Yesterday, someone at work told me “thou plottest to be king”. I admit I was acting a little boss-like, but I couldn’t come up with a cool response. I tried searching for it, but no hits. So now I ask you, since you are the resident Shakespeare expert, is it in fact Shakespeare? Macbeth maybe? Who said it? Anyone else know?
Thanks a lot.
Soda,
First of all, I’m not sure I’m truly qualified as “the resident Shakespeare expert”. I like to think I’m reasonably knowledgeable, but I’m not the only person here who’s VERY knowledgeable with respect to Shakespeare: I know of at least a few others.
I do think the quote sounds vaguely familiar, but I don’t believe it’s from Shakespeare.
I tried running a search on “plottest”. No hits whatsoever.
I then ran separate searches on “plot” and “king”. The two words rarely appeared in the same play in the same act and scene and there were no phrases that I could find that could be construed as remotely equivalent to “thou plottest to be king”.
Finally, I did venture out of Shakespere’s works. I searched Altavista and Dogpile for the phrase “thou plottest to be king”. Several dead ends.
I’ll try to come up with other possible searches, both within Shakespeare and without, but I’m skeptical I’ll find anything.
I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help.
I did spend an hour or so trying to find something.
Incidentally, though I did do searches, based on my knowledge of Shakespeare, I believe the quote, if I somehow missed it, would come from one of the following plays (based on my knowledge of the plots): The Winter’s Tale, Hamlet, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, King Lear, Richard II, Richard III, the two parts of Henry IV and the three parts of Henry VI. (If anyone wants to double check)
I’m betting it’s not from Shakespeare, though.
I’m sorry again, and I will let you know if I do subsequently find anything.
I really appreciate the effort, I mean, spending an hour searching, you really didn’t have to do all that.
You really don’t have to look anymore (unless it intrigues you of course), maybe he just made it up to sound educated. I sure fell for it.
Thanks again, DRY.
soda
Soda,
You’re quite welcome.
As far as the time spent searching, I did it because I enjoyed it. In any event, most of the reason why the search took as long as it did was cross referencing act and scene citations to “plot” with citations to “king”. “King”, in particular, appears in quite a number of places.
I still have a vague recollection of this quote sounding familiar, but I don’t believe it’s in Shakespeare.
In any event, if you, or anyone else here, ever has an inquiry about Shakespeare, please let me know, either through this board or private e-mail. Though I want to make clear once more that I do NOT consider myself an expert on Shakespeare–merely someone who is familiar with his plays.
Dan
Have you noticed something in this thread? I mean, if Canadian Sue joined the discussion, you’d have “Canada DRY Soda!!”
Dan, did you do a search for Biblical references?
I thought of the Bible, too, but according to the Bible Gateway, it’s not in the King James version or the New King James (whatever that is), which I considered most likely, given the archaic language, nor in the New International Version, which is one of the better modern translations of the original languages. That failing, I’m guessing it’s from an old translation of one of the Roman poets (“king”, to the Romans, had about the same connotations as “dictator” does for us), but I don’t know of a searchable index of them, espescially since that would only be one particular translation.
but DAVEW0071 and Chronos were quite right in suggesting that I SHOULD have.
Kudos to Chronos for checking the Bible possibilities, too.
Honestly, this quote sounds like something that should be from a literary passage, but that doesn’t mean that it is.
I’m still stumped.
I looked and got some things that were close from religious texts (thou plottest to destroy the sun etc), but nothing quite right.
picmr
Dry, I’m probably wrong, but I think its a misquote from king Lear, I’m looking it up now…
You guys are the sweetest! Just thought I’d tell you that…
John, I don’t know about you, but I couldn’t find anything in Lear.
“Plot” is used once, and it doesn’t seem to relate to plotting against the King, rather, Goneril is plotting against her husband.
This is the nearest line I could find:
“it seem’d she was a queen
Over her passion; who, most rebel-like,
Sought to be king o’er her.”
–King Lear, Act 4, Scene iii
Which isn’t all that close.
If it is indeed a misquote of Lear, it’s so badly quoted as to be almost unrecognizeable.
Still stumped.
Ok, apologies if this is a dumb suggestion - but my brother used to say something like that. He got it from the cod Elizabethan script of Blackadder II - “thou plottest Blackadder, thou wouldst be king”. (It’s the episode where Blackadder goes to see the wise woman because he’s fallen in love with Bob).
It’s deliberately written that way so that it sounds almost Shakesperian, if I remember rightly.
Char “gulp, I posted again Ma” ley.
Dry, you’re right. It’s not from King Lear, I was confused with something totally different.
I also read through 2 acts of Julius Caesar, but no joy.
Charley, dont think anything is a dumb suggestion!! Its the closest so far!!!
Charley it may not be as crazy as it may seem. I got a hit for Blackadder when I was searching for this yesterday. I’ll try again and try to find it again.
From here ( http://www.ghostlight.free-online.co.uk/funnies/blackadder.html )
Not exactly the same but …
Hey, get me - I (almost) accurately identified something. Guess I’m done with the book learnin’.
Charley.
Well, if Shakespeare didn’t say it, he should have.
Scotti