… I just felt like rewriting the beginning of the Prologue to Richard III. Hey, at least I didn’t call it “A Canticle For Lieberman”…
Moe
PS: Don’t read too much into this one, guys. The link to the text I used to mutate this found here. Also, rilkefan gets a golf clap for tracking it down so quickly.
Lieberman: Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of Dean;
And all the polls that rained upon our cause
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
Now are our blogs bound with laudatory posts;
Our broken bats hung up for monuments;
Our stern reproofs chang’d to merry meetings,
Our tedious marches to joyful strippings.
Grim-toned Protest hath soothed his howling voice,
And now, instead of mounting great puppets
To fright the souls of fascist Rethuglicans,
He snickers loudly in left-wing chat threads
To the incestuous music of trackback links.
But I – that cannot speak of Wyclef, Jean,
Nor hope to pass for metrosexual –
I – that am centrist-stamp’d, and lack th’ability
To strut with style and flatter aimless kids –
I – that am curtail’d of Leftist endorsements,
Cheated of stature by dissembling colleagues,
Hawkish, Jewish, sent before my time
Into this breathing world a DINO born,
And that so wonkish and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me as I lecture them-
Why, I, in this calm before the shitstorm,
Have no delight to give away this time,
Because Bush is not stupid, alas –
Or unaware of our deficiencies.
And therefore, since I cannot prove a winner
To Democrats these bitter-spoken days,
I am determined to prove a hero
And save these idle twits despite themselves.
Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,
By idle bullet points, debates, and plans,
To set my brother Howard and Duke Gore
In deadly hate the one against the other;
And if King Howard be as much a dupe
As I am crafty, smooth and tenacious,
This day should Al Gore quickly be cast out –
All from a prophecy which says that Gore
Shall of the Democrats make them no more.
Dive, thoughts, down to my soul. Here Howard comes.
my goodness. how on earth did you do that? I once made fun of my teachers in terza rima for an English assignment, but I didn’t actually sound vaguely like Dante.
can you link to the original text?
Katherine,
here’s the original with some commentary.
Crap, I see Moe got there first, and I look stupid. Oh well.
“my goodness. how on earth did you do that?”
Well, I could give you a song and dance about getting into the heart and flow of the text and so forth – but the honest answer is mostly that I happen to be pretty good at doggerel. 🙂
“Crap, I see Moe got there first, and I look stupid. Oh well.”
Hardly: I should have posted the original link in the first place.
geeky editor suggestions:
change “wonkings” to “reproofs” (not a word)
change “trackback” to “trackback links” (preserves original meter)
change “without the chutzpah” to “lack th’ability”
(more Shakespearean)
Oh, very well. Ratzenfracken editors…
😉
Moe, do I want a golf clap? I sort of think I don’t want any kind of clap. – I’m confused – did you follow up my first post with your “p.s.”? If so, perhaps you could in future choose “update”, preferably time-stamped. – You might consider changing “sun of Dean” to “son of Gore”, which is a slant rhyme of the original, and thematical to boot…
Gimme a break, it’s after 2 AM.
I thought you were channeling Steinbeck, but I quickly realized it was Steinbeck who was channeling Shakespeare.
This was really funny, Moe. Nice work. My only quibble is not with you, but rather with the translation site you linked to. The problem is that this passage:
is translated as:
When in fact it means:
Which is both evocative and vulgar, a combination you don’t see nearly enough, and such things should be celebrated.
brilliant stuff Moe…
I like my parodies with their odd awkward juts…too polished and they lose that bawdy, vaudevillian quality that makes them so irresistible. Breaking the meter on occassion for effect is not just allowable…it’s preferable in my book.
Kudos and hat’s off to ya.
You should send a copy to hapless Joe.
Dang. That is hilarious and impressive – the best I can do is summarize it in haiku.
Gore digs the Deaner.
His old pal didn’t get called.
Sorry, Lieberman.
I’m ok at doggerel too (and have an insufferable proofreader gene that gets activated every once in a while from my newspaper days), but I’m off my game today. All I’ve got is a few limericks:
There is an ex-doctor named Howard,
whose campaign says that he’s people powered.
“Do they mean that Dean
is pure soylent green?”
John, Dick and John asked as they cowered.
Joe Lieberman of Connecticut
should be treated with much better etiquette
Though he sounds like a muppet,
he’s not Dubya’s puppet;
its past time that we all admitted it.
Hilarious, Moe. There is something indeed Shakesperian to this Goreian betrayal.
st, I think you’re reading “decant” for “descant” in the original. “Decant” means to pour out liquid, which would have the vulgar meaning you bring up, but “descant” means to talk about at great length, which might instead be translated in Blinkie’s synopsis by “Only thing I can do is whine and moan about how ugly I am”.
Michael N. – Hmmm, upon further review, you may be right in the dictionary, thats-what-the-word-actually-means sense, but I think that there’s an intentional pun in there – at least that’s how my Shakespeare professor explained it to me. I don’t think you will win a lot of money betting against intentional puns in Shakespeare.
But, fair point nonetheless.
Fine work.
Gotta add some backslapping here. Nice piece, Moe. Bill would’ve stood you a round for that one.
“Bill would’ve stood you a round for that one.”
Then ripped it to shreds and put it back together again over drinks, no doubt. 🙂
Moe
PS: Thanks for the kind words on this one.
Well done, Moe.
Well done, Moe. (Why haven’t more people linked to this?)
Doug M.
“Well done, Moe. (Why haven’t more people linked to this?)”
(wordless shrug) I’ve seen two links to it – both from blogspot, so no trackbacks. Guess I’m not particularly good at advertising. Big surprise there, huh, Doug? 🙂