[John Whitworth]

Thank you, Bazza. I hope you are right.

[Roger Slater]

The fiver is yours, John, or there is no God. OK, maybe both.

[John Whitworth]

There is certainly a God, Roger, probably a plurality of Gods, but the question is - are they on my side. Perhaps the sacrifice of my firstborn...? No, that would be going too far. The sacrifice of someone else's firstborn is certainly worth considering. Which do you like better? I think I shall enter both, one under a pseudonym. Though of course all pseudonyms are known to She Who Must Be Obeyed because of the address.

Did the Muses require sacrifice? Perhaps the cat? Nine lives for nine muses.

[basil ransome-davies]

A start, though I fear it hasn't the Gilbertian oomph.

Macbeth, I, vii: ('If it were done when 'tis done', etc.)

If a dirk while he sleeps ends the problem for keeps
It would pay me to do it instanter.
Yet an act may rebound, though the idea was sound,
Bringing Nemesis on at a canter.
It's a ticklish thing: he's my cousin, my king,
And a houseguest who's due my protection.
What disgrace of a Thane would extinguish his reign
By puncturing Duncan's midsection?
He is good, he is wise, he is praised to the skies
For his modest, appealing demeanour,
Conscientiously keen to be morally clean,
Though my treacherous blade will be keener.
Then once he's no more there'll be weeping galore
For the saddest, most grievous of deaths
And I'll shed my own tears, giving three silent cheers
For the upwardly mobile Macbeths.

[John Whitworth]

I like many others on this thread, was waiting for you, Bazza. And you do not disappoint. It must be a contender. One point is whether you have written eight or sixteen lines. By most people's reckoning sixteen, but Gilbert wrote out the lines as bloody great long ones - at least in The Lord Chancellor's Song. He surely uses the metre in other places also. Not that it matters. Did you notice SWMBO didn't give a sixteen line limit this time? Do you think she just forgot? And has she forgiven me for suggesting she is open to bribery?

[basil ransome-davies]

Yes, I have opportunistically rearranged the lines to make 16 out of 8 Gilbertian ones, & that was enough of a struggle. I hadn't noticed a length had not been set, but I take 16ll as the default.

[R. S. Gwynn]

Who says that I am villainous? Who says that I am bad?
Who says that I am not a philanthropic kind of lad?
I freely give advice to all, and honest is my name,
And everybody plays my little game.

The Moor and Desdemona are both framed so fruitfully
That one will fall and then the other--all because of me!
Divinity of Hell, I put your blackest colours on
And flutter like an angel ‘round your throne!

If Cassio is counseled to a course that's parallel
To all his good who says that I have steered him less than well?
He'll ply the lady and the lady then will ply the Moor
And all these signs will signal an amour!

Yea, pestilence is what I plan to pour into his ear.
A motiveless malignity is one that all should fear,
For all their virtues weave the net that will enmesh them all
Whilst I shall be the happier for their fall!

Othello, 2:3

[R. S. Gwynn]

Incidentally, to "sleep with the fishes" is Godfather-metaphor for having been waxed; thus, it would work just fine for Duncan. Lucca Brazzi was garroted, but the medium was not the literal message in that case.

There was a film-noir gangster version of Macbeth in the 50s. I've seen bits of it. Made in the UK.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048230/

[John Whitworth]

Sam, there's an 'I' adrift from your fine Iago in the first line of the last stanza. Is this an actual Gilbertian stanza or one that might have been a Gilbertian stanza?

Thanks for your note about 'sleep with the fishes'. I really didn't want to change that.

Re Joe MacBeth. Do you, or does any American, realise the full horror of Banquo played by Sid James? 'Carry on to Dunsinane'. Do you know that Dunsinane is a real place and a real castle, pronounced Dunsinnon? Ian McKellen did MacBeth in a leather jacket. Not bad. Actually, I've never seen a good one except the Japanese MacBeth who is (I think) Toshiro Mifune. But in Japanese unfortunately. Do I rate Welles's MacBeth? No I don't. His Falstaff is his Shakespearian masterpiece

[R. S. Gwynn]

A faux-Gilbert but inspired by King Gama's "If You'll Give Me Your Attention."

Damn your I's! Or mine, dammit.