Well, that didn't take long! I was just complaining (mildly, to be fair) that an Agincourt reference in a Doctor Who episode didn't bring in any Shakespeare. Just a few episodes later, the Doctor quotes from Macbeth in an episode about sleep (and the lack thereof).
You can read the details of the plot of the episode by following the link at the end of this post. In the meantime, let's cut right to the Shakespeare:
We get two separate speeches from Act II, scene ii of Macbeth. They're both spoken by Macbeth very soon after the murder of Duncan. The first is slightly different from the text of the play. Here's how that reads:
Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care,
The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast. (II.ii.34–37)
The doctor drops "nature's second course" and drops the "great" down to the next line.
In the second scene, it seems like the Doctor is on the verge of giving us some Hamlet. He says, "To die . . . to die, to die," and I'm waiting for the ". . . to sleep— / No more" from III.i.59-60 of Hamlet. Instead, we get a different "sleep no more"—together with a pan across the room that reveals a bunch of potential daggers.
I'm not so sure about the concluding reflection on the Shakespeare speeches. It seems somewhat lacking. I take "He really knew his stuff" as a starting point for Shakespeare study; it seems to be something of a conclusion here. Still, I appreciate the working in of Shakespeare to this pop culture artifact.
Links: The Episode at IMDB.
Click below to purchase the season from amazon.com
(and to support Bardfilm as you do so).
(and to support Bardfilm as you do so).
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