Talk given to the Radical Anthropology Group at Daryll Forde Seminar Room, Anthropology Building, 14 Taviton Street, London WC1H 0BW on 14 June 2016. Camilla Power proposes an historical analysis of the British Royal Coat of Arms takes us through Shakespeare’s Falstaff to the origins of sexual comedy in the African Middle Stone Age. Dr Camilla Power teaches at UEL and is the author of numerous scholarly articles. Her interests are Darwinian models of the evolution of culture with special focus on African hunter-gatherer cosmology and gender ritual; evolution of language, art and ritual in modern humans; Neanderthal symbolic behaviour; beauty; sexual selection; cosmetics; red ochre; pigments; initiation; early human kinship.
The last time I did this talk was in the aftermath of having been banged up in lewisham jail for 25 hours during the day of the royal wedding so it was done with feeling um with to dissect and decode um the English Monarchy and to reveal what lies at the heart of the
English Royal coat of arms but more of that later um I’m going to start by quoting Fred Eng Les who wrote to KL Marx there is more life and reality in the First Act of the merry wives of Windsor alone than in all German literature great so um he obviously had
A very high opinion of this play um Engel the author of the origins of the the families um private property in the state um had an unerring instinct for sexual communism wherever it lurked um in Shakespeare’s play it it appears that he’s having well he’s having lots of fun
With these pompous husbands who are trying to assert their proprietorial rights over their errant wives um but the drama is actually celebrating women’s Collective if not Uprising a Carnival Freedom and um it’s ritually potent laughter Riot rituals of license um subversion of the established order which used to be called misrule by the
Powers that be you according to the powers that be it’s Mis rule yeah comedy in its formal dramatic sense has its roots in popular ritual action and ritual Uprising and most especially the female kind and we talked before Easter about this estrata some of you may have
Heard that talk and this talk is like the um the kin the the brother talk to that one because it has um many of the same structural aspects as Lisa strata so my hero is the mysterious figure of full staff who’s one of the great creations of English literature a
Demiurge leader of Riot who know matter how ridiculous he seems he’s also numinous he’s tinged with something Divine his appetites are all inspiring for food for drink for wine for sex Fair hot wenches in flame colored taeter his dedication to the pleasures of the flesh
Is religious um he is himself a hill of Flesh so described by a royal wannabe um Prince how you know the these are the upstart royalty and really the reason why Prince Hal is always hanging around full staff is he he needs full staff’s he needs full staff’s power to
Become a legitimate King um he’s called also meat the sweet PE beef the sweet beef that people eat now I’m casting F staff in the role of Luna trickster and I’m going to bring out the characteristics he has which conforms to a really ancient type of trickster one
Which would be recognizable to the Bushman I’ve talked quite a few times at rag about the Luna the Bushman trickster um but that’s not all there is to full staff he got this layering which is really really ancient deep down coming out of sort of hunter gatherer
Structures but he’s also he’s a protein being he’s changing his shape all the time um and he’s got a whole history of power and state power and kingship um the the the history of the English kingship all behind him some literary critics who who might have a you know a
Bit of a knowledge of James Fraser smattering of of Fraser in anthropology they have actually homed in on the fact that F staff um is some form of he’s he he’s got aspects of the so-called Divine kingship um they see his role in the Henry IV plays the chronicle plays as a
Mock king or sometimes called interrex um and obviously he’s defined in those plays in terms of his relations to royalty the ritual sequences of the Henry IV um Chronicles are enacted between for staff and Prince how on fields of combat they’re actually um f fighting out the battles for the English
Kingship on fields of combat and and that of course is the way that Divine kingships uh also tend to be structured um that there would be these mock battles between um the sort of interx who’s holding the royal power and the the real incoming new power of the king
Um there is one particular scene which is quite remarkable it’s worth mention the gads hill robbery um which comes oh it’s Henry IV I can’t remember it’s part one or two um but it’s thank you and bardolph there is bemoaning the fact that what’s happened is is full staff’s
Motly crew have fled the scene of battle they’re so cowardly um and bardol is bemoaning the fact that he’s been made to shove spear grass up his nose to make himself look as though he’s been in a Battlefield now I don’t know how Shakespeare did it but he is
Understanding the anthropology of papan guini initiation rights and the hadza for instance who I’ve worked with do this no nose bleeding to pretend to bleed well they are bleeding kind of thing so it this is a deliberate reference to male initiation ritual uh the nose bleeding so there are ritual
Aspects there that are just quite close to the surface um Jack and the bean stalk of course is perhaps the the the nearest um that we’d have in English law now in the merry wives play the ritual sequences come between fof and the women the merry wives themselves but even in
That play he’s occupying a territory of of royalty um he’s a kind of aonic power um Genius of the English Kingdom and that word aonic is the right word um implying that he’s indigenous he’s born of that very Earth um and this is frequently found in the structures of
African I I use a lot of comparison with African Divine kingship because I know a lot about the Royal ritual of Africa and um you get this structure of the in the the aonis king the original sort of King that belonged to the Earth has this aspect of riotous the drunken King is
Often called whereas the incoming New Kings are that they’re coming from outside they’re foreigners and they’re coming to conquer the peoples of that that land but in order to take over the legitimate kingship they have to get the power by one means or another from this indigenous um poten the potency comes
From the Indy and F star represents that and this the F star of the merry Wives has all these contradictions he is both the cuckolder he’s the one who’s supposed to be seducing the husbands wives um but he’s also the cuckold he’s uh he he keeps flipping between one and
The other with you know there’s there’s no clear distinction he is also both the wild Huntsman and he’s the hunted Beast so it’s like dial these opposite contradictions the unity of opposites is is his characteristic like a trickster now the sex strike logic um which I’m hoping nearly everybody here has some
Understanding about are there some people who don’t know that at all Luni I hope by this stage we’ve just about got that the sex strike logic of the lunar template with that side ritual power all the terms that associate with ritual power um the waxing moon seclusion because you’re in a menstrual seclusion
Eclipse thunder noise Rebellion death Etc incest particularly um bleeding rawness taboo animal mask gender inversion all that is the is the um the source of the trickster’s power effectively trickster really expresses the oscillation between these two phases in my view and F sta is doing that um and
If you take the sex strike logic then it’s quite clear and I will argue that by the end of the piece it’s quite clear why there shouldn’t be any distinction the man who’s the Huntsman is also the hunted Beast the man who cck holds is also uh the C holder they’re both
They’re both things so these are all different ways of expressing ritual power um but what is extraordinary is how is how this ritual syntax has been preserved just so perfectly um in very in high art High literate Productions elaborate literary Creations produced by genius you Shakespeare um respecting the syntax and
He doesn’t waver he he gets it exactly right um and the level of fidelity here is really impressive because it stretches over thousands of years because um my my sort of the the poll that’s holding up the tent is this Elizabeth and comedy the merry wives but
Last um before Easter last term I was talking about L estrata with Aristophanes and they really are equivalent plays they’re showing absolutely same structure um so I’m going to go back on to the ancient Greek comedy the fifth century um Athens the DIC festivals of the attic Greece uh of
Attic Greece which is where comedy the word actually comes from um and using Aristophanes Lata The Comedy of the sex strike as a a template I can show there are really close parallels with Mary wives both are comedies of women in subversive action the marry wives is remarkable because
Women are W they really win all way down the line um they organize everything they pull wool over the men’s eyes they remain merry honest and full of laughter I also though project the drama forward 300 years to the Italian operatic version their d fall staff of
1893 and that was set to a libretto by a a real genius arigo boo um now Levy stros says that every retelling of a myth is equally valid um and in that case Boo’s full staff is actually the consumate version um Boo’s liberetto is sparkling every single word counts whereas
Actually Shakespeare was it wasn’t his best day necessarily he has his good bits but some of it’s a bit lackluster um so um boo fleshes out his full staff the merry wives full staff is is much more a stock figure compared to the the rich the Deep character of The Fall St
Of the chronicle plays Henry IV 1 and two um so boo Imports the rich and very poignant speeches that come in the chronicle plays and brings them mails them into the plot of Mary wives with the with ‘s um fantastic music um so this this gives his full staff a great
Powerful presence um and it and he crystallizes the ritual structure um he pairs everything down to its all the inessential parts are taken out and it it gives you the perfect that sort of the dark and light of this syntax exactly with precision and they knew how
Fantastic it was with very’s music they realized it was magic it was devilish boo called it touch it and it burns he said um so it really really had a a genius to it Shakespeare’s sources are much debated and they’re very various um but they work together because of the
Ritual syntax there are classical sources like ovid’s Metamorphoses with myths especially the myth of Acton I don’t know how many people can remember recall the myth of Acton um guy who’s a hunter hunter who never has sex with anyone has a pack of hounds and spies on the goddess emis and
Her nymphs who are bathing in a pool um and Artemis in her Roth um turns him into a stag and of course he gets hunted so this reversal the man who’s the hunter becomes the hunted Beast torn apart by his hounds so this is Acton we’ll come back to
Acton um and then there’s Jo or Jupiter Zeus and europi um and that was the the story we’ll refer to it again the bull J that emerges from the sea as a beautiful bull europi loves this bull garlands it and suddenly the bull whisk takes her up
And carries her off into the sea across the H spont and this is the the the sort of source myth of Europe the name of Europe um but it as besides these classical sources he’s got this local Windsor Legend and it is really a local and Indigenous Legend of Hearn the
Hunter um and full staff is disguised in the final act as Hearn the hunter we’ll say more and then the English sources the real English sources are Mama’s Place um these are seasonal ritual folk dramas which were particularly played at Christmas time there were rituals of license feasts of fools um when rustic
Revelers would have a go at their betters and make mock mockery of the church and the aristocracy now there’s there is pretty close equivalence of the ancient Athenian what were called kooy the rude choruses of diania revelers who in ancient afca who took the piss of the Athenian aristocracy with horse playay and
Crossdressing and it was really wrong sex wrong species masquerade so animal mask and gender inversion is all down in there um and I would say that the Mama’s play stands in the same relation to uh Shakespeare’s comedy as the old kooy the old DC rituals um it stood in to
Aristophanes’s very polished literary comedy of the fifth century um Athens and added into this there were sort of Italian sources Roman comedy stock characters Tuscan stories um which Shakespeare kept he always kept nicking Pico’s plots and so forth now full staff of the merry wives is really a stock figure he’s the butt
Of all the jokes he’s not very interesting um unless we remember the full staff of Henry IV part one and two but at the level that I’m discussing which is the ritual episodes and the Illusions to Ritual there’s actually a lot of overlap between the four star of
The chronical and the for of the Windsor play um and it’s especially in this character of the lunar trickster trickster’s cunning wiy immoral irrepressible um they never give up these are the chief characteristics of the Henry IV F St who lives on his wits and ill-gotten gains of his um cupers
Cronies for all the lowlife sleeves of the borsh Head Tavern he is the instructor and Sage teacher of the prince his very first scene with how in Henry ivth part one establishes lunar Time and Tide as his governing Rhythm we that take purses go by the
Moon and the Seven Stars and not by Feebas sweet wag when thou art king let not us that our Squires of the knight’s body be called thieves of the day’s Beauty let us be Diana’s Foresters Gentlemen of the shade minions of the Moon and let men say we be men of good
Government being governed as the sea is by our Noble and chaste mistress the moon under whose countenance we steal and it’s um again I don’t know how where where does Shakespeare get it from it’s like he’s got exact the hunt gatherer logic of demand sharing redistribution of wealth in
Accordance with the phases of the moon um Diana’s for you can’t say it say it more perfectly more poetically and then Prince Hal Echoes the same sort of chorus back the fortune of us that are the moon’s men do EB and flow like the sea being governed as the SE is by the
Moon um if you remember the scene about the death of FAL staff it’s also titled this very poignant scene where F staff doesn’t appear in Henry V but the report of his death is makes this this beautiful um sort of emotional um very um you what’s the right nostalgic picture
Um but it’s spoken as Ian just between 12 and one in at the Turning of the tide is when fto dies he’s he’s dying at the tide of the Tide’s turn the notion of ebbing and flowing waxing and waning is underlying the imagery of this huge size for all his
Solidity full star fears he may dissolve and melt away like butter or grease he’s referred to as Tallow his followers live upon his substance and threaten to eat him up he’s referred to as meat there seems to be anxiety about lean times ahead when Prince H’s teasing Here Comes
Jack here sorry Here Comes lean Jack here comes bebone and asks how long is It Go Jack since thou ceas thine own knee fof says my own knee when I was about thy years hell I was not an Eagle’s Talon in the waist I could have crept into an Alderman’s Thung ring a
Plague of sighing and grief it blows a man up like a bladder and this is just at the moment when he’s about to introduc the news of rebellion and rottenness in the body politic the Kingdom so the idea that the the the tricks of the the body of this
Great sort of demiurge is also the body of the Kingdom in some sense growth and Decay cyclical logic of swelling and shrinking characterize Le trickster law all over the world give a koan Bushman example oh sorry it’s not Bushman it’s Nama k k um they have trickster hero heit who
Starts as a really small child being carried by his mother but he suddenly grows huge and because he’s grown so huge he takes advantage of his size to throw her down and rape her um but then he comes back to his original size and this was a story which the German
Philologist um Han identified as describing the lunar cycle it has lunar characteristic the this growing and shrinking um in the southern Bushman concept of lunar phases the the new moon is addressed um is addressed by hunters um with prayers for bringing luck to the hunt but the moon is it becomes big and
Fat um is a figure of fun and it’s conceived of as an enlarging stomach so at the time of New Moon you’re hungry and you want the luck and the light of the moon for your hunting but by the time of Full Moon you should have brought the animal back and should be
Able to eat it four star’s stomach is just exactly the same kind of subject of ridicule um but this fatness also has aspect of sacred potency it’s not fanciful to think of ff’s fat as the same as the fat of the Eland bull the Eland bull being the central motif of the monarchal
Ritual the first menstruation ritual of the Bushman um uh groups so when he first appears in um with his Stags horns right at the end end the last Act of Mary wives he says I am here a windsor stag and the fattest I think the forest he threatens to piss
His Tallow which is obviously something pretty obscene um referring to his sexual proclivities but it’s also actually referring to the way that Stags waste away during the rutting season they never eat anything all they do is have sex um and that’s a perfect Luna logic you start as fat as possible and
Then you get and get thinner and thinner and thinner on the on that side of the lunar logic you’re you’re starting very fat and you get thinner and thinner and thinner as you go back down um because you’re having so much sex and you’re not hunting and getting more
Meat um for staff is also called Ox a town ball a boar and he mocks himself he says I do hear will walk before thee like a s that hath overwhelmed all her litter but one and in means his little page who’s following after him like a
Piglet full staff conforms to wrong sex wrong species um logic his fatness has female connotation which it does also in Bushman conception at one point in Henry IV part two he calls his stomach a womb with a ristic repetition my womb my womb my womb undoes me and that idea traces
To the Mama’s plays where they have um false wounds often being um made fun with in the Opera lto boo makes great play of this thinness fatness opposition and one of the very first Aras he brings in a section of that womb speech full staf addresses his subjects bardolf and Pistol you’re
Eating up my substance if F staff ever got thin he wouldn’t be himself nobody would love him in this great abdomen are the thousand tongues that Proclaim my name this is my my kingdom I’ll make it Greater now the moon itself is actually quite absent from the text of the marry
Wise but of course the entire final scene is dedicated to Moonshine rry and the moon’s so much part of the scenery that it’s hardly necessary to refer to boo though he where even where Shakespeare doesn’t have it he brings in Luna themes as a motif all the way
Through the labretto and ver has this beautiful musical um motive going with that and it’s very deliberate interweaving old Tusk and Proverbs on the Reviving powers of the Moon um and Shakespeare doesn’t have have this they’ve they’ve done that themselves and it’s exactly right so I’m going to try
And expound the plot of the merry wives as lunar menstrual logic so I’m focusing on the ritual structure and I’m boiling it down just like Boo did and leaving out incidental scenes they’re not so interesting the dealings between fall staff and the women are what give ritual action at the
Core of the comedy um there’s two spheres of action there’s the men’s and the women’s and until the end of the play they aren’t actually brought together um the scheming and machination among the men who are a mly c crew they have no interest in common um they’re fraudulent deceptive cheating on each
Other very competitive the only thing that tenuously unites them is gripes against FSE stuff the women by contrast are genuinely Cooperative um so we have Mistresses Paige and Ford and the sort of um you motherly um women still quite um sexy and attractive uh the wives themselves and
The older go between the gossip mistress quickley and then the Young Beauty and Page who’s been he’s on the not third from the right third from the left some conflict is going on between the mother and daughter about when she’s going to marry but apart from that
There’s a real loyalty amongst the women they share the information they act together they’re working as a coalition of the men Justice shallow has complaints against full star’s riotous Behavior Knight you’ve beaten my men killed my deer and broken open my lo my lodges to which Full Staff retorts but
Not kissed your Keeper’s daughter slender shallows nephew one of the three suitors for the beus and Page has had his pocket picked by one of f staff’s men but even f staff’s c P turn against him when he’s almost out at Heels Pistol and Nim refuse to carry
Letters to the wives whom for staff plans to seduce um in order to get at the husband’s money boxes when for staff throws them out pistol revenges himself by going to Ford the jealous husband and spilling F staf’s plans he raises the ugly Spectre of cuckoldry one of the
Insistent themes of the play and it’s it’s symbolized by horns and by the mythical name of Acton now we can think a bit later why Acton should be associated with cuckoldry because actually Acton was never married to anybody and he never seduced anybody he was a sex strike
Hunter so Ford is disguised as Master Brook and he goes to F staff engaging in false plots to test his own wife’s Fidelity F St just can’t believe his luck he’s going to get paid by Ford to put his plans of Seduction of Ford’s wife into operation okay um but this
Chicanery backfires on both men four staffs made a fool of by the women as a fat old leer who couldn’t possibly be attractive to them while Ford is made a fool of for his excessive jealousy and suspicion um so this is what Ford has to say I will rather trust a Fleming with
My butter Parson Hugh the Welshman with my cheese an Irishman with my Acra bottle or a thief with my ambling to walk my ambling gelding than my wife with herself okay well stereotypes rule there okay you racist sexist as bad as it gets um f stuff and Ford are really
Alter Egos and there’s an uncertainty running through the whole play about who’s really the cuckold who wears the horns at the level of its surface there’s a sort of boura morality pervading that’s trying to protect the marriage bond in the play um but that’s a completely in denial of what’s going
On at the structural level um much as the women protest outrage at F staff’s attempts on their virtue actually the whole comedy is generated by the women making repeated plans to come into contact with full staff in a series of increasingly dodgy circumstances at the same time um the
Contact gets disrupted between husband and wife so it’s the jealousy of the husband that’s the real threat to the women’s well-being and especially to Alice Fords so I’ll just go through the the fundamental episodes the four episodes which represent these contacts between F stuff and the women so first of
All he writes identical Love Letters to Alice Ford and make page the women compare notes and are absolutely outraged to see it’s exactly the same but for the names have been changed it’s like a corporate letter it’s been sent to them I warrant he have a thousand of
These letters WR with blank space for different names yeah sure more and there they are of the second edition he’ll print them out of out of Doubt for he cares not what he puts into the Press when he would put us to no the chief objection of the women
To for Stuff seems to be such a big fat ugly whale rather than moral principles but anyway they decide to comp to conspire to humiliate um this would beef landra let us consult together against this greasy night now what I’m going to do is take I’m I’m not going to prove it
Too much to you but I’m going to take as as kind of given that these identical letters are messages from a moon husband F staff is a lunar trickster he should woo all women with the same message the message of blood he comes to visit the women with when he when menstrating just
As in with Aila uh women’s biggest husband is the moon um all the the women are dallying with the moon husband doesn’t matter if they’re rich or poor if they’re high or low if they’re young or old as pistol says he cours all women so do the subsequent meetings between
Fall star and the and the wives have a menstrual Luna character and yes I think there’s no doubt that they do the second episode um we show the for this is the one of the laundry basket Alice Ford has made an assignation with for staff at her house when her jealous husband’s
Gone away but for staff in his conspiracy with Ford the husband of Alice as Brook has given away the information about the meeting to Ford so Meg page runs scurrying in to tell Alice her husband’s coming with a posy of men from Windsor to expose his wife’s
Infidelity so the women hide full staff in the only place big enough a giant laundry basket covering him over with piles of dirty linen a great deal is made of the stinking villainous quality of this linen so I think it’s pretty reasonable to um accept it as a euphemism for menstrual
Rags as the men rush in women order the servants to carry this huge heavy basket to the temps leaving the men to search in vain for staf gets thrown into the temps like a barrow of butcher aul he tells Ford’s Brook how he was rammed in with foul shirts and smoks socks the
Rankest compound of villainous smell that ever offended nostrils and he was cooked in this grease think of that a man of my kidney think of that that am a subject to heat as butter was melting again um a man of continual dissolution and and Thor it was a
Miracle to escape Suffocation and in the height of this bath when I was cooled glowing hot in that surge like a horseshoe think of that hissing hot think of that Master Brook remember Master Brook’s name is the brook yeah um and so the women Co the the the fire of
Fall staff’s lust Boo in the Opera makes a beautiful drama out of the laundry basket scene the men come in hunting down full staff as the Beast it’s already a hunting metaphor there everyone is confused because there’s the young lovers an with her boyfriend Fenton behind the screens they’re making
These squelchy kissing noises and they all jump onto Fenton thinking that it’s full stuff meanwhile fall staff is sweltering the basket next to a fireplace getting cooked before he gets soaked so we’ve got fire water boo plays this fire against water perfectly exactly jealous Ford and his wife are
Confronting each other across this laundry basket which is full of the dirty linen the menstrual Rags so we he and he says foul woman hell with these Rags proper marital so it really is menstrual Rags disrupting the marriage the women are getting the bit between their teeth by now I know not
Which pleases me better says Alice Ford that my husband’s deceived or S John so they decide to pull the trick again making another assignation through quickly so the third one is the episode of The Witch of brenford this time when Meg runs in to say for forward’s coming they can’t find
A hiding place there’s no Escape so they have to disguise full staff as an Old Woman This Witch of brenford um whom Ford absolutely hates Ford comes in and he makes the source the servants empty out all the laundry baskets just in case Meg comes down with the old witch
Dressed up in a huge gown Ford flies into a rage and runs for stff as the witch out of the house beating him black and blue with a cudgel now according to sex right logic in the ritual phase each sex should acquire the attributes of the other um
So it’s wrong sex is the logic so gender is ambiguous in the ritual phase um so this is absolutely appropriate gender of power cross cressing W St acting the old witch from now on the women then start to involve the men in their plans and they shame Ford into giving up his
Stupid jealousy and they start to conspire together to bring P fff’s public downfall in the very final scene the fairy scene the Moonshine rivalry and this is happens again because of the promise of a meeting with Alice um so full staff is going to be lured to Hearns Oak in Windsor Forest at
Midnight between 12 and 1 this Witching Hour in a disguise as the aonomus hunter Hearn the hunter with the Stags horns and a rattling chain he’s going to be set upon by a whole company of fairies and elves hob goo Goins Jack and apes pinched and burned tormented and scared out of his
Wits until he gives up his Wicked and fering ways Ford gets his opportunity to say well who now wears the horns there’s a a subplot that goes on um about the marriage of Anne page her parents both want her to marry each each parent wants her to marry a different
Sutor and they’re arranging for her to be disguised in a particular color so that the desired son-in-law can sneak off with Anne to get married um but of course she outwits them by changing um by eloping with her her lover Fenton and leaving little boys disguised in the
Fairy gown that she’s supposed to be wearing so we get we end up with a wrong sex marriage as well now this scene of the Moonshine rry is is Rich with ritual and mythical Illusions we’ve got the oak um the black hunter horned Gods the references to the
G which I’m going to finish up with um the G being the potent emblem of the English kingship but at the general level I just want to say in these contacts between full staff and the women the whole gender of power logic is operating wrong sex wrong species bloody
Time the time of menstruation expressed in these repeated episodes he’s treated as a a menstrual rag he’s thrown like dirty linen into the river he’s feminized but he’s a richly potent female a witch um and he becomes the hunted Beast to to be devoured now as soon as I saw that
Structure I realized that I’d seen it before in aristophanes’s very famous comedy of um the sex strike lysistrata um and I talked about L estrata anybody who remembers from last term um we went through these episodes then the points of comparison are really exact um it’s not just a sort of generic
Or vague similarity it it’s it’s a tight comparison um so L estrata represents a a tradition that belonged to Greek comedies of women’s rule with a world turned upside down and women taking over power um in the merry wives we have a sort of mild Elizabethan version of that
It’s is not so Grand in its cause as LZ strata going on strike to stop the war between Athens and Sparta but a strong hypothesis would be that all true comedy has some kind of combination of these tricks and if you think about the traditions of pantomine that that strongly um
Correlates so we have a women’s conspiracy um with the letters and in listata the swearing The Sisterhood over the bottles the the sacrifice of the wine bottle the wine um cast we have full staff being ducked in the temps with the dirty linen the after being
Cooked um so women wetting males and in lysistrata was this battle between the the women in the chorus who poured cold water on the Torches that the men the old men of the chorus were trying to bring to burn down the Acropolis um and we have particularly the crossdressing of the male
Antagonists um full staff as a witch of brenford but it is precisely comparable to the magistrate the proos who’s who gets veiled by the women who are on sex strike um then driven away beaten away from the Acropolis with cudgel just as F office um Hearn the hunter correlates
With the chorus which is about Mel melanion um and I’m going to say a little bit more about melanion because he’s the type of the male initiate um in in um Greek um sort of initiation schemes and it was only when I saw you know in list strata there isn’t so much
Hunting law there in fact that chorus of melanion is just about all there is to speak of um and in the version that we read collectively if any of you took part in that they actually ex they actually cut that bit out and you can easily do that you know it’s not
Essential to the plot but it is the qu the the key hunting reference in in um the estrata but with full stuff the whole thing is about hunt it’s got the hunting Motif coming back and back and all the whole last Act is obviously about the hunted beast and her Hunter so
It now becomes really clear that it is direct hunting law and ritual um these black hunter rights connecting to Comedy Carnival and Riot they’re directly related to each other um now one of the figures who’s obviously linking them is dionysis the the the presiding deity of
The comic festivals and he has a very archaic aspect as zag Rus the hter is one of his sort of um avatars one of the oldest layers of ritual associated donus with um the agonia type of ritual which was very widespread in Greece um where a priest of Dionysus who was blackened in
The guise of the black hunter would chase away women from a sacred Precinct and the women were all white they were whitened plutar reported so this is the main Source classical Source we’ve got on agonia he that the priest literally hunts them down and he will kill any
Woman he catches the women are fleeing away and the priest tries to catch them um so in the merry wives we have a sequence where full staff is the black hunter he’s also wearing horns but he’s the black Hunter and he’s chasing away the women from the Oak and that’s
Immediately recognizable as the the action of the ancient Greek agonia and if we look at that ritual we can understand it as some form of male appropriation of female potency the dark color canotes um paint or blood and it Associates with hunting the powers the ritual powers of hunting and
Menstruation um real females who they they are having ritual potency stripped away from them by painted with white um and they’re driven away on pain of death from a secret initiation site um we could think you’ve heard Jerome Lewis talking here about what would happen if women came onto the secret
Pathway of thej janga in the uh Babel’s um male initiation aeni rituals they would do exactly the same thing the men would be holding the ritual power and they would chase away in fact they do threaten well they they chase the women away throwing at them these mom fruit
And if the fruit touches the women the they would they would die is the belief so it’s exactly the same structure now dionysis is a menstrual lunar deity he’s he’s enormously old he’s the god of the mads the riers on the mountains who hunted beasts and tore
Them to pieces if anyone recalls ureides Becky um and Dion’s Savage imagery is it has blood it’s raw it’s full of incestuous connotations transvesti donus is always depicted as being gender effeminate beardless um he has horns he’s the bull snake but he’s also bakus who is a light-hearted
Bringer of wine to civilization um and has his laughing train of the satires one of the chief Companions of dinosis is silenus and that is likely an ancestor of f staff as well fat potbellied of gross appetite silenus was renowned for craftiness if you got hold of him when he was drunk
He might be induced to utter words of wisdom and deep perception so he’s some kind of Trance he’s some kind he’s got kind kind of abilities of Trance so we’ve got that’s not very good photograph but you can see the outline shape of that mask so this is a Greek
Mask of silenus um and he has horns he’s got little horns there um a backet crown of grapes and a great big beard yeah he’s all bigger than yours Robin um but that’s it it really is the the the um full staff look he’s very devilish Prince Hal calls full staff that old
White-bearded Satan it’s quite clear that this was the the depiction of Satan by the Christians as they diabolize the old um kind of mythical sources just as silenus and his company were part of the rry in the Attic the old Greek kooy fat bearded masked and horned characters also acted as the
Masters of Ceremonies in the English Mama’s plays particularly there’s beab who would be dressed as an old woman so beab would gender would would switch gender just like f St is the Witch and then there’s Father Christmas huge fat red he had a red mask with horns and
This was usually a bull’s mask we associate Father Christmas with reinder but it seems that this kind of mask the bull was more common Father Christmas officiated in the B between the king of England and the King of France or between St George and the Turkish Knight
Now when one of the adversaries fell he would have red ochre in his hand and he would apply it to the groin area of the Fallen Knight and then he would sling him over his shoulder and carry him to the doctor who would then revive the Knight so that another battle could be
Fought death and rebirth with blood applied to the groin okay I don’t really need to spell it out very clearly there’s a sequence in Henry IV part one right at the end on the field of shury where F staff after he’s played Dead He’s pretended to be dead to avoid being
In the fight he finds Percy the rebel dead killed by Prince Hal he wounds him in the thigh picks him up and Carries him off to Hal saying he’s killed him claiming to have killed him and that sequence really has a Heritage from Father Christmas picking up the Fallen
Night and putting it um down there um and it’s playing with this Luna logic this death rebirth logic exactly so our horned Gods let’s go forward a little bit um reach right back into the palic um the sites of ritual and rock art um and we’ve got imagery of
This kind um drawn from the ancient European rock art but if I wanted to find a historic ethnographic example of ritual governing the hunt which is also Al Lous Riot is also kind of Uprising and riers laughter and games really the best one is um the Bushman Eland bulld
Dan the menar the ritual of first mensturation which I claim is the Elan bulld Dan is probably the oldest ritual in the world there isn’t any ritual older it goes right the way back so how closely does the action of full staff and the women in the forest
Um compare to the Elan bulld Dan he’s the fattest stag in the forest chasing my dough with the black scut divide me like a bride Buck um each each have a haunch he says going on to designate parts of his body to be divided up like a game animals he’s
Performing a dance of fantasy animal sex with both of the women the key difference between the hunter gather rituals and what’s going on in the comedies is is the association with royalty the menstrual potency that governs hunting fertility the fat of the land in the the hunter gatherer
Conception so there you have the girl with her mask as the Elan bull um and she is construed as being she is all fat and good like the Elan bull because of the fatness of the bull the Elam bull is fat in a female way usually antelopes
The Eland is a mighty game Antelope um usually with antelopes the female is fatter but with the El lull it’s the male a kind of male female so this is very gender ambiguous and the women of the group are dancing around with horns dancing around that girl in her
Menstrual heart um and so she is the Elan Bull and the women are dancing with steps as if they are Eland elan’s mating with the bull um so it’s a fantasy of animal sex okay so this this potency um just to just to say further for anyone who
Hasn’t seen this before these are the hunters who are pushed away at the time the the girl in the heart is is is the power has the power that draws this is actually in Eland draws the Eland to be hunted to the group okay so this power of hunting fertility menstruation is all
The what’s lying under neath the um the Elam bulld Dan but it’s been appropriated for the legitimization of kingship the the kingdom um and the the incoming foreign ruler of the kingship yeah and full staff is bound up in that process so he’s got the hunter gatherer
Layer and then this Divine King layer on top so if we see him prowling around the oak at the midnight we have a picture that’s really like James Fraser’s opening scene of the golden bow um where the priest king of Arisha The Grove of Diana watches weily for any Challenger
To his office full staff’s phrase about Diana’s Foresters is exactly appropriate to the priest king many 17th and 18th century prints um recorded this tree that was variously reputed to be hearn’s Oak um which eventually got cut down by Mad King George and there’s one view that shows
The Windsor hunting Forest a view over the Windsor hunting Forest so there’s our The Windsor Castle um and Henry VII is King Henry VII is depicted right at the top of that hill and Hearn the hunter is riding by and and Henry’s seeing this ghost of Hearn the hunter
Now what’s really what’s happening there so this is a sort of mythical record image of this mythical episode but it’s a transfer of power legitimating these upstart Tudors this new Dynasty that has no real rights in the royalty in the in being the English kings are being given legitimacy
By this ancient English um indigenous figure um the oak of course was sacred to Jupiter’s youth um especially as a blasted Oak struck by lightning mistress page describes Hearn walking round about and himself blasting the tree um full staff invokes Jupiter Jo he calls him with the legend of how the god
In guise of the bull carried off Europa comparing his rampant sexuality with the gods but this story again has precise parallels in the the southern Bushman um stories of the rainb calleda who carries off the menstruating Maiden um so this idea for of the Europa story is also very ancient
So can we get direct linkage between hunting royal power and menstrual potency in Mary wives so this is a mistress page recounting the Hearn Legend there is an old tale goes that Hearn the hunter sometime a keeper here in Windsor Forest doth all the wintertime at still midnight walk around
About an oak with great ragged horns and there he blasts the tree and takes the cattle and makes Milk kind yield blood and shakes a chain in a most hideous and Dreadful manner um and she goes on you’ve heard of such a spirit and well you know the superstitious idle headed ELD received
And did deliver to our age this tale of Hearn the hunter for truth so this is very reminiscent of imagery of blasting or blighting and the cows milking blood of descriptions of witches and menstrual women in widespread folklore across Europe um there was there was stuff about this
From the um Latin authors plen and others um Hearn was supposedly actually there’s a sort of local Legend he was a huntsman of a plantagenet king um who stood in the way when a white heart a white deer charged the master um the king and Hearn
Himself got wounded in the thigh now of course so we’ve got all these wounds in the groin and the thigh which recall myths of like Adonis and so forth now the one who really bleeds and dies is the true indigenous king um the so-called Royals the plantagenets the
Tudas or the sax cob Bergs as we might call them um they’re The Fakes yeah um so I argue that these rituals and myths of an authentic English tradition um that enabled these incoming conquering monarchs who were making expansionist kingdoms um Waring monarchs they were establishing I mean the these
Kings came out of warfare and and really only lived by we we’re just coming out of the period of the wars of the Roses we’re just coming out of the um all the Crusades and so they they they really lived by Warfare um but in order to justify that they had to claim
Legitimacy as National rulers through Powers over fertility menstration and the fat of the land the hunting um in Africa the the language would also incorporate rain the kings are rain Chiefs and very much rain isn’t in such shortage in in England um but this is highly similar to
Series of central Bantu the Central African myths of kingship which have been analyzed by by Luke deos um so Hearn let’s just say some more about Hearn he belongs to a there’s a s of stories across Europe about the wild Hunt the shasso the cursed Huntsman huntsman um some Blasphemous Pagan King
Who’s been cursed to hunt forever in other words he’s stuck forever in one phase of that oscillating lunar phase he’s stuck forever in one side of it um and really it’s it’s not just um it so so he may appear to Mortals Mortals may see the wild Hunt going by at one
Particular time of of the year when when the Huntsman appears these stories don’t only express an antagonism between Pagan and Christian ritual which obviously they do because of that because he always blasphemes the Sabbath but there’s something much older it’s an IR irreconcilable opposition of hunting and
Farming just in that that poem about Hearn he’s turning the the cow’s milk into blood yeah so he’s trying to so these domesticated animals of farmers are like hunted be are becoming like hunted prey instead um and they’re always described so these cursed Huntsmen are described in terms of baroness sterility um
Blasting yeah just what menstruating women are supposed to do to meat being cured or the milk of the cows the any transformative process menstrating woman messes it up immediately similarly the Huntsman hearn’s name can be connected to harion which was a title of woden a
Norse King of the Gods but also Hera who is a British king subject of medieval Legends of the wild Hunt now these Germanic names when they became latinized became hakini the people of helin who were described in Visions by the monks and Priests of northern France as soul in
Damnation they were black and fiery riding on Saddles with Red Hot Nails the leader of the Hunt is Harley Quinn the very same who becomes in Comedia deatte tradition in the Latin lands the fool the comedy King the leader of the carnival full staff stands at exactly the same Crossroads as Harley
Quinn he’s both the wild Huntsman and the carnival King and this really beautiful print and I I don’t know its Providence very well but it expresses exactly the gender of power logic um harleyquinn is identified as Goddess Diana or Artemis Diana in the Roman the
Goddess of the hunt and the new moon and also child birth remember he was a great um you Bender of gender in the carnival and particularly with regard to reproductive processes because he could have false pregnancies he could wear false false breasts and breastfeed babies um so you’ve got it all you’ve
Got the new moon you’ve got the hunting and you’ve got the cross seex the symbol which really ties and this is going in for the kill how long have I got a little bit going in for the kill I I got going to get go in for the kill
Um the symbol which really tries English royal power and menstrual potency together I’m getting feedback here there’s too much menstrual potency going on a let keep away am I still in shock you the menstrual potency and and royal power um thanks thanks great is the gter and this emblem is is quite special
In the merry wives um the merry wives in some ways revolves around um the gter because it was originally produced for the G Feast at which one Lord hunen patron of Shakespeare’s company was installed as a knight of the G the G in is one of the key settings of the play
And it’s actually full star seat it’s like his stamping ground um the speech by mistress quickley as the fairy queen is a rather no no no no no uh they’re not letting me talk about the gter um I don’t know if we can unplug it can we do that I’m not sure
Because it’s all plugged in here it’s all wired in you’re all right you’re right it’s still sh okay so I’ve said the occasion for the production of the play was the gter feast full staff stamping ground is the gter in um and mistress quickley right at the end when
She’s playing the fairy queen has this slightly ludicrous literary conceit about the gter the flowers supposed to have the motto of the G written inside them and this is just Shakespeare toading up to his aristocratic patrons the legend of the gter Tells of the the reign of Edward III and this is actually
A depiction of Edward II founding the order of the gter I think he was dancing with the counts of Salsbury and her gter fell down now I’ve read enough African myths of this kind to know that what what really fell down is some sort of menstrual cloth it’s not just a gter is
It um the king then picks it up and um utters this motto onip evil be to him who thinks it so deflecting a sort of reverse or deflection of any curse or evil thoughts and then he ties it onto himself it’s a bit gender bending really um so the English coat of arms
Shows the structure of the lion opposed to the unicorn and the motto and they’re both rampant around this this gter thing with the motto inscribed around it there’s your kind of arms um now the G’s shape is what’s usually known as vesica piscus in a Latin circumlocution it means we don’t have
Rager here it means it’s the shape of a a [ __ ] when a woman has a spread legs spread thigh and you’re looking we’re going back to the cosmic vagina that um Dave was talking about here two weeks ago it’s exactly the same thing the passage Between Two Worlds is exactly
The same thing um now this is an example of something which is generic it’s a worldwide tradition of emblems of ritual power sharing this structure of two beasts either side of a symbol of female potency more or less overt so this can be a mistress of the game which could be
Like um the Creon emus but in these examples we’ve got atran gorgens with lions on that side um this is nutka Canadian Indian Canadian um Arctic Hunters um that side um here we have some monkeys this is Ecuadorian example this is sepic papan guini example so it’s really worldwide and
This comes from an article called the heraldic woman um by Douglas Fraser was it Douglas Fraser with an S with an S no relation to James um and then we get it in the Creon Artemis that’s not so very well produced but it’s the the lady of the Wild Things
Remember Artemis the goddess of the hunt the goddess of reproduction child birth um she has her um animals either side and some representation of female potency there um and again I’m going to track right back to the Bushman and kisan examples and this is from Bushman rock art of the
Drakensburg and loto and southern Africa um and these are wide this is something that can be seen in hunter gatherer art in Africa right the way up to East Africa recurrently these spread leg figures and it becomes really clear what they’re about they have these great
These are all red ochre Big Red Power blotches they combine a duality of gender because they’ve got um penises as well as something that we presume represents [ __ ] and menstration um this is an image this is argued I would argue and others have argued that this is an image of a female
Initiate at her a time of potency when she’s menstruated um she is both the hunter with the bows and arrows she is the hunted Beast um she has tremendous power and fatness and she has both male and female aspects U of in the genital region it’s very powerful double sexed um but then
You can get quite extraordinary beautiful we this is the the sophisticated Flemish medieval tradition of tapestry and it is just so so beautiful the Dorn from mun um and again lion unicorn um a red richly potent lunartic lady look at her beautiful Little Moons little new moons
She’s surrounded by a fertile sword of of of creatures wild creatures I look at the rabbits lovely little rabbits um and the g it is it places female reprodu potency [ __ ] power right in the middle of the English Royal coat of arms I mean there isn’t really much
Argument about it um the gter is supposed to be blue a light blue when it’s tied on to the whoever it is that the queen has invited into the select um the body there is supposed to be 206 25 or I think it’s 25 members you
You once you’re in the order of the G you’re there till you die um 25 and the queen or no there’s 24 and there’s the queen and her console or the Prince of Wales yeah the Prince of Wales and they process in pairs so what you get is 12
Pairs and then these extra monarchs making sort of half Moons so there’s something about Moon and Sun going on um in the con connection it’s that that extra bit of the lunar calendar that doesn’t fit in the Solar year is being referred to so the a remaining conundrum of this
Play is the theme of cuckoldry why is it symbolized by the horns why does Acton have anything to do with it why is the cuck holder also the cuck hold so Ford and full staff so there’s are um com back to Luna key and finish this off Ford and full staff are
Both cockold and cockold why is it Hunter who turns into the hunted Beast becomes identified as cockold why is possessing the horns the sign of the cockold of said and that means possessing ritual power so I think sex strike logic with the in the form of ritual of license carnival at Dark Moon
Solves those problems um directly at a stroke if you are if you’re working in the sex right Logic the lunar key logic you have sex strike at dark moon when the women are menstrating um sending their husbands away and the husbands have to go back to their sisters so you’re envisaging a
Good old Engles matriarchal Clan U Moy system um so from the point of view of a male um if You observe sex strike Acton was the OB the hunter who observed sex strike forever he wouldn’t have sex it’s like hippitus is another version it’s like the shasso Modi the cursed Hunter
Who never stops hunting that’s what they are Acton and that lot um but if you’re on sex strike you go back to your kin this is the the place of kinship so it says incest and audias sex there but it should be kinship um some people have sex on the brain anyway
Um so that’s the ritual of license rituals of license of license yeah okay but it’s kinship that side is kinship this side is marriage okay yep um so you you go back to your kin at dark moon now your wife is staying with her kin and um
She’s involved in the incestuous rits of rituals of license that are happening in her with her Kinsmen you can get involved with your classificatory sisters so you are as a husband you’re being [ __ ] holded by her by your wife’s kin but all of them too are cuck holds because you’re
With you’re with your sister who are their wives simple does that make sense um you may be cuck holded but you’re also cuck holding the husbands of your clan sisters you’re in ritual power mode which means you’re sharing gender of Power with your kin um so that should
Mean you’re very gender ambiguous you dress up as a woman whilst the your sisters are dressing up as male an animal in a classic Moy system we should see reciprocal cuckoldry as marital bonds get broken up full staff decrees and my horns I bequeath to your husbands
That’s the ritual logic of the play which on the surface moralizes about privatize sexual interests of Christian husbands um and just recall um the the bayaka saying the women’s biggest husband is the moon um and the the moon the men are in rivalry with the moon
When they go back to the Moon which is when they menstrate men want to try to cut them from the Moon which means stop them menstruating make them pregnant just the last bit is verian boo because ver and boo give the finest ending the most majestic ending in their
Final Fugal they have this beautiful Fugal chorus that V wrote so it’s an incredible Ensemble that kind of hurtles right to the the end and it celebrates the world shaking power of laughter fall staff their fall staff is the most ample and all-encompassing in terms of a
Magico ritual structure he is the lunar trickster but he’s the wild Huntsman he’s the Windsor stag and the carnival King all the signals of ritual potency derived from the ancient logic of hunting and fertility by the moon um are contained by his mighty stomach Lous and Riot lenus and rius he’s the common
Wheel on which all the people live the whole world as a jest without annexing this enormity this drunken King those Tor upstarts would remain just that they would remain non- entities um so Prince Hal has to hang out with f staff to try to get some of
That power full staff the Lord of misrule his cronies are portrayed as a riotous mob looting and thieving but the truth is these crowned heads with their secret star Chambers have stolen the magic and tricken trickery which right royally belongs to us so who are the thieves that that’s s