The Scottish Play Of Mad King Ruprecht the Fish.
Created | Updated Oct 2, 2002
Scotland, 1050.
The annum of 1050 would be consigned to my personal journal as being an extraordinarily good year.
I had found myself entwined in the deadly court politics of Inverness; that great Scottish province where the bagpipe roams free, where men were real men and women were also real men into the bargain.
My rise through the ranks of the Scottish nobility had been meteoric; from my modest origins as Thane of Glamis, my investiture as Thane of Cawdor to my eventual securing of King Duncan's crown through the time honoured 'Stitch That Jimmie' school of Caledonian succession. I had cunningly made use of hired third parties to dispatch my sole competitor Banquo to prevent his line from ensuing my glorious reign and now my position was consummately unassailable.
My unqualified success was in no small measure attributed to the prophetic wisdom of the Weird Sisters, a trio of cabalistic witches whose shrewd prognostications had given direction to my coup d'etat. So after my inaugural royal banquet had been gatecrashed by the gory spirit of the deceased Banquo; amid much avaunting, exeuntuing and divers alarums; I had decided to seek out the antique oracles once more to inquire into the nature of this spectral portent and whether it boded fair or foul for my continued administration.
I would also query the interpretation of the phrase 'divers alarums' as I believed my current translation of decompression sickness to be somewhat imprecise.
I had found my way to the blasted heath where I had originally encountered the three crones and sure enough I caught the scent of highly dubious cooking wafting from the ingress of a grim, sinister cavern and stole inside. I prided myself on my charm and sparkling allure in enchanting the gentler sex and it was an icy heart indeed that was immune to my enrapturing character. Clearing my throat with a genteel cough I convoked all of my seductive potentiality and spoke,
"How now, you secret, black and midnight hags!"
I freely confess that this had not been the greatest of opening lines. In fact, in a roster of beguiling oratory that had Romeo's balcony speech at its apex I would assuredly file this rendition somewhere near the very bottom and possibly sealed in concrete. It was the noxious vapours eminating from the witches cauldron that were responsible for the breach in my concentration, and had I not known better would have been prepared to swear that I could detect a hint of tiger's chaudron and the liver of a blaspheming Jew from within the bubbling pot.
Striving to gloss over my initial social infraction I embarked upon a fresh conversational gambit.
"What is't you do?"
Six steely eyes glared trenchantly in my direction and the three repulsive harridans replied in chorus,
"A deed without a name."
This answer, I decided, had been needlessly evasive. Either that or the senile old baggages really did not have the first clue as to what they were doing. In any case I felt the press of urgency in my very marrow and plunged headlong into my enquiry.
"I conjure you by that which you profess - howe'er you come to know it - answer me. Though you untie the winds and let them fight against the churches; though the yesty waves confound and swallow navigation up; though bladed corn be lodg'd and trees blown down; though castles topple on their warders' heads; though palaces and pyramids do slope their heads to their foundations; though the treasures of natures germens tumble all together, even till destruction sicken - answer me to what I ask you."
The aged battleaxes rapidly exchanged glances amid much shrugging of shoulders and semi-whispered bickering. Eventually, the most wizened and toothless old gammer lurched forwards and announced,
"Prithee, what manner of girls dost thou think we be young man? Tumbling with Germans in the altogether! Swallowing up navigators in yesty waves? On your two wheeled frame with saddle and handlebars you nasty little cuss! If warders head be thy fancy then you shall have to speak to the management!"
I buckled somewhat under the effrontery of this splenetic chiding but rallied magnificently and retorted,
"Call 'em; let me see 'em!"
The witches nodded in unison and one of their number filled a chalice from the murky depths of the cauldron, handing it to me with a knowing grin. I eyed the cocktail mistrustfully as a Turk's nose bobbed apologetically to the surface, followed in close succession by an adder's fork and the eyeball of some species of amphibian, possibly a newt.
Fortifying my resolve I upended the goblet and consumed its vile contents in a single mighty draught. Casting the empty vessel aside and clutching desperately at my burning throat I then went on to experience what can only be described as a full on psychedelic wobbler.
Struggling to reassemble the fractured pieces of my altered state of mind, I gazed in stupified wonder as an ethereal mist coalesced before me into the spirit of an armoured head. The disembodied ghost fixed me with a cold, penetrating glare and a voice, more felt than heard, stole past the recommended auditory apparatus and directly mugged my brain.
"Ruprecht, Ruprecht, Ruprecht. Beware Macduff.
Beware the Thane of Fife. Dismiss me. Enough."
Beware Macduff? I openly scoffed at the idea as I brought to mind the visage of a dour, stingy, orange haired vagabond, sporting a schoolgirls skirt and strangling a cat in the name of popular folk music. The man had a reputation as being the most ridiculous individual in all of Scotland and given the nature of his competition this achievement had been no piece of cake.
The image before me danced and shifted before metamorphosing into the shape of a bloody child. The spectre regarded me with the petulant air that is the bread and butter of his ilk and began his cryptic prediction.
"Ruprecht, Ruprecht, Ruprecht."
Haughtily, I interrupted the immature seer in mid forecast and announced,
"Had I three ears I'd hear thee."
The child frowned ruefully at my lamentable attempt at humour. It was obvious from the bemused expression playing across his features that he had missed the joke, a state of affairs that I was becoming all too accustomed with. I consoled myself with the fact that juvenile perception was, at its best, extremely erratic; a conclusion based on the observation that the average child, bloody or otherwise, was able to bullseye a cream cake at forty yards whilst at the same time being blissfully unaware of the errant stream of nasal secretions that it had somehow managed to trail through three rooms without so much as a token sniff.
Rediscovering his tongue the phantasmal child continued,
"Be bloody, bold and resolute; laugh to scorn the pow'r of man for none of woman born shall harm Ruprecht."
Although my aquaintence with the mechanics of childbirth were rudimentary, I was dimly aware that somewhere amid all the hurly burly pushing, shoving and unnecessary whining some variety of female was customarily present during the whole unpleasent debacle.
Punching the air I cried,
"Then live Macduff; what need I fear of thee? But yet I'll make assurance double and take a bond of fate. Thou shalt not live...."
I was rudely derailed in mid rant by a further vision from the unearthly plains. This time the wraith had taken on the form of yet another child, albeit wearing a facsimilie of my royal crown and bearing a miniature representation of a majestic Scot's Pine in outstretched arms. Once more the supernatural harmonics assailed my consciousness.
"Ruprecht, Ruprecht, Ruprecht. Be lion mettled, proud and have no care who chafes, who frets or where conspirers are; Ruprecht shall never vanquish'd be until great Birnham Wood to high Dunsinane Hill shall come against him."
I had found little use for botany during my historical peregrinations, considering it to be merely an underhand method of ridiculing the plant kingdom in Latin, yet even to my uninitiated eye trees had a certain stationary quality that was unmistakable.
"That will never be!" I roared defiantly. "Who can impress the forest, bid the tree unfix his earthbound root? Sweet bodements good! Rebellion's head rise never 'til the wood of Birnham rise, and our high plac'd Ruprecht shall live the lease of nature, pay his breath to time and mortal custom."
Doffing my forelock toward the Weird Sisters I retired from their cavern, mounted my loyal steed and galloped triumphantly back to Castle Dunsinane, secure in the knowledge that victory was absolute and my ascendancy indomitable.
Back at the witches cavern a fouth apparition materialised, glanced ashamedly from left to right and spoke,
"Sorry I'm late. Ruprecht, Ruprecht, Ruprecht. Bewareth low slung bough of yonder oak tree on thine way, as through great Birnham Wood you ride e'er home this day; for striking beetling limb woulst surely spell thy fall. What's that you say? He's gone already? Sod it all!"
The annum of 1050 would be consigned to my personal journal as being an extraordinarily good year.
I had found myself entwined in the deadly court politics of Inverness; that great Scottish province where the bagpipe roams free, where men were real men and women were also real men into the bargain.
My rise through the ranks of the Scottish nobility had been meteoric; from my modest origins as Thane of Glamis, my investiture as Thane of Cawdor to my eventual securing of King Duncan's crown through the time honoured 'Stitch That Jimmie' school of Caledonian succession. I had cunningly made use of hired third parties to dispatch my sole competitor Banquo to prevent his line from ensuing my glorious reign and now my position was consummately unassailable.
My unqualified success was in no small measure attributed to the prophetic wisdom of the Weird Sisters, a trio of cabalistic witches whose shrewd prognostications had given direction to my coup d'etat. So after my inaugural royal banquet had been gatecrashed by the gory spirit of the deceased Banquo; amid much avaunting, exeuntuing and divers alarums; I had decided to seek out the antique oracles once more to inquire into the nature of this spectral portent and whether it boded fair or foul for my continued administration.
I would also query the interpretation of the phrase 'divers alarums' as I believed my current translation of decompression sickness to be somewhat imprecise.
I had found my way to the blasted heath where I had originally encountered the three crones and sure enough I caught the scent of highly dubious cooking wafting from the ingress of a grim, sinister cavern and stole inside. I prided myself on my charm and sparkling allure in enchanting the gentler sex and it was an icy heart indeed that was immune to my enrapturing character. Clearing my throat with a genteel cough I convoked all of my seductive potentiality and spoke,
"How now, you secret, black and midnight hags!"
I freely confess that this had not been the greatest of opening lines. In fact, in a roster of beguiling oratory that had Romeo's balcony speech at its apex I would assuredly file this rendition somewhere near the very bottom and possibly sealed in concrete. It was the noxious vapours eminating from the witches cauldron that were responsible for the breach in my concentration, and had I not known better would have been prepared to swear that I could detect a hint of tiger's chaudron and the liver of a blaspheming Jew from within the bubbling pot.
Striving to gloss over my initial social infraction I embarked upon a fresh conversational gambit.
"What is't you do?"
Six steely eyes glared trenchantly in my direction and the three repulsive harridans replied in chorus,
"A deed without a name."
This answer, I decided, had been needlessly evasive. Either that or the senile old baggages really did not have the first clue as to what they were doing. In any case I felt the press of urgency in my very marrow and plunged headlong into my enquiry.
"I conjure you by that which you profess - howe'er you come to know it - answer me. Though you untie the winds and let them fight against the churches; though the yesty waves confound and swallow navigation up; though bladed corn be lodg'd and trees blown down; though castles topple on their warders' heads; though palaces and pyramids do slope their heads to their foundations; though the treasures of natures germens tumble all together, even till destruction sicken - answer me to what I ask you."
The aged battleaxes rapidly exchanged glances amid much shrugging of shoulders and semi-whispered bickering. Eventually, the most wizened and toothless old gammer lurched forwards and announced,
"Prithee, what manner of girls dost thou think we be young man? Tumbling with Germans in the altogether! Swallowing up navigators in yesty waves? On your two wheeled frame with saddle and handlebars you nasty little cuss! If warders head be thy fancy then you shall have to speak to the management!"
I buckled somewhat under the effrontery of this splenetic chiding but rallied magnificently and retorted,
"Call 'em; let me see 'em!"
The witches nodded in unison and one of their number filled a chalice from the murky depths of the cauldron, handing it to me with a knowing grin. I eyed the cocktail mistrustfully as a Turk's nose bobbed apologetically to the surface, followed in close succession by an adder's fork and the eyeball of some species of amphibian, possibly a newt.
Fortifying my resolve I upended the goblet and consumed its vile contents in a single mighty draught. Casting the empty vessel aside and clutching desperately at my burning throat I then went on to experience what can only be described as a full on psychedelic wobbler.
Struggling to reassemble the fractured pieces of my altered state of mind, I gazed in stupified wonder as an ethereal mist coalesced before me into the spirit of an armoured head. The disembodied ghost fixed me with a cold, penetrating glare and a voice, more felt than heard, stole past the recommended auditory apparatus and directly mugged my brain.
"Ruprecht, Ruprecht, Ruprecht. Beware Macduff.
Beware the Thane of Fife. Dismiss me. Enough."
Beware Macduff? I openly scoffed at the idea as I brought to mind the visage of a dour, stingy, orange haired vagabond, sporting a schoolgirls skirt and strangling a cat in the name of popular folk music. The man had a reputation as being the most ridiculous individual in all of Scotland and given the nature of his competition this achievement had been no piece of cake.
The image before me danced and shifted before metamorphosing into the shape of a bloody child. The spectre regarded me with the petulant air that is the bread and butter of his ilk and began his cryptic prediction.
"Ruprecht, Ruprecht, Ruprecht."
Haughtily, I interrupted the immature seer in mid forecast and announced,
"Had I three ears I'd hear thee."
The child frowned ruefully at my lamentable attempt at humour. It was obvious from the bemused expression playing across his features that he had missed the joke, a state of affairs that I was becoming all too accustomed with. I consoled myself with the fact that juvenile perception was, at its best, extremely erratic; a conclusion based on the observation that the average child, bloody or otherwise, was able to bullseye a cream cake at forty yards whilst at the same time being blissfully unaware of the errant stream of nasal secretions that it had somehow managed to trail through three rooms without so much as a token sniff.
Rediscovering his tongue the phantasmal child continued,
"Be bloody, bold and resolute; laugh to scorn the pow'r of man for none of woman born shall harm Ruprecht."
Although my aquaintence with the mechanics of childbirth were rudimentary, I was dimly aware that somewhere amid all the hurly burly pushing, shoving and unnecessary whining some variety of female was customarily present during the whole unpleasent debacle.
Punching the air I cried,
"Then live Macduff; what need I fear of thee? But yet I'll make assurance double and take a bond of fate. Thou shalt not live...."
I was rudely derailed in mid rant by a further vision from the unearthly plains. This time the wraith had taken on the form of yet another child, albeit wearing a facsimilie of my royal crown and bearing a miniature representation of a majestic Scot's Pine in outstretched arms. Once more the supernatural harmonics assailed my consciousness.
"Ruprecht, Ruprecht, Ruprecht. Be lion mettled, proud and have no care who chafes, who frets or where conspirers are; Ruprecht shall never vanquish'd be until great Birnham Wood to high Dunsinane Hill shall come against him."
I had found little use for botany during my historical peregrinations, considering it to be merely an underhand method of ridiculing the plant kingdom in Latin, yet even to my uninitiated eye trees had a certain stationary quality that was unmistakable.
"That will never be!" I roared defiantly. "Who can impress the forest, bid the tree unfix his earthbound root? Sweet bodements good! Rebellion's head rise never 'til the wood of Birnham rise, and our high plac'd Ruprecht shall live the lease of nature, pay his breath to time and mortal custom."
Doffing my forelock toward the Weird Sisters I retired from their cavern, mounted my loyal steed and galloped triumphantly back to Castle Dunsinane, secure in the knowledge that victory was absolute and my ascendancy indomitable.
Back at the witches cavern a fouth apparition materialised, glanced ashamedly from left to right and spoke,
"Sorry I'm late. Ruprecht, Ruprecht, Ruprecht. Bewareth low slung bough of yonder oak tree on thine way, as through great Birnham Wood you ride e'er home this day; for striking beetling limb woulst surely spell thy fall. What's that you say? He's gone already? Sod it all!"
