Monday, Dec. 09, 1946
The Raven Himself Is Hoarse
MACBETH (125 pp.)--William Shakespeare, illusfrated by Salvador Dali--Doubleday, Doran ($3.50).
(Scene: A bar in Eastcheap. Enter two Elizabethan book-reviewers, one clapping the other upon the shoulder.) 1st BR. How now, scribbler, what news this day? 2nd BR. Alas! this day indeed; this Doubleday!
1st BR. Speak out, wordster! 2nd BR. This dawn, eleven o'clock, when
I arose, Peering upon the world with
clotted eye, A package lay without my port; 'twas brought By one whom rain nor snow nor sleet can keep From his appointed round. I clipped its cords, And saw, dust-jacketed in gold
and red, A spectacle acute. To say it
shortly:
Will Shakespeare's Scottish play about Macbeth
Hath found a limner in McDali. 1st BR. Cawdor and Salvador! Insane conjunction! Is-Master Doubleday
Deranged i' the wits? 2nd BR. It is a blend
As strange as if Madrid's hot
Manzanares Were suddenly to turn his tide,
and flow Regurgitant into the Firth of
Forth.
The strumming of flamencos on
a brae Were not more singular. And
add to this:
Surrealism's parched, miasmic
winds
Puffed thro' the towers of Glamis.
1st BR. Stranger Catalonian never wore
sporran! I pray you, good
fellow, itemize the damage;
that I, without the hardship
of reading, may yet write
knowingly.
2nd BR. Item: poor Scotia's purply heath
portrayed Like to the runways used by
'planes. Thereon Squat the three witches, pond'ring a takeoff. Item:
Facing page 42, Lady Macbeth Is wholly chopped in two from
brow to chine.
Over the sibling halves, the
fierce McDali Has hung a hairdo drawn" from
Botticelli.
The lady bears two earrings,
one of which, Dangling displaced, in Dali's
playful mode, Droops from the center of her
clefted forehead.
Elsewhere, poor lady, she hath
no face at all, And finally her very head is
lopped.
Item: throughout these strange
configurations, Copied, at best, from Breughel
and Da Vinci, Appears a nasty crutch, the
which, they tell me, Is saggy emblem of the clan
McDali.
In truth, I was surprised that
Birnam Wood
Did not advance on crutches. 1st BR. Here's a tartan would give a man goose-pimples! What shall you tell your readers? 2nd BR. I'll tell them straight that, for
this selfsame price, Three thalers fifty groats, they
may procure
The plays of William Shakespeare all complete, Untouched by Salvador. 1st BR. Brave words, Master Critic!
I'll away and do the same.
The moral is as clear as lightning's touch,
A healthy play runs best without a crutch.
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