"I wish your Enterprise to-day may thrive." —Julius Caesar, III.i.13

Star Trek: Generations [a.k.a. Star Trek VII]. Dir. David Carson. Perf. William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, Nichelle Nichols, James Doohan, Walter Koenig, George Takei, Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Brent Spiner, Billy Campbell, Alan Ruck, Whoopi Goldberg, and Malcolm McDowell. 1994. DVD. Paramount, 2004.

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With the image above, Bardfilm wraps up its survey of Shakespeare in Star Trek. Combing through the wreckage of The Enterprise, Captain Picard is delighted to find his Complete Works of Shakespeare intact.

It's not a bad image for what Star Trek, in all its permutations, has done with Shakespeare. The show has quoted Shakespeare, decontextualized Shakespeare, alluded to Shakespeare, borrowed from Shakespeare, and done many other things with Shakespeare, but Shakespeare comes out intact.

The overarching interest in these uses of Shakespeare in a pop culture icon like Star Trek is that they are both engaged in the same project. Shakespeare takes real human beings and puts them in situations that enable us (and them) to study and to learn about the human condition—its behavior, its faults, its depravity, its redemption. Although the circumstances may be unlike any that we are likely to experience (I'm not, for example, in line to the Throne of Scotland, however much I'd like to be), we—through Shakespeare's characters—learn by experience about our own guilt and sin as we see Macbeth's guilt and sin played out on stage. As we learn about our own need for redemption, we also discover means for working out that redemption. I hope I'll never be as hypocritical as Measure for Measure's Angelo, for example, but I can certainly learn about mercy and redemption by watching him through that play.

Star Trek also puts human beings (and Betazoids and Romulans and Sheliak and Vulcans and Tholians and Klingons and others too numerous to mention here) into situations that show us (and them) something about humanity writ large. Star Trek, being what it is, has a less-Calvinistic (I'm just starting work on a paper I've been commissioned to write on Shakespeare and John Calvin—more on that as time progresses) position on human nature than does Shakespeare, but its characters are still seeking redemption for humanity.

There you have it. Star Trek, seeking to understand the human condition, turns to Shakespeare to aid it in its own—um—enterprise.

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For more connections between Star Trek and Shakespeare, head to Shakespeare and Star Trek Complete.

Hamlet and the Merchant of Venice Walk into a Pub in Fair Verona—On Another Planet

“Birthright, Part 1.” By Brannon Braga. Perf. Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Gates McFadden, Brent Spiner, and Paul Winfield. Dir. Winrich Kolbe. Star Trek: The Next Generation. Season 6, episode 16. Syndicated television. 7 March 1993. DVD. Paramount, 2002.

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“The Ensigns of Command.” By Drew Deighan, Ronald D. Moore, and W. Reed Moran. Perf. Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Gates McFadden, Brent Spiner, and Paul Winfield. Dir. Les Landau. Star Trek: The Next Generation. Season 3, episode 2. Syndicated television. 19 March 1990. DVD. Paramount, 2002.

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“The Outrageous Okona.” By Burton Armus. Perf. Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Brent Spiner, Billy Campbell, and Whoopi Goldberg. Dir. Robert Becker. Star Trek: The Next Generation. Season 2, episode 4. Syndicated television. 12 December 1988. DVD. Paramount, 2002.

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Since I’ve added to the total sum of human knowledge by pointing out three episodes from the Original Series of Star Trek that draw their plots from Shakespeare, I thought I’d try to double that sum by pointing out three Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes that do the same.

“Birthright, Part 1” is a derivative version of Hamlet. Sort of. In it, Worf has been told that his father—a father treacherously killed—is still alive, and he goes to seek him. Hamlet, of course, finds a ghost; Worf finds a group of Klingons, but not his father.

He does, on the other hand, find a Horatio analogue—one who paraphrases I.ii.211-12 (“I knew your father. / These hands are not more like”) into “I knew your father well, Worf” (see image above).

In “The Ensigns of Command,” a group of aliens called “The Sheliak” are notorious for wanting to stick to the exact wording of a written contract. Eventually, the specifics of the contract itself are employed against them (see the image below, which contains a segment of the Treaty of Armens—Paragraph 1290, the “Third Party Arbitration Clause,” to be specific).  

Well, that’s clearly a version of The Merchant of Venice, right? 

You might not be convinced—yet. Take another look at the aliens’ name. They are the Sheliak. Sheliak. Shyliak. Shyloiak. Shylock! Yes, Shylock has been extended into an entire alien species, still crying, “I crave the law” (IV.i.206)!

Finally, “The Outrageous Okona” gives us a Romeo and Juliet. Yes, I’m grasping at straws here. There are two households, both alike in dignity, and neither one wants their child to marry the child of the other. Yup. Romeo and Juliet. Only less tragic. And in space.

Next time, there are some miscellaneous things to wrap up, but we are nearly at the end of our lengthy survey of Shakespeare and Star Trek.

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For more connections between Star Trek and Shakespeare, head to Shakespeare and Star Trek Complete.

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"Elaan of Troyius": Alternate Allusions to Shakespeare

“Elaan of Troyius.” By John Meredyth Lucas. Perf. William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, Nichelle Nichols, James Doohan, George Takei, Walter Koenig, and France Nguyen Van-Nga. Dir. John Meredyth Lucas. Star Trek. Season 3, episode 13. NBC. 20 December 1968. DVD. Paramount, 2008.

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Photo Caption:  France Nguyen, as Elaan of Troyius, quotes Hamlet, I.v.94 (part of Hamlet's father's ghost's speech to Hamlet).

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The last time I wrote about "Elaan of Troyius" (for which, q.v.), I was following the conventional wisdom that says that the episode is a derivative version of The Taming of the Shrew.

And there are elements of Taming there. Elaan is a female character operating out of the normal bounds of her society, forced by a patriarchal system that she despises to marry when and whom they want her to marry. No wonder, margianlized as she is, that she starts throwing things at Captain Kirk! Who wouldn't? (Then again, many people have wanted to throw things at Captain Kirk, not all of them marginalized, oppressed female characters!)

But, beyond this character transplantation, there's not much in the way of plot borrowing from Taming.

However, the episode does quote from Hamlet (see the caption of the photo above) and (I'd like to make the case for this) does allude to Antony and Cleopatra.

First, the outfit, the behaviour, the treatment, and the attitude of Elaan herself is very similar to Cleopatra's (in Shakespeare's play). She also has astonishing control over men—in the episode, it's by use of tears with certain sci. fi. chemical properties; in the play, it's love.

One remarkable place where the two overlap is on the bridge of The Enterprise.  As you know, Cleopatra proves disastrously distracting to Antony during the Battle of Actium. Elaan proves similarly distracting to Captain Kirk when the Klingons are attacking:

Elaan's declaration "I want to be by your side" is met with a curt "Your presence here is interfering with my efficiency" from Captain Curt—I mean "Kirk." They leave the bridge at that point.  

Later, Kirk breaks into Antony's soliloquy "I have fled myself; and have instructed cowards / To run and show their shoulders" (III.xi.8-9).

No, he doesn't, really. But he might as well have!

Perhaps the connection could be more firmly substantiated between this episode and "The Perfect Mate" episode from Star Trek: The Next Generation. But at least the Hamlet quote is unequivocally from Shakespeare. After all, where else would you find the phrase "Remember me"?

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Echoes of The Tempest in Star Trek Episodes

“Menagerie, Part I.” By Gene Roddenberry. Perf. William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, Nichelle Nichols, James Doohan, and George Takei. Dir. Marc Daniels. Star Trek. Season 1, episode 11. NBC. 17 November 1966. DVD. Paramount, 2008.

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“Is there in Truth no Beauty?” By Jean Lisette Aroeste. Perf. William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, Nichelle Nichols, James Doohan, George Takei, and Walter Koenig. Dir. Ralph Senensky. Star Trek. Season 3, episode 5. NBC. 18 October 1968. DVD. Paramount, 2008.

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“Requiem for Methuselah.” By Jerome Bixby. Perf. William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, Nichelle Nichols, James Doohan, George Takei, and Walter Koenig. Dir. Murray Golden. Star Trek. Season 3, episode 19. NBC. 14 February 1969. DVD. Paramount, 2008.

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It may be grasping at straws, but three episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series seem to have plots similar to the plot of The Tempest. Unlike a quotation from or an allusion to Shakespeare—and unlike a derivative version of one of Shakespeare’s plots—these Shakespearean plot echoes are less tangible—less certain—but they are still conceivable.

The first and last listed above (“Menagerie, Part I” and “Requiem for Methuselah”) have what might be called “Brave New World” moments. In the first, the crew discovers the survivors of a spaceshipwreck; the youngest was only a baby when they crashed and has never seen anyone other than the scientists with whom she was shipwrecked (something of a derivative of Forbidden Planet—which is, itself, a derivative of The Tempest—here).

The last seems even more akin to both The Tempest and Forbidden Planet (there’s even an extremely powerful robot programmed to defend its master—which is, by the way, a connection to Forbidden Planet rather than The Tempest, though Caliban serves as a model for the robot in that film). In “Requiem for Methuselah,” an older man and his young and beautiful ward are living along on a planet. For Rayna, the ward, the arrival of Kirk (et al.) reveals the “brave new world” filled with “many happy creatures.” The older man’s jealousy is akin to Prospero’s reluctance to have his daughter marry Ferdinand too quickly.

"At last I've seen other humans" = "O brave new world"

“Is there in Truth no Beauty?”—the middle episode—is slightly more tangential. It has a character named Miranda, but she’s not unacquainted with other people. She becomes intensely jealous of anyone who becomes too familiar with the ambassador that she is transporting. The ambassador is a Medusan—a being of pure internal beauty . . . and absolutely repugnant to human sight. Could this be Caliban?

The connections between these three episodes and The Tempest are intriguing, but they cannot be completely substantiated.

Next time, I’ll argue that “Elaan of Troyius,” the episode most frequently cited as a parallel to The Taming of the Shrew, has more affinities with Antony and Cleopatra—and even a Hamlet-related moment! Stay tuned!

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P.S. The "Requiem for Methuselah" episode needs some clarification, especially in light of the Wikipedia article on it, which currently states that Flint possesses "original copies of Shakespeare" (which I take to mean manuscripts in Shakespeare's hand). The older man on the planet has lived for centuries. He was Johannes Brahms, Leonardo Da Vinci, and many other famous people—but he was not necessarily Shakespeare. The Wikipedia entry is misleading in this regard (at least, it is in its current incarnation). Flint (the older man) owns a First Folio of Shakespeare (see image below), but there's no indication that he has any manuscripts in Shakespeare's hand. I'd correct the Wikipedia entry, but it's nice to be smug about something! Indeed, that may be what Flint is feeling so smug about in the image below.

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For more connections between Star Trek and Shakespeare, head to Shakespeare and Star Trek Complete.

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Screen Shot Shakespeare II: Additional Star Trek Title References to Shakespeare

“Sins of the Father.” By Drew Deighan, Ronald D. Moore, and W. Reed Moran. Perf. Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Gates McFadden, Brent Spiner, and Paul Winfield. Dir. Les Landau. Star Trek: The Next Generation. Season 3, episode 17. Syndicated television. 19 March 1990. DVD. Paramount, 2002.

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A list that I've used to fill in some of the gaps from my other attempt at "Shakespeare and Star Trek Complete" mentioned the episode entitled "Sins of the Father.”

I have dealt with Shakespearean titles in Star Trek episodes in a previous post (for which, q.v.), but I hadn't considered that one. It is true that Launcelot says, "Yes, truly; for, look you, the sins of the father are to be laid upon the children: therefore, I promise ye, I fear you" in Act III, scene 5 of The Merchant of Venice, but the phrase is such a commonality, both then and now, that I am skeptical of a direction connection to Shakespeare, as I was with “Devil’s Due" in the earlier post.

Further, the phrase is a biblical one, drawn from Exodus 20:5, although most of relevant translations (the Geneva Bible, for example) use "iniquity of the fathers" instead of "sins of the fathers" (The exception is the Bishop's Bible, which reads "I the Lord thy God am a gelous God, and visite the sinne of the fathers vpon the chyldren"). All that is very interesting, and may require additional research, but the main point is that the phrase is biblical first and Shakespearean later.

We have this, then.  A phrase that is common during the time of Shakespeare is used by Shakespeare, becomes (perhaps) even more common, and then is used by Star Trek. Does that make the title a quote from, allusion to, or reference to Shakespeare? It would be hard to argue that it's direct, but it may be present.

But if we include "Sins of the Father," should we also include "The Dauphin"? The word is often used in Shakespeare's history plays (e.g. (one among many), Henry V says, in Act I, scene ii, "We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us; / His present and your pains we thank you for"). That may be going too far. All the same, here's the image and the information about it, just in case!

"The Dauphin." By Scott Rubenstein and Leonard Mlodinow. Perf. Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Brent Spiner, and Paul Winfield. Dir. Rob Bowman. Star Trek: The Next Generation. Season 5, episode 2. Syndicated television. 20 February 1989. DVD. Paramount, 2002.

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For more connections between Star Trek and Shakespeare, head to Shakespeare and Star Trek Complete.

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The Dark Lady of the Star Trek Sonnets

“The Perfect Mate.” By René Echevarria and Gary Perconte. Perf. Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Gates McFadden, Brent Spiner, and Famke Janssen. Dir. Cliff Bole. Star Trek: The Next Generation. Season 5, episode 21. Syndicated television. 27 April 1992. DVD. Paramount, 2002.

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In a more obscure, more tangential approach to the sonnets, "The Perfect Mate" offers a few tantalizing allusions that are not (necessarily) drawn from any specific sonnet.

The plot seems a bit silly to me. The woman has the ability to detect what a man would want in a wife and to become that very thing. For Captain Picard, such a women would be strong, attractive, mysterious, knowledgeable about cosmic archeology, and (this is the part that seems less silly) something of a Shakespearean.

Alas, the Captain is unable to contemplate matrimony—particularly in this instance: the woman is pledged to marry another.

Take a look at the clip first; I'll return with some commentary after you've done so.

The conclusion—"I only hope he likes Shakespeare"—isn't a bad exit line.

We're given an allusion to "the dark woman of raven brows and mournful eyes of Shakespeare's Sonnets." The line almost alludes more to a millennia of critical work on the sonnets than to the sonnets themselves, but there are a few lines to which they may be pointing:

Sonnet 130 says that "black wires grow on her head" (4).

Sonnet 127 declares that "my mistress' brows are raven black" (9).

Sonnet 43 reads (in part) ". . . in dreams they look on thee, / And darkly bright are bright in dark directed" (3-4), but that sonnet is usually thought of as addressed to the young man instead of to the dark lady.

I suppose that the sonnet most at work in the twelve-word allusion above is 127. We have the raven-black brows, of course; we have, moreover, the eyes that "mourners seem" (10).

CXXVII.

In the old age black was not counted fair,
Or if it were, it bore not beauty's name;
But now is black beauty's successive heir,
And beauty slander'd with a bastard shame:
For since each hand hath put on nature's power,
Fairing the foul with art's false borrow'd face,
Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy bower,
But is profaned, if not lives in disgrace.
Therefore my mistress' brows are raven black,
Her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem
At such who, not born fair, no beauty lack,
Slandering creation with a false esteem:
Yet so they mourn, becoming of their woe,
That every tongue says beauty should look so.

And there's one last issue: was it cheating to have Mr. Data (as she calls him) help her swot up her Shakespeare to show Captain Picard just how compatible they would be together? Is this the female singer's version of "Brush up your Shakespeare / And the women you will wow?"

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For more connections between Star Trek and Shakespeare, head to Shakespeare and Star Trek Complete.

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Juliet at Darmok

“Darmok.” By Joe Menosky and Phillip LaZebnik. Perf. Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Gates McFadden, Brent Spiner, and Paul Winfield. Dir. Winrich Kolbe. Star Trek: The Next Generation. Season 5, episode 2. Syndicated television. 30 September 1991. DVD. Paramount, 2002.

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The Star Trek episode "Darmok" is much more often noted for its interest for linguists and linguistics than for anything Shakespearean. There's far more Gilgamesh, actually, than Shakespeare in it! However, there is an intriguing reference halfway through.

The premise of the episode is that communication with the aliens is impossible. The universal translator can translate some of the things they say ("when the walls fell," for example), but these sporadic phrases make little to no sense in the context. Eventually, the crew discovers that the Tamarians use a language that is almost entirely metaphoric (leaving Saussure, Derrida, and Lévi-Straus out of it for the moment). Here's their discussion of the problem:

Interesting, yes? But it's even more complicated than that. The image of Juliet on her balcony used as an example here does not have to be an image of romance. It could be an image of anticipation or loneliness or patriarchal oppression or imminent disaster! It could even be an advertising image for an architectural firm. In fact, it probably is!

The image in the play is similarly polysemic, presenting almost all these possibilities and more. The complexities of Shakespeare are only compounded by the complexities of language. 

And yet, if I tell my beloved that she reminds me of Juliet on her balcony, the context implies one of these concepts to the ultimate exclusion of all others.  That's right: an advertising image for an architectural firm.

Can I help it if my beloved designs balconies for a living?*

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*She doesn't, really. But it's a bit funnier that way.

Star Trek and Sonnet 29

“The Measure of a Man.” By Melinda M. Snodgrass. Perf. Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, and Brent Spiner. Dir. Robert Scheerer. Star Trek: The Next Generation. Season 2, episode 9. Syndicated television. 13 February 1989. DVD. Paramount, 2002.

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Not long after the last quotation from a Shakespeare sonnet, The Next Generation returned with another. This time, the opening lines of Sonnet 29 give the characters the opportunity to contemplate the piece of work that is a man. The question in this episode is whether Data, an android, is the property of Star Fleet or whether he has autonomy. The character who reads the sonnet wants to take him apart to learn more about him; not unreasonably, Data has objected and announced his resignation from Star Fleet. But, once again, that's the surface level of the use of the sonnet here. Data, in attempting to become human, allows the other characters (and, of course, the audience) to think about what it means to be human. The rest of the sonnet (see below) is one way to answer that question.

XXIX.

When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
    For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings  
    That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

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For more connections between Star Trek and Shakespeare, head to Shakespeare and Star Trek Complete.

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Star Trek and Sonnet 18

“The Schizoid Man.” By Tracy Torme and Gene Roddenberry. Perf. Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, and Brent Spiner. Dir. Les Landau. Star Trek: The Next Generation. Season 2, episode 6. Syndicated television. 23 January 1989. DVD. Paramount, 2002.

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Shakespeare's sonnets come up with surprising frequency in Star Trek episodes. Captain Kirk was forced to recite Sonnet 57; here, Captain Picard freely relates the closing couplet of Sonnet 18. In the episode, he does so to indicate the realization he's come to—that someone else's brain has been downloaded into Data's head (So long lives Data's head, it will give life to that second brain). Yeah, I know. Weird.

But that's only the ostensible meaning of the couplet in this context. The more significant part (and the part that's developing into an overarching thesis about Star Trek's Shakespeare use) is that Shakespeare's words allow humanity the opportunity to understand themselves better. In this imaginary, science fiction context, "So long lives this" is wrapped up in the futuristic setting. Shakespeare's words have lived this long; humanity will live this long, too.

Here's the clip; the full sonnet follows it.

XVIII.

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

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For more connections between Star Trek and Shakespeare, head to Shakespeare and Star Trek Complete.

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One more Shakespeare Quote from a Q Episode

“Hide & Q.” By C. J. Holland and Gene Roddenberry. Perf. Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Denise Crosby, Gates McFadden, Marina Sirtis, Brent Spiner, Wil Wheaton, and John de Lancie. Dir. Cliff Bole. Star Trek: The Next Generation. Season 1, episode 10. Syndicated television. 23 November 1987. DVD. Paramount, 2002.

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They always seem to quote from Shakespeare when Q shows up. I'm not entirely sure why, but I think it may have to do with the idea that Q seeks to understand human nature—and who has more to say about the emotions and actions of human beings than Shakespeare?

At the end of "Hide and Q," an episode in which Picard and Q exchange Shakespeare quotes (for which, q.v.), Data gives us a brief quote from Polonius as a way of indicating why the crew wants to be who they are:


Polonius' speech to Laertes is awfully long-winded, but it concludes with those eminently-quotable lines—and the ones that must follow as the night the day: "And it must follow as the night the day / Thou canst not then be false to any man" (I.iii.79-80). Apparently, that bit of Polonius' advice is as applicable far in the future as it was in the past.

Bonus! Video clip of this Shakespeare quote!

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For more connections between Star Trek and Shakespeare, head to Shakespeare and Star Trek Complete.

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Animated Star Trek, Animated Shakespeare

“How Sharper than a Serpent’s Tooth.” By Russell Bates and David Wise. Perf. William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, Nichelle Nichols, James Doohan, and George Takei. Dir. Bill Reed. Star Trek: The Animated Series. Season 2, episode 5. NBC. 5 October 1974. DVD. Paramount, 2006.

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We leave behind The Original Series for the time being, planning to return to it later to examine a few plot similarities between it and various Shakespeare plays.

Our next stop is at a place I didn’t even know existed—at least, not until I spotted it at our local library about two years ago: Star Trek: The Animated Series!

The only Shakespeare reference that I noticed in the series is both a title reference and a quote. The episode itself is mainly forgettable. An ancient Aztec alien returns to earth to see how his children are getting along, and he finds that they don’t need him anymore. Hence the aptness of the title and the quote. Because the reference is so brief, I’m not including a clip; however, I offer these subtitled screen shots for your edification:

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For more connections between Star Trek and Shakespeare, head to Shakespeare and Star Trek Complete.

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Star Trek and Sonnet 57

“Plato’s Stepchildren.” By Meyer Dolinsky. Perf. William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, Nichelle Nichols, James Doohan, George Takei, Michael Dunn, Barbara Babcock, Liam Sullivan, Ted Scott, Derek Partridge, and William Blackburn. Dir. David Alexander. Star Trek. Season 3, episode 10. NBC. 22 November 1968. DVD. Paramount, 2008.

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Late in its run, The Original Series turned to the sonnets, giving inspiration and helpful hints to Poetry Slam Participants the world over (the trick is to crawl on your stomach, acting as if every word is being forced from your body against your will).

That's what's happening to Captain Kirk, anyway. The bad guy wants to be entertained, and he's able to force Kirk to recite Shakespeare sonnets—or, to be precise, at least Sonnet 57. Take a look at that section first (other sections will be inserted below).

Here's the sonnet in question:

LVII.

Being your slave, what should I do but tend
Upon the hours and times of your desire?
I have no precious time at all to spend,
Nor services to do, till you require.
Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour
Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,
Nor think the bitterness of absence sour
When you have bid your servant once adieu;
Nor dare I question with my jealous thought
Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,
But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought
Save, where you are how happy you make those.
So true a fool is love that in your will,
Though you do any thing, he thinks no ill.

Before you complain that Kirk's delivery isn't absolutely top-notch, look at the act he's following:

Yep, that's Mr. Spock, smiling! He hasn't smiled since the pilot episode! And what's that he's saying / reciting (together with Captain Kirk)?

I'm Tweedledee; he's Tweedledum:
Two spacemen marching to a drum.
We slith among the mimsey toves
And gyre among the borogoves.

My goodness. That's even worse than the "Very bad poetry" that Mr. Spock critiqued when they met the witches! Even a crawling, forced delivery of Sonnet 57 will be better than that!

But, I suppose, there is some interest in Kirk's choice of sonnet (or is it the bad guy's choice?): "Being your slave" catches up the idea of how foolish it is to think that, whatever the beloved may do, it cannot be ill. Perhaps there's something, too, in the fact that Kirk doesn't complete the quatrain, breaking off before the final word. But maybe that's just Dr. McCoy's interruption.

For those of you who would like to see the complete sequence, here are the two parts put back together:

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For more connections between Star Trek and Shakespeare, head to Shakespeare and Star Trek Complete.

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Shakespeare and Star Trek: The Revenge of the Bard!

“Catspaw.” By Robert Bloch. Perf. William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, Nichelle Nichols, James Doohan, George Takei, Antoinette Bower, Theo Marcuse, Michael Barrier, and Eddie Paskey. Dir. Joseph Pevney. Star Trek. Season 2, episode 7. NBC. 27 October 1967. DVD. Paramount, 2008.

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Some time ago, Bardfilm had a series of posts on the integration of Shakespeare and Star Trek. I attempted to be complete, but I soon discovered a number of gaps in my coverage. I apologize.

Fortunately, I intend to fill those gaps with another series of posts—a series that will culminate in one gigantic post containing The Complete Works of Shakespeare in Star Trek!

For the record, I learned of some of these gaps from other lists (for example, this one), but many of these are my own discoveries.

The earliest gap to fill (chronologically-speaking) is a possible allusion to Macbeth (rather than a direct reference to any play) in The Original Series. Here, Bones, Spock, and Kirk have landed on The Planet of the Scary Things, and they (like Macbeth and Banquo) are met by three witches:

As I said, it's much more of an allusion than a quotation, but I think there's a connection that involves more than just the number of witches. One thing is the "Very bad poetry" noted by Mr. Spock.

The witches, in addition to saying "Go back . . . remember the curse" any other scary things, close with these lines:

"Winds shall rise, and fog descend.
So leave here all or meet your end.

Mr. Spock's assessment isn't far off. And that's the key to connecting this with Macbeth. There are segments of "very bad poetry" in Shakespeare's play—mostly given to the witches, and mostly not written by Shakespeare. For example, this speech Hecate makes is frequently said to be a non-Shakespearean interpolation:

                          How did you dare
To trade and traffic with Macbeth
In riddles and affairs of death;
And I, the mistress of your charms,
The close contriver of all harms,
Was never call'd to bear my part,
Or show the glory of our art?

                       —III.v.4-10

The Star Trek witches' bad couplet is quite as bad as any one of these!

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For more connections between Star Trek and Shakespeare, head to Shakespeare and Star Trek Complete.

Click below to purchase the DVDs from amazon.com

(and to support Bardfilm as you do so).

Great River Shakespeare Festival—Opening in One Month!

Love's Labour's Lost. Dir. Paul Mason Barnes. Perf. Doug Scholz-Carlson, Chris Mixon, Andrew Carlson, Brian Frederick, Christopher Gerson, Evan Fuller, Tarah Flanagan, Shanara Gabrielle, Katy Mazzola, Nikki Rodenburg, Michael Fitzpatrick, David Rudi Utter, Eva Balastrieri, Jeremy van Meter, Jonathan Gillard Daly, David Coral, Nick Demeris, Katie Bowler, Moira Marek, Duncan Halleck, Theo Morgan, Ceci Bernard, Chris Bernard, and Mitchell Essar. Great River Shakespeare Festival. Winona, Minnesota. 2009.

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The Tempest. Dir. Alec Wild. Perf. Eva Balistrieri, Andrew Carlson, David Coral, Nick Demeris, Jonathan Gillard Daly, Michael Fitzpatrick, Tarah Flanagan, Brian David Frederick, Evan Fuller, Shanara Gabrielle, Christopher Gerson, Kate Mazzola, Chris Mixon, Doug Scholz-Carlson, Nicole Rodenburg, David Rudi Utter, Jeremy van Meter, and Tessa Wild. Great River Shakespeare Festival. Winona, Minnesota. 2009.

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Be certain to include a trip to Winona, Minnesota in your summer plans, and make sure that your trip occurs between Friday, June 26 and Sunday, July 26. That month—that royal month of kings, that scepter'd month, that other Eden, demi-paradise, that blessed month—that month is the month of the Great River Shakespeare Festival. Every time we've gone (this will be, I believe, our third time), we've been stunned by the magnificence of the productions.  

This year, they're giving us The Tempest and Love's Labour's Lost.  I'm not sure who's playing in each—my cast list above is more hopeful than anything else (though I'll let you know who's playing what—and who's directing what—when I know it myself)—but I'm certain that this year's season will be, once again, a thing of beauty and a joy forever.  Or at least for that month.

Head to the GRSF website to get your tickets!  

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Links: The Great River Shakespeare Festival.

Shakespeare-Related Young Adult Fiction

Broach, Elise. Shakespeare's Secret. New York: Square Fish, 2007.

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Although I'm still partial to King of Shadows (for which, q.v.), I recently read a good Shakespeare-related novel for young adults. If you're an anti-Stratfordian, you'll like it. It's very heavy on the Oxfordian side. Of course, if you're an Oxfordian, you probably don't need any more encouragement, and you really ought to take a very careful look at the logic of your argument and the data available that will undermine your position.

But Bardfilm digresses. 

Apart from the usual presentation of the anti-Stratfordian position (which itself is erroneous, illogical, and irrational in places), Shakespeare's Secret is very well written. A diamond missing from a sixteenth-century broach (was it stolen by someone who knew it was there . . . or by its own owner, who collected the insurance money?) is at the center of this adventure story. Its protagonist is named Hero (her older sister is named Beatrice), and her father is an amiable Shakespeare scholar (though one who has imbibed too much of the Oxfordian position). It's a good book.

However, I can't recommend it without reservation—because a much better book is readily-available. Fortunately, it's by the same author.

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Broach, Elsie. Masterpiece. Illus. Kelly Murphy. New York: Henry Holt, 2008.

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Masterpiece is brilliant. It's not Shakespeare-related, but it should be recognized as marvelous nonetheless. It's the story of a boy and a beetle, and the beetle turns out to be a natural genius in pen-and-ink sketches. Eventually, the boy (they think he's doing the drawing) is commissioned to forge a drawing by Albrecht Dürer so that the art thieves can steal it instead of the genuine drawing. If I say any more, I'll give away some marvelous things. You should read this book at least—and you should give it to everyone you know, especially those with children. Even those as young as six or seven will be delighted to have you read either of these books out loud.

Although you may need to temper Shakespeare's Secret with a few lectures on the virtues of the Stratfordian position; the mantra "William Shakespeare wrote the plays attributed to William Shakespeare wrote the plays attributed to William Shakespeare wrote the plays attributed to William Shakespeare wrote the plays attributed to William Shakespeare" is a good starting place.

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(and to support Bardfilm as you do so).