Lear Is Here

"The Plague of Masters," XV.

In order to hold the attention of Nias Warouw and his Guards, Flandry, their prisoner, recites:

"'Pillicock sat on Pillicock-hill...'" (p. 139)

We find, if we did not know already, which I did not, that this speech is from King Lear. See here.

Next, he cries:

"'Take heed o' the foul fiend...'" (ibid.)

- which, we learn, are Edgar's next words in King Lear. See here. 

Finally:

"'This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet...'" (ibid.)

 - which, again, Edgar says soon afterwards in King Lear. See the second link above.

Neither Anderson's text nor the attached image name the author of King Lear, which is surely superfluous. Nevertheless, I had read "The Plague of Masters" several times without knowing that Flandry's three gibberish speeches share a single famous source.

Some Literary Links

See King Lear in Poul Anderson's works here.

In Shakespeare's King Lear, a character disguises himself as Tom O'Bedlam.

The Tom O'Bedlam poem includes the phrase, "...a knight of ghosts and shadows..." which became an Anderson title.

The character posing as Tom in King Lear speaks the line:

"Child Roland to the Dark Tower came..."

- which became the title and concluding line of a poem by Robert Browning.

A "Dark Tower" recurs in the titles of many other works, including The Dark Tower by CS Lewis which is Lewis' response to The Time Machine. Lewis' characters argue against the possibility of physical time travel as described by Wells, Anderson and others.

Tom O'Bedlam is not to be confused with Tom Fool.

Literary links run in every direction but let's stop there.

A Midsummer Tempest II

I cannot disagree with any of Prince Rupert's confession of faith, which I here re-present as verse:

"I try to be a proper Protestant,
"Yet not cast off what's good from olden time.
"I'd liefer hear a service than a rant;
"I do not think my Romish friends are damned,
"Nor that 'tis right to persecute the Jews;
"I'd hang no helpless granny for a witch."

(A Midsummer Tempest, London, 1975, pp. 12-13)

Because, in the timeline of A Midsummer Tempest, Shakespeare was the great Historian, it follows that pre-Roman Britons knew that the Earth is round: King Lear knew of "...the thick rotundity of the world..."

But how did Shakespeare know that Lear knew that? The Puritan character, Shelgrave, argues in a circle:

Shakespeare describes English people at Troy, in Theseus' Athens, in Rome, later in Italy and in Denmark;

it follows that the English spread north, having had to leave some southern country;

but the Bible reveals that the people who spread north, having had to leave a southern country, were the ten lost tribes of Israel;

it follows that the English are God's chosen people;

therefore, "...they always kept a seed of truth alive, which flowered in the great Historian..." (p. 22);

it follows from this that Shakespeare's description of English people at Troy etc is accurate.

I bought a second hand book on Anglo-Israel theory, published at the height of the British Empire, which argued:

the "Tuatha de Danaan" people who entered prehistoric Ireland were the tribe of Dan;

the Irish/Scoti colonized the part of Britain that came to be called "Scotland" (true);

King James VI of Scotland became King James I of England (true).

Therefore:

Queen Victoria was in direct line of succession from David and Solomon;

the British are the Chosen People;

the British Empire fulfills the promise to Abraham that his descendants will be a great nation and that others will die out;

the British Empire will never end.

The argument is endlessly elaborated:

British possession of Mediterranean ports fulfills a Biblical prophecy about "gates";
the United States plays the role of "Manasseh";
etc.

Rupert's and my "Romish friends" believe that St Peter was the first Bishop of Rome, therefore that the present Pope is the direct successor of the chief disciple of the incarnation of God. Anglo-Israel theory put Queen Victoria in a similar position. As a direct successor of David, she was a divinely appointed monarch. Geoffry of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain instead traces British royalty back to Troy.

Ethiopians have claimed a Solomonic monarchy, the Ark of the Covenant and the Messiah. These are powerful myths.

Lear

"Un-Man," IX, p. 64.

On the run, Naysmith quotes from King Lear. All the Brothers are Shakespeare fans although I do not think that that can be in the genes.

I heard myself proclaimed,

And by the happy hollow of a tree

Escaped the hunt. No port is free, no place

That guard and most unusual vigilance

Does not attend my taking.
-copied from here.

A future history shares with us our cultural and literary past.

Guests In The Old Phoenix II

Poul Anderson, A Midsummer Tempest (London, 1975), Chapter xii.

Holger Carlsen:

"'...was born in - a universe where the Carolingian myths are true...'" (p. 102);

was cast into a timeline where magic does not work and where World War II was fought against Germany;

is trying to find his way home with a spell that takes him between universes but without any direction;

"'...barely escaped'" from "'...a clutch of Aztec gods...'" (ibid.);

from hints and clues, has found his way to the Old Phoenix.

When Rupert speaks of Hamlet and Macbeth as contemporaries of each other and of cannon in Hamlet's time and claims to have met Oberon and Titania, Valeria asks him:

Did Romeo and Juliet, King Lear, Falstaff and Othello exist?
Was there a University of Wittenberg in Hamlet's time?
Were there striking clocks in Caesar's time?
Was Richard III "'...really a hunchbacked monster?'" (p. 104)
Did Bohemia have a sea coast?
Does witchcraft work?
Does Rupert know of William Shakespeare?

Rupert knows of Shakespeare as "'...the great Historian.'" (p. 105)

Richard III was hunchbacked in our timeline. See here. (But also see Comments.)

The skeleton, which had several unusual physical features, most notably a severe curvature of the back was exhumed to allow scientific analysis. (copied) 

Who Is Real?

We find that this blog includes several posts on the theme of "fiction within fiction." They came up on a blog search here.

In Poul Anderson's The Corridors Of Time, Malcolm Lockridge refers to James Bond as a fictional character. An early indication that Storm Darroway is not native to the second half of the twentieth century is that she has to ask who Bond is. 

In Anderson's "Time Patrol," Manse Everard meets a Victorian private investigator whom we recognize. This is one detail in which the Time Patrol universe differs overtly from ours.

In the timeline of Anderson's A Midsummer Tempest, Hamlet, Macbeth, Oberon, Titania, Romeo, Juliet, King Lear, Falstaff and Othello existed, there were cannon and a University of Wittenberg in Hamlet's time and clocks in Caesar's time, Richard III was a hunchbacked monster, Bohemia had a seacoast and witchcraft works.

In Anderson's There Will Be Time:

Jack Havig refers to Superman as a fictional character;

Anderson's Maurai stories and There Will Be Time are works of fiction;

a real time traveller gives the time travel idea to a nineteenth century English writer.

In Neil Gaiman's The Sandman: The Wake, Clark Kent, disliking dreams in which he is an actor in a bad TV version of his life, asks his companions whether they get those. The Batman asks doesn't everyone and the Martian Manhunter replies that he doesn't.

Imaginative writers turn reality inside out. One character is referred to by different names in There Will Be Time and in The Sandman: The Wake.

Britons

In "Time Patrol," Manse Everard and Charlie Whitcomb arrive at Addleton Barrow on a summer midnight in 464 AD.

"'Cultivated fields,' observed Whitcomb. His voice was hushed in the stillness. 'The Jutes and Saxons were mainly yeomen, you know, who came here looking for land. Imagine the Britons were pretty well cleared out of this area some years ago.'" (Time Patrol, p. 30)

Two observations here:

Cultivated fields are a far cry from the first century European wilderness that Everard will experience much later in his career. That wilderness was inhabited by these invaders of Britain.

Angles, Saxons and Jutes displaced the Britons to the South East and North West and bestowed the name "England" so how did the term "British" later come to signify the dominant culture in this island? When James VI of Scotland became James I of England, thus uniting the two kingdoms, he claimed to be restoring a lost Arthurian British unity as described in Geoffrey of Monmouth's work of historical fiction, The History Of The Kings Of Britain, which recounts the Britons' Trojan ancestry and consequent kinship with the Romans and lists not only Arthur but also Lear and Old King Cole as Kings of Britain.

Poul and Karen Anderson tackled a similar legendary history in The King Of Ys.

New Characters From Old Legends

Imaginative writers sometimes transform already existing legendary or historical figures into entirely new dramatic or fictional characters as Shakespeare did with Lear, Hamlet and Macbeth.

Poul Anderson did this with the pagan prophetess, Veleda, in "Star of the Sea" and Poul and Karen Anderson also did it with King Gradlon in The King Of Ys. I find it instructive to compare the Wikipedia articles about these legendary protagonists with characters bearing their names and featuring in twentieth century works of fiction.

Later: First, we realize how much of a story was already there. Secondly, we appreciate the authors' abilities to create qualitatively new stories and, more importantly, characters from pre-existent materials.