The Tragedy of Macdeth
Bacon, Francis X.
The Tragedy of Macdeth by Francis X. Bacon ACT I Scene I—A heath in Arkansas. [Enter MACDETH and LYONS, jogging] MACDETH How now, my gentle Lyons, what's o'clock? LYONS My liege, the moon...
...Enter Lady HILLARY with MESSENGERS] 3rd WITCH Hail, Macdeth, both witness and defendant...
...Then turn we to our order's liturgy, lest Dee Dee's woe be changed to Limbaugh's glee...
...Exeunt] MACDETH Hie thee hence to Lady Hillary, knock twice—lest haste a Foster husband find—and quaint her of this morrow's tidings...
...Oyez...
...Exit] MACDETH What joy, what horror must this be, that makes my very scalp unseat itself, as when the tempest scatters sickle'd wheat afield or Cristophe runs his fingers through my hair...
...MACDETH Stay, weird sisters...
...Make plain thy lesson...
...Yet trippeth nigh calamity, I'll warrant...
...Ambition, like a draught of cannabis long held (but not inhaled), doth prick resentment to a fury, who gallops onward riderless, and comes uncaptained frothing to her post...
...I pray you kindly disregard this haunting...
...A light .. . Nay, 'tis but a dot...
...But do thou act upon thy courage as it is thy wont to operate upon thy hostesses, and thou'It not fail...
...Exeunt] Scene 1I—The White House...
...Thank heaven for Ko-Rek-Type, for we'd else be dotty...
...24 The American Spectator August 1994 ELDERS She needs Lloyd Cutlery, not scalpels, child: I diagnose a sore 1040, jointly filed...
...First Lady, I? Say rather Empress, partnered with a drone...
...FOOL And how...
...I hear, your ladyship, and fly...
...But let me set a riddle, for my head: How dost thou in thy managements compare to auguries of Carthage or of Rome...
...She'll gain her couch again within the hour, withal by sense or memory unpiloted...
...HILLARY How...
...Exeunt] ACT III Scene I—A hall in the White House...
...FOOL Primo, for their wit and provenance...
...Be no leaf left familiar to his brother, no scribed pair of words conjoin'd...
...KOPECHNE Come I this eve when feted be the SJC, my inquest to appeal, to wail mine injury...
...Enter HILLARY, nightgowned, with a handbag, looking about her and pointing] HILLARY But here's a decimal...
...Exeunt] ACT IV [The exercise yard of Ft...
...ELDERS Now dat is one messed-up HILLARY Ho...
...Goodnight, sweet prince, that uttered blessing with thy last McBreath...
...Enter WITCHES garbed as wardens] WITCHES Parcel for 6327...
...Full many peetsers have I laded upon this board, nor scanted onions, peppers, exter sauce HILLARY We hear...
...HILLARY Art mindful of the time...
...Varlet...
...For these appear not women, nay, nor men, but antecedents of the pronoun s/he three Deans of Gender Studies, it would seem, the very substance of delirium...
...Secundo, for that they counterfeit the dead...
...MACDETH The clock's a slave severer than his lord and whoreson miserly, that spareth not an hour for dalliance...
...I guess I'll be avaunting...
...What cannot be dismembered, kindle...
...HILLARY You're hired again...
...Delete: star-dot-star: We would thou couldst...
...WITCHES A gauge of love these presents be, from Mrs...
...2nd WITCH Vin Foster lieth silenced on the crimson'd turf, and husband, lawyer, Razorback alike are dumb, reposing in the selfsame corse...
...Pushes button on wristwatch] Six-thirty...
...Enter MACDETH] MACDETH How 'bout them Hawgs...
...Exit] ACT II Scene I—A cavern...
...Exit] WITCHES . . . distill our brew with earwig venom, compound with Amy Fisher's denim, Teddy's poppers, Willie's toke, Jonestown punch, Anita's Coke, Janet Reno's rescue tactics, Magic Johnson's prophylactics, G-man's sting and he-man's stench, powder'd harlot, Liquid Wench, —4 The American Spectator August 1994 21 jaws of Jersey City mobster, claws of Chappaquiddick lobster (clutching in its briny clickers Mary Jo Kopechne's knickers), possum's blister, maggot's wen, Susan Estrich estrogenMacdeth shall thus the networks charm to spin the news and spare him harm...
...Download this riddle into the syntax of propinquity...
...HILLARY Yet another...
...A banquet prepared...
...What FDA-untested potion sacks my intellect, and exiles high-enthroned Consciousness of Lack of Consciousness of Class...
...LYONS My liege, bright Phoebus knocks on Aries' door, and begs admittance, pleading but an hour's tarry in his house...
...Exit] HILLARY Come, come, thou starest as a maddened bull, or saddened steer, belike—continue, worm...
...Art happy to see me, or is that a Title IX enforcement order in thy pocket...
...Stars and Bars...
...20 The American Spectator August 1994 1st WITCH 'Tis well and bravely done...
...And, honey, that be Joycelyn's ipsa dixit, 'Cause if it ain't broke latex, I don't fix it...
...HILLARY Thy wit defeats me, naughty Sphinx...
...MACDETH Then let us canny falconers uncage our Reeboks to th'unruly winds and speed on wings of Taiwan-sculpted rubber hence, lest time should turn our stomachs cuckold and torpor the McBreakfast Special cheat...
...Looking at the wall-clock by the gate] Quarter to two...
...MACDETH Canst disregard that gore, that loathsome gaze...
...My desk, my Georgetown tie, my chiefs of staff—all the massy dignities of state, would I the most precipitously trade, to purchase but an acre of my own demesne, that uninhabitable past...
...Stabs drumstick down his throat] FOOL Now croaks a noble heart...
...I go...
...Is there no surgery, no knife, this ill to amputate...
...MACDETH This dicing with doom's hit-man likes me not...
...MACDETH Wondrous slow be time's unfroward tread, and whoreson recusant himself, who lags and limps behind anticipation, and goads her on while tugging at the reins...
...Go to...
...rip what won't be fed into the flame...
...FOSTER Senate Judiciary Committee...
...MYERS MACDETH —termaters, cheese, eye-talian sausages with them little seeds inside 'em, weenies, olives (green and black), pimentoes, cheese again, zucchini, mushrooms, Velveeta, Spam, salami, HILLARY Dearest sir, remember where we are...
...KOPECHNE Ah...
...Come Phaedra, come mistress mine Medea, teach your willing daughter true resolve...
...FOOL 'Twould make thee whinny...
...Alack the day, the hour, that seeth slain my tongue, my appetite...
...Or are they dots...
...Spare not the infant children of his pen, lest all too soon they learn the art of speech and prattle mortal secrets to the world...
...I deem they be so lipped the flaccid tennis balls of fate through triumph's garden hose to inspirate...
...Did not the bearded crones give certain prescience of triumph...
...The majesty of state doth well to feast her aristocracy as roundly as she famisheth all else...
...for by his zipper is he often tripped, whose waitresses are tumbled more than tipped...
...for so methinks shall Justice keep her dreadsome sword well-scabbarded, when to her sightless gaze is deafness full compounded...
...HILLARY [to MESSENGERS] Fly...
...ELDERS Soft now, she walks...
...And again...
...No lickerous enticement to thy fancy struts within these walls...
...HILLARY Let no device remain untried, no artifice untested, that ruth should beggar opportunity, or honor's scruples pauperize success...
...for sawdust doth a queasy press-corps feed, and those who yet will not be stonewalled we shall Stephanopoulize...
...Exit] Scene II—The White House, outside Lady HILLARY's chamber...
...Thy very hookworms prick my memory as messengers of fragile joy, and lisp in words more bitter for their sweetness of pleasures I shall never taste again...
...HILLARY Nay, fool...
...0 come, ye Wellesley-spawned Eumenides of spite, unsex me here...
...Nay, starch thy spine, nor license fear to sully thy repute, thy manhood, or thy BVDs (which, bear in mind, shall not be fully amortized 'til '96...
...1st WITCH How now...
...Was ever Whitewater so clean That whitewash turn'd it whiter...
...thus it is we come together to felicitate with one accord our [GHOST sits in HILLARY's lap] necrophiles . . . and doughnuts...
...Replace my blood with quarts of chilliest testosterone, and butch my hair, that no suspicious visitings of NOW—nor journalists—might weaken my resolve, or set me gagging Socks-like on compunction's hairball...
...My duty done, and doing five to eight...
...HILLARY Thou art an arrant whelp...
...741 6(e)3: Provideth funding for this curse, in parts, The National Endowment for the Arts...
...Edward Kennedy, who (being to thy needs alert) conveys this gift for your dessert...
...FOOL The same...
...1st WITCH Where hast thou been, sister...
...Enter AUDITOR] If we should fail...
...Takes a bottle of white-out from the bag and begins to paint her nails] More dots, more dots...
...FOOL Marry, not as mare but as Mandela, whose Winnie spurneth not the lash, nor yet was vexed by a friend whom time did not incinerate...
...Or both...
...In the middle, a boiling cauldron...
...Do tell...
...Opens window] We see stars...
...cross-gartered, mincing, single-witted knave, remove thee from mine eyes, for but to gaze on thy ill-favored visage acheth sore...
...FOOL That bush-hog torched his house in seeming secret, then chid him not to look upon the smoke...
...We part anon for Michigan to press down Polack gorge the schemes of our firstladydom, lest he or she wed his or her disquietude to wit, and vomit our pretended physick...
...Lend me a Whopper, nuncle, and I'll teach thee why thy office girls are known as possums...
...MACDETH WITCHES Double, treble toil and trouble, fan the flamers, prick the bubble, in the cauldron boil and bake Packwood's acne, Bobbitt's ache...
...All hail, Mister President...
...HILLARY Wouldst rather he yet lived...
...Lorena's shiv and Tonya's shank, constituents of Barney Frank, eye of World Trade Center bomber, midnight snack of Jeffrey Dahmer...
...The American Spectator August 1994 19 [Enter FOOL] Fool...
...Indeed this very day intelligence is mine, if I can but New Hampshire or Nebraska buy, that Little Rock shall lose both pimp and pimpernel, and Washington a fan of Fleetwood find...
...Re-enter WITCHES leading prisoner FOOL, in the guise of Ronald McDonald] Lo...
...3rd WITCH Like Teddy for a spouse, but better wive'd...
...1st WITCH Hail, Macdeth, all hail to the chief...
...To those new-orphaned chambers go, and savage there the relics of his charge...
...or is this fortune's jack indeed...
...Aye, next Friday...
...Exeunt MESSENGERS] FOOL Lady, knowest wherefore eagle gaol'd the bush-hog for a clumsy spy...
...Downright potty...
...The majesty of state doth well to feast her true nobility, our nation's flower...
...Aside] A slice of bread, a six of Meister Brau, and thou, my coy Miss Little Rock, electioneering in the back of my Chevelle—'twas paradise...
...LYONS Good my Lord...
...FOOL [aside] That creditor be credulous indeed who takes in trust such fell collateral...
...No drab awaits, no bawd, no trollop, slattern, slut or concubine, no bacon double-cheese with extra fries...
...Exit MYERS] 22 The American Spectator August 1994 FOOL [aside] Full eager sextonry that love enroll'd which fills love's grave afore his corse be cold...
...I wonder what's for supper...
...MACDETH So let me learn...
...Enter MACDETH, HILLARY, MESSENGERS and FOOL] MACDETH Ah...
...Terzo, because they hold on to their jobs with their tail...
...Star, dot, star...
...full gladly could I half a score internalize, but for that Fuzzy in the ketchup bowl doth oft his cut-leaf plug expectorate...
...Enter LYONS] LYONS My lady, by your leave . . . HILLARY Fair Lyons, I wonder at thy charge, and see thy face doth fax a message bearing not the subtext of serenity...
...Sir Vincent Foster comes no more at your behest...
...Belike compassion's tardy token, a sop to injur'd honor, balm in Kansas' Gilead—or Tootsie Rolls...
...Scene 11—The Governor's Mansion...
...FOOL Nay, nay, your ladyship, for ne'er was cuckold made but in his horns discernible, that shame be published by his brow, or on his saxophone...
...MACDETH Nay, tire me not in the habiliments of wrath, nor taunt me with remorse's sting...
...Exit] HILLARY And thou, ill-gendered knave., get thee to Madison and teach our gentle cousin we would have his ear...
...By what defect of wit, what folly, what dire presentiment, did I then yoke me unto obscurity and shame...
...Ro-mance on your mind...
...Our lord craveth . . . Health Care...
...Exit] HILLARY Mister President...
...FOOL Madam, 'tis I. HILLARY Fie...
...FOOL [sings] A damsel of Lernerite fashion Insisted on social compassion: `The market's degrading...
...MACDETH Welcome, all...
...FOOL 'Struth, that riches haply came thy way unearn'd, in chicken futures...
...Your pardon, sir...
...MACDETH Yea, dolphin-safe salami...
...2nd MESS...
...McFlights of angels do thy tonsils rinse with Diet Pepsi, as befits McDeath...
...MACDETH Welcome, all...
...FOOL My mistress turn'd State's Evidence against thyself—a pardoner's tale!—and so indulgence purchased with the coin of thy confinement...
...tis nobler that I quit this life in season than breathe the air befouled by such treason...
...MACDETH Down, down I come, unwiv'd, un-amnestied, to pay Whitewater's interest, and its deed...
...HILLARY Friends, we beg your gracious leave...
...Enter MYERS and ELDERS] And speaks...
...For whilst I and thy noble husband did this morning mark our wonted course afoot, three pollsteresses squat and whiskered stood bestride the path and croaked, All hail...
...MYERS Mistress, master...
...MYERS Twice seven nights have I kept vigil here, to watch my Lady break her rest in twain, and rise, tho' not awaked, and wander down this very corridor, supplied with five or six erasers, then commence to rub upon the patterned paper of the walls with grievous haste and industry—as though to bleach the White House with her blanks away...
...Exit] MYERS Canst thou with thy leech's art uproot this fever'd fancy from her mind...
...Oyez...
...tis fair, but in its agents of accomplishment...
...sings] Was ever brain so weightless yet Lead bullets made it lighter...
...Sings] 0 does eat dots And mares eat dots And microdots eat ivy Acquittal HIV-2, wouldn't you...
...Stars through bars, but for our privilege...
...Depart I now for heaven's caring shores . . . [Takes drumstick out of box] Mmf . . . those exter tater tots are yours...
...HILLARY Right cheerfully discount we thy vice president, what though he aideth our digestion not...
...2nd WITCH Killing swine...
...AUDITOR 3rd WITCH Porkers, boars, or gender-chauvinists...
...Exit] LYONS So foul and fair a ball I have not seen...
...Onions, eyes of newts and toes of frogs and wools of bats and Fightin' Hawgs, Dancer and Prancer and Donner and Blitzen, half a league, half a league, octave of Whitsun, into the Valley of Dolls they rode, valiant six hundred...
...1st WITCH Lesser than Robert Reich, and stouter...
...Exeunt] FOOL 'Tis passing strange, that Caesar, in his home should tempt the "why" of fate, and stint the Y of chromosome...
...MACDETH Subpoena'd...
...and you, dear guests, in breeding eminent I speak of triumphs in salons de gout, not of the nursery—rejoice yourselves in such delected trophies of success as interest and merit shall incline...
...Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary...
...0 Arkansas...
...1st MESS...
...MACDETH What, 'twas so...
...And what blind beggary of fortune leads thee here...
...For even as the wench of Little Rock doth hide her charms in cotton-poly blend, then bends with the remover to remove, so too methinks your feigned modesty encrypts itself the better to reveal...
...Enter MACDETH, HILLARY, and guests] The American Spectator August 1994 23 MACDETH Welcome, all...
...Exeunt WITCHES] MACDETH Then take we merit's pulse . . . McChicken...
...MACDETH We thank you for your pains...
...Francis X. Bacon is a writer living in Vatican City...
...18 The American Spectator August 1994 2nd WITCH Hail, good-lookin...
...Out, damn'd dot...
...MYERS Slain...
...Curdle milk and choler quicken, Cripple limbs and deafness thicken, Darken sight and temper sicken...
...For all . . . [Enter GHOST of KOPECHNE, garlanded with seaweed] KOPECHNE [Sings] Larded with sweet flowers Which bewept to the grave did go With true-love showers .. . [Enter GHOST of FOSTER] FOSTER [Sings] Some enchanted evening You will meet a stranger .. . [to KOPECHNE] Hang it all, sweetheart, this is a private banquet...
...Do chasten thy trepidity...
...HILLARY You're fired...
...Doth fancy bend our vision to its will...
...My husband I'll dismember for his pelf, nor e'en his long-retired Jockey shorts can rest unmortgaged, but shall serve our purposes: as britches of contract, brief harbingers of longings sated...
...Then play the man—or better, play the field, and I shall summon manliness for both...
...WITCHES All hail...
...This here is the American Bar Association...
...But let our morning's revels look to botany...
...2nd WITCH Marry, all three, and at a single stroke...
...LYONS My liege, the moon our sister Artemis, like a T-cell new ruptured by plaguy ill-bred pathogen hath done dismissed herself from the field of play...
...2nd WITCH Wetter than Maxine's waters, and whiter...
...Enter three WITCHES] Yet stand I traitor to mine eyes or they to me, who credit not their troth...
...HILLARY You fail...
...Tis foul, in curving wide of deep left field...
...sings] An ANC leader I knew Asked her pals to a strange barbecue And explaining with sighs, `Well, smoke gets in your eyes,' Ignited a dozen or two...
...sings] Lest he come under feminist fire For indulging seigneural desire Disarmed he all blame by changing his name to Ted Kennedy-Rodham, Esq...
...HILLARY Still dumb...
...for those departed too-brief hours of peace, unwoo'd, infugitive, when sorrows died more swiftly than they rose, and cank'rous cares of state were bounded by the couch...
...HILLARY To Salomon go, and short my 20-years, but do thou fetch me Deutschmarks in their stead, that I might 'scape inflation's bloody tooth, and like an alchemist turn dross to joy...
...Enter MYERS] For jury, judge and executioner unto himself he played, and furtheMACDETH & HILLARY I guess we'll never, never, never, never know what happen'd . . . MACDETH . . . nor what melancholick flux or humor darkened his estate .. . HILLARY . . . nor how his private woes were hid from public gaze or friendship's many-eyed solicitude...
...Exeunt] FOSTER If madam's will alone could purchase health, we'd see Kevorkian augment his wealth...
...FOOL [sings] When she finds on her bed an intruder Like to Mandy Rice-Davies, but nuder, Slick Willie explains And forthrightly maintains First I gave her a job, then I hey nonny hey nonny hey nonny nonny hey now Elizabeth Tudor...
...if she's at Rose, then I'll with Flowers be...
...Wednesday night perchance we've chili dogs...
...For now is the winter of our discontent made Acapulco through the New York Times, and any misdemeanors of the past full deeply in the Metro section buried...
...Exeunt omnes] Finis - The American Spectator August 1994 25...
...FOOL And thereupon she lofted Teddy to her highest Court, who scarce was robed and wigged but wed again, that Little Rock ne'er lack attorney's fees, nor scandal's harpies vex Hyannis Port...
...Exit MESS...
...And by a finger's touch wipe clean the cipher'd night-skies of our past...
...Reads] "Here be it noted in conformity with H.R...
...Or haply hast thou lost thy MasterCard, and cruel need restored thee to our halls...
...His hard disk trash, his floppies formattize: cut out the tongue of memory, and thus turn Testimony mute...
...It's insider trading That pulls the post-modernist cash in.' HILLARY Methought thou wast another, nearer in bond canonical, though more remote in kind...
...Take caution lest I pull the stripes from thine Adidas—but to lay them on thy back...
...The siding from thy mother's mobile home I'll sell, her dentures pawn, her Elvis lamp, her Betty Crocker coupons liquidate...
...Do thou apprise our constables and scribes that silence be their most becoming dirge, nor naughty Democrat did e'er Pulitzer breed...
...We've lots and lots of dots...
Vol. 27 • August 1994 • No. 8
