Macletae

"We're going to the opera," I said. "Macbeth." I started to pretend to hold a skull in my outstretched hand.

"That's Hamlet," my friend corrected.

"Oh, right."

"MacBeth's not such a Danish name," he mocked.

"Neither is Hamlet," I defended, completely defeated. "I know, I know. Macbeth's the one where the mom was bad."

"The wife. The wife was bad," he corrected, again.

"She looked like a mom the last time I saw it," I replied, faintly recalling some poor PBS production from two or three decades ago. Had I never actually read it? I must have. "But I remember the witches. There were three of them and they shared an eye."

"Greek. You're doing the Greek Graeae now," he said, suddenly keen on hearing my next plot twist, but I decided to stop talking.

"Go on. Do you know what the witches told MacBeth?" he pushed.

"Unto you a child will be born?"

In the week that led up to me accompanying some opera fans to hear the Metropolitan Opera sing Verdi's Macbeth at Lincoln Center, I heard a lot of debate amongst others over who was worse, MacBeth or his Lady. Fortunately by that time I had learned enough to know to offer no opinion at all.

When I get alzheimers, no one will be able to tell.