Monday, September 27, 2010

Poem for Monday and Maryland Renaissance Festival

Macbeth Act IV, Scene 1
By William Shakespeare


Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd.
Thrice and once the hedge-pig whined.
Harpier cries 'Tis time, 'tis time.

Round about the cauldron go;
In the poison’d entrails throw.
Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights hast thirty one
Swelter’d venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i’ the charmed pot.

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder’s fork, and blind-worm’s sting,
Lizard’s leg, and howlet’s wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witches’ mummy, maw and gulf
Of the ravin’d salt-sea shark,
Root of hemlock digg’d i’ the dark,
Liver of blaspheming Jew,
Gall of goat, and slips of yew
Sliver’d in the moon’s eclipse,
Nose of Turk, and Tartar’s lips,
Finger of birth-strangled babe
Ditch-deliver’d by a drab,
Make the gruel thick and slab:
Add thereto a tiger’s chaudron,
For the ingredients of our cauldron.

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

--------

Despite an inauspicious rainy morning, we spent a wonderful Sunday -- and Daniel's birthday -- at the Maryland Renaissance Festival with Paul's parents and Dementordelta! Originally the rain wasn't supposed to arrive until late afternoon, so we have a flurry of phone calls and text messages early to make sure everyone was up for the faire in raine or shine, and since everyone was, we drove to Crownsville under dark and gloomy skies. It was quite damp when we got there -- we watched Fight School with rain falling and ate lunch at tables with wet seats -- but by the time we got to the Squire of the Wire, it had cleared up, and by the early afternoon joust, the sun was out.

We saw lots of shows -- Hack & Slash, Shakespeare's Skum (doing Macbeth, Fight School: Reloaded -- and caught pieces of others, like the musicians and dancers of Wine & Alchemy and the acrobatic Aerial Angels. We also ate lots -- various people had loaded baked potatoes, macaroni and cheese on a stick, cheesecake on a stick, soup bowls, falafel, gyros, sweet potato pie, turkey legs, crab cakes, cinnamon almonds, and probably other things I'm forgetting. I bought an awesome little Grichels canvas purse named Dryped, a bat-wing barrette -- I didn't wear my big peacock-feather barrette since it was so rainy in the morning -- and a pretty bead bracelet that matched my borrowed bodice (and cost $9, so who could resist). And we ran into Treewishes and King Henry VIII!


Me and Delta by Adam after the rain had begun to mess up our hair.


The official Faire weather forecasting stone made us grateful that at least there wasn't a tornado.


When I took this photo, Daniel and Grandpa Clair were still dressed for the morning weather...


...which forced Fight School to reduce their early demonstrations from Fight Speed to Rain Speed to avoid hurting anyone.


It was dry enough for Michael Rosman, the Squire of the Wire, to juggle knives while standing above the audience on a cable...


...and by the time the jousters took the field, there wasn't even a lot of mud. (Maryland is having an early fall drought that we're hoping Monday's predicted all-day rain will alleviate.)


By the time we saw Wine & Alchemy, the sun was brilliant in the background.


But it had set by the time we crossed paths with the King and his men while we were leaving Revel Grove.

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