In Competition No. 2578 you were invited to imagine the speech that Shakespeare, as a boy, might have delivered as he was slaughtering a calf. This challenge was inspired by John Aubrey’s portrait of the young bard in Brief Lives: ‘His father was a butcher, and I have been told heretofore by some of the neighbours, that when he was a boy he exercised his father’s trade, but when he killed a calf he would do it in a high style, and make a speech.’
You plundered the works of the adult Shakespeare with inventiveness and to great effect. Michael Brereton’s slaughterhouse oration was accompanied by scholarly analysis. Part of his footnote reads: ‘…the greater and lesser tragedies, the Roman plays, and most of the histories are nothing less than Shakespeare’s expiation of the deeds of his slaughterhouse years…. Every tragic hero, from Richard II to Lear, represents, in this view of the plays, a calf.’ Honourable mentions also go to Max Ross, Paul Griffin, Frank McDonald and Noel Petty. The winners printed below get £25 each, except George Simmers, who pockets £30.
Thou bleeding piece of meat, can it be meet
That thou shouldst die, to feed the appetite
Of some tun-bellied Stratford alderman?
Was it for this my sharp intrusive knife
Did pierce thy throat and force thee to the
change
From lusty bullock to unfeeling veal?
Oh I could weep, but that a second thought
Comes hasty on the footsteps of the first.
That alderman will gobble down his share,
(And more besides) but others too will taste
The bounty of thy flesh, thy blood, thy tripes.
Yes, worthier folks will gain good nourishment
From this thy rich, though most unwilling, gift.
For what’s at stake is steak; your steaks will
feed
A poet’s fancy, build a playwright’s frame.
Calves die, but I shall live, and live in fame.
George Simmers
Now might I do it quick and so, slaying
Quicker than thought, unquicken this quick calf
And make all equal: time and timely death,
Slowed now to silence by this butcher’s blade,
Will meet here, and their meeting make a meal
To feed mortality. To merit meat
I raise this sharpened steel, a willing thief
Who steals away the grassy breath of life
For greater lives that, living, live to raise
A mightier breed that future men might love
And prosper mightily. To kill or not to kill —
ah, here’s no question balanced in the scales
But simple action, all predestinate.
Goodnight, sweet calf; with herbs we’ll strow
thy way
And garnish thee with succ’lent garnerings.
Adieu, and thrice adieu. Now, to the point!
D.A. Prince
So farewell, then, O Calf, but since thou’rt not
A Golden Calf, I’ll sever, not revere,
I’ll cut thee dead, though I acknowledge thee!
Not golden, nay, yet silver is thy side,
While thy topside tops all. I shall dub thee
Sir Loin, for if there be a trencher bare
At any table, thou shalt fill it well,
On that I’ll wager any kind of stake!
Now thy forequarters shall I cut in four
That in our quarters yours shall be quite meet
To roast. No time shall we be out of joint,
And we shall strike at hunger neck and flank.
But now, adieu, as I take as my due,
The kindest cut, medallions of thy rump.
We’ll braise thy brisket, shin, rib-eye and clod,
And for thy savours bless our saviour God!
Brian Murdoch
Friends, townsfolk, fellow citizens — rejoice!
I plied no sword, sai, scimitar or knife
To cull this cowering creature, nay, by choice
With but a bodkin bare I took its life.
Thou shalt not hear me whimper, ‘Out, dammed
spot!’
Nor shall I stain my soul with needless curse.
This peeled and precious calf’s hide, hide I not
But here display what shall be belt or purse.
Thus, in obeisance to my father’s trade,
From bloody pelt and skin, once truly tanned,
Shall finest gloves and leather goods be made
To be admired by all throughout the land.
If you have tears to shed, shed not them now!
This noblest pound of flesh by death reclaimed
Would, had it lived, become one day a cow,
And cows, ’tis known, like shrews can ne’er be
tamed.
Alan Millard
What? Hath this heifer’s halving with her bull
Produc’d but flesh (which flesh is meet to taste,
Else roar I here like Hercules)? No more
I swear, my lords, that here there hangs a tale:
This calf, no longer hid, hath yet a hide
From which your tanners harvest shall their fill.
This calf, that hath four legs (and each a calf),
Shall yet be tamed, that speculation’s eyes
May dwell upon th’exterior of a book —
As fatten’d with strong words as we shall rest,
Instuff’d with tongue, with sweeten’d rump and
flank
Within our groaning innards. Let us bless
Such binders as shall profit all this weal,
Turning our kine to kin, with noble wit,
While we, its entrails smoking, lounge and laugh.
I give you, lords, this most compendious calf.
Bill Greenwell
Ye gods of beef and leather, witness bear
With what good cheer to grief this bullock
comes,
As if he knew that we, like paramours,
Our flesh to welcome his sweet flesh shall ope,
Shall stroke his skin, to supple softness tanned
And crafted by our hands our hands t’embrace.
(For heed well, friends and countrymen and
lovers:
We Shakespeares are no butchers; we are
glovers.
We slay not to assuage the appetite
For sustenance alone, but to adorn.)
Glint, sun, thy rays upon this blade I raise,
Pay golden tribute to this creature’s end,
Beam thy benevolence on his last breath
Who gifts us with the bounty of his death.
Chris O’Carroll
No. 2581: Lost in translation
You are invited to take a passage from a classic of French literature and recast it in Franglais (150 words maximum). Entries to ‘Competition 2581’ by 29 January or email lucy@spectator.co.uk.
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