Dramatis Personae and Prologue

TANQUAM OVIS

To the ever encouraging Southern Witch 69

Dramatis Personae

* Members of the Order of the Phoenix

♣ Death Eater or Supporter of Voldemort

Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts, later his echo and ghost *

Minerva McGonagall, deputy headmistress at Hogwarts *

Sybill Trelawney, divination mistress at Hogwarts *

Alastor Moody, Auror *

Remus Lupin *

Nymphadora Tonks, Auror *

Kingsley Shacklebolt, Auror *

Portrait of Phineas Nigellus, former headmaster of Hogwarts

Harry Potter, also called the Chosen One, student at Hogwarts *

Ronald Weasley, friend of Harry, student at Hogwarts *

Hermione Granger, friend of Harry, student at Hogwarts *

Aberforth Dumbledore, proprietor of the Hog's Head tavern and brother to Albus*

Severus Snape, former Potions Master and Defence Against the Dark Arts Master at Hogwarts, later his ghost * ♣

Lucius Malfoy ♣

Narcissa Malfoy, wife of Lucius Malfoy ♣

Draco Malfoy, son of Lucius and Narcissa, school fellow of Harry Potter ♣

Bellatrix Lestrange, sister of Narcissa Malfoy ♣

Lord Voldemort, also known as Tom Marvolo Riddle ♣

Wormtail, also known as Peter Pettigrew ♣

Amycus, a Death Eater ♣

Alecto, a Death Eater, sister of Amycus ♣

Fenrir Greyback, a Death Eater ♣

Ghost of Lily Evans, mother of Harry Potter

Ghost of James Potter, father of Harry Potter

Ghost of Sirius Black, godfather of Harry Potter

Ghost of Cedric Diggory, former schoolfellow of Harry Potter

Death Eaters in Voldemort's court and/or train ♣

People at the Hogshead tavern.

Chorus of Hogwarts' students who are not the main characters herein.

A/N: I anticipate that many readers will find fault with the language and grammar herein. Please bear in mind that this play aims to remain authentic to the style and language of literature produced in the Tudor, Elizabethan and early Jacobean times (c.1485-1615). They had different modes of writing, grammar and spelling. While I have faithfully produced these as far as I could, please understand that I have opted not to replicate the erratic Tudor spelling as most words were spelt phonetically in the Tudor era (c.1485-1603). For example, 'hour' was then spelt 'hower' or 'hour' by the English aristocrats who have had an Oxford or Cambridge education, 'hauer' by the Welsh, Irish aristocrats or Spanish nobility who learnt English, 'hoaeur' by the middle classes who could write and read (ancestors of our modern cockneys), 'youer' by the Scottish aristocrats, because these peoples pronounced the word that way.

In order to be true to the custom of the time, this play is written in a combination of late Mediaeval Latin, as well as Tudor and Elizabethan English. Some English words used then had different of meanings than they do now. While I am aware that this maybe very off-putting to many people, I sincerely hope you will come to see and understand the plot as I intend for it to be read. As far as possible, I have included a glossary when the definitions of words differ from the modern meaning and pronunciations. If you are in doubt, ask and I will answer. Stage directions are given in square brackets, like so [ ] and asides are listed. If asides are not indicated explicitly in the text, they are denoted by round brackets like so ( ).

Numbers at the back of certain lines are line numbers. The right align command does not work with line numbers. When I tried it, the line pagination of my metre was eliminated. Please bear with the numbers that appear there, they are meant as a guide not as a distraction.

TANQUAM OVIS

PROLOGUE

Prologue

Hogwarts grounds, near forbidden forest.

Enter students from all Hogwarts' houses

Chorus:

To sing a mournful song that old wast sung

From Slytherin's seed, Voldemort did come

Through the blood of his mother's body true

Made him think in ev'ry way that it was blue.

Influence, power and nobles he won                                   5

So that no chance could be forgone

To cleanse purebloods' fastidious eyes

Of the wizarding world's infirmities.

His promise had been sung at festivals

O'er amber eyes and deathly show revel                                   10

Where lords and ladies swear their lives

To join Lord Voldemort's restoratives

In the Death Eater cause which makes glorious

The end of those whose ranks be dubious.

If you, mortal, live in this shaky clime,                                   15

Where wits be needed to survive time

Hear that which we in our studies doth sing

In the hope that to you knowledge we bring.

This Voldemort then – this dark wizard great

Build'd his city at an uncharted seat                                   20

Lying yonder over Scotland so fair

Denying himself, he wast Slytherin's heir

So full of malice in heart, mind and face,

He believed heaven lent him all his grace;

Thus the washing of blood with blood he took                                   25

And others to justice he did provoke.

A prophecy however stay'd his own

With the warning evil should be done by none,

His undoing lay in Potter's begin

And resulted in Voldemort's great sin                                   30

That by custom it with hatred did come

And made Dumbledore forward his frame

To meet and prevent Voldemort's own laws

To keep him in death and his men in awe

That with Harry Potter war will end strife,                                   35

Thus unfurling the Riddle and his life.

To uncover the puzzle, Snape wast sent

To see if he can peer down his lord's bent

Others, suspicious or Snape testify

He changes his cloak with the spin of the die                                   40

What now ensues to the judgement of your eye

We give the causes which best can testify.

[Exeunt]

FOOTNOTES & GLOSSARY

Tanquam Ovis is Latin for "like a lamb to the slaughter". I shall leave you to devise the identities of the sacrificial lambs that were slaughtered, why I have opted to slaughter them and why their deaths are significant.

Tanquam Ovis Explanation

I obtained the phrase Tanquam Ovis from my reading on Elizabeth I. Tanquam Ovis appears with the meaning "like a lamb to the slaughter"in John Foxe's Book of Martyrs, published in 1583. All page references in this section refer to the 1583 edition of The Book of Martyrs. In using John Foxe's Book of Martyrs and adopting Sir Philip Sidney's definition of the function of poetry (i.e. fiction) with reference to the Horatian dictum of to teach and delight' (docere et delectare), I am paying homage to the 16th-17th century tradition of literature. In subscribing to Sidney's widely accepted maxim, Foxe positions Book of Martyrs, the title by which his ecclesiastical history was known from the beginning, at the didactic end of the scale. Nevertheless, its array of theological disputations, treatises, heresy examinations, instructive accounts of the painful deaths of martyrs who were burnt alive, and other texts afford frequent moments of aesthetic pleasure through the employment by Foxe or his sources of a diversity of rhetorical schemes, stylistic figures, and devices of characterization. Drawing upon elements of this kind, the Book of Martyrs functions as an encyclopedia of literary genres including many kinds of verse, martyrologies, fables, ballads, beast fables, fanciful tales, romanticized adventure narratives, and many other writings. Tanquam Ovis appears in Book 10 where he discusses the ongoing disputes between Catholics and Protestants. He enjoys using the Tanquam Ovis phrase as an allegory if you like, so much that Elizabeth (when she was just Princess Elizabeth and heir to Mary I) applied the messianic figure of Tanquam Ovis. In the narrative concerning her imprisonment, Princess Elizabeth applies the messianic figure of tanquam ovis ('like a sheep' [led to slaughter], Isa. 53:7; Acts 8:32 – this is more obvious if you read the Vulgate version of the bible where Tanquam Ovis = like a sheep led to the slaughter) to her own endangerment as a Christlike lamb. (p. 2094b). Tanquam Ovis was popular device and saying in Tudor times. Writing from prison, John Bradford declares: 'I am now as a sheep appointed to the slaughter' (p. 1654). In a letter sent from one prisoner to another, John Careless consoles an inmate that he is fortunate not only to testify to his faith in Christ, 'but also to suffer for his sake, as one of his silly [i.e., innocent] sheep appointed to the slaughter' (p. 1928). The narrator of a story about yet another martyr, Julian Palmer, writes that he 'was led away as a lamb to the slaughter' by a prison keeper who was like 'a ravening wolf greedy of his prey' (p. 1937).

Choice of Latin: An Explication

Please bear in mind that the Latin in this play is Mediaeval Latin, i.e. Latin of the High Middle Ages. Henry VIII's reign is considered to fall under the High Middle Ages. Mediaeval Latin is often religious in tone and subject; playwrights, authors, poets and lovers (writing lover letters) frequently used such Latin with such overtones in their work. I have written everything in Mediaeval Latinso as to be true to the custom of the time [cf. Author's notes at the start of the play before the title]. It is for this reason that I do not use Roman Latin.

Gentle Warning

Readers and Purists who expect the authoress to remain true to the events of HBP may be offended and displeased with my interpretation of this work. This play is at times anachronistic (as was Shakespeare), idiosyncratic, and singular. Artistic license has been utilised to reinterpret some of the occurrences in HBP. The authoress has also used dramatic license to postulate certain theories in this play. For these reasons, Tanquam Ovis may not be everyone's cup of tea.

Problem Play: An Explication

This is intentionally written as a problem play. Those of you who look on the meaning of "problem plays" as Isben's understanding of 'A type of drama that focuses on a specific social problem', may be disappointed to learn that I follow the Shakespearean style of problem play. To understand what a Shakespearean problem play is, let me quote you W.W. Lawrence's definition; "the essential characteristic of a problem play ... is that a perplexing and distressing complication in human life is presented in a spirit of high seriousness ... the theme is handled so as to arouse not merely interest or excitement, or pity or amusement, but to probe the complicated interrelations of character and action, in a situation admitting of different ethical interpretations .... The 'problem' is not like one in mathematics, to which there is a single true solution, but is one of conduct, as to which there are no fixed and immutable laws. Often it cannot be reduced to any formula, any one question, since human life is too complex to be so neatly simplified" (Shakespeare's Problem Comedies, 1931, p.4).

Alternatively, you may prefer Schanzer's definition, cf. Ernest Schanzer, The Problem Plays of Shakespeare: A Study of "Julius Caesar, Measure for Measure, and Antony and Cleopatra, London, 1963. He says, "The definition of the Shakespearian problems play which I therefore suggest is: 'A play in which we find a concern with a moral problem which is central to it, presented in such a manner that we are unsure of our moral bearings, so that uncertain and divided responses to it in the minds of the audience are possible or even probable' (p. 6)."It will also be noted that, in opposition to Boas, Lawrence, and Tillyard, I do not mark off the problem play from the comedies and tragedies as a separate type. What, to my mind, distinguishes the problem play is a particular mode of presenting moral problems and this can be found in Shakespeare's tragedies and comedies alike' (pp. 6, 7).

This means that as a Shakespearean problem play, Tanquam Ovis sets out to do the following: (a) forward a refusal or failure to wholly credit the dignity of man, and the significance that that gives the individual in tragedy; (b) place An emphasis (comic, derisive, satiric) on human shortcoming, even when man is engaged in great affairs; (c) suggest that there is usually another side to all human affairs, and that the "other side" to the serious, dignified, noble, famous and so forth, is comic. This implies scepticism of man's worth, importance and value; and may range from the quizzical through the ironical to the cynical; (d) expressing unhappiness, disappointment, resentfulness or bitterness about human life, by inverting these feelings and presenting the causes of them as something ironic; (e) possess a corresponding attitude towards traditionally funny subjects which insinuates that in some way they are serious, or that the stock response to them bypasses pain at human shortcomings or wickedness; or that this stock response depends on a lack of sympathy or insight which an author can make us aware of without abolishing the comic situation (f) Interpolated into the critical analytical patterns we find "ideal" figures who check our prattle of "cynicism," "satire" or "misanthropy"; (g) involve us in discoveries always of a bad reality beneath the fair appearances of things: revelations, painful in the extreme and we are made to feel the pain – of the distressing, disintegrating possibilities of human meanness (ignobility and treachery, craft and selfishness).

All Shakespeare's Problem Plays are profoundly concerned with seeming and being; and this can cover both sex and human worth (as each claims nobility). Combine this with what I have just said about "disintegrating" discoveries, and, with a wider generalization, you can say that they share a quality which can be called "maskedness" not only because "unmaskng" describes so many of the actions, but because the total effect is to present a world of appearances (very close to a realistically observed reality) capable of opening –like a masque set transformation scene – and disclosing something totally different. This "maskedness" brings doubt, mixed feelings, a "nervous" curiosity and/or a kind of fear.

Whether I have successfully produced a Shakespearean style problem play is for you to decide.

Brief Primer on Tudor and Jacobean English

In Tudor times right up to Jacobean times, "your" and "you" were used either in the plural or to denote a certain formality of speech. "Thee", "thine", "thou" were more intimate and informal. I have kept to this general ruling in this play. This trend of "thou" being singular and "you" as plural started in the 13th century to copy French (vous and tu). It was usual for "you" to be used by inferiors to superiors, such as children to parents, or servants to masters. The superiors will use "thou" or one of its variants to their inferiors. "Thou" was used to invoke the gods and it was usual when lower classes talk to each other, they use "thou". Upper classes used "you" when talking to each other, though this rule may be bent if the parties decide to be informal and use "thou". Thus, changing from "thou" to "you" (and vice versa) in a conversation always conveys special meaning. "Thou" can be used as either a sign of intimacy (among the Upper classes) or as an insult (when the Upper classes speak to the lower classes). It depends how the actor/director wants to play it. Example: Gertrude tells Hamlet, "You have thy father much offended". Hamlet replies, "You have my father much offended." It is clear Hamlet is insulting his mother. Mother, i.e. Gertrude insists that Hamlet has insulted Claudius (notice she uses 'thou' with him. But Hamlet, who alternates between 'thou' and 'you' with his mother, uses "You" in this context as an insult. There are many such examples in Hamlet and Shakespeare in general, look out for it in the play.

In Shakespearean English there is no such thing as "are". You either use "be", "beest", "be'st" or "been".

In Shakespearean English, there is no such thing as "was" or "were", you either use "wert" or "wast".

Brief Primer on Stage Directions used in Tudor-Jacobean Masques and Plays

Stage direction glossary is as follows:

Aside – A speech direction. A speech not heard by other characters on stage. Also has alternative meaning as movement direction.

Above – A movement direction that occurs in the gallery or upper stage.

Aloft – A movement direction that occurs on the upper stage.

Apart – A movement direction that occurs to one side, a short distance away.

Aside – A movement direction that occurs to one side, away from the others.

Below – A movement direction that occurs on the lower stage.

Break in – A movement direction that is burst on to the stage.

Brought out – A movement direction that is brought out on to the stage.

Enter – A movement direction that occurs when one or more characters come on to the stage.

Exeunt – A movement direction that occurs when more than one character leaves the stage.

Exit – A movement direction that occurs when one character leaves the stage.

In – A movement direction that occurs when one or more characters go into the dressing room at the back of the stage.

Manent – A movement direction that occurs when the characters remain on stage.

Off – A movement direction that occurs off-stage.

Severally/several ways – A movement direction that occurs in different directions (said of people arriving or leaving).

Solus – A movement direction denoting that a character enters by himself/herself alone.

Top, on the – A movement direction that occurs on the upper stage.

Within – A movement direction that occurs behind the stage façade (i.e. outside).

Alarum/Alarums – An event direction denoting a call to arms.

Excursions/ excursions, in an – An event direction denoting a bout of fighting across the stage.

Cornet – A music direction denoting a fanfare (as played by cornets, a horn-like wind instrument).

Drum – A music direction denoting drummers are present and playing their drums, usually for wars, coronations and funerals.

Flourish – A music direction denoting a fanfare of trumpets or horns, usually accompanying an exit or entrance.

Hautboys – A music direction denoting the playing of a woodwind double-reed instrument resembling an oboe.

Sennet – A music direction denoting a trumpet call signalling a procession.

Trump / Trumpet – A music direction denoting a trumpeter playing.

Tucket – A music direction denoting a personal trumpet call.

Explicatory Notes and Glossary Proper

Line 8 – Infirmities in the 17th century was pronounced to rhyme with "eyes".

Line 12 – Here in the context of the prologue, restoratives refer to Voldemort's plan to set the wizarding world to right.

Line 20 – "Build'd" (pronounced with 2 syllables) or "Builded" (pronounced with 3 syllables) is Tudor/Elizabethan English for "Built".

Line 21 – It is stated explicitly here that Voldemort's Headquarters can be found on an island charted island near Scotland. Therefore, scenes involving Death Eaters and Voldemort will take place there.

Line 27 – "Stay'd" is pronounced with one syllable.

Line 27 – "Stay'd his own" means prevented him from acting too rashly.

Line 36 – This is a double entendre. I mean riddle as in (a) the thing you try to solve, (b) Tom Marvolo Riddle, and (c) the mystery of the Death Eater cause and that of the Order of the Phoenix.

Line 38 – "Bent" is Tudor English for "will" as in "desire" and "determination". It is not the past tense of "Bend"; that is the meaning in modern English. The past tense of "bend" in Tudor/Elizabethan English is "bended" (pronounced with 3 syllables) or "bend'd" (pronounced with 2 syllables).