In terms of fiction, a quibble is a plot device, used to fulfill the exact verbal conditions of an agreement in order to avoid the intended meaning. Typically quibbles are used in legal bargains and, in fantasy, magically enforced ones (for example prophecies). [1]
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William Shakespeare used a quibble in The Merchant of Venice . Portia saves Antonio in a court of law by pointing out that the agreement called for a pound of flesh, but no blood, and therefore Shylock can collect only if he sheds no blood, which is not physically possible. He also uses one in Macbeth where Macbeth is killed by Macduff, despite it being prophesied by the Three Witches that "none of woman born" shall vanquish him, as the latter character was born by Caesarean section. In a second prophecy, Macbeth is told that he has nothing to fear until Great Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane Hill. He feels safe since he knows that forests cannot move, but is overcome when the English army, shielded with boughs cut from Birnam Wood, advances on his stronghold at Dunsinane.
The old testament likewise contains examples of legalistic quibbles. In Genesis 18, Abraham gets God to acknowledge that killing many righteous people alongside the sinners in Sodom would be wrong, and then works his way down to sparing the city for the sake of a single righteous one.
A pact with the Devil commonly contains clauses that allow the devil to quibble over what he grants, and equally commonly, the maker of the pact finds a quibble to escape the bargain. [1]
In Norse mythology, Loki, having bet his head with Brokk and lost, forbids Brokk to take any part of his neck, saying he had not bet it; to avenge himself Brokk instead sews Loki's lips shut. [1]
When the hero of the Child ballad The Lord of Lorn and the False Steward is forced to trade places with an impostor and swear never to reveal the truth to anyone, he tells his story to a horse while he knows that the heroine is eavesdropping. In the similar fairy tale The Goose Girl , the princess pours out her story to an iron stove, unaware that the king is listening. [2]
When Croesus consulted the Pythia, he was told that going to war with Cyrus the Great would destroy a great empire. Croesus assumed that the seer meant that the Persian Empire would be destroyed and Croesus would triumph. He proceeded to attack the Persians, believing victory was assured. In the end, however, the Persians were victorious, and the empire destroyed was not Cyrus's but Croesus's.
In The Lord of the Rings , the Elf Glorfindel's prophecy states that "not by the hand of man will the Witch-king of Angmar fall." The Witch-king is slain by Éowyn, a woman, during the battle of the Pelennor Fields. She is aided by Merry, a male hobbit [1] who distracted him by stabbing him with a Númenorean blade (created by a long-deceased man), as the Ringwraiths are harmed by such swords.
In Terry Pratchett's Moving Pictures , a book is said to inflict terrible fates on any man opening it, but causes only mild annoyance to the Librarian, who is in fact an orangutan. [1]
Macbeth is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. It is thought to have been first performed in 1606. It dramatises the damaging physical and psychological effects of political ambition on those who seek power. Of all the plays that Shakespeare wrote during the reign of James I, Macbeth most clearly reflects his relationship with King James, patron of Shakespeare's acting company. It was first published in the Folio of 1623, possibly from a prompt book, and is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy.
Croesus was the king of Lydia, who reigned from 585 BC until his defeat by the Persian king Cyrus the Great in 547 or 546 BC. According to Herodotus, he reigned 14 years.
Macbeth is a 1971 historical drama film directed by Roman Polanski, and co-written by Polanski and Kenneth Tynan. A film adaptation of William Shakespeare's tragedy of the same name, it tells the story of the Highland lord who becomes King of Scotland through treachery and murder. Jon Finch and Francesca Annis star as the title character and his wife, noted for their relative youth as actors. Themes of historic recurrence, greater pessimism and internal ugliness in physically beautiful characters are added to Shakespeare's story of moral decline, which is presented in a more realistic style.
Dunsinane Hill is a hill of the Sidlaws near the village of Collace in Perthshire, Scotland. It is mentioned in Shakespeare's play Macbeth, in which a vision informs Macbeth that he "shall never vanquished be, until Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill Shall come against him."
The Battle of Thymbra was the decisive battle in the war between Croesus of the Lydian Kingdom and Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid Empire. Cyrus, after he had pursued Croesus into Lydia after the drawn Battle of Pteria, met the remains of Croesus' partially-disbanded army in battle on the plain north of Sardis in December 547 BC. Croesus' army was about twice as large and had been reinforced with many new men, but Cyrus still utterly defeated it. That proved to be decisive, and after the 14-day Siege of Sardis, the city and possibly its king fell, and Lydia was conquered by the Persians.
The Battle of Pteria was fought in 547 BC between the Persian forces of Cyrus the Great and the Lydian forces of Croesus. Both armies suffered heavy casualties in this indecisive battle.
Cyrus II of Persia, commonly known as Cyrus the Great, was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire, the First Persian Empire. Under his rule the empire embraced all of the previous civilized states of the ancient Near East, expanded vastly and eventually conquered most of Western Asia and much of Central Asia. Spanning from the Mediterranean Sea and Hellespont in the west to the Indus River in the east, the empire created by Cyrus was the largest the world had yet seen. At its maximum extent under his successors, the Achaemenid Empire stretched from parts of the Balkans and Southeast Europe proper in the west to the Indus Valley in the east.
Macbeth is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi, with an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave and additions by Andrea Maffei, based on William Shakespeare's play of the same name. Written for the Teatro della Pergola in Florence, it was Verdi's tenth opera and premiered on 14 March 1847. Macbeth was the first Shakespeare play that Verdi adapted for the operatic stage. Almost twenty years later, Macbeth was revised and expanded in a French version and given in Paris on 19 April 1865.
Astyages was the last king of the Median Empire, reigning from 585 to 550 BC. The son of Cyaxares, he was dethroned by his grandson, Cyrus the Great.
Harpagus, also known as Harpagos or Hypargus, was a Median general from the 6th century BC, credited by Herodotus as having put Cyrus the Great on the throne through his defection during the battle of Pasargadae.
Mazares was a Median general who defected to Cyrus the Great when the latter overthrew his grandfather, Astyages and formed the Persian Empire. Mazares is mentioned by Herodotus as a Median general in the service of Cyrus the Great who died while putting down a revolt in Asia Minor.
Macbeth is a 2006 Australian adaptation of William Shakespeare's Macbeth. It was directed by Geoffrey Wright and features an ensemble cast led by Sam Worthington in the title role. Macbeth, filmed in Melbourne and Victoria, was released in Australia on 21 September 2006.
St Serf's Inch or St Serf's Island is an island in Loch Leven, in south-eastern Perth and Kinross, Scotland. It was the home of a Culdee and then an Augustinian monastic community, St Serf's Inch Priory.
Lord Macbeth, the Thane of Glamis and quickly the Thane of Cawdor, is the title character and main protagonist in William Shakespeare's Macbeth. The character is loosely based on the historical king Macbeth of Scotland and is derived largely from the account in Holinshed's Chronicles (1577), a compilation of British history.
The siege of Sardis was the last decisive conflict after the Battle of Thymbra, which was fought between the forces of Croesus of Lydia and Cyrus the Great, when Cyrus followed Croesus to his city, laid siege to it for 14 days and captured it.
The Three Witches, also known as the Weird Sisters or Wayward Sisters, are characters in William Shakespeare's play Macbeth. The witches eventually lead Macbeth to his demise, and they hold a striking resemblance to the three Fates of classical mythology. Their origin lies in Holinshed's Chronicles (1587), a history of England, Scotland and Ireland. Other possible sources, aside from Shakespeare, include British folklore, contemporary treatises on witchcraft as King James VI of Scotland's Daemonologie, the Witch of Endor from the Bible, the Norns of Norse mythology, and ancient classical myths of the Fates: the Greek Moirai and the Roman Parcae.
Macbeth is a 2015 epic historical drama film directed by Justin Kurzel and written for the screen by Todd Louiso, Jacob Koskoff, and Michael Lesslie, based on William Shakespeare's play of the same name. The film stars Michael Fassbender in the title role and Marion Cotillard as Lady Macbeth, with Paddy Considine, Sean Harris, Jack Reynor, Elizabeth Debicki and David Thewlis in supporting roles. The story follows a Scottish lord's rise to power after receiving a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. Like the play it was adapted from, the film dramatises the damaging physical and psychological effects of political ambition on those who seek power for its own sake.
The Tragedy of Macbeth is a 2021 American historical thriller film written, directed and produced by Joel Coen, based on the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare. It is the first film directed by one of the Coen brothers without the other's involvement. The film stars Denzel Washington, Frances McDormand, Bertie Carvel, Alex Hassell, Corey Hawkins, Harry Melling, Kathryn Hunter, and Brendan Gleeson.
The Battle of Dunsinane, also known as the Battle of the Seven Sleepers, was fought between the forces of Macbeth, King of Scotland and forces led by Siward, Earl of Northumbria and Malcolm Canmore on 27 July 1054. The battle was part of a campaign launched by Siward in support of Malcolm's claim to the Scottish throne, which Macbeth had gained after killing Malcolm's father, Duncan I of Scotland, at the battle of Pitgaveny in 1040. Ending in victory for Siward and Malcolm the battle of Dunsinane was fought in Perthshire, traditionally on Dunsinane Hill.
Tolkien derived the characters, stories, places, and languages of Middle-earth from many sources. Shakespeare's influence on Tolkien was substantial, despite Tolkien's professed dislike of the playwright. Tolkien disapproved in particular of Shakespeare's devaluation of elves, and was deeply disappointed by Shakespeare's prosaic explanation of how Birnam Wood came to Dunsinane Hill in Macbeth. Tolkien was influenced especially by Macbeth and A Midsummer Night's Dream, and he used King Lear for "issues of kingship, madness, and succession". He arguably drew on several other plays, including The Merchant of Venice, Henry IV, Part 1, and Love's Labour's Lost, as well as Shakespeare's poetry, for numerous effects in his Middle-earth writings. The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey suggests that Tolkien may even have felt a kind of fellow-feeling with Shakespeare, as both men were rooted in the county of Warwickshire.