Muse Flash: Shakespeare was a Spanko

Spanker of the Mind and Body

CHICAGO, April 26 (AP) -- Did you know that William Shakespeare, often considered the greatest playwright in the history of the English language, was a spanko? A typical fan of fannies will recognize the leading line from his spanko version of Hamlet's famous soliloquy: "To spank, or not to spank,--wait, there's no question" (III.i). But are you aware that Macbeth was originally envisioned as a BDSM comedy, where "Nice is naughty, and naughty is nice" (I.i)?

A landmark study out of the University of Chicago (where else?) has struck the world of Shakespearean literature with its findings. Drawing on a newly discovered collection of the Bard's scratch work, the research team has uncovered startling insights into Shakespeare's inspiration. "Our goal is to bare it all," said the study's lead author, Professor Slender Escanes.

Spankophilic scholars have long suspected Shakespeare as having tushist proclivities. Scattered hints to the Bard's credentials permeate his body of work, including the presence of characters such as Bottom (A Midsummer-Night's Dream), Pinch (Comedy of Errors), and of course Dr. Butts (King Henry VIII). Now, however, Prof. Escanes's research team has been able to provide concrete evidence that Shakespeare's known plays were in fact derived from spankodramas that the playwright felt unable to publish as originally composed.

For example, the dramatist apparently intended Calphurnia's plea to Caesar not as a foreboding vision of the great warrior's death, but as a bratty protest against the ritualistic lesbian exhibitionism and discipline to which she was routinely subject.

Calphurnia:	Caesar, I never stood on ceremonies,
	Yet now they fright me...
	Ladies did lay, and spying men did moan;
	And girls did shriek and squeal about the sheets.
	O Caesar, spankings are unwelcome news,
	And I do fear them!
(Julius Caesar II.ii)

The trove of documents, found standing in the corner in an old Victorian manor, contained thousands of pages, parchment scraps, and Stick-Ye Notices from Elizabethan times. Acquired from a flea market by a long deceased implement collector, the documents are like pieces of an unassembled puzzle. Each scrap contains a few verses that resemble Shakespeare's known writing, and yet, convey a fascination--some would say obsession--with spanking and related activities. While their work is ongoing, Prof. Escanes and his team have been able to recognize parallels of many known verses and have pieced together heretofore unknown interpretations of several of the Bard's most famous plays.

Consider the Scottish play whose name many dare not utter. While Macbeth (oops) has been adapted to other contexts and interpretations by dramatists over the centuries, the documents reveal it to have been originally a very different tale. Most drama lovers understand the character Macbeth to be a murderous usurper who tests fate, becomes consumed by narcissism, and destroys everything around him. But initially, he was just a Wiccan-loving sadist who got off on tanning his lady every now and then. In the original version of one of the play's famous scenes, we see the Scottish thane is merely badgering his naughty wife while she bawls over his lap, her chastisement about to commence.

Macbeth:	Whence is that crying?
	How is't with me, when every scream enthralls me?
	What hands are here? Hah! The tears from thine eyes
	Will fill great Neptune's ocean. Watch this flood!
	Free from my hand? No; this my hand will rather
	The maxiglutean cheeks incarnadine,
	Making the pale ones red.
(Macbeth II.i)

Look, as I blow this feather from my face,
As she surely knows what for her awaits,
Obliging with this hand when she is good,
And wielding with my other when she's not.

Upon discovery, the collection immediately drew the attention of scholars. The American Shakespearean Society joined forces with Todd and Suzy to prepare, with economy of acronym, a painstaking analysis of the archive. Professor Escanes was tapped to instruct and lead a research team.

The team's first task was to ease access to the Annals of Anne Hathaway, as the collection of texts came to be called. The Board of Bard Discipline, which held the access rights to the Annals, initially was quite retentive, citing several sensitive matters that first needed to be addressed. When asked about the sensitivity of the Annals, Professor Escanes pointed out a figure in the Annals synopsis. "It is a burning issue," the professor remarked as he gingerly explained the recorded incidents of inappropriate access. The Board had allowed the professor a peak at its Annals, but required a show of greater discipline among the team. The research team was eventually able to negotiate entry to a wider part of the collection, even soothing the sting caused by such rough application of the Board's policies.

Once the Annals were fully exposed, the digitization could begin. Only then was the team able to delicately probe the archives to glean insights into Shakespeare's repressed spankanima. While the team worked in secret, their exertions were leaked before completion to the Pink Report, which barely published the premature emission (the leakers now face disciplinary inaction).

Among the first controversies settled by the team was Shakespeare's role preference. Given his uncanny ability to discover and elucidate all sides of the human soul, the team readily concluded that Shakespeare was a switch. "Switches make the best playwrights," the professor explained. The Bard's acuity in both roles is demonstrated throughout the spanko verses. On the one hand, he dishes out verbal torments on par with the most able spanker, such as in Richard III: "Bratty thou art, bloodshot will be thy end!" (IV.iv). On the other hand, his submissive characters often deliver exquisitely sassy lines as well, as with Portia to Brutus: "With an angry wafture of your hand, gave sign for me to peeve you" (Julius Caesar II.i).

As the team examined the archives further, they turned up a number of interesting finds. For instance, The Taming of the Shrew has been long thought to be among the most M/F of Shakespeare's plays. In its original form, however, it is interestingly far more balanced. With the spanko version of Shrew, one finds a story of a battle of wits and will between a dom and domme, mistakenly matched up by Spankfinder.

Katharina:	I knew at the first
	You were a submissive.
Petruchio:	What, me a submissive?
Katharina:	A pain-slut. [strikes]
Petruchio:	Thou hast hit me: come, over my knee.
Katharina:	Asses are made to bare, and I will you.
Petruchio:	Women are made to bare, and I will you.
Katharina:	No such play for you, if me you mean.
Petruchio:	Alas, pet Kate, I will not humor thee!
	For, spanking thee for me would give delight,--
Katharina:	Delight for me is pain for you, you bitch;
	And bet as heavy that my hand will be.
Petruchio:	Spank me? should---bah
Katharina:	Well tanned, and like a sissy.
Petruchio:	O bend o'er bad girl! shall a paddle make thee!
Katharina:	Ay, for a subbie, as he takes a lickin'.
Petruchio:	Come, come, you wasp; i' truth, you are too bratty.
Katharina:	If I be waspish, best beware my sting.
Petruchio:	My remedy is then, to pluck it out.
Katharina:	Ay, if the fool could find it where it lies,
Petruchio:	Who knows not where a brat will
	wear her sting? In her tail.
Katharina:	With your tongue.
Petruchio:	Why tongue?
Katharina:	Sure, if you talk of tails: and so lie back.
Petruchio:	What, put my tongue in your tail? nay, come again,
	Pet Kate; I am a dominant—
(The Taming of the Shrew II.i)

The team struggled to fill several gaping holes in the spanko representation of Shakespeare's body of work. Even after a few months of probing the documents, the team could not find clues to the origin of Romeo and Juliet. The team called on an expert, Bonnie, M.B.S, to assist in the uncovering. Bonnie's investigation found that Romeo and Juliet was originally a story of two spanking neophytes exploring their newly discovered kink, as evidenced by the following verse:

Romeo:	O, squirm again, bright angel! for thine ass
	Is glorious to my sight, being o'er my knee
	As if a pale, supple gift of heaven.
	Onto the white-upturned butt and back thighs
	My right palm doth fall quick a blaze on them.
	Then my finger makes lazy-pacing rounds
	And trails along the valley of the rear.
Juliet:	O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore touch there, Romeo?
	Deny thy pleasure and refuse thy game;
	Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
	And I'll no longer be a devilet.
Romeo:	[Aside] Shall I tease more, or shall I spank at this?
(Romeo and Juliet II.ii)

The team was very impressed with Bonnie's work and awarded her their Special Chair of Spankosophical Wit for her contributions.

She casts her mind to Crimson Moon:
in most strange postures
we will see her set herself.

Antony and Cleopatra remains a play on which there persists a lack of evidence, perplexing the team. "It would be very striking if Shakespeare didn't see a spanko story here," remarked Escanes. "I mean, with all the whipping and hitting and threatening dialog... I mean, come on, it has to be written by a spanko. Besides, it's a historical fact that Cleopatra was one kinky bitch." In fact, the leading hypothesis among the team was that Antony and Cleopatra was published in its original form. "It's basically a spanking play as it is," Escanes claimed, "the whole historical plot is secondary."

As with most Shakespearean scholarship, controversy arose among the team as to the authorship of the work. Did the man from Stratford-upon-Avon that we identify as William Shakespeare really write these plays? A faction arose that claimed it was all just the work of Sir Richard of Windsor, but in the end, the Stratfordian view dominated.

The research has also generated controversy from the vanilla world, where spanko disciplinary studies are often dismissed as a passing kink in a scholar's otherwise straight-laced career. Escanes assures us, however, that he has been committed to the field since his early days and that the discipline is truly needed. "Will we ever be able to convert more 'normal' Shakespearean scholars to our worldview?" the professor asked rhetorically. "I really don't know. Vanillas are so weird."

Escanes also described an incident at a conference in Cincinnati last year, where a vanilla studies scholar took issue with the team's emphasis on what she called "violent imagery" in the plays. "Clearly," Escanes chuckled, "she had never actually read any of Shakespeare's published dramas." The professor pointed out that many scenes in the Annals version are actually less macabre. For example, whereas in the standard version the moor Othello strangles his wife to death out of jealousy and suspicion, in the Annals version he merely provides her sound, but loving correction.

Othello:	One more, one more.
	Be thus when thou art bad, and I punish thee
	And love thee after. One more, and that's the last.
	So sweet was ne'er so painful. You must weep,
	But they are just tears. This paddle's heavenly,
	It strikes where it doth love.
(Othello V.ii)

Methinks I am a playwright new inspired.

Escanes wished he could say that all of the spankotexts were clear improvements on the standard versions of the plays. However, he pointed out that in Two Gentleman of Verona, Shakespeare had originally written, "That man that hath a hand, I say, is no man, if with his hand he cannot spank a woman." (III.i). "Men tend to like the spanko version," explained Escanes, who then conceded, "but among women, even spanko women, the standard text is preferred in this instance."

Prof. Escanes emphasized that there was much more work to be done in examining the original versions. Many passages have still not been found. Escanes and the team are currently recruiting spanko scholars from all over the world to search through Shakespeare's work and unveil the spanko variants.

Escanes was dismissive of the prospect that his findings would stimulate a great deal more interest in Shakespearean literature among spankophiles. "Spankos are human beings, and they need no other reason than that to read Shakespeare," he stated. When asked about what spankos around the world could best learn from Shakespeare's work, the professor turned his head to gaze out his window and sighed in momentary reflection. He then, curiously, quoted Ophelia from the standard version of the Danish prince's tale: "We know what we are, but know not what we may be." (Hamlet IV.v)

This parody has been republished from Spankolife by the author.