This is the 4th postin my April A to Z Challenge topic on the Silk Road.
Roads all start out with dirt, and though many dispute that the Silk Road was even a road–some saying it was more of a “Silk Route” than an actual road–still, the route was across land and land means dirt.
So what kind of land are we talking about?
There were two routes going from either direction. Although one of the main thrusts originally was to move goods from China westward, there were also goods moving across from Greece and the Levant to Arabia in the ancient Persian and Mesopotamian days. Since there were camels (letter “C”), there were several deserts and as the maps remind us, there were plenty of mountains too.
There are few descriptive phrases that sum up a time and place as elegantly as “The Silk Road.” It is an idea specific to geography and historical era. Others terms–World War I, Manifest Destiny, the Roman Empire, or the Enlightenment–belong to a specific country or encompass a comparatively brief span of years. Even the Renaissance, as I found out in last year’s A to Z challenge, made a heavy impression mostly on a handful of places and was fairly localized to Italy and the coastal cities of Western Europe. Or take a place like the Fertile Crescent, which may have lasted centuries in the development of human processes, but it was really a spot, that convergence of the Tigris and the Euphrates.
In comparison, the Silk Road spread across a continent, and the biggest one at that. It began a few hundred years before the Common Era (BCE is the new way of saying minus zero year) and lasted into the era of colonization. To cover 26 posts on anything requires a vast stretch of subject.
It’s time to go back and see some live theater! Even if it’s on film.
We took a long weekend to trek up to Ashland for three plays, so if you’re thinking this is like free advertising for Oregon Shakespeare Festival, you’re probably right. But the performances were excellent, and all three have been filmed. If you can’t make the trek up to the rolling hills of the Rogue River Valley before the seasons ends, then you can watch the films live next weekend or on demand. Check out the options here.
My particular goal was to get my bingo card punched, which is to say that I had seen 36 of the 37 plays of Shakespeare and was only missing “King John.” (You’re going to point out that “The Two Noble Kinsmen” makes it 38 plays, and I’ll counter that it’s never staged and besides, John Fletcher co-wrote it. If you find a version of it somewhere, send me a link, and I’ll watch it. Meanwhile, I’m calling B-I-N-G-O.) And Shakespeare was his name-o!
Who Wants to Play a Weenie?
We were speculating as to why “King John” is almost never staged, when the history play that precedes it, “Richard III,” is done all the time It may be the nature of villainy in the central character. Even though Richard is one of the worst scoundrels that ever walked a stage, he controls his own destiny. He pillages, rapes, and murders with glee. A good actor will get the audience laughing at his roguish charm, while Richard woos his enemy’s widow or plans the assassination of the princes in the tower. Don’t believe me? Watch the Ian McKellen 1995 “Richard III.”
