William Shakespeare Allusions

Allusions to the work of William Shakespeare are numerous in the Bellairs Corpus, mainly through quotes of the main characters.

As You Like It

• A clue to the whereabouts of the missing Professor Childermass is simply "a great reckoning in a little room" (The Spell of the Sorcerer's Skull, 101). Father Higgins explains that in Shakespeare's time the word 'reckoning' "meant a bill, like a restaurant bill, and the whole quote refers to a murder case...," specifically, the murder of playwright Christopher Marlowe. He was stabbed to death in the back room of a tavern, which Higgins believes connects the phrase to the strange dollhouse scene in the Childermass clock.
  • Act III, Scene III: "A great reckoning in a little room."

Hamlet

• Voltimand Faldstool holds the consecutive Communions record at the Saint Ogmus parish (Saint Fidgeta and Other Parodies; 22-3).
  • Voltimand is a courtier, or ambassador, to the King of Norway from the King of Denmark.
• Johnny Dixon returns from Boy Scout camp and to the news about his grandmother and father, prompting Professor Childermass to note this line" (The Mummy, the Will, and the Crypt, 86).
  • Act IV, Scene V: "When sorrows come, they come not single spies But in battalions."
• When the grimoire of Warren Windrow disintegrates at the touch of the True Cross, Father Higgins crosses himself and says this line (The Spell of the Sorcerer's Skull, 123).
  • Act I, Scene IV: "Angels and ministers of grace defend us!"

Julius Caesar

• Professor Childermass rants after he discovers Johnny has departed (The Mummy, the Will, and the Crypt, 103).
  • Act III, scene II: "O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts, And men have lost their reason."

King Richard III

• When Prospero and Roger Bacon use Prospero's green glass paperweight to call forth Melichus, the room they are in grew darker and candles burned blue (The Face in the Frost, 152).
• Chad Glomus tells Johnny and Fergie "if an evil presence is near, candle flames turn blue. That's what Shakespeare says, and it happens to be the truth" (The Mummy, the Will, and the Crypt, 72).
  • Act V, Scene III: "The lights burn blue. it is now dead midnight."

Love's Labour's Lost

• Professor Childermass explains to Johnny the importance of the Nine Worthies and the statues in their likeness that dot the Glomus estate grounds (The Mummy, the Will, and the Crypt, 96, 156).
  • Act V, Scene I: "Sir, you shall present before her the nine worthies."

Macbeth

• A ring of stones near Carmarthenshire, Wales were called the Weird Sisters and used to magically control the weather (The Dark Secret of Weatherend, 79-80).
  • Act I, Scene III: "The weird sisters, hand in hand."
• The underground time traveling trolley car features the phrase "All Our Yesterdays" on its side (The Trolley to Yesterday, 19).
  • Act V, Scene V: "And all our yesterdays have lighted fools."
• Professor Childermass recites a line from Macbeth to give him courage (The Curse of the Blue Figurine, 162).
  • Act V, Scene VIII: "Before my body I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff, and damned be he that first cries hold, enough."

Othello

• Near the beginning of the play, Iago calls himself an ancient, which Professor Childermass recalls once meant ensign (“the third officer in a company of soldiers”); this serves as a clue in his exploration of the Windrow estate (The Revenge of the Wizard’s Ghost, 93-4).
  • Act I, Scene I: "And I--God bless the mark!--his Moorship's ancient."

The Taming of the Shrew

• Pedasculus discerned that since "time is infinitely divisible and sub-divisible, [then] there are as many sins as there are moments of time" (Saint Fidgeta and Other Parodies, 60).
  • Act III, Scene I: Pedascule, I'll watch you better yet.

The Tempest

• Prospero, a wizard from the Southern Kingdom, shares his name with the rightful but exiled Duke of Milan (The Face in the Frost).

Twelfth Night

A comedy believed to have been written around 1601–02 as a Twelfth Night's entertainment for the close of the Christmas season . John Bellairs portrayed the character of Sir Toby Belch in an stage adaption in May of 1964 while on the faculty of the College of Saint Teresa.

• Stranded on Cemetery Island in the rain, Johnny remembers the song Professor Childermass used to sing when it was raining (The Spell of the Sorcerer's Skull, 144).
  • Act V, Scene I, as sung by the Clown, Olivia's jester: When that I was and a little tiny boy,|With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,|A foolish thing was but a toy,|For the rain it raineth every day.