Shakespeare on Toast | Mapping the Heart of a Speech | Explore Shakespeare with Ben Crystal | 18 mins @shakespeareontoast | Uploaded April 2021 | Updated October 2024, 38 minutes ago.
An 18 minute guide to a few of my very favourite tools to take apart a Shakespeare speech. Here I explore Macbeth's 'Is this a Dagger which I see before me....'
It’s easy to forget that Shakespeare wrote his characters as living breathing feeling people.
Find out how to break down the way a character thinks, what's important to them, and how they might be feeling about what they're saying.
Emotionally map the heart of a character, a tool I wish I'd invented!
*****
Lineage
This tool was passed to me from the brilliance of actor Emma Pallant (@pallantpallant), and Shakespeare's Globe Education (@The_Globe) ((these are Twitter links))
*****
Filming c/o David Crystal
Close captioning c/o Hilary Crystal
@bencrystal
bencrystal.com
*****
Here's the Folio version of the speech that I use in this video.
Macbeth
Goe bid thy Mistresse, when my drinke is ready,
She strike vpon the Bell. Get thee to bed.
Is this a Dagger, which I see before me,
The Handle toward my Hand? Come, let me clutch thee:
I haue thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not fatall Vision, sensible
To feeling, as to sight? or art thou but
A Dagger of the Minde, a false Creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed Braine?
I see thee yet, in forme as palpable,
As this which now I draw.
Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going,
And such an Instrument I was to vse.
Mine Eyes are made the fooles o'th' other Sences,
Or else worth all the rest: I see thee still;
And on thy Blade, and Dudgeon, Gouts of Blood,
Which was not so before. There's no such thing:
It is the bloody Businesse, which informes
Thus to mine Eyes. Now o're the one halfe World
Nature seemes dead, and wicked Dreames abuse
The Curtain'd sleepe: Witchcraft celebrates
Pale Heccats Offrings: and wither'd Murther,
Alarum'd by his Centinell, the Wolfe,
Whose howle's his Watch, thus with his stealthy pace,
With Tarquins rauishing sides, towards his designe
Moues like a Ghost. Thou sowre and firme-set Earth
Heare not my steps, which they may walke, for feare
Thy very stones prate of my where-about,
And take the present horror from the time,
Which now sutes with it. Whiles I threat, he liues:
Words to the heat of deedes too cold breath giues.
A Bell rings.
I goe, and it is done: the Bell inuites me.
Heare it not, Duncan, for it is a Knell,
That summons thee to Heauen, or to Hell.
*****
Filmed by David Crystal
Closed Captions c/o Hilary Crystal
An 18 minute guide to a few of my very favourite tools to take apart a Shakespeare speech. Here I explore Macbeth's 'Is this a Dagger which I see before me....'
It’s easy to forget that Shakespeare wrote his characters as living breathing feeling people.
Find out how to break down the way a character thinks, what's important to them, and how they might be feeling about what they're saying.
Emotionally map the heart of a character, a tool I wish I'd invented!
*****
Lineage
This tool was passed to me from the brilliance of actor Emma Pallant (@pallantpallant), and Shakespeare's Globe Education (@The_Globe) ((these are Twitter links))
*****
Filming c/o David Crystal
Close captioning c/o Hilary Crystal
@bencrystal
bencrystal.com
*****
Here's the Folio version of the speech that I use in this video.
Macbeth
Goe bid thy Mistresse, when my drinke is ready,
She strike vpon the Bell. Get thee to bed.
Is this a Dagger, which I see before me,
The Handle toward my Hand? Come, let me clutch thee:
I haue thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not fatall Vision, sensible
To feeling, as to sight? or art thou but
A Dagger of the Minde, a false Creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed Braine?
I see thee yet, in forme as palpable,
As this which now I draw.
Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going,
And such an Instrument I was to vse.
Mine Eyes are made the fooles o'th' other Sences,
Or else worth all the rest: I see thee still;
And on thy Blade, and Dudgeon, Gouts of Blood,
Which was not so before. There's no such thing:
It is the bloody Businesse, which informes
Thus to mine Eyes. Now o're the one halfe World
Nature seemes dead, and wicked Dreames abuse
The Curtain'd sleepe: Witchcraft celebrates
Pale Heccats Offrings: and wither'd Murther,
Alarum'd by his Centinell, the Wolfe,
Whose howle's his Watch, thus with his stealthy pace,
With Tarquins rauishing sides, towards his designe
Moues like a Ghost. Thou sowre and firme-set Earth
Heare not my steps, which they may walke, for feare
Thy very stones prate of my where-about,
And take the present horror from the time,
Which now sutes with it. Whiles I threat, he liues:
Words to the heat of deedes too cold breath giues.
A Bell rings.
I goe, and it is done: the Bell inuites me.
Heare it not, Duncan, for it is a Knell,
That summons thee to Heauen, or to Hell.
*****
Filmed by David Crystal
Closed Captions c/o Hilary Crystal
