Yes, maybe, Ken. And much of it cutting hard. I suspect you can still do a bit more, mainly finding a tone that skips lightly between the then & now of the discourse..., being there then somehow, while alluding to here now...
Doug
On Apr 10, 2014, at 6:53 PM, Kenneth Wolman <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Some (I hope) better focus, maybe less excess, a bit more bite to the sarcasm and disgust.
>
> ken
>
> THE DUKE OF ALBANY TELEPHONES KING LEAR
>
> Well, my King, my Liege Lord,
> congratulations, you're a grandfather.
> Goneril has had a daughter.
> Good sport at her making be damned,
> she got through it and the kid is born.
>
> Yes, you made quite a scene, didn't you.
> You wished sterility on her, you foul old fool.
> Know what we did? Went upstairs and fucked like mad,
> three or four times in a row.
> Nothing like blind rage to get a couple hot.
> We were like wolves, set to the act,
> and one of those times she conceived.
>
> Addled bastard, your curse was vain,
> you spat into your own face!
> The wind blew into you, monstrous!
> You were smeared with your own hate.
> Your curses are vain, you are vain.
> First you stupidly divide you kingdom
> so no one is in charge.
> Cornwall hates me his soul,
> and I'd not mourn him either, would I?
> Then you start to disinherit your children.
> Cordelia is over in France as Queen Regnant,
> and I've heard she is with child.
> And now you've turned on my wife
> because these men you're brought to serve you
> are drunken swine who rape the maids,
> so I must go out of pocket
> to find them worthy husbands
> who'll accept your damaged goods!
>
> Will our child be of spleen,
> a torment to Goneril and to me?
> Can we know? can you, old man?
> Are your wishes actions in the world,
> God-ordained acts of fate
> brought down upon my house,
> robbing us of you
> as we rob you now of our child?
>
> My King, my Liege Lord, did your parents love you?
> Did your father beat the life from you,
> thinking it was Hell he drove from your body?
> Did your mother refuse you the tit
> and turn nursing to some milkmaid,
> half filled with cheap wine when she nursed?
> What else accounts for the father you've become?
> Do you think you'll ever see my daughter?
>
> Maybe your daughter again, at some progress,
> looking past you to the greater distance
> but our daughter, never, only in Heaven's face
> a face like the man in the moon,
> unrelenting, cold, forever distant.
>
Douglas Barbour
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