Careful readers will recollect that Bardfilm covered this Simpsons episode back in 2009 (for which, q.v.). Even more careful readers will have spotted that the link to the video clip there had expired.
When it came time to fix the error, I discovered that there was quite a lot more Shakespeare in the episode than I initially realized. Since 2009, I've assumed that the entirety of the Shakespeare had to do with wrapping up the "Sideshow Bob Tries to Kill Bart Yet Again" plot. Note: Spoiler Alert. That plot is wrapped up nicely when Lisa is able to thwart Sideshow Bob by pedantically correcting his misquoted line from Shakespeare.
That's where the clip stopped in 2009 (and, for the sake of historical continuity, that's the end of the clip I restored to the earlier post). But there's more!
First, take a look. We'll talk afterwards.
They recap Jenkins’ reason for his choice—and then go on to point out something that Jenkins might have missed: the last word in the full line (“. . . Hoist with his own petard, an’t shall go hard . . .”) would rhyme with “petard” but not “petar.” I might point out that the editors only point out the internal rhyme without commenting on it themselves—but perhaps we’re ready to draw to a close.
Links: The Film at IMDB.
The kicker to the first segment is that Sideshow Bob misquotes Shakespeare again (and is again corrected by Lisa)—and that's funny enough. But the Shakespeare continues.
At the trial of Sideshow Bob, we're introduced to his mother, the noted Shakespearean actress. And we have a lovely interlude where Lenny wonders whether the Shakespeare play Troilus and Cressida antedates or postdates the Toyota Cressida. Since Shakespeare wrote his play c. 1601–1602 and Toyota marketed its Cressida from 1976 to 1992, the play certainly has the prior claim.
[Side Note: I used to drive a 1972 Toyota Corona Mark II in the delightfully-named "Fire Opal" color; the Toyota Cressida was the renamed version of this model. Some people called the car I drove, for reasons unknown, "The Squidmobile," but in my mind, she was always "The Peaquod."]
With this information in mind, Lisa deduces that misquoting Shakespeare was but a ruse—a first layer to Sideshow Bob's complicated plot.
[Side Note: Another layer is that Sideshow Bob's father was a doctor with knowledge of a drug that could simulate death (no doubt the constraint of time prevented making this connection to Romeo and Juliet overt instead of implied).]
And that's it, right?
Naturally not!
In the comments section on the ShakespeareGeek post that started all this (for which, q.v.), a user named "bardofile" suggests that Sideshow Bob is not only wrong about the preposition when he says "Hoist on his own petard" but that he should also have said "petar." Lisa, bardofile says, corrects the "on" to "with" but fails to correct the "petard" to "petar."
First, if Sideshow Bob is still scheming by deliberately misquoting Shakespeare, he's offering Lisa two chance to correct him, but she only detects one. Right?
That depends on which edition of Hamlet Miss Hoover uses in her classroom. First, the line in question is only in the Second Quarto (1604–1605). It's not in the First Quarto (1603); nor is it in the Folio (1623).
The "Hoist with his owne petar" line in Q2
If she's using the Riverside Complete Shakespeare, she'll find "petar"—but with a footnote that defines "petar" as "petard." If she's using the Norton (based on the Oxford), she'll find "Hoised with his own petard"—the line is indented and set in italic, which indicates that it's from Q2. But there's no note as to why they've used "Hoised" where Q2 clearly has "Hoist." David Bevington's seventh edition gives us "petard." The RSC second edition has "petard" (in a separate section where passages from Q2 that are not in F are supplied). The Bedford Shakespeare (based on the New Cambridge) has "petar" with a footnote that says "or 'petard.'" A glance at my long-cherished copy of the New Cambridge (for which, q.v.) confirms that it has "petar" but reveals that it has no explanatory note about it.
That's a quick survey of the complete editions of Shakespeare I have handy, and I expect a similar variety would be found in single editions of the play.
But where can we go to get some explanation of how we got to the point where "petar" or "petard" seems to be equally viable? If Q2 says "petar," shouldn't we all just go with that?
As usual, Harold Jenkins (the editor of the Arden Shakespeare Second Series Hamlet) has something valuable to say. Here's his note:
First, we get some insight into why the Norton Shakespeare would say “hoised” instead of “hoist.” I expect we should have known that “hoised” is the simple past tense of “hoise,” the root verb from which both “hoised” and “hoist” come. But we also get the reason why Jenkins’ edition decides on “petard.” Q2 reads “petar,” but Jenkins considers that something of a typographical error. It’s there to guide us in the pronunciation of the word, but the actual noun is “petard,” and, for Jenkins, the change for a modern-spelling edition is as natural as changing “owne” in Q2 to “own.”
The most recent Arden edition (the third series version edited by Neil Taylor and Ann Thompson—the Q2 version, that is, not the one that contains the texts of Q1 and F but not of Q2) has just one thing to add:
Perhaps Lisa was right to point out the more obvious error rather than enter into a debate with Sideshow Bob over the relative merits of “petar” and “petard.”
Links: The Film at IMDB.
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