Episode 361: Astrology and Shakespeare (with Kelly Downes)
/Did you know that Shakespeare was really into astrology? We sure didn’t, which is why we’re joined by Kelly Downes, who gives us a great discussion to bookend our Supernatural Shakespeare series!
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of death, assassination, religious persecution, suicide, sex, fire, poisoning, war and battle.
Guest
Kelly Downes (she/her) is a theatre maker from Syracuse, NY, with strong ties to Boston, MA, currently living in Birmingham UK. She earned a BFA in Theatre & Performance from Emerson College, and a Masters in Shakespeare & Creativity from the Shakespeare Institute at University of Birmingham. Kelly is currently working to increase accessibility to arts and culture in Birmingham as a fundraiser at Midlands Arts Centre. She would love to connect with more like minded creatives on both sides of the Atlantic. If you are interested in queer Shakespeare; using storytelling to reconnect with the natural world; and devising new work inspired by classics, say hello!
Housekeeping
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Cast & Crew
- Co-Hosts: Julia Schifini and Amanda McLoughlin
- Editor: Bren Frederick
- Music: Brandon Grugle, based on "Danger Storm" by Kevin MacLeod
- Artwork: Allyson Wakeman
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About Us
Spirits is a boozy podcast about mythology, legends, and folklore. Every episode, co-hosts Julia and Amanda mix a drink and discuss a new story or character from a wide range of places, eras, and cultures. Learn brand-new stories and enjoy retellings of your favorite myths, served over ice every week, on Spirits.
Transcript
AMANDA: Welcome to Spirits Podcast, a boozy dive into mythology, legends, and folklore. Every week we pour a drink and learn about a new story from around the world. I'm Amanda.
JULIA: And I'm Julia.
AMANDA: And we're so excited to have a listener and expert, dare I say, a new friend with us today, Kelly Downes, welcome to the show.
KELLY: Hello, thank you so much for having me.
JULIA: It is our absolute pleasure, and we are so excited to— for our listeners know that we have been talking a lot about Shakespeare lately, and the supernatural elements of Shakespeare in our supernatural Shakespeare series. And Kelly, we decided— since we were wrapping up on that series, you know, I feel like we've hit all of the big ones at this point. We wanted to talk to an expert about the— the supernatural elements that Shakespeare includes in his plays. And then you reached out to us and we were like, "Well, this is perfect."
KELLY: Amazing, yes. Expert in one very niche area, I would say, but yeah, I'm super excited.
JULIA: Well, why don't you tell us a little bit about that expertise in that very niche part of Shakespeare's genre?
KELLY: I am a theatremaker, mainly an actor, and director. And I've always had an affinity for Shakespeare. They're some of my favorite place to work on, as well as creating new work, which is inspired by Shakespeare and other classic texts. In 2019, I moved to the UK to pursue my master's degree in Shakespeare and Creativity, which was a program that blended creative and academic approaches to Shakespeare's plays. Really interested in what those two approaches can teach each other. And we got to work in partnership with practitioners from the Royal Shakespeare Company, which was fantastic.
AMANDA: Whoa.
KELLY: I wrote my thesis on Shakespeare and astrology. So the way that Shakespeare uses astrology and the dramatic function of it across his plays, and all of it was grounded in the historical context of astrology at the time—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
KELLY: —because it was much more ingrained in daily life for his audience than it would be for modern audiences today. So there's some really rich resonances to the astrological references that he's using.
JULIA: But, Kelly, in Shakespeare's time, like everyone didn't have CoStar on their phone, so I don't understand what you mean by being more relevant.
KELLY: No, they have the original CoStar. I'll get into— I'm sure I'll delve into, which were almanacs.
JULIA: Oh.
KELLY: The OG CoStar, the paper version, because I'll get carried away and— with excitement as soon as I dive into the— the logistics of almanacs.
AMANDA: That's a podcast, baby.
KELLY: I did my— my research at the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon, which was really interesting, because I started out in that program coming at Shakespeare solely as a creative— or I— I sort of saw myself solely as a creative and I was really attracted to this program, because it was kind of marrying the academic and the creative approaches to Shakespeare. So we did a lot of devised work, a lot of new theater based on Shakespeare. The lockdown period coincided perfectly with when I would have been SAT writing my thesis anyway. So when I was deciding what I was going to have to sit down and write about for days on end, and that daunting task, I— I brought a totally different thesis to my advisor, that I can't actually even remember what it was at this moment. So clearly, it wasn't a very good idea, and she told me it wasn't a good idea. So, I went back and just sort of wrote down a whole list of all the things that could potentially interest me about Shakespeare and what I might enjoy. And this stuck out, because I had never seen anyone else write about it. It's a really under-researched area. So that is what led me to this topic in particular. And I also do enjoy. I've got CoStar on my phone, you know? I dabble myself. I enjoy it as a— a modern woman as well.
AMANDA: Kelly, I'm so interested to hear about your experience studying at Stratford-upon-Avon. And just more broadly, you know, as Julia and I had been going through this series and talking about the plays and how people heard them at the time, I feel like sites like the reconstructed Globe and, you know, a lot— like the Royal Shakespeare Center at Stratford-upon-Avon do a really good job of, like, embodying what it was like to attend those plays at the time. You can stand in the reconstructed Globe and, like, look around the stage and the colors and the music and the masks. But it feels really foreign to me what was in people's heads, and what kinds of references were—
KELLY: Yeah.
AMANDA: —sort of sticking out to them. As high schoolers, we got a much better sense of the bawdy jokes. That's one that I can definitely say my ears pick up on. But I was so curious from your note about what the average, you know, viewer of these plays, to the extent we can know, was familiar with kind of, like, the celestial and astrological references of these shows.
KELLY: Yeah, absolutely. So the differentiation between astronomy and astrology is a really modern one. It was much more tied together. Astrology was much more ingrained in science and medicine, and it really informed the fabric of everyday life. Regardless of, you know, class, social standing, everyone was aware of certain astrological periods and influences that we just don't talk about anymore. So there were sort of two sides of astrology in the time, and the one that I focused on more and I think is sort of the one that has lasted, is the— what we— would be called Judicial Astrology.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
KELLY: And this is astrology that concerns individual people, individual questions, and we see it still with, you know, people calculating their birth chart. That's a form of judicial astrology, which at the time would have been called nativities.
JULIA: Hmm.
KELLY: So there are things like nativities or mapping the position of planets to try to find the best time to begin an enterprise, or to answer a question, they might map the planets at the exact moment that the question was asked to consider the outcome. This knowledge was dispersed through the public through almanacs. And almanacs are one of the earliest forms of autobiographical writing that we have documented. So it really boomed in Shakespeare's life, but it goes all the way back to, like, early 1400s.
JULIA: Hmm.
KELLY: And so almanacs were these calendars/diaries, really, and they would be printed based on your city, so you could have really exact information about planetary movements. There would be information about local fairs and festivals, and any notes about whether an agriculture that people might want to be aware of, and always a drawing of the Zodiacal Man, which is that drawing you've probably seen, but maybe don't know that you've seen where it's got all of the zodiac signs going down—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
KELLY: —the body. Anonymizing astrological influence on the physical body.
AMANDA: I haven't seen this image until right now, and it's the most buck wild shit I have ever seen. This is—
JULIA: Amanda.
KELLY: Yeah, it is, right?
AMANDA: This is wild.
KELLY: So it's a male body, which is annoying, but you know?
AMANDA: Sure.
JULIA: What can you do, man? Uh-hmm.
KELLY: And so almanacs— some statistics, like one in three families in the 16th and 17th century, would have purchased an almanac. And actually, we even hear it in A Midsummer Night's Dream.
AMANDA: Yes.
KELLY: When the rude mechanicals are out rehearsing their play— and they need to know if the moon is going to shine, so they'll have light. And Bottom quickly says, "A calendar. Look in the almanac, find that moon shine." And they just have one at hand, which is a great example of, like— clearly, that was just something that people had and engaged with on a day-to-day basis.
JULIA: So this was very much an item that like the everyday person would have. It wasn't like something that was reserved for the rich and people who could— I mean, probably for people who could read, but at the same time, like I'm sure they had people who could read, that would read to other people if they had questions about what was in the almanac?
KELLY: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's definitely— I'm— I'm sure there might be, like, better editions or—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
KELLY: —you know, more detailed editions, more sought after—
AMANDA: Like, the collector's item edition.
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: The Kickstarter exclusive.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
KELLY: Exactly. That would, you know, be reserved for someone of— of more means, or, you know, someone in the court or nobility at this time might have an astrologer in court. And that's sort of the level that version of the almanacs, if you will. But, yeah, no, this was definitely something that urban and rural elite, non-elite, where it was really for everyone. There's even like a sort of pun on the word almanacs. It's like all man, like everyone.
JULIA: Oh.
AMANDA: Oh.
KELLY: There will be periods in the year and celestial moments in the year that Shakespeare can write about with confidence, everyone is going to be aware of. So if he signals it, it has an— a resonance that it has lost for us.
AMANDA: That makes total sense.
KELLY: So everyone on some level kind of agreed that planets, stars, celestial bodies have an influence on us in some way.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
KELLY: But there was always the naysayers. There are always the critiques as there are for these things always. Mostly on religious grounds.
AMANDA: I was gonna say, it sounds like there are kind of, like, deities and bodies in the sky that aren't our one Christian Heavenly Father.
JULIA: Yeah, and like named after Pagan—
KELLY: Exactly. Yeah.
JULIA: — things and pagan stories. And even if they are the classics.
AMANDA: Solstices.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: A little Pagan.
KELLY: Hmm, yeah, a little Pagan. And also you're— you're peering into God's will.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
KELLY: How dare you? How dare you endeavor to know God's will?
JULIA: Yeah. And we can't suffer a witch, you know?
AMANDA: Yeah.
KELLY: Yeah. That was definitely there. And there were, you know, plenty of preachers and priests at this time trying to say that they're trying to take you away from God. They're using the stars to distract you, to turn you away from God. But what I really love to see evidence of were the times in which there were religious leaders who also were astrologers, and were able to write about how they can sit together in a really lovely way. So there was one really reputable Puritan preacher and dedicated astrologer in the 17th century. His name was John Booker. He had a little defensive astrology pamphlet that I— I really enjoyed—
AMANDA: Yeah.
KELLY: —looking at. He wrote, "The stars are letters and the Heavens God's book, which day and night, we may at pleasure look, and thereby learn a brightly how to live."
AMANDA: Amazing.
JULIA: Also, rhyming things, we love that.
AMANDA: We love to rhyme, strong branding. Rhyming is strong branding.
KELLY: Yeah. Right. It sticks in the mind as well if it rhymes.s
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
KELLY: People are more likely to think about it and believe it.
JULIA: Easier to repeat.
KELLY: Indeed. And so the idea was that, you know, we're not turning away from God, and all these bodies are God's creation.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
KELLY: And by paying attention to them, studying them, you know, that brings us closer to God.
JULIA: Yeah.
KELLY: And I just thought that was really encouraging to see in this time period, that there were people trying to think about the ways that different belief systems could coexist together.
JULIA: Yeah.
KELLY: So that was an interesting— an interesting thing to look at.
JULIA: And I mean, like, it is like the idea, like you just said, like, God put those things in place there and would not have made their patterns recognizable to human beings if we weren't supposed to be able to utilize those in some way. Like, I could totally see the argument for like, if it was supposed to be unknowable, we wouldn't be able to track those and, like, understand that there's pattern to it.
KELLY: Exactly. We need to get that guidance from somewhere—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
KELLY: —and this— this could be it.
JULIA: Yeah.
KELLY: Even when it was taken out of a religious register, I think the question— the kind of hotly contested topic in the time period that we can catch Shakespeare engaging with specifically is the question of autonomy and free will.
JULIA: Hmm.
KELLY: And the fear of, okay, well, if you— if you're saying that some star was retrograde, and that's why I acted the way that I did that, that removes any moral responsibility and— and things could just get real messy real fast if everyone's just blaming things on movement of the stars.
AMANDA: 100%. Yeah. Then why— why ask for forgiveness? Why pay tithes? Why do lots of things? Why listen to a king—
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: —whose authority is sent down from God? That—that can— you're really making it clear to me how much of a, like, fundamentally kind of Earth-shifting question that can be.
JULIA: Yeah. And I mean, it's also really interesting, because this period of time was also when a lot of different sects of Christianity were dealing with the issue of predestination. Like, whether you were born to go to heaven, or whether like the acts you do upon Earth are the things that put you into heaven. So it's like a really interesting thing to be talking about the Zodiac and, like, the astrological movements of the celestial bodies because that's something that the church itself was grappling with.
KELLY: Absolutely. And whether it's like a religious thing or not for you, I think, just from a philosophical standpoint, it was a big question for people. And I think we can see Shakespeare engaging with questions of faith and free will all the time. But there are some really cool examples of where he really sort of puts it in a celestial register, so to speak. I sort of started looking at this new archetype that I was recognizing in Shakespeare's plays, which I nicknamed the shaken skeptic. So you have examples of these characters who start out with a really strong, stubborn plays of vehemently against astrology, mocking it even, and also repurposing it for their own gains—
JULIA: Hmm.
KELLY: —to then have a moment of an aside to the audience to be like, "These idiots," am I right? But then by the end of the play, when they're sort of meeting their comeuppance, it gets brought back to their initial point of view, and it gets brought back to often their nativity.
JULIA: Hmm.
KELLY: One example of this is Cassius in Julius Caesar, you know, the— the famous line, "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves, that we are underlings." And that's really what catapults him on this path throughout the play of, you know, gaining from followers, getting Brutus on his side, planning an assassination, really trying to take control, trying to get his autonomy back. And—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
KELLY: —he often is using Caesar's superstitiousness as a reason to be afraid of him. But by the end, when he finds himself in battle, he turns to a servant and he says, "It is my birthday. This is the day Cassius was born."
AMANDA: Hmm.
KELLY: And he has this moment where he kind of is reflecting back on everything he's done on these sorts of messages that have been arriving to him throughout the play. I mean, the night before the assassination, he's out bare-chested in a tempest-dropping fire, they call it. Sort of like shaking his fist at lightning. He would rather be, like, struck in the heart than give into the idea that he might not have total control over his destiny. And then by the end, he— he is in battle and dies on his birthday, and Shakespeare kind of pulls this out of the store. It's in the source text that the battle falls on Cassius' birthday, but it's just sort of an offhand remark. Whereas this is a thing that Shakespeare pulls out and wants to kind of investigate further.
AMANDA: Classic Leo, am I right?
JULIA: Oh, yeah.
AMANDA: I don't know what sign he was, but— you know?
JULIA: That— Amanda, that's hilarious.
KELLY: We'll get to that, because actually, there's— there's another cool thing that I'd love to tell you about where we actually do get a specific date that Shakespeare chooses to use.
JULIA: Ooh.
AMANDA: Ooh.
JULIA: You can't tease us, you got to tell us now.
KELLY: I know, I know.
AMANDA: Let's do it.
KELLY: The source material for Shakespeare is something that I was really interested in, because we can kind of catch his hand, right? Like, we can catch purposeful decisions that he's making that are signaling something to the audience.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
KELLY: Romeo and Juliet is one of, I would say, probably the most famous plays when it comes to sort of celestial language—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
KELLY: —and celestial references.
AMANDA: The star-crossed lovers, right?
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Yeah.
AMANDA: That's where we get that phrase from.
KELLY: Star-crossed lovers, exactly. And that's, again, like, right in the— in the beginning of the play. You're sort of given the— a prognostication, actually, like a prediction from the chorus. They tell you exactly what's going to happen.
AMANDA: So do people hear that and think like, "Well, this isn't gonna end well." Like, you know, is it sort of a given that, like, the stars have faded, that this is going to be an unhappy story, and we're all just kind of waiting to see how it goes?
KELLY: Yeah, I mean, it's not uncommon for a prologue to be a spoiler.
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
KELLY: This is something that— it happens a lot, which I don't really understand because it's— it's kind of a bummer. But I think to be fair, Romeo and Juliet isn't a totally original story anyway, so— so the audience might have some context for this.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
KELLY: But yeah, you are sort of like, "Oh, shit, like this is gonna go wrong." And there's a sort of celestial color to it. But I think what we don't realize when we watch Romeo and Juliet today is that the phrase "star-crossed lovers" can actually be much more specific. I think we can actually pick out the star that is crossed, so to speak.
AMANDA: Ooh.
KELLY: Because Shakespeare makes this really a purposeful intervention. So there's a couple of plays and poems that offer source material for Shakespeare, for Romeo and Juliet.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
KELLY: And one of them the sort of main source that we can say with pretty much complete confidence was— was his source for this, is a poem from 1562 called something like The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet.
JULIA: Sure. Why not?
KELLY: Right? And it's— it's so much the source text that he's, like, lifting direct quotes. Like, he's not even trying that hard to pretend that he's not ripping off this poem.
JULIA: Well, Kelly, it's like, you know, when you see an adaptation on Netflix or something like that, and you're like, "Okay. Well, like how close to the source material are they actually going to get? Is it going to be like a direct, like, translation? Or they're gonna take some liberties?" And Shakespeare was like, "No, I like the source material. Great. We're just gonna, like, make it as is."
AMANDA: I mean, other plays were about, like, biblical stories, you know, so it— it makes sense. Like, that's something—
KELLY: Yeah.
AMANDA: —that I was surprised about when I was first learning about Shakespeare, is like, "Oh, what do you mean it's based on other things? What do you mean this isn't original?" But it seems like the culture of it is like, yeah, everybody's kind of inspired by stuff that's already out there, and then you make it your own.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.
KELLY: Yeah, of course. And they had to make money, right? Like he had to write some plays quickly.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
KELLY: And they're not brief. So he's like, "If I can, you know, get some good quotes out of this, like, I'm gonna go for it."
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: Shakespeare, part of the content farm, you know?
AMANDA: He's in the minds with us. That's true.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.
KELLY: There's one really specific change that he makes, a deviation from the source text. And it's unusually specific, like he really wants us to know about it. So all of the other Romeo and Juliets or kind of adjacent Romeo and Juliets, very often set at Christmas time. The Capulet Ball is often like a Christmas feast. One of them, I think— if there's an Italian poem that he could be kind of drawing some inspiration from where Romeo actually asks for entry from Juliet's balcony because of the snow.
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: Aw. Cute.
KELLY: Adorable, very cute. But Shakespeare makes a purposeful choice to set Romeo and Ju— his Romeo and Juliet in the height of summer.
AMANDA: Ooh.
KELLY: And we know this because in the very first scene where we meet Juliet, she's speaking to her mother and her nurse, and they're talking about her birthday. Because tick-tock, Juliet, you're 13, you better get yourself married. So—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: The biological clock only got a good, oh, 22 years left on it.
KELLY: Right. Yeah. Running out. And so they're speaking about when Juliet's birthday and the nurse says, "Oh, Lammas-eve at night shall she be 14."
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: Hmm.
KELLY: Lammas was a festival that we know was celebrated around the first of August. So that means Juliet's birthday is probably July 31-ish, so Juliet is a Leo, actually.
JULIA: Oh, of course, she is.
AMANDA: Nice, nice.
JULIA: Of course, she is.
KELLY: I think many more Juliets should embrace the Leo energy of her. I think—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
KELLY: —that would—
JULIA: Center stage, very involved, you know?
KELLY: Absolutely. And we even know from conversation between the nurse and— and Juliet's mother that Lammas is about two weeks away.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
KELLY: So we know that we're sort of in mid-July when this play is unfolding. And for an audience that might have an almanac in their pocket or at home, we know then that we are in the dog days of summer.
JULIA: Not only a Florence & The Machine song.
AMANDA: Yeah, right. Like I know the dog days of summer as like a poetical phrase and as an excellent, Julia, to your point, the Florence & the Machine song, but—
KELLY: Yeah.
AMANDA: —did they have like more specific meaning than that?
KELLY: So the dog days reference, the constellation Canis Major and sort of predominant star of Canis Major is Sirius. And Sirius is this bright star, that they called it like the near double of the sun—
AMANDA: Wow.
KELLY: —when you can see Sirius. It's one of the brightest stars in the sky. And the dog days are the period of summertime when Sirius can be seen for a couple of hours before the sun rises on the eastern horizon. It's called the— like it's heliacal rising.
AMANDA: Ooh.
KELLY: So Canis Major and Sirius the star haven't been able to be viewed for quite some time. And this period of summer is when Canis Major comes back, basically.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
KELLY: And the constellation of Canis Major is this big dog with a flaming fiery mouth and so the resonance is for an audience, is not only does it get physically very hot when Sirius is predominant, you need to worry about drought. You need to worry about your crops, they might die—
AMANDA: Fire.
KELLY: —fires. It's also a time of heated blood.
JULIA: Hmm.
KELLY: So you've got heated temperatures, you've got heated sexual desires, you've got rash decision-making. And Shakespeare starts, from the very beginning, signaling to us that we're in the dog days of summer right away.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
KELLY: We start out with a brawl in the streets where they're kind of making jabs at each other talking about—
AMANDA: Or biting thumbs for no reason. Nobody pulls out a thumb.
KELLY: For no reason, right? Put the thumbs away.
AMANDA: Yes.
KELLY: And the nurse needs her fan to go out into town, it's so hot. In the next brawl, you know, Benvolio comes out to say, "Mercutio, let's retire. The day is hot, Capulets abroad. These hot days mad blood is stirring." And so they're always talking about this— this heated—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
KELLY: —time of year that we're in. And so this feels really specific, and a really purposeful choice that Shakespeare is making. And we get lots of— of fire imagery.
JULIA: And Leo, famously, also a fire sign.
KELLY: Hmm.
JULIA: So it makes a lot of sense to have Juliet, who is already being influenced by these dog days of summer, is also like ruled by fire as her sign. So he's gonna make these bad decisions no matter what if—
KELLY: Yes.
JULIA: —the Zodiac and fates are correct.
KELLY: Yes. She is ruled by the sun. So— so true. And so I think often when— when people talk about Romeo and Juliet and talk about the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, they talk about their other dumb teenagers and their— their teenagers that make bad decisions. And it can be sort of a reason that people hate the play. And I think, instead, when we awaken ourselves to this resonance that is lost on us, the tragedy becomes much more rich because they're not just dumb teenagers, they're victims of— of a celestial influence they might not even be aware of. And it feels much grander, it feels more cosmic, and a richer way of— of looking at the plot.
AMANDA: Oh, yeah. No, 100%. Like it's a real wrong place, wrong time, right? Like you can second-guess a million ways, like, what if Juliet didn't have this predisposition? What if this was in the, you know, nadir of winter—
KELLY: Hmm.
AMANDA: —and not at like the hottest days of the year?
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: It reminds me a lot, actually, of Do the Right Thing, the Spike Lee movie, which is a— an incredible New York City film, set on the hottest day of the year, where everything just kind of goes exactly wrong to lead to a bunch of stuff that any other day when it wasn't 110 degrees.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: Everybody would have let slide, that makes for such an interesting premise and such interesting drama.
KELLY: Yeah.
JULIA: It's definitely making me look at Romeo and Juliet in a new light, which I really appreciate. Because, like you said, it's not my favorite play. It is one that we had to do in high school, when we read in high school, but it's never been like my absolute favorite. But now knowing that, like, so much of that was flavored by Shakespeare's idea of, like, predetermined celestial bodies and, like, having it set in that time period is so interesting and so cool. I love that.
KELLY: Absolutely. And there is something— I think I got a little carried away with in my research, but I think—
JULIA: Hmm.
KELLY: —I think I'm onto something. And so I'll tell you about it and you tell me if I— if it's too much of a stretch.
JULIA: Now, Kelly, how about you tell us about this just as soon as we get back from a refill?
KELLY: That sounds great.
JULIA: Perfect.
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JULIA: Hey, this is Julia, and welcome to the refill. First, of course, we have to start by thanking our newest patrons, bringing them into the fold, Laura, Mila, and Izzywhizzey. Welcome, welcome, welcome. You join the ranks of our supporting producer-level patrons like, Uhleeseeuh, Anne, Ginger Spurs Boi, Hannah, Jack Marie, Jane, Kneazlekins, Lily, Matthew, Nathan, Phil Fresh, Rikoelike, Captain Jonathan MAL-uh-kye Cosmos, Sarah and Scott. And of course, our legend-level patrons, Arianna, Audra, Bex, Morgan H., Sarah, and Bea Me Up Scotty. And you too can sign up for our Patreon by going to patreon.com/spiritspodcast and getting cool rewards like, hey, did you know you can get ad-free episodes? As much as I'm sure you really love hearing my and Amanda's voices on the refill, you can just skip our ads by donating on our Patreon. Go to patreon.com/spiritspodcast, sign up for the ad-free tier, and get ad-free episodes. Hey, your time is important, and we understand that, and so we provide ad-free episodes for our patrons, and you can get those right now. Again, patreon.com/spiritspodcast. I also love to give you a recommendation, and this week, I'm going to say, hey, have you downloaded the Libby App, put in your local libraries, library card, and listen to some audiobooks for free there? Because I've been doing that a lot lately. I have been really enjoying the Imperial Rach Trilogy on my audiobooks. It's read by a fabulous actress who does some incredible voice work, I'm really, really impressed. And I just love my Libby App, because, hey, it's got like a sleep function that, like, it'll stop playing if you like to listen to audiobooks before you go to sleep. I like to listen to them when I wake up in the morning and have a little bit of insomnia and then want to go back to sleep, and I'll just set a little 30-minute timer, it's great. Hey, Libby, check it out. It's a great app. I also would love to tell you about what's been going on here at Multitude, and, hey, have you checked out Games and Feelings? Games and Feelings is an advice podcast about games. Join question keeper Eric Silver and a revolving cast of guests as they answer your questions at the intersection of fun and humanity, since you know you got to play games with other people. And they talk about every single type of game, video games of all types, tabletop games, party games, laser tag, escape rooms, game streams, D&D podcast, the companies and the workers that make these games, and anything else you can think of. So, like, for example, how do you convince people who have only played Monopoly to try that new board game that you grabbed from the game store? Or is an escape room a good third date? What makes a video game cozy? And do they have any recommendations? They answer any and all questions as long as they're games-related. So if you like what you hear and want to level up your emotional intelligence stat, subscribe now wherever you get your podcasts. And new episodes are every Friday. Check it out, Games and Feelings. This episode of Spirits is brought to you by Wildgrain. Wildgrain is the first ever bake- from-frozen subscription box for sourdough breads, fresh pastas, and artisanal pastries. Every item bakes from frozen in 25 minutes or less with no thawing required. And the team at Wildgrain just sent me a new box. There are some delicious things inside. Let me tell you about it. I am in love with the strawberry rhubarb turnovers. I had them for brunch basically the other day, when Jake gets up earlier than me. And all of a sudden, I smell pastry in the air while I'm still laying in bed and I know that he has broken out the Wildgrain box. I also really, really love their croissants, which I will tell you a little bit more about later. 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And finally, this episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Now, I have mixed feelings about the approaching end of the year. I— I like the holidays. I don't typically struggle with seasonal blues. But once the days start getting a little shorter, and I think about, like, the end of the year, and it's approaching so quickly, and what have I done this year that, like, actually, is something I can say like, "Oh, I did this." It stresses me out a little. I'm not gonna lie. it stresses me out a lot. And this time of year can be a lot. So it is natural to feel some sadness or anxiety about it, but adding something new and positive to your life can counteract some of those feelings. Therapy can be a bright spot amid all of the stress and change, something to look forward to, to make you feel grounded, and to give you the tools that you need to manage everything going on. 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JULIA: We are back. And Kelly, something I always like to ask our guests, and especially now we're talking about the— the dog days of summer and how hot it is outside, what is a cocktail that you've been enjoying that maybe might refresh you during the dog days of summer or just, you know, keep you warm in the— the middle of winter when apparently Romeo should have been asking for Juliet's hand?
KELLY: Yeah. You know, I have to say, I am very glad as I'm sure many of the citizens of Verona would agree that summer is ending. It is firmly autumn here in the UK, which I am very pleased about, because it means that we're entering hot toddy season.
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: Hmm.
KELLY: Which is one of my favorite things to enjoy. So I am looking forward to getting to make a hot toddy and curl up with Puck the cat on the couch.
AMANDA: Puck the cat!
KELLY: Puck the cat!
JULIA: Oh, so cute. Oh, my God. I am not a whiskey person in general. So I have created what I call my— my gin hot toddy, which is usually—
KELLY: Ooh.
JULIA: —just like a nice herbal tea, like a hibiscus tea with like a dash of berry floral gin in it, and that is what I do instead of a hot toddy.
KELLY: That sounds delicious, and I will have to try that.
JULIA: I would recommend it. I think it's great.
AMANDA: I had my first hot toddy of the season last— or this past weekend at my local brewery because they had it, like—
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: —on the menu. They started making whiskey aged in their own beer barrels, which is very exciting.
JULIA: Cool.
AMANDA: And so they have, like, their house whiskey. And it took the bartender like 15 minutes to make this drink, because, like, the kettle had to boil, she, like, studded little lemon slices with cloves, like it was so adorable. I tipped her, like, 50%. It was incredibly satisfying.
JULIA: You should appreciate the effort.
AMANDA: And I'm like, this is my hot toddy winter, baby.
JULIA: I love that for you.
KELLY: It's the kind of thing that I hate to ask for in a bar, because I know that it's the most annoying order.
JULIA: But easy enough to make it home when you have the time, you know?
KELLY: Hmm.
AMANDA: Oh, yeah.
JULIA: Well, we left off with a— a little bit of a cliffhanger. Kelly, give us the deets.
KELLY: Yes. It's probably the—the nerdiest cliffhanger of all time, but I hope I found the right audience for it.
JULIA: I love it. A nerdy cliffhanger is perfect.
KELLY: So I noticed something when I was looking at Romeo and Juliet, thinking about the image of Canis Major, this dog with a fiery mouth. Then I found one reference—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
KELLY: —to Canis Major as a dog with a flaming torch in its mouth.
JULIA: Ooh.
KELLY: And I was like, "Oh, that's a bit interesting. That's a little different from what I've seen." And the amount of times that Shakespeare uses the word "torch" in Romeo and Juliet is bananas.
AMANDA: Really?
KELLY: Yeah, it's very weird. So he uses the word itself nine times, and he uses the word "light" in reference—
JULIA: Hmm.
KELLY: —to a torch, another nine times.
AMANDA: Huh.
KELLY: And I looked at like every other play, and the only other one that I saw that word come up in was, like, Macbeth a few times, but it's usually in the stage directions. Like, it was a serious outlier.
AMANDA: Yeah. There's a lot of like dark castle rooms that people have to walk into with a torch in Macbeth.
KELLY: Yeah, but they're not talking about it.
JULIA: Yeah.
KELLY: Right?
JULIA: And Shakespeare is not, like, writing about, "Oh, and then you know, Macbeth holds this torch up while he murders Duncan." You know, like, it's—
KELLY: Yeah. There's a lot of Romeo asking to bear— bear the torch, give me the torch. He comes into the Capulets Ball saying, "I'll be the torch bearer."
JULIA: Hmm.
KELLY: "I'm— I'm not for this ambling." And the— the references to torches are also really clustered around Capulets party where Romeo—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
KELLY: —and Juliet meet. And when he sees her, "Oh, she doth teach the torches to burn bright."
JULIA: Ooh.
AMANDA: Ooh, damn.
KELLY: Yeah. And again, at the very end of the play, when Romeo thinks Juliet is dead in a tomb, and he's— he's going to be with her body, that's when torches come up again. And so I— I started thinking about how Shakespeare might be using this image of Canis Major almost as
like this beacon of disaster that—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
KELLY: —bookends the play a bit. Romeo coming in as the torchbearer, kind of marching into the start of his downfall at Capulets party. And then coming back at the end, once again, asking his servant for a torch to come into the tomb. And once the kind of cacophony of chaos kicks off at the end, after Romeo and Juliet have both committed suicide, all of the servants that are coming to— like, Friar Lawrence and the servants coming to find them, they're using the word "torch" as a marker for the tomb. They're— they're saying over there, what— where the torches are, that's the place.
AMANDA: Right.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
KELLY: Friar Lawrence says something like, " What torch is yond, that vainly lends his light to grubs and eyeless skulls?"
AMANDA: Wow.
JULIA: Ooh.
KELLY: Yeah. And it— it feels like there's a real choice here to mirror Canis Major's fiery torch in his mouth and place it firmly on the ground where the disaster and— and tragedy is happening. The specificity of the dog having a torch in its mouth, you know—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
KELLY: —it's— it's something that I wasn't able to find a lot of other people talking about. Is it a torch? Is it just that he, like, breathes fire? Like what exactly— what exactly is going on here?
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
KELLY: But there was a— a real outlier in Shakespeare's language, and because he's already made such a purposeful deviation from his source, I wanted to really take seriously, and these sort of other outliers that I noticed.
AMANDA: The choice.
KELLY: So, yeah, torch imagery all over the place in— in R and J.
AMANDA: Who would have guessed?
KELLY: There's also— some more just fun facts about dog days. There's some really wild superstitions of this time period that I think Shakespeare is engaging with.
JULIA: Oh.
AMANDA: Kelly, I— I literally thought until right now, it's like, "Oh, all the dogs are panting because it's really hot." So, like, please fill my empty head with knowledge.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.
KELLY: There is so much— yeah, I wou— I would not have— if I hadn't gone on this deep dive, I would not have known either that there's a 17th-century superstition that lasted a while that during the dog days, the menstrual blood of virgins becomes poisonous.
JULIA: What?
AMANDA: Oh, shit.
KELLY: And— yeah, right. Like, what? Also, how would anyone know? Why? What—
JULIA: Why is anyone drinking that, you know?
AMANDA: I mean, it's very convenient for poisoning people in your life that you need to get rid of.
KELLY: That is fair. But also on— on a less specific note that just in general, it was dangerous to have sex during the dog days. It is dangerous to take medicine. And so when you think about major plot points of Romeo and Juliet, needing to consummate a marriage—
JULIA: Taking a poison.
AMANDA: Yes.
KELLY: Taking a medicine to go into a death-like sleep, these feel like things that he's signaling to. And not only has the audience already been told from the— from the get-go in the prologue that— that things are going to go badly for these two lovers, but they also have this added knowledge of what the dog days were, what that meant. And even hearing Juliet's name, her name is synonymous with her nativity. She's born in July.
JULIA: Hmm.
KELLY: An audience member that's keenly listening would be reminded of her nativity and the— and the time of year that we're in every time—
AMANDA: Damn.
KELLY: —we hear her name.
AMANDA: Which was said so much. Perhaps—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: —more than—
KELLY: So—
AMANDA: —any other name in Shakespeare.
JULIA: It feels like one of those like when you're reading a fantasy series or something like that, and you look at that name and you're like, "That seems a little on the nose." Like, you don't have to like name your— your bad guy like Melodious and you're like, "What are you doing? We get it, come on."
AMANDA: But this— this torch imagery is really resonating for me because— you know, like we were describing before the— the break, like it— it just seems, like, kindling about to go up.
KELLY: Yeah.
AMANDA: It seems like lighting a cigarette in a hospital. Like— like that's the kind of, like, charged atmosphere, spiritually, celestially, weather-wise that makes me like on edge as I see these people do things like have sex, like engage in poisons, like, you know, drink those poisons.
KELLY: Absolutely. And— and fire, in general, comes up a lot as well. Juliet has this gorgeous speech when she's waiting for Romeo to— to sneak into her room so they can consummate their marriage, "Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds, Towards Phoebus' lodging." And is invoking this image of the fiery chariot bringing the sun and— which is a tragic story of a tragic myth that again goes very wrong for Phoebus' son who— who kind of get— loses control of the fiery wagon. But— but she's invoking this image with ecstasy and joy. And it feels like an example of Shakespeare showing us the dangers of not taking astral influences seriously. You know, whether— wherever you stand on the spectrum in this time period of how much you engage with it, or— or what you believe about it, it's dangerous to be blissfully unaware completely. And it— it feels like that's sort of where the tragedy lies for these two, is that there's these constant signals around them of the conditions that they're in that is going to lead to their demise, but they're completely oblivious to it. They get close, you know? Romeo has these moments where it's like, "I had this crazy dream last night that, you know, I— I— my lady kissed me and I— like woke me from death." And Juliet's—as he's going away Romeo is like, "Oh, I have a prophetic soul. It says if I see you in the bottom of a tomb." Right? Like, they get so close.
AMANDA: Ha, ha. Isn't that funny? Kiss, kiss. See you later.
JULIA: Oh, God. It's—
KELLY: —it's probably fine, though, right?
AMANDA: Probably fine. Nothing to worry about.
JULIA: Probably fine. It's not like we're characters in a play or anything.
AMANDA: No, it's fine, it's fine.
KELLY: They get— they get very close to realizing how— where they are, what's happening around them, and there's just— the audience is sitting there, you know, feeling the heat, hearing it constantly and— and watching these two just continue marching on. And I think that puts the— into a much more tragic register than just like, "Oh, it's a story about dumb kids that made bad decisions."
AMANDA: A 1,000%.
KELLY: So—
JULIA: Yeah. A 100%, Oh, my gosh.
AMANDA: Oh, this is— this is making me want to read Romeo and Juliet, which I don't think anybody's ever done.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: Incredible.
JULIA: Never really wanted to, is the case.
AMANDA: Yeah, yeah.
KELLY: It gets ruined so often for people, which is why it was really—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
KELLY: I think I— I— I enjoyed writing this chapter the most, I think, because I was so desperate to find something new and interesting about this play that might make people give a shit about it.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. And I think you did. At least for us, you certainly did. Like when we were talking about what plays we wanted to do for the supernatural Shakespeare, like Romeo and Juliet didn't even cross my mind, because I'm like, "Yeah, it's just a bunch of dumb kids making stupid decisions." Like, you know, we don't need to think about anything in that play. And then you're like, "The Zodiac, though, the astrological signs."
KELLY: Yeah, well, it's—
JULIA: I'm like, "Damn."
KELLY: —it's, you know, a testament to how— how much goes into the printing of these almanacs and the types of things—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
KELLY: —that were being communicated to people. It wasn't just there's an eclipse, and you got to know about that, or the moon's full—
JULIA: Yeah.
KELLY: —the moon's new, there's a retrograde, you know? There were other even more involved celestial seasons that we don't talk about anymore, so you— so you wouldn't pick up on any references that Shakespeare is making to them.
JULIA: That's wild. That's so wild. Like, we— we talked about that too in, like, the Macbeth episode, how, like, the context of the time is really important to understanding certain aspects of the play. Like, the fact that King James was writing his book on witches during the time period—
KELLY: Hmm.
JULIA: The mirror at the end of the line of kings, supposed to be like reflecting King James and the audience. Like, it's really interesting to know, like, oh, we're missing such a key element when we're just reading these books without any— or reading these plays without any historical context. So it's— it's so wonderful to be like, "Yeah, everyone knew about the astrological signs, and the Zodiac, and the movement of the celestial bodies, and that impacts how they saw this play." Like—
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: —it just— it— it would never have struck me as a thing, until we started doing a little more research into these and until you started, like, blowing my mind with all these details.
KELLY: I really like to think about as well, the— the globe stage, the awning that— that comes over the— the stage, painted on the ceiling would have been images of the Zodiacs, stars, moons— moon? There's one moon, Kelly.
AMANDA: But phases of the moon, yeah.
KELLY: Phases of the moon, the planets.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
KELLY: So that was there painted on the ceiling of every single performance. Like that was a background for every play that you saw there.
AMANDA: Oh, yeah.
KELLY: And it still is—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
KELLY: —because they've done a lovely job of— of reconstructing what—
AMANDA: It's beautiful.
KELLY: But yeah, it's— it's really— it's a backdrop of everything that you would have seen on that stage, which I think speaks to how— it— it was— it was sort of the backdrop just in people's lives, in general. I mean, they'd consult astrologers at the same time that they were consulting physicians. They would use mapping the planets to make diagnoses for people. It was— it was just part of life in a way that it isn't anymore.
AMANDA: And I know you mentioned too, that this is, again, a whole chapter of your thesis, but can you tell us briefly a little bit about some of the headlines, the celestial news headlines that may have affected the writing and reception of All's Well That Ends Well?
KELLY: Yes, absolutely. In addition to movements of celestial bodies being a big part of people's day-to-day life, any sort of changes or unexpected things, obviously, would have been much more talked about in this time period. There's some really amazing synchronicities in All's Well That Ends Well.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
KELLY: So we know that Shakespeare was likely working on All's Well That Ends Well, like, early 1605.
JULIA: Okay.
KELLY: And in the year before, kind of late 1604, so leading up to the time that Shakespeare is writing All's Well That Ends Well, there was a massive supernova.
JULIA: Whoa.
KELLY: And this— yeah, this would have looked like to people in this time period like a new star just appeared in the sky.
JULIA: Okay.
AMANDA: Right.
KELLY: Which would have been pretty jarring because up until this point, they— they—
AMANDA: Those have always been there. There's no new one.
KELLY: There's always been there. I thought those were sort of like fixed in space, you know? So—
JULIA: Why would they change? Yeah.
KELLY: And this— this supernova was so bright that they could see it during the day.
AMANDA: Whoa.
KELLY: And so this—
JULIA: Holy shit.
KELLY: —yeah, this would have been talked about— it was a story for people. And another sort of celestial movement that happens leading up to All's Well being written is Mars going into retrograde, which happens, you know, fairly often enough. It's like every two years or so. But this has a kind of unique connection to the play because All's Well That Ends Well, I— I think it's Shakespeare's attempt to have a little bit of a more nuanced approach with the concept of astral influence.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
KELLY: There were a lot of astrologers that were saying at the time, you know, it's— it's not that you are— there's this unyielding power that the stars have. They give inclinations, but it's up to the individual what you do with that. And in All's Well That Ends Well, he starts to really play with that because our sort of lead heroine of All's Well That Ends Well is Helena, and she is in love with a count and she is, as she calls it, of baser stars.
JULIA: Hmm.
KELLY: And it— the— it's sort of the story of her trying to change her stars, really. When she's talking about Bertram right in the beginning of the play, she says, "'Twere all one That I should love a bright particular star and think to wed it and"— adorable, right? Oh, my gosh.
AMANDA: Yes.
KELLY: I cried. But it's coming off the back of an actual bright particular star that has just been at the forefront of everyone's minds. And, you know, could be a— a sort of scary thing to see, might have influenced conversations about, you know, what does it mean? Is it a sign of something? Will— will it have influence? And shortly after we get a little bit more of— of Helena telling us her woes and— and lamenting her unrequited love, we meet this character that Shakespeare has invented. He's— he's added this to the play himself—
JULIA: Of course.
KELLY: —called Paroles. And if you have strong feelings about how to say the character's name, please don't yell at me. I don't speak French, and that's how it scans in the iambic pentameter, so that's what we're going with.
JULIA: Great. We love it. Everything sounds a little different in Shakespeare as we discovered—
KELLY: Yeah.
JULIA: —like, you know, just in the past in general.
KELLY: But Paroles immediately as he's coming in, Helena is like "Oh, this buffoon. You know, I love him, but he's kind of a liar, and he's like boasting all the time." He— he says he's—
AMANDA: A fuckboy.
KELLY: He's a fuck boy. He says he's—
JULIA: I love it.
KELLY: Like, he's this amazing soldier, but nobody really can confirm that. He comes in, they have these really fun, like, snappy scenes, quipping back and forth. And he— he asked her, "Oh, are you meditating on virginity?"
JULIA: Oh, I think everyone thinks about all the time, meditating on virginity. Sure.
KELLY: Right? She just runs with it, though. She's like, "Yeah, let's talk about it." And they have this very fun, silly scene full of puns where he's kind of talking her in circles a little bit about the concept of virginity. Right before he leaves, Helena says to him, "You were born under a charitable star." And they have this conversation about Paroles' nativity, and he reveals, "I was born under Mars."
JULIA: Hmm.
KELLY: And Helena says, "Oh, when he was retrograde, I think," and she starts kind of making fun of him about—
JULIA: Damn.
KELLY: —you know— you know, Mars is supposed to be the planet of war and valor, and he's proudly saying he's born under Mars. And she says, "No, when he was retrograde, because you go backwards in a fight."
JULIA: Woo!
AMANDA: Nice.
KELLY: Yeah. Zing!
AMANDA: Damn, dude.
JULIA: Got 'em.
AMANDA: Incredible zing.
KELLY: But kind of— to— to bring it back to this— this topic of Mars in retrograde, again, it's this very specific thing that Shakespeare brings into the world of the play. As he was writing, we had a Mars in retrograde that the path of its retrograde actually circled Virgo the Virgin. And so it feels like this—
AMANDA: Wow.
KELLY: —personification of, you know, you have Mars going backwards, talking Helena in circles about her virginity. And it just is this really— you know, we can't say for sure, of course. Maybe it is just a— a wild coincidence. But he's sort of using stars as a marker and representatives of fate—
JULIA: Hmm.
KELLY: —in All's Well quite often. Helena talks about it a lot. She's always sort of talking about the spheres that she's placing other characters in. And so it— it feels very alive for the characters, and it was alive at the time. And we got to see Paroles as a sort of negative retrograde Martian—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
KELLY: —so to speak. Because there was— the concept of you know, planets have these inclinations, there's fortunate and there's unfortunate.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
KELLY: And it's up to the person if the inclinations of a planet become virtues or if they become vices.
AMANDA: Hmm.
KELLY: Paroles feels like this example of someone who is taking astral influence, it's being placed on them in an unfortunate way.
JULIA: Hmm.
KELLY: Mars— the unfortunate qualities of Mars— sorry, I'm using that word because there was a 1590-ish astrological discourse that was printed, that said, "Each planet has unfortunate—unfortunate qualities."
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
KELLY: And you're more likely to get the unfortunate when they go backward.
AMANDA: Hmm.
KELLY: Paroles goes on to— almost go down the checklist verbatim of unfortunate Martian qualities, like he's getting into fights all the time for no reason, he's lying to people, he's, you know, boasting about his feats in battle, but no one can confirm.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
KELLY: And then when his friends play a prank on him and pretend to ambush him when they're away in war, you know?
AMANDA: Classic bros.
KELLY: Your bros gotta keep the spirits high during wartime.
JULIA: Classic.
KELLY: Pretend to ambush your friends. He immediately gives everyone up. So they— they sort of, like, blindfold him and he, like, falls to his knees quaking, saying, like, “I'll tell you everything. I'll tell you their plans. I'll— you know, I'll reveal locations, whatever you need to know. Just don't kill me."
AMANDA: A real backward Mars situation.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. A real retrograde.
KELLY: Exactly. Really, really goes through all of these qualities and we— we get sort of the two sides of the coin of, you know, Helena respecting astral influence, trying to make the most of it, kind of like yielding to their— their presence and acknowledging them, but trying to work with that energy in a positive way.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
KELLY: And then on the flip side, you have the— the poster boy for Mars in retrograde in Paroles and the— the wacky antics. And I mean, I shouldn't say that lightly. He betrays all of his friends. And if that was a real situation, there would be—
JULIA: Yeah, yeah. But it's not a tragedy, so it's fine.
KELLY: But it's not a tragedy.
JULIA: It's in the title.
KELLY: Well, that's the other thing, too. Yeah. "All's Well that Ends Well," and Helena says it a couple of times and it— it really— it feels like a— a sort of mantra for her of, you know, she's going to work with what she's been given and— and turn it around and—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
KELLY: —bring it back to— she has a— a lovely moment where she's hatching her plan, and— of how she's going to— how she's going to win Bertram's affection, what she's going to do next. And she says, " Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, which we ascribe to heaven. The fated sky gives us free scope. Only doth backward pull our slow designs when we ourselves are dull."
JULIA: Wow. Damn.
KELLY: Yeah. It's like acknowledging the— there— there is a fated sky, but you could have a dialogue with it. You know, you can— you can—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
KELLY: —work with that and change your fate.
AMANDA: What an incredible note.
JULIA: Kelly, I want you to take me through every Shakespeare and tell me all of the— the astrological signs, but we do not have the time for that—
KELLY: I know.
JULIA: —unfortunately.
KELLY: Another time.
JULIA: Another time, perhaps.
AMANDA: It'll have to be another time because you were also born under some fated signs in Oneida, New York—
KELLY: Oh, my God.
AMANDA: —and so we're gonna have to talk about that at some point in the future.
KELLY: Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. That is a buck-wild place, for sure.
JULIA: Oh, boy. Oh, boy, is it?
AMANDA: We'll have you on for urban legends. We will talk about Silver. It'll be great.
KELLY: I did my first Shakespeare play at the Oneida Community Mansion House.
JULIA: [gasps]
KELLY: Yes.
JULIA: Oh, my gosh.
KELLY: It was written in the stars that I was meant to tell you two, specifically, about all of these things.
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: Everything lined up to this moment right here. Well, Kelly, thank you so much for joining us and talking to us about astrology, and Shakespeare. and all the supernatural elements involved in those things. Is there a place on the internet that people can find you if they want to talk to you about those things?
KELLY: Yes, please do. It's very hard for me to find an audience for this niche stuff. So if you want to talk to me about it, please do.
AMANDA: You got them right here.
KELLY: Yes, you can find me on Instagram @kelly.m.downes. And I don't have any exciting projects in the works at the moment, but I have some ideas that I would love to connect with some like-minded people about.
JULIA: Hmm.
KELLY: So if you are interested in queer Shakespeare, if you're interested in storytelling as a way to reconnect with the natural world, and if you happen to be a burlesque performer who enjoys Shakespeare or wants to try some Shakespeare, I have some ideas that I'd love to chat to you about. So hit me up.
JULIA: Amazing.
AMANDA: This is the audience for you!
KELLY: Ah, yes!
AMANDA: I know we have burlesque performers. They are listening to this episode. I think you're gonna find some new friends.
KELLY: Come talk to me, please. Let's do Shakespearean in burlesque. I have ideas.
JULIA: Incredible.
AMANDA: Please invite us.
JULIA: Oh, my gosh. We're excited.
KELLY: Yes!
JULIA: Kelly, thank you again. And remember, listeners, next time you are asking the stars to hide their fires and not show your dark and deep desires, stay creepy.
AMANDA: Stay cool.
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