Den stegrande kamelen skrev:
Däremot har väl Tolkien sagt någonstans, tror jag, att han fick idén till enterna från Macbeth
Hah, jag hittade det! Ur
Letters #163 (ett brev till W. H. Auden):
Tolkien skrev:
But looking back analytically I should say that Ents are composed of philology, literature and life. They owe their name to the eald enta geweorc of Anglo-Saxon, and their connexion with stone. Their part in the story is due, I think, to my bitter disappointment and disgust from schooldays with the shabby use made in Shakespeare of the coming of 'Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill': I longed to devise a setting in which the trees might really march to war.
Och det där med Birnam Wood är mycket riktigt ur Macbeth. Här är ett utdrag ur akt V, scen V:
Shakespeare skrev:
Messenger:
Gracious my lord,
I should report that which I say I saw,
But know not how to do it.
MACBETH:
Well, say, sir.
Messenger:
As I did stand my watch upon the hill,
I look'd toward Birnam, and anon, methought,
The wood began to move.
MACBETH:
Liar and slave!
Messenger:
Let me endure your wrath, if't be not so:
Within this three mile may you see it coming;
I say, a moving grove.
MACBETH:
If thou speak'st false,
Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive,
Till famine cling thee: if thy speech be sooth,
I care not if thou dost for me as much.
I pull in resolution, and begin
To doubt the equivocation of the fiend
That lies like truth: 'Fear not, till Birnam wood
Do come to Dunsinane:' and now a wood
Comes toward Dunsinane. Arm, arm, and out!
If this which he avouches does appear,
There is nor flying hence nor tarrying here.
I gin to be aweary of the sun,
And wish the estate o' the world were now undone.
Ring the alarum-bell! Blow, wind! come, wrack!
At least we'll die with harness on our back.