was not made a horse, and yet I bear a burthen like an ass.
Spurred gold and tired by jouncing Bolingbroke.
Before we go into an explanation of that passage, I want to share a little bit
about the line that Jade hath eat bread from my royal hand.
(31:37):
So we mentioned Jade as a sort of mixed breed horse.
Horse and the walketry sort of common
yes yeah and hay was an expensive
commodity in times horses were fed
a large loaf of rough brown bread that
was made from peas and beans they may
(32:00):
have been watered several times a day but they certainly don't have the extensive
grain and hay diets that we're able to provide them today he loved him he was
his star and you can't bear the thought.
Of bolingbroke riding on him and
(32:23):
he loses it for a minute by saying what were
you doing why didn't you throw him off the thing
goes back to the true nature of the
horse or the way he's been bred by
mankind sorry he apologizes and
says we have done that to you we've
taught you that you've got to bear a
(32:46):
burden i particularly a human being and you were made that's how you were made
but i'm the same although i wasn't bred for it i have to bear a burden like
an ass as he put butcher, not a horse,
but like an ass, a beast of burden.
(33:07):
Spurred, galled, and tired by a jouncing bolling brook.
By bouncing, I think it was the word jouncing, meaning bouncing, bolling brook.
I'm even worse, but at least the horse was fulfilling the job that he's been
trained to do, and I shouldn't blame him for that.
You mentioned about being rich and having a horse,
(33:29):
so considering that many people in Elizabethan England walked,
walked and Shakespeare's father as a glove maker would likely have had a horse.
Shakespeare would have grown up knowing how to take care of a horse,
grooming a horse, saddling up and riding would all have been sort of general
(33:55):
knowledge in William's life.
John Shakespeare, William Sparta, was a glove maker, but he dealt in all sorts
of leather goods as well, so that the hides of animals were his stock in trade.
So he would have also made the accoutrements that accompany a horse,
(34:16):
the saddle probably, and the stirrups and what have you.
So he was not only capable of riding a horse himself, but also provided all
the elements required in order to do that.
That's wonderful to expand on that and to think about leather goods related
to horse ownership as well.
(34:38):
Gloves, he's always known for being a glove maker, but it was leather goods.
He owned two houses. There's a birthplace in Stratford where it's thought that
we know that's where he lived and where William grew up.
But also he owned another house in Stratford, a place called Grenfell Street.
And there he had another house, but that was where he stored all the animal
(34:59):
hides, all the bare materials for his work.
He was doing a lot, John Shakespeare. Acknowledging Shakespeare's affinity with
horses being from a very young age and horses clearly must have helped that
transition from onto the stage,
(35:23):
James Halliwell Phillips collected a lot of facts and documents in an article
entitled From the Stable to the Stage.
He provides evidence revealing that in the days before coach travel,
men would ride across the River Thames to theatres located outside London.
And because horse stealing was a common crime, a highly trusted man was usually
(35:50):
employed to protect a valuable horse while the rider enjoyed the performance.
It's cool. There is a legend at Shakespeare. And also, Tom Sopar puts it in
the film of Shakespeare in Love that he actually got his job in the theatre
by holding the horses outside, and that was his connection.
(36:11):
But that's where he started being the groom for all the people who brought their horses.
But it is one of the sort of possibilities of how he connected himself with
theatre once he got to London.
Just going back to a piece of text,
I'd love to touch in on Macbeth and the tragedy of Macbeth recounts how a Scottish
(36:38):
general receives a prophecy from a trio of witches.
He will become king, but it will lead to his destruction.
There is a wonderful passage. Perhaps we could hear you read from Macbeth.
Surely, of course. In Shakespeare's time, as many of your listeners will probably
(37:01):
know, the king was seen as God's embodiment on earth,
and he had two sides to his personality.
That's how it was believed. The body politic,
as it was called, and the body natural, so
that as God's representative he was anointed to be the new king but he was in
(37:27):
a much stronger way than we would think of it now say in England where we have
a king and queen was God's representative on earth and in Macbeth what Shakespeare.
Describes is if you camper with God's anointed on earth then the natural world will react it.
(37:49):
And what we hear is that the night that Shakespeare tells us that Macbeth kills the king, Duncan,
all sorts of chaotic things happen in the natural world because that's what Macbeth had done.
He'd actually brutalized God's world and therefore the natural world in terms
(38:14):
of plants, plants, trees, whatever, but also animals reacted to that,
which is extraordinary.
Andy, it would be great if you could read the scene between Ross and the old
man following the murder of King Duncan by Macbeth,
and hopefully you could do both characters and I can sit this one out because
(38:35):
I'm sure you'd do a better job. Thank you.
I'll do my best to make a difference between the two characters,
which just for your listeners' benefit, we start with the old man.
And I hope it's clear for everyone.
Three score and ten I can remember well, within the volume of which time I have
(38:57):
seen hours dreadful and things strange.
But this sore night hath trifled all my knowing.
Ah, good father, thou seest the heavens is troubled with man's act,
reddens his bloody stage.
By the coptis day, and yet dark night strangles the travelling lamp,
(39:23):
is night's predominance, or the day's shame,
that darkness does the face of earth entomb when living light should kiss it?
Tin, unnatural, even like the bead that's done on Tuesday last,
A falcon towering in her pride of place was by a mousing owl,
(39:48):
hawked at and killed.
And Duncan's horses, a thing most strange and certain,
beauteous and swift, the minions of their race, turned wild in nature,
broke their stalls, flung out, contending against obedience as they would make war with mankind.
(40:13):
He said, they eat each other. They did so, to the amazement of mine eyes that looked upon it.
That's a powerful passage. I'm
wondering if you could extrapolate some interpretations for our listeners.
Thank you. It's one of those, you know, telling us that he's 70.
(40:37):
And they can ramble an awful lot of things in that time, good and bad.
But he picks on the bad and says, I've seen many appalling things in my time.
All those things I've experienced were trifles compared with what happened last night.
And Ross, who is a man not been through so much, obviously he's a lord,
(40:59):
he's apparently a colleague of Macbeth.
He is a colleague and he runs through the play, not quite sure how to react
to what Macbeth has done, but he understands what the old man is saying.
And you see, the heavens, as troubled with man's act, threatens his bloody stage.
(41:20):
That's the center of the scene, really, what I was trying to say near the beginning,
that actually because of this murder of the anointed king,
the heavens themselves are so appalled that they threaten the stage where humans exist.
He says there is a current feeling that the world is just going to explode,
(41:45):
disappear in an earthquake or whatever, but that's what it feels like.
I, Ross, have never seen a night like this, as you have never seen a night like
this as a 70-year-old man.
We're in daylight, or the time that we would normally calculate it tells me
(42:05):
this moment is daylight, but it's black night.
And the darkness goes on
for 24 hours where what
happened to the daylight that part of what the heavens are doing to us there's
a previous scene in which another lord called leonard describes to his colleague
(42:27):
macduff what the night has been see if we can remember some of it he says the night has been unruly.
Where we lay our chimneys were blown down, and as they say, lamentings heard
in the air, strange screams of death.
The absurd bird clamoured the live-long night.
(42:50):
My young recollection cannot remember a fellow to it.
And that's happened 20 minutes before a young man has talked about that.
So here we have Ross saying, it's the most extraordinary, unnatural time we've ever lived through.
And the old man says, yes, it's unnatural, even like the deed that's done.
(43:15):
That's central as well. He's saying to kill a king.
Is beyond anything.
And then he gives the first example of a falcon being hawked at by a mousing owl.
The tiny little mousing owl actually attacked and killed a falcon.
(43:35):
And then this extraordinary imagery towards the end that Ross then brings up
saying Duncan's horses.
Wonderful, beauteous and swift. with the minions of their race,
turned wild in nature, broke their stalls, sprung out, contending against obedience
as they would make war with mankind.
(43:57):
So that takes us back to that early speech where the horse in Venus and Adonis
is tied to a tree and just breaks forth because the horse recognized the unnaturalness of what's gone on.
And then the old man has this astonishing thought He said they ate each other.
And Ross said, yes, they did.
(44:20):
To the amazement of mine eyes, I looked upon it.
So they started to attack each other and themselves because they were in an
unnatural state of chaos.
It wasn't just like the Venus and Adonis where it ran away towards a mistress.
(44:40):
They actually started to attack themselves.
It's amazing, absolutely amazing. That seems very relevant with many contemporary issues.
Yeah, and I think like we've been saying throughout this, Trudy,
the fact that it's the horse, not just the horse, just being like this,
but they're Duncan's horse. They're the king's horses.
(45:03):
They're even more majestic, even more potent and more of the essence of horse
than any other. And they, even they were affected.
It caused chaos in their bodies. They ate each other. Slaughtering.
But he uses that because of that relevance to, and Shakespeare acknowledged
(45:27):
the relevance of that to his audience.
Even the horse. Even the horse smashed up last night.
It backfired and careered into a wall. It's absolute chaos.
It's the biggest thing, the most important thing you could think of that Emmanuel
wanted to destroy itself.
Yeah, or a woman. I know there's plenty of women who like fast cars, myself included,
(45:53):
but in an age where most people have driven and few people have ridden, the majority,
don't know of this idea of Shakespeare and his plays having so many connections to horses.
Having touched on a few aspects today of horses as a power to aspire to and
(46:18):
a symbol of beauty and freedom and utility as well,
I'm really grateful for this conversation.
And hopefully we've made some contribution here to further discussions and exploration.
Thank you so much. It's fascinating, absolutely fascinating.
(46:42):
What astonished me is the fact that the man who was the driving force behind
the formation of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-on-Avon, Sir Charles Flower,
the money man of Stratford who built the theatre, put out a lecture on that
connection between Shakespeare and the horse.
(47:04):
And he was a countryman, so he understood. But I think that tells us something ultimately important.
Even then, in the 19th century, there was this industrialist,
is what he was, Sir Charles Rath, already having seen what we're talking about
today. Brilliant. Absolutely wonderful.
And it was such a gift to have you read those passages. Thank you so much.
(47:28):
And I also want to acknowledge that the Shakespeare Equestrian Collection has
literally thrown open the barn door on this and revealing so much wonderful
research about Shakespeare's involvement with horses.
I know that intends to be a long-term global project, so hopefully others make contributions.
(47:51):
That would be wonderful. Andy, thank you so much for today. You're very welcome.
I really enjoyed it. Thank you so much for inviting me.
Thank you so much listeners for tuning in today to the inscape quest podcast
please be sure to share this with a friend and check the follow button to get
reminders of future episodes cheerio for now.
Welcome to InScape Quests, where insightful conversations redefine perspectives.
I'm your host, Trudy Howley. Join me as together we delve into discussions about
relationships, work and passions.
Unlocking insights that may shape our lives, where the journey within meets
(00:21):
the quest for understanding.
Today, we're honoured to have the distinguished British actor Andrew Jarvis as our special guest.
Renowned for his unparalleled expertise in Shakespearean theatre,
both as an actor and director, Jarvis' grace stages with his mesmerising performances.
(00:43):
Beyond his illustrious theatrical career, he's also left an indelible mark on
the realms of film and television. vision.
In this episode, Jarvis delves into his profound passion for Shakespearean language,
captivating listeners with his recitations of passages,
drawing inspiration from the works of Cucullin O'Reilly, founder of the Shakespearean
(01:05):
Equestrian Collection and esteemed author of Queen Elizabeth II's Equestrian Biography,
Jarvis shares fascinating insights and discoveries discoveries that bridge the
gap between literature and the equestrian world.
Welcome, Andy. It's always such a pleasure to talk to you and have you back on this podcast.
(01:28):
Thank you, Trudy. Any talk about Shakespeare, for me, is the very best it can be.
Here we get to share both of our passions because today we're going to combine
a conversation about about Shakespeare and horses or equestrian references appear
in all of Shakespeare's plays.
And in Shakespeare's time, the great majority of English people rarely traveled.
(01:54):
When they did travel, they had two choices, either walking or riding.
Horses were a pervasive part of 16th century England.
Oh, yes, he does nothing but talk of his horse.
And where's that from, Andy? That is from the Voce de Venice.
(02:20):
And it is Portia talking about the suitors who are there to see if they can get a marriage to her.
And she's also talking about what she thinks about them all.
Wonderful. So let's keep talking about horses and invite our listeners to share
in our conversation today. I think it might be important just to touch on why
(02:44):
is Shakespeare relevant to us today?
That is a huge question. It's a wonderful question because he is clearly. Now, why?
Because he speaks to the human condition.
He understands and shares with us what it is like to be human,
(03:08):
and to go through all the things that we all go through.
And he actually illustrates through his plays every single permutation of human
behavior and every permutation of situation,
that can cause a difference to human behavior.
(03:31):
The joy, of course, overall, all, is that it's written in the most beautiful,
dramatic poetry that has ever been known to man.
There are lines hidden away in obscure works of Shakespeare,
which I have suddenly come across,
a phrase that I think, if I'd only ever written that particular phrase in my
(03:54):
life, I would die a happy man.
But that is buried away among the thousands and thousands of others.
So his mode of extraction is phenomenal.
But he talks, as I say, about our human condition. He understands human nature.
But more than that, he also talks about not just eternal ways that human behavior manifests itself.
(04:23):
So we can say he's written this in 1596, this play, and you hear a line from
the play, and we in 2024 go, oh, I always think that.
So there's a common kind of universal knowledge and recognition of what it is
to be human in certain situations.
(04:44):
But he goes further. He actually, through his plays, presupposes different cultural
and political situations.
So he says, this person may be in their character A, B, C, and D.
But let's see how that that character reacts in a very different kind of political situation.
(05:11):
So if you take the history plays, he puts it in the middle of the Wars of the
Roses in England, or he puts it in the tragedies. You take Macbeth,
a man who has always wanted to be king.
Now, he will have certain faculties that are eternally human.
(05:32):
He's scared of death. He's scared of life in some ways.
But in this particular context, he wants something. He wants to be king.
And Shakespeare then examines how people will end to behave within those very
particular cultural and political contexts.
So he gives us a whole range of possibility.
(05:56):
And that is why some Shakespeare plays come into fashion at some times and then go out of fashion,
and others come into fashion, Because the particular context he's talking about
is especially relevant or close to what we are going through today in our world.
So he has that relevance that is right across the board.
(06:18):
It is written in the most extraordinarily beautiful language.
Thank you so much for explaining that and with this general idea of the universal
themes of life and death being everywhere in Shakespeare.
I think incorporating this exploration of the horse both symbolically through
(06:44):
its expression in Shakespeare's text and then literally from from the historical
perspective of its utility.
Allows us for a bit more of this kind of awareness of connectedness with horses, with nature,
(07:04):
that can be brought into our current consciousness and hopefully expanded on
in a way that allows for new ideas to come forth.
I'm wondering if we can perhaps go to some symbolism of the horse that shows
(07:25):
up in some of the very first writings,
the Sonnet of Venus and Adonis.
There's a passage there.
Perhaps you could share that with us.
Indeed. One of Shakespeare's first pieces of writing, I believe, if that's correct.
It is. The strong-necked steed, being tied unto a tree, breaketh his rein,
(07:51):
and to her straight goes he.
Imperiously he leaps, he neighs, he bounds, and now his woven girths he breaks asunder.
The very earth that his hard hoof he wounds, whose hollow womb resigns like heaven's thunder.
(08:13):
The iron bit he crushes, wean his teeth, controlling what he was controlled with.
It would be great if you might just expand on that frenetic power,
that edge of being controlled, contained, and that edge of freedom.
(08:34):
It's absolutely amazing. It's to do with, obviously, the wild animal that is
controlled by humans, that is tamed, if you like, but nevertheless has the essential
of its nature still very much present,
so that under the right circumstance,
my dog does this, that there are certain moments when he wants to obey me,
(09:00):
he wants to do the right thing in human terms, what we have trained him to do,
but he will suddenly break loose.
He sees an animal a
rabbit or a cat and he goes that's it i'm
off and that is him breaking out
and saying that's who i am now here we
have the horse in venus and adonis who wants
(09:23):
to go straight to his mistress and what he does is no matter how you have tethered
him how you have tamed him How you think you have got him in the control at
that moment when the thought to get to his mistress comes in, he breaks everything.
He breaks not only the restraints that are holding him to the tree,
(09:46):
but in the way that he engages with the earth on which he is running,
that he even impacts to such a strong degree.
And it sounds like Evan's thunder and that he's still got the iron bit,
but he crushes it in his teeth because that no longer counts.
(10:09):
I am expressing my freedom. I am expressing my wants.
I am going to where I need to be without human constraint.
In this wonderful, symbolic explanation of what Shakespeare's talking about
here, the playwright also is very skilled in terms of describing the physical
(10:31):
characteristics of horses.
And I know that in Charles Flower in 1887, who helped create the Royal Shakespeare
Theatre, he had delivered a lecture entitled Shakespeare on Horseback.
Flower states that Shakespeare's equestrian wisdom was so profound that the
(10:53):
knowledge he had of horses, their good and bad points and characteristics,
was sufficient to have qualified him for a certificate from the College of Veterinary Surgeons.
That's wonderful. So if you could read a passage of how Shakespeare described
some of the physical attributes of a splendid horse. This is from Venus and
(11:17):
Adonis as well, isn't it, Trudy?
Yes. When a painter would surpass
the life In liming out a well-proportioned steed His art with nature's workmanship
at strife As if the dead the living should exceed So did this horse excel a
(11:39):
common one In shape, in courage,
colour, pace and bold.
Round hoof, short-jointed, fetlock, shag, and long,
broad breast, full eye, small head, and nostril wide, high crest,
short ears, straight legs, and passing strong,
(12:01):
thin mane, thick tail, broad buttock tender hide look what a horse should have
he did not lack save a proud rider on so proud a back,
Thank you so much. And having described such a beautiful horse,
(12:25):
Shakespeare likewise in his comedy The Taming of the Shrew compiled a long list
of the worst equine defects and actually mounted his hero, Petruchio, on such an unworthy nag.
Why, Petruchio is coming in a new hat and an old jerking, a pair of old britches thrice turned.
(12:49):
And a pair of boots that have been candle-cases, one buckled,
another laced, an old rusty sword taking out the town armoury with a broken hilt and shapeless,
with two broken points.
His horse hipped with an old motley saddle and stirrups of no kindred.
(13:15):
Besides, possessed with the glanders and liked to mose in the chine,
troubled with the lampers, infected with the fashions, full of wind-gores,
fed with sparrows, rayed with the yellows, fast fuel of the fives,
(13:36):
dark-spoiled with the staggers,
begorn from the bots, swayed in the back and shoulders shotten,
near-legged before, and with a half-cheeked bit and a headstall of sheep's leather, which,
being restrained to keep him from stumbling,
(13:57):
has been often burst and now repaired with not one girth six times feast and
a woman's crupper of the lure, which have two letters for her name.
(14:17):
I'm also thinking of Shakespeare expressing satire in Much Ado About Nothing
when he's describing Benedict and Beatrice sparring together and being rude to each other.
One-liners trying to put each other down. Do you recall one of those lines from that?
(14:41):
Much Ado About Nothing, amazingly, it is mostly written in prose,
which is unusual for Shakespeare because predominantly he writes in verse,
but he uses prose in a very particular way,
that he uses it as the language of the rational.
Verse is about the language of emotion, but not only is prose the verse of the
(15:04):
rational, It is the verse of pretentiousness, lack of sincerity,
wit, humor, people trying to impress each other.
In other words, it's pretty fair to say that it is less serious than the verse,
which shows the characters at their most sincere.
(15:26):
See it so in this case in much
and all about nothing we have beatrice and benedict who
we learn have been lovers in the past re-meeting
and actually scoring points of
each other by being extraordinarily rude to
each other with lines like why madam
(15:47):
are you still living and wonderful
for things like that in this one particular line where benedict
the man says to beatrice the woman i wish
my horse at the speed of your
tongue and it's important to
note in shakespeare's day that the horses were actually built for long steady
(16:11):
slow rides that there were no carriages in that that era was pack horses or
horses that may be traveling around three miles an hour.
This is quite an extraordinary thing to say in that context.
There were no well-maintained roads back then either.
(16:33):
So it's very different to what we know today.
Day i want to go back to the
joy and excitement of a
majestic horse there is a passage in henry the fifth i believe where shakespeare
goes on and on about this joy and i think it's something that listeners who
(16:56):
do ride horses might be able to connect to this feeling of excitement excitement.
Yeah. It's an interesting speech because it begins with, what a long night is this?
In this scene, we discover the French waiting for the Battle of Evincourt,
and it's the early hours.
There are still hours to go, and they're sitting around in their armor,
(17:18):
ready to go, and the Dauphin, who is the man who speaks, is very nervous.
He's a young chap, and he just wants to fill the silence of these hours with
talk about his fault. Anyway, this is what he says.
What a long night is this i will not change my horse with any that treads but on four pastures,
(17:45):
aha he bounds from the earth as if his entrails were hares le cheval de l'or
the pegasus she When I bestride him,
I swore I am a hawk.
He trots the air, the earth sings when he touches it.
The bassist horn of his hoof is more musical than the pipe of Hermes.
(18:11):
He's the color of nutmeg.
And of the heat of the ginger.
It is a beast for Perseus. and the dull elements of earth and water never appear
in him but only in patient stillness while his rider mounts him.
(18:32):
He is indeed a horse, and all the other jades you may call beasts.
Indeed, my lord, it is a most absolute and excellent horse.
As you've described that the genius of Shakespeare is that he can invite this
(18:56):
idea of moving beyond the physical world,
and he does use the word horse,
use the symbol of the horse to comment on human life.
And we see nobility, cowardice, courage, and treachery all on display through
(19:16):
the horses in Shakespeare's plays.
What do you make of some of the metaphors that Shakespeare uses around horses?
It's wonderful because they were held as the absolute, the most wonderful, the peons of their day.
It's the equivalent of talking about a horse in the same way they talk about a new car.
(19:40):
They want to boast because the horse embodies the majestic.
It embodies the power of nature.
A man wants to relate to that. He wants to relate to that not only so that he
can harness it for travel, for enjoyment even, riding around the countryside,
(20:03):
but also to feel that he has control over those huge, major elements that are
outside his own, her own personal experience.
So, the horse is the exemplar of an otherness, if you like, that is way beyond man's contemplation.
(20:25):
And the admiration for that otherness,
the longing to be a part of it, is why I think Shakespeare is taken over by
his admiration, by his whole relish in the enjoyment of nature as embodied in a horse.
(20:45):
And I love that really ties in with something very contemporary about humankind
boasting about cars in particular, the current horsepower.
And we saw that in the movie Barbie.
That was very apparent of using the symbol of the horse and horsepower there.
(21:09):
Also in that last speech from Henry V, where the Dauphin is basically saying
to the Constable of France and to the Duke of Orleans, you think you've got a good horse?
You haven't seen anything. Let me tell you about mine. He is up in the rain.
(21:30):
So it's that kind of showing off. And what about in Julius Caesar,
where we see Shakespeare using a false horse as a symbol of political treachery?
Ever note, Lucilius, when love begins to sicken and decay, it uses an enforced ceremony.
(21:53):
There are no tricks in plain and simple faith, but hollow men,
like horses hot at hand, make gallant show and promise of their mettle.
But when they should endure the bloody spur, they fall their crests and,
(22:14):
like deceitful jades, sink in the trial.
That is a wonderful kind of metaphor, what we were saying earlier about understanding
human nature, that he talks about the hollow man, the men that actually have no substance,
and there are horses who are hot at hand, they're there, ready to go, proud,
(22:37):
and as he says, making gallant show and promise of their mettle.
But I think Shakespeare is also saying, unlike those horses,
horses when the horses are showed
the bloody spur as he describes it
they rise to the challenge they follow
(22:58):
what is required of them but what
he is saying here is that when men are shown the equivalent of the bloody spur
they actually just collapse and like deceitful jades meaning the the horses sink in the trial.
(23:19):
But I think he's therefore inferring
that there may well be horses who let you down at the last moment.
But overall, he is saying that men are like those few deceitful jades,
the hollow men who actually collapse.
He's being very honest about them and saying that on first appearance,
(23:41):
the horse appears to be everything you would wish it to be.
But maybe when it is put in a position of dress or challenge, it fails to live up to it.
So typically horses, if you have a relationship with your horse,
they'll do anything for you, literally, in terms of loyalty and courage, and they'll keep going.
(24:08):
And the reference to jades here is a mix of undistinguished breeding.
They're not these refined English thoroughbreds that we later see.
The jades are more pedestrian, like clumsy and slow type of breeds.
They're not light and swift. Another...
(24:33):
Metaphor that I'd love to touch on is the way the horse can be symbolically
representing lust, which does show up in Antony and Cleopatra.
Yeah. And this is Cleopatra talking to the handmaid, Charmian, when Antony has left.
(24:55):
And basically she's going through all the, as we all go through,
that sense of loss. because I wonder what he's doing now.
Where is he? I want to do him here, but he's not here, so she needs to talk
about perhaps what he might be doing at this moment. So this is Cleopatra.
Oh, Charmian, where does thou think he is now?
(25:20):
Stands he, or sits he, or does he walk, Or is he on his horse,
oh, happy horse, to bear the weight of Antony?
Do bravely, horse, for what's thou whom thou movest?
The Demiatris of this earth, the arm and burgonet of men.
(25:46):
What actually does the burgonet mean? I'm not familiar with that.
I think it's the epitome, the highest rank.
But sorry, your listeners should look that up for themselves. Okay.
There's really a sexual reference there when Cleopatra says,
(26:08):
oh, happy horse to bear the weight of Antony.
That's right. And then it leads her into this eulogy about the great twelfth.
The greatest man that ever lived
so she moves it bearing the weight of anthony from that kind of as you say sexual
(26:29):
reference to do bravely horse be the opposite maybe of what you were just talking
about with the deceitful jades for what's he that that you are carrying,
The demi-atlas of this, it's an extraordinary, he is God to her.
(26:50):
That's what she's saying. But yes, she passes through that sense of their relationship
as well on the way to making that statement.
And in the first two lines, it really goes back to what I was saying about why
Shakespeare is relevant.
When she says, where thinks thou he is now? Stands he, or sits he,
or does he walk, or is he on his door? or my wife's away, I think,
(27:14):
I wonder what she's doing now.
Oh, perhaps she's listening to that lecture she was going to go to.
Or perhaps she's walking past the shops.
So it's a very human thought to have.
What are they doing now?
It really is wonderful.
So the Rhone Barbary, as a breed, is mentioned twice in Richard II.
(27:39):
II, and I'm wondering if you might share a passage from Richard II.
Indeed. The Barbary horse was a breed that was esteemed by Shakespeare,
and the Barbary was a North African desert horse, Paul Fatu.
(28:01):
He describes that the Libyan desert furnished the foundation stock for Egyptian,
Arabian, and all other Eastern horses.
It's wonderful language, which the second is full of some of the greatest poetry
that exists in Shakespeare.
Perhaps I should just say this is when, in the context of the play,
(28:24):
when Richard has been usurped by Bolingbroke,
And he's been sent to Pomfret Castle in Yorkshire and imprisoned.
And he's got a pretty fair idea that Bolingbroke, who becomes Henry IV,
is going to probably kill him.
He doesn't know, but he thinks that's where it's all going to end.
(28:48):
So the character he talks about, Bolingbroke, is the usurper,
the man who came back from exile, as happens in the early part of the play,
and takes the throne away from Richard and sends him to prison.
And here we have a groom who was a groom to his horses when he was king,
(29:10):
who has traveled all the way from London to Pontreux, which in our modern towns is called Pontefract.
It's in Yorkshire, quite near to Leeds and Bradford. he's travelled all that
way which would be a long time long distance probably on a horse if he was lucky
enough to be that rich or walk and he's come to visit Richard just to see him for the final time.
(29:37):
So this is the groom I was a poor groom of thy stable king when thou wert king,
who travelling towards York with much ado at length have gone leave to look
upon my sometimes royal master's face.
Oh, how it yearned my heart when I beheld in London streets that coronation
(30:04):
day when Bolingbroke rode on Rhone Barbary,
that horse that thou so often hast bestritt, that horse that I so carefully have dressed.
Wrote he, on Barbary, Tell me, gentle friend, how went he under him?
(30:26):
So proudly, as if he disdained the ground.
So proud that Bolingbroke was on his back.
That jade of the bread from my royal hand, This hand hath made him proud with
clapping him. Would he not stumble?
(30:49):
Would he not fall down, since pride must have a fall, and break the neck of
that proud man that did usurp his?
Ah, forgiveness, horse, why do I rail on thee, since thou, created to be awed
by man, wast born to bear?
(31:12):
I was not made a horse, and yet I bear a burthen like an ass.
Spurred gold and tired by jouncing Bolingbroke.
Before we go into an explanation of that passage, I want to share a little bit
about the line that Jade hath eat bread from my royal hand.
(31:37):
So we mentioned Jade as a sort of mixed breed horse.
Horse and the walketry sort of common
yes yeah and hay was an expensive
commodity in times horses were fed
a large loaf of rough brown bread that
was made from peas and beans they may
(32:00):
have been watered several times a day but they certainly don't have the extensive
grain and hay diets that we're able to provide them today he loved him he was
his star and you can't bear the thought.
Of bolingbroke riding on him and
(32:23):
he loses it for a minute by saying what were
you doing why didn't you throw him off the thing
goes back to the true nature of the
horse or the way he's been bred by
mankind sorry he apologizes and
says we have done that to you we've
taught you that you've got to bear a
(32:46):
burden i particularly a human being and you were made that's how you were made
but i'm the same although i wasn't bred for it i have to bear a burden like
an ass as he put butcher, not a horse,
but like an ass, a beast of burden.
(33:07):
Spurred, galled, and tired by a jouncing bolling brook.
By bouncing, I think it was the word jouncing, meaning bouncing, bolling brook.
I'm even worse, but at least the horse was fulfilling the job that he's been
trained to do, and I shouldn't blame him for that.
You mentioned about being rich and having a horse,
(33:29):
so considering that many people in Elizabethan England walked,
walked and Shakespeare's father as a glove maker would likely have had a horse.
Shakespeare would have grown up knowing how to take care of a horse,
grooming a horse, saddling up and riding would all have been sort of general
(33:55):
knowledge in William's life.
John Shakespeare, William Sparta, was a glove maker, but he dealt in all sorts
of leather goods as well, so that the hides of animals were his stock in trade.
So he would have also made the accoutrements that accompany a horse,
(34:16):
the saddle probably, and the stirrups and what have you.
So he was not only capable of riding a horse himself, but also provided all
the elements required in order to do that.
That's wonderful to expand on that and to think about leather goods related
to horse ownership as well.
(34:38):
Gloves, he's always known for being a glove maker, but it was leather goods.
He owned two houses. There's a birthplace in Stratford where it's thought that
we know that's where he lived and where William grew up.
But also he owned another house in Stratford, a place called Grenfell Street.
And there he had another house, but that was where he stored all the animal
(34:59):
hides, all the bare materials for his work.
He was doing a lot, John Shakespeare. Acknowledging Shakespeare's affinity with
horses being from a very young age and horses clearly must have helped that
transition from onto the stage,
(35:23):
James Halliwell Phillips collected a lot of facts and documents in an article
entitled From the Stable to the Stage.
He provides evidence revealing that in the days before coach travel,
men would ride across the River Thames to theatres located outside London.
And because horse stealing was a common crime, a highly trusted man was usually
(35:50):
employed to protect a valuable horse while the rider enjoyed the performance.
It's cool. There is a legend at Shakespeare. And also, Tom Sopar puts it in
the film of Shakespeare in Love that he actually got his job in the theatre
by holding the horses outside, and that was his connection.
(36:11):
But that's where he started being the groom for all the people who brought their horses.
But it is one of the sort of possibilities of how he connected himself with
theatre once he got to London.
Just going back to a piece of text,
I'd love to touch in on Macbeth and the tragedy of Macbeth recounts how a Scottish
(36:38):
general receives a prophecy from a trio of witches.
He will become king, but it will lead to his destruction.
There is a wonderful passage. Perhaps we could hear you read from Macbeth.
Surely, of course. In Shakespeare's time, as many of your listeners will probably
(37:01):
know, the king was seen as God's embodiment on earth,
and he had two sides to his personality.
That's how it was believed. The body politic,
as it was called, and the body natural, so
that as God's representative he was anointed to be the new king but he was in
(37:27):
a much stronger way than we would think of it now say in England where we have
a king and queen was God's representative on earth and in Macbeth what Shakespeare.
Describes is if you camper with God's anointed on earth then the natural world will react it.
(37:49):
And what we hear is that the night that Shakespeare tells us that Macbeth kills the king, Duncan,
all sorts of chaotic things happen in the natural world because that's what Macbeth had done.
He'd actually brutalized God's world and therefore the natural world in terms
(38:14):
of plants, plants, trees, whatever, but also animals reacted to that,
which is extraordinary.
Andy, it would be great if you could read the scene between Ross and the old
man following the murder of King Duncan by Macbeth,
and hopefully you could do both characters and I can sit this one out because
(38:35):
I'm sure you'd do a better job. Thank you.
I'll do my best to make a difference between the two characters,
which just for your listeners' benefit, we start with the old man.
And I hope it's clear for everyone.
Three score and ten I can remember well, within the volume of which time I have
(38:57):
seen hours dreadful and things strange.
But this sore night hath trifled all my knowing.
Ah, good father, thou seest the heavens is troubled with man's act,
reddens his bloody stage.
By the coptis day, and yet dark night strangles the travelling lamp,
(39:23):
is night's predominance, or the day's shame,
that darkness does the face of earth entomb when living light should kiss it?
Tin, unnatural, even like the bead that's done on Tuesday last,
A falcon towering in her pride of place was by a mousing owl,
(39:48):
hawked at and killed.
And Duncan's horses, a thing most strange and certain,
beauteous and swift, the minions of their race, turned wild in nature,
broke their stalls, flung out, contending against obedience as they would make war with mankind.
(40:13):
He said, they eat each other. They did so, to the amazement of mine eyes that looked upon it.
That's a powerful passage. I'm
wondering if you could extrapolate some interpretations for our listeners.
Thank you. It's one of those, you know, telling us that he's 70.
(40:37):
And they can ramble an awful lot of things in that time, good and bad.
But he picks on the bad and says, I've seen many appalling things in my time.
All those things I've experienced were trifles compared with what happened last night.
And Ross, who is a man not been through so much, obviously he's a lord,
(40:59):
he's apparently a colleague of Macbeth.
He is a colleague and he runs through the play, not quite sure how to react
to what Macbeth has done, but he understands what the old man is saying.
And you see, the heavens, as troubled with man's act, threatens his bloody stage.
(41:20):
That's the center of the scene, really, what I was trying to say near the beginning,
that actually because of this murder of the anointed king,
the heavens themselves are so appalled that they threaten the stage where humans exist.
He says there is a current feeling that the world is just going to explode,
(41:45):
disappear in an earthquake or whatever, but that's what it feels like.
I, Ross, have never seen a night like this, as you have never seen a night like
this as a 70-year-old man.
We're in daylight, or the time that we would normally calculate it tells me
(42:05):
this moment is daylight, but it's black night.
And the darkness goes on
for 24 hours where what
happened to the daylight that part of what the heavens are doing to us there's
a previous scene in which another lord called leonard describes to his colleague
(42:27):
macduff what the night has been see if we can remember some of it he says the night has been unruly.
Where we lay our chimneys were blown down, and as they say, lamentings heard
in the air, strange screams of death.
The absurd bird clamoured the live-long night.
(42:50):
My young recollection cannot remember a fellow to it.
And that's happened 20 minutes before a young man has talked about that.
So here we have Ross saying, it's the most extraordinary, unnatural time we've ever lived through.
And the old man says, yes, it's unnatural, even like the deed that's done.
(43:15):
That's central as well. He's saying to kill a king.
Is beyond anything.
And then he gives the first example of a falcon being hawked at by a mousing owl.
The tiny little mousing owl actually attacked and killed a falcon.
(43:35):
And then this extraordinary imagery towards the end that Ross then brings up
saying Duncan's horses.
Wonderful, beauteous and swift. with the minions of their race,
turned wild in nature, broke their stalls, sprung out, contending against obedience
as they would make war with mankind.
(43:57):
So that takes us back to that early speech where the horse in Venus and Adonis
is tied to a tree and just breaks forth because the horse recognized the unnaturalness of what's gone on.
And then the old man has this astonishing thought He said they ate each other.
And Ross said, yes, they did.
(44:20):
To the amazement of mine eyes, I looked upon it.
So they started to attack each other and themselves because they were in an
unnatural state of chaos.
It wasn't just like the Venus and Adonis where it ran away towards a mistress.
(44:40):
They actually started to attack themselves.
It's amazing, absolutely amazing. That seems very relevant with many contemporary issues.
Yeah, and I think like we've been saying throughout this, Trudy,
the fact that it's the horse, not just the horse, just being like this,
but they're Duncan's horse. They're the king's horses.
(45:03):
They're even more majestic, even more potent and more of the essence of horse
than any other. And they, even they were affected.
It caused chaos in their bodies. They ate each other. Slaughtering.
But he uses that because of that relevance to, and Shakespeare acknowledged
(45:27):
the relevance of that to his audience.
Even the horse. Even the horse smashed up last night.
It backfired and careered into a wall. It's absolute chaos.
It's the biggest thing, the most important thing you could think of that Emmanuel
wanted to destroy itself.
Yeah, or a woman. I know there's plenty of women who like fast cars, myself included,
(45:53):
but in an age where most people have driven and few people have ridden, the majority,
don't know of this idea of Shakespeare and his plays having so many connections to horses.
Having touched on a few aspects today of horses as a power to aspire to and
(46:18):
a symbol of beauty and freedom and utility as well,
I'm really grateful for this conversation.
And hopefully we've made some contribution here to further discussions and exploration.
Thank you so much. It's fascinating, absolutely fascinating.
(46:42):
What astonished me is the fact that the man who was the driving force behind
the formation of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-on-Avon, Sir Charles Flower,
the money man of Stratford who built the theatre, put out a lecture on that
connection between Shakespeare and the horse.
(47:04):
And he was a countryman, so he understood. But I think that tells us something ultimately important.
Even then, in the 19th century, there was this industrialist,
is what he was, Sir Charles Rath, already having seen what we're talking about
today. Brilliant. Absolutely wonderful.
And it was such a gift to have you read those passages. Thank you so much.
(47:28):
And I also want to acknowledge that the Shakespeare Equestrian Collection has
literally thrown open the barn door on this and revealing so much wonderful
research about Shakespeare's involvement with horses.
I know that intends to be a long-term global project, so hopefully others make contributions.
(47:51):
That would be wonderful. Andy, thank you so much for today. You're very welcome.
I really enjoyed it. Thank you so much for inviting me.
Thank you so much listeners for tuning in today to the inscape quest podcast
please be sure to share this with a friend and check the follow button to get
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