The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 10.1784  Thursday, 21 October 1999.

[1]     From:   Douglas Lanier <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Wednesday, 20 Oct 1999 14:10:06 -0400
        Subj:   "pyramid" in Two Noble Kinsmen

[2]     From:   Drew Whitehead <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Thursday, 21 Oct 1999 08:10:04 +1000 (GMT+1000)
        Subj:   Re: SHK 10.1778 "pyramid" in Two Noble Kinsmen

[3]     From:   A. Burton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Wednesday, 20 Oct 1999 15:29:38 -0700
        Subj:   Re: SHK 10.1778 "pyramid" in Two Noble Kinsmen

[4]     From:   Mike Jensen <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Wednesday, 20 Oct 1999 09:28:19 -0700
        Subj:   Re: SHK 10.1778 "pyramid" in Two Noble Kinsmen


[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Douglas Lanier <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Wednesday, 20 Oct 1999 14:10:06 -0400
Subject:        "pyramid" in Two Noble Kinsmen

"Pyramid" can mean "obelisk" in the period.  Thus, "pillar" and
"pyramid" are certainly the same thing.  It's all so very phallic.

Doug Lanier, University of New Hampshire

[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Drew Whitehead <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Thursday, 21 Oct 1999 08:10:04 +1000 (GMT+1000)
Subject: 10.1778 "pyramid" in Two Noble Kinsmen
Comment:        Re: SHK 10.1778 "pyramid" in Two Noble Kinsmen

 Ching-Hsi Perng wrote:

> What is the pyramid, and what and where is the pillar?  Thanks in
> advance for the enlightenment.

The Arden 3 edition of the play states that the word "pyramid" was
interchangeable with "obelisk" hence Theseus' use of the word "pillar"
two lines later.

Drew Whitehead
Dept. of English
University of Queensland

[3]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           A. Burton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Wednesday, 20 Oct 1999 15:29:38 -0700
Subject: 10.1778 "pyramid" in Two Noble Kinsmen
Comment:        Re: SHK 10.1778 "pyramid" in Two Noble Kinsmen

There is a discussion of the Elizabethan understanding of "pyramid" in
Leslie Hotson's Mr. WH  (Knopf, New York 1965) at pp. 82-92.  As he
said, "to the Elizabethans it principally meant 'something tall and
slim': a mast, a maypole, a pinnacle, a spire, an obelisk, a pillar, a
column-all these were 'pyramids'".  Deriving the word from pyr-, they
held it to mean 'flame-shaped."  And he goes on to cite your passage in
The Two Noble Kinsmen as evidence that "pyramid" and "pillar" meant the
same.  Many of Hotson's suggestions have been disputed and some
rejected, but I think this one is still considered sound.  But if the
two words describe the same object, the passage remains difficult to
interpret.  If "pillar" implies something like a sharpened point, it
brings to mind the macho version of arm wrestling, where knife points
are placed so that the back of the loser's hand is driven down on one.
(This is a very unscholarly guess, but perhaps a pointer to a search for
details of Elizabethan games of "fair and knightly strength".

Cheers, Tony B

[4]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Mike Jensen <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Wednesday, 20 Oct 1999 09:28:19 -0700
Subject: 10.1778 "pyramid" in Two Noble Kinsmen
Comment:        Re: SHK 10.1778 "pyramid" in Two Noble Kinsmen

Speaking of Two Noble Kinsmen, the Archangel recording was supposed to
have been released last February, according to a bookstore I asked.
Then in July they told me they never heard of it.

I haven't seen it anywhere.  Does anyone know if it has been released?
Is it in the UK, but not yet in the US?  How about Canada?  Tanya, do
you know?

Mike Jensen

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