the rest is səɪlence

M and I have spent the last nine weeks, the entirety of her third trimester, rehearsing and performing Hamlet in the "original pronunciation," that is, not imposing an accent but adhering to the phonology and vowel forms of late sixteenth century England. I was rather skeptical of the endeavor at first, especially since to my mind communication with the audience is the primary goal, and our student actors have, in the past, had a hard enough time getting to the point where they knew what they were saying and could find a way for their character to impel and require those particular words for specific purposes. This is the first and foremost goal of Shakespearean acting, and I thought that "OP" would simply be an obstacle to that. And it was, but not an insurmountable one.

The bigger obstacle, and an entirely predictable one, is that the play has gone into M's full-term period. We toyed with the idea of a pregnant Gertrude (or "Gɑɹtrəd ") back in March when we conceived and she declared that she wanted to audition anyway. It absolutely works for the play, and inserts many new colors to the usual ambiguities about her character, and of course the poisoning is horrific to watch. What it also does is make my wife unsure whether her legs will hold her, after an eight hour day and a six-hour performance (with warm-ups, fight calls and dance calls).

We have one more performance, starting in a couple hours, and while I will miss the ensemble bond, I will be very VERY glad to have some rest and silence.

Morning

I wish I could fashion a whole day out of morning. Specifically this time, during the second cup of coffee, when the light is inviting and forgiving, not like a buzzing, judgmental afternoon. A bowel movement seems a pleasant accomplishment. It feels like everything I need to get done today will probably get done, and if it doesn't, well, other important things will, and then I'll see M and a film, or have a nice sandwich. If there was some pharmaceutical way to halt my biorhythms exactly at "second-cup-of-coffee," I would do that.

Prodigy

My son gets to play his first Shakespearean role at the age of negative one month, this coming November. There aren't many lines in the role of Hamlet's unborn brother, but I feel as though it's more of a physical part, anyway. And you know what they say, no small parts, only small actors. In this case a small actor, all of whose parts are also quite small.

I must admit I'm a little torn about playing Claudius to M's Gertrude while she's in her third trimester. I love being onstage with her, and it's likely to be a really excellent production, but I can think of better ways to nest than a sure-to-be-grueling rehearsal process for one of the most challenging tragedies ever written. At least it's not Macbeth. And then there's the metadramatic aspect. Playing a would-be father to a hostile young man who refuses to play the role of a son, who idealizes the absent father that I can never be will either be a wonderful way for me to play through some of my own anxieties about fatherhood, or it will just fuck with my head.

Pregnant Gertrude. If you think about it long enough, it kind of works, and brings lots of interesting issues in the play to the fore. And if nothing else, it'll really give certain lines punch: "Gertrude, do not drink!" springs to mind as an example.

We are not making this name up

In the interests of educating the various people who seem to believe that we’ve invented our forthcoming baby’s name like a pair of society-defying hippies, I hereby present a morning’s Google-search of evidence that it's a respectable and lovely name with a long pedigree:

Literature and Film

Sire Degarre (c. 1325): hero of the anonymous “Lai of Sire Degarre,” in which a foundling boy is named Degarre because it means (the poet tells us) “lost” or “stray” or “almost forsaken” (related to the French verb égaré). Sire Degarre (i.e. Sir Diggory) kills a dragon with a club, wins the hand of a princess by out-jousting the king, and defeats a fairy knight—narrowly avoiding killing his father and marrying his mother, like Oedipus. This character and his story get passed on as “Degarre,” “Degore,” and eventually Digory or Diggory. He is incorporated into Arthurian legend in some sources as a knight of the round table. The Winchester Round Table lists “Sir Degore” among its twenty-five names.

“Captain Digorie Piper his Galliard” (c. 1604): a dance for lute and viol composed by John Dowland, lutenist to King Christian IV of Denmark. Digorie Piper is unknown, but you can hear performances of his galliard on YouTube.

Diggory, one of Hardcastle’s awkward servants, in Oliver Goldsmith’s play She Stoops to Conquer (1771).

Sir Diggory Drysalt, a satirical character in Samuel Warren’s “Blucher, or, the Adventures of a Newfoundland Dog,” published in The Merchant’s Clerk and Other Tales (1836)

Diggory Venn, in Thomas Hardy’s Return of the Native (1878): Venn is a “reddleman,” i.e. a seller of reddle, or red ochre, a dye used to mark sheep. He thus looks, Hardy writes, like the devil, but is in fact an altruistic and heroic character who repeatedly saves the day.

Digory Kirke, in C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia (1950–56): Kirke appears as the Professor who takes in the Pevensie children in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, as the title character in The Magician’s Nephew, and in The Last Battle.

Digory Rendell, a handsome and dashing stranger in Charlotte Louise Dolan’s pulp romance novel The Counterfeit Gentleman (1994). Rendell was named for the author’s Cornish ancestor, Digory Baker.

Cedric Diggory, in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series (1995-2000): a talented and generally decent student at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. This is what you’ll get if you Google the name, because Cedric was played in the film by a teen heartthrob.

Diggory, title character of Philippa Gregory’s children’s story Diggory and the Boa Conductor (1996).

Diggory the Dog in Jane Buxton’s children’s book A Home for Diggory (2002).

Digory, reluctant child hero of Digory the Dragon Slayer (2006) and Digory and the Lost King (2007), by Angela McAllister.

Diggory Compton, a character played by Eric Potts on British soap opera Coronation Street (2005–): a beloved elderly bakery shop owner who experiences increasingly poor health.

Diggory Franklin, young lawyer hero of a serialized digital novel, The Surprising Life and Death of Diggory Franklin (2008–)

History

More common as a surname, Diggory has always been rare, but not unknown, as given name. It seems to have been most popular in Kilkhampton, Cornwall in the mid-sixteenth century, when parish records indicate that it was as common as Thomas (though not as common as John).

Digory Priest (c. 1579–1621): one of the original 102 pilgrims aboard the Mayflower and a signer of the Mayflower Compact.

Digory (Digoreus or Degoreus) Wheare (1573-1647): head of Abingdon school and first Camden Professor of ancient history at Oxford University.

Digory Sargent (1651–1704): early Cornish emigrant to Massachusetts, married by Cotton Mather, scalped and killed by natives.

Digory Docke (d. 1657): a name recorded in the burial records of Kilkhampton, Cornwall, just possibly influencing “Hickory Dickory Dock,” the nursery rhyme.

Sir Diggory Forrest: Mayor of Plymouth, 1815-16

A few currently living Diggorys (thanks, Google!)

Diggory Bailey: Senior Assistant Parliamentary Counsel at Office of the Parliamentary Counsel, London.

Diggory Brooke, LL.B: a legal consultant living in Melbourne.

Diggory Gordon, television art director.

Diggory Kendrick: reggae flautist.

Diggory Laycock, tweeter, some kind of minor British aristocracy, and great-nephew of James Bond creator Ian Fleming.

Diggory Orr-Ewing, documentary producer.

Et Cetera

“Diggory,” a variety of the snowdrop (Galanthus plicatus) with puckered, rounded outer petals.

Diggory Brown, a bespoke kilt-making business in the Outer Hebrides.

He hit nemnede Degarre.

Despite all the advice not to tell anyone what you name a child until it's out and wearing a tiny stocking cap, we're sharing this. In December, we're hoping to introduce Diggory Owain to the world.

Diggory is such a rare name that Wikipedia lists only find three examples before the character in Hardy's Return of the Native: two English clerics and a Welsh war hero. It's such a rare name that in the Middle English romance where it originated, the poet spends five lines discussing what it means and why anyone would name a child that -- see the transcript below from the Auchinleck MS's "Lai of Sire Degarre" (above). Associations with characters in 20th-century fiction (C.S. Lewis and J.K. Rowling) are best left unmade.

-------------------
Excerpt from the Auchinleck manuscript (National Library of Scotland):

He dede vp þe glouen and þe tresour
And cristned þe child wiȝ gret honour
In þe name of þe trinite;
He hit nemnede Degarre.
Degarre nowt elles ne is
But þing þat not neuer whar it is,
O þe þing þat is negȝ forlorn also;
Forþi þe schild he nemnede þous þo.
(fol. 79v)

He put up the glove and the treasure
And christened the child with great honor
In the name of the Trinity;
He it namèd Diggory.
"Diggory" nought other is
Than a thing that knows never where it is,
Or a thing that is almost forsook;
So thus he named the child he took.
(my translation)

What a twist

M woke me up this morning announcing that the baby was being born prematurely. And sure enough, when I looked, there was his little head, his eyes blinking up at me and everything. So I went and called the doctor, apologized for waking him in the middle of the night, and explained the situation.

"It's entirely ordinary for expectant parents to have dreams like this," he said. It's a reflection of your reaction to your loss of control over your life, and your partner's safety and that of your baby.

"You don't understand; I'm not describing M's dream. This is happening in my bed, right now. There are witnesses!"

Then I realized that he wasn't talking about her dreaming, but me. I was having a dream. The baby was still comfortably gestational. I went back to bed really embarrassed about having woken up the obstetrician in the wee hours with a stupid dream that I should have recognized as such.

Then, as you'll no doubt expect, I woke up to my own voice explaining to M in my sleep how silly I felt, and realized that I had dreamed calling the doctor, as well, so the twists cancelled each other out.

Then before I could give Leonardo DiCaprio the combination, the van hit the water.

The great thing about alphabetizing

This is why I love having adequate bookshelf space: the juxtapositions. Lolita abuts What to Expect When You're Expecting and "Shakespeare" follows "Shatner."

Foetal Spectre

Seeing ultrasounds of an approaching baby is a lot like watching one of those ghost hunting shows. There's an alleged "expert" who asserts that he can tell you what you're looking at, a lot of equipment that seems impressive, some viscous goo, and then when your nerves are jangled by the atmosphere, there's a grainy black and white image of something that just might be humanoid, lurking in the darkness, with its own terrifying, implacable motives.















What do you want from us? Why do you haunt this abdomen?

Misery misery misery...

Every interaction I have with my family revolves around misery. One sister wants to die, another is nearly destitute because of an abusive relationship. Another fights with her daughter-in-law about the right to see her grandkids. Another has her business robbed. Mom revels in sadness and anguish because her religion demands persecution. I can't help with any of these things, it seems. I wish I knew what I could do to either (a) help them, (b) disengage from them forever, or (c) some third option.

I am glad that my life is wonderful right now, and I have plenty of people -- people that I like, even! -- to share it with. So maybe I don't need my family. Still, it'd be nice every once in a while to be able to talk about something other than problems.