The Hindu Business Line : What conjuration & what mighty magic

PATIENCE, good lady; wizards know their times: Deep night, dark night, the silence of the night, the time of night when Troy was set on fire; the time when screech-owls cry and ban-dogs howl, and spirits walk and ghosts break up their graves, that time best fits the work we have in hand. Madam, sit you and fear not: whom we raise, we will make fast within a hallow'd verge...

There are witches and wizards still living in secret all over the world, you'd believe, going by Fudge's words, and also fear the wizard who had committed a thousand crimes before his mysterious disappearance 15 years earlier, but the `patience' para at the start isn't from the latest Harry Potter. The lines are Bolingbroke's, from the Bard's King Henry VI, before the `ceremonies' begin and `it thunders and lightens terribly' and `the Spirit riseth!'

And in case you're in search of more magic from Shakespeare — who, I wish could woo a whole population away like the Pied Piper of Hamlyn — you'd find him say, "If this be magic, let it be an art lawful as eating," in The Winter's Tale, and hear Othello say, "I will a round unvarnish'd tale deliver of my whole course of love; what drugs, what charms, what conjuration and what mighty magic."

I wonder if children under the charm of Half-Blood Prince may dream of studying in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where they can learn to twitch the wand to make loaves of bread and sauce soar gracefully onto the table, glasses and bottles appear in mid-air, or the front door open onto darkness. It may be long before they realise that poverty and hunger don't vanish with the wave of a stick.

It is also highly improbable that most of today's kids - who perhaps know about the "young witch with a pale, heart-shaped face and mousy brown hair sitting at the table clutching a large mug between her hands" — haven't heard of the many witches in Shakespeare's works. For instance, with thunder, enter the three witches in Act IV, Scene I of Macbeth, and the First Witch says, "Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd," and the second would add, "Thrice and once the hedge-pig whined." The third has a long passage to speak, after which all join to say, "Double, double toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble." Pity, we can't put terrorism and violence into a big cauldron and stew them off!

Well, Scotland, where Rowling lives, is `Macbeth country', proclaims the site www.thelandofmacbeth.com, and you can find reference to the place in other plays such as King Henry VI and King Richard III, though in The Comedy of Errors, Antipholus and Dromio of Syracuse can teach you a bit of geography through anatomy.

Thus, in Nell, who is `is spherical, like a globe' there's Ireland in the hind; Scotland is "found it by the barrenness, hard in the palm of the hand" and France, "in her forehead; armed and reverted, making war against her heir".

However, to Claudio, in Much Ado About Nothing, beauty is a witch, so "Let every eye negotiate for itself and trust no agent." Let witchcraft join with beauty, lust with both, declares Pompey in Antony and Cleopatra. And, in King Richard III, Gloucester would pray for punishment to those who conspire his death with devilish plots of damned witchcraft, and hellish charms.

"I really don't believe in magic," is a quote of J.K. Rowling, on www.brainyquote.com. Yet, you can bet on the Ministry of Magic to take responsibility for the whole Wizarding community and to prevent the non-magical population from getting wind of what goes on there, be it in St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries or the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

Rosalind would similarly assure Orlando, in As You Like It, that she could do strange things; "I have, since I was three year old, conversed with a magician, most profound in his art and yet not damnable." But the hero would ask her, "Speakest thou in sober meanings?"

Which is why it is suggested that magic and wizardry is best read in bed, so that when you abruptly descend to reality, such as when watching the stock ticker, you don't hurt yourself. Unless, of course, you're pinning your faith on a Hospital for Magical Remedies and Cures.

SayCheek@TheHindu.co.in

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What conjuration & what mighty magic