Something Wicked This Way Comes...

Here's the smell of the blood still: 

all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.  

Lady Macbeth, Act V. Scene 1

In honor of Halloween or perhaps because of my own Scottish lineage or maybe just to sound ever-so-slightly different from all the other spooky stuff out there, I have decided to do a small tribute to Macbeth (that's right... I said it... Macbeth, Macbeth, Macbeth).

Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell; 

Though all things foul would wear the brows of grace, 

Yet grace must still look so. 

Malcolm. Act IV. Scene 3

'The Scottish Play' or 'The Bard's Play' is surrounded by superstitions and, according to many acting troupes, a whole lot of bad luck.  Reports of faulty scenery, injured players and even deaths are said to surround the play.  It's no wonder that this Shakespearean tragedy (which happens to be filled with murders, deceit and even witches) is the perfect Halloween companion.

Round about the cauldron go;
In the poison'd entrails throw.
Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights has thirty-one
Swelter'd venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i' the charmed pot.
First Witch. Act IV. Scene 1.

Greeting card companies tend to borrow lines from the famous play - "Double double toil and trouble." And I believe the Harry Potter movies quote the line "something wicked this way comes" in a Hogwarts song.  Macbeth holds a macabre appeal that every b-rated horror flick dreams of achieving and to top it off, eight deaths over the course of the show.  Talk about seeing dead people...

Nothing in his life
Became him like the leaving it; he died
As one that had been studied in his death,
To throw away the dearest thing he ow'd,
As 'twere a careless trifle.   

Malcolm. Act I. Scene 4

If you haven't read the play, or seen one of the many film versions (Patrick Stewart does a particularly nice job, but the Ian Mckellen/Judi Dench version is impeccable) then I would highly recommend it.  Just be careful not to quote any lines while you are in the theater.   

Is this a dagger which I see before me, 

The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee; 

I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. 

Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible 

To feeling as to sight? or art thou but 

A dagger of the mind, a false creation, 

Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain? 

I see thee yet, in form as palpable As this which now I draw.

Macbeth. Act II, Scene 1

Thanks to the following Etsy Sellers: Azrail's Accomplice Designs,  Medieval Reproduction Carvings, Alaska Laser Maid, Chez Vous!, and Acrylic and Steel