The first couple of references are to Hamlet. In the chapter on the Aries Man, the authors (Stella Starsky and Quinn Cox) write, "incorporating the notion that females are fragile, which is, we thinks, a by-product of the man doth protesting too much against his nature," an awkward phrasing, but a reference to Gertrude's line to Hamlet, "The lady doth protest too much, methinks." The second comes in the chapter on Taurus Man, with the authors writing, "But here's the rub" (p. 51), a reference to Hamlet's most famous soliloquy (that phrase is used several more times throughout the book). That same chapter contains a list of famous Taurus men, which includes William Shakespeare himself (p. 60). In the section with brief description of couplings, the Taurus Man/Cancer Women includes this: "It's a ten-hankie twosome - much ado about nothing; they cry till they laugh" (p. 67). The next couple of references are to Hamlet. The authors write, "So it becomes her most pressing issue, over which Taurus doth protest too much: to try to be more" (p. 77). The phrase "doth protest too much" comes from Gertrude's line to Hamlet, "The lady doth protest too much, methinks." And then: "There is, however, more method to the Bull's madness" (p. 78), a play on Polonius' "Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't." Next there is a reference to Romeo And Juliet: "Like some schoolyard Romeo, he's continually perfecting his spiel, his well-rehearsed sales pitch" (p. 97). That is in the chapter on the Gemini man. Also in that chapter, there is this reference to A Midsummer Night's Dream: "First, the legendary figure is the mythic Robin Goodfellow or Puck (Irish: Pooka), who is a male sprite, fairy, a versatile creature of the air, indeed, the medieval incarnation of Mercury-Hermes himself, sharing, as Oberon's gofer, in that god's role of messenger" (p. 99). That play is mentioned again a little later in the chapter: "Shakespeare's Puck is the medieval Mercury, messenger to the Fairy King. Called Robin Goodfellow, he is the precursor of Robin Hood, who did bad things for good reasons" (p. 105).
The chapter on Gemini women contains a lot of references to Romeo And Juliet. First, West Side Story (itself an adaptation of Romeo And Juliet) is mentioned: "In short, her love life is all very West Side Story, characterized, as it was, by a sort of social divide" (p. 130). Then: "Just when you thought the mention of West Side Story was a throwaway reference, there's more: when it comes to the advent of love, Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, the basis for the aforementioned musical, is an exploration of the Geminian experience, from soup to nuts. The play treats the mutable-air world of social disorder, played out in an urban landscape. Every Mercury-ruled 3rd House theme under the sun is folded into the mix - a family feud between two merchant houses is the backdrop for Romeo and Juliet (nigh on completing her fourteenth year of life), who hastily rush into star-crossed love. The play itself is already a retelling of the Helen myth, or rather an untelling of it, as Shakespeare has Juliet betrothed to Paris, making him now into the Menelaus whom the beloved girl throws over in favor of the forbidden fruit of Romeo. Romeo describes Juliet, too, in Helenesque terms, saying she "teaches the torches to burn bright." They first profess their love to one another in the Capulets' apple orchard, only to end up in their shared tomb, like Adam and Eve expelled from the garden and ultimately robbed of their immortality. What Shakespeare calls their "death-marked love" isn't lost on the Gemini girl, for whom, as in all great romances, an element of the unrequited is de rigueur. First, like Juliet, Gemini is living proof of love at first sight, all else fuzzing out of focus when she spots a boy who takes her sign-ruled breath away - the existence of this phenomenon is still debated by dubious philosophers; for sure, not one of whom are Gemini women" (p. 130). There is a sidebar on this page that also mentions Romeo And Juliet: "Shakespeare's Juliet personifies love at the Geminian crossroads" (p. 130). Then: "It also controls automatic responses like breathing as well as the opposite instincts for fight and flight, fear and lust, love and hate, the last two comprising the thin-lined main theme of Shakespeare's play. Indeed, the name Juliet, a feminine diminutive of Julius, comes from the Greek oulos meaning "downy,"another aviary reference chalked up to the Twins bird" (pages 130-131). And: "Like Juliet, and all her archetypal figures, Gemini acts hastily, without thought to consequence" (p. 131). And: "Just as the 14-21 age group associated with the sign portrays a shift from dependent to independent thought in the individual, so, too, does Juliet shift in the play from an ancillary, conditional character to a freethinking unconditional one. She moves from using her reptilian, ritualistic brain associated with inherited automatic responses (which, by rights, should signal repulsion to a Montague) to employing her own noggin, as if for the first time, like Eve independent of God's conditional world where He does the thinking for you" (p. 131). And still more: "As with Juliet, Eve, or Helen, expectations are heaped on the Gemini girl that she adhere to a vision of her future, typically designed and held by her parents, who nonetheless fail, in her estimation anyway, to fully meet her immediate needs. She may, in fact, unconsciously seek out such Romeos as she knows will raise the ire of her loved ones" (p. 131). Then: "As in the Fantastiks, yet another Romeo-and-Juliet-based musical, the fathers of the would-be lovers prevent their growing children from seeing one another, twisting the familiar theme, in a plot to ensure they'll marry in defiance" (p. 132). And: "She risks sending a would-be Romeo the wrong message: that screwing around so easily isn't something she does just with him" (p. 132). And: "Love at first sight, for the zodiac's Juliet, invariably morphs into the unrequited variety, amid a cyclone of variables. Since she's typically so young, falling hard for an equally callow fellow, there isn't much chance outside of sixteenth-century Verona that she'd be considered old enough to marry" (p. 133). And yet: "she will eventually change identities, Juliet to Lolita" (p. 134). Then: "Lolita, remember, had a secret Romeo stashed away the whole while she sucked that lollipop" (p. 134).
The chapter on Cancer woman includes a reference to Macbeth: "In fact, in the single active objective of becoming the be-all-end-all little woman to a guy" (p. 177). The phrase "the be-all and the end-all" comes from one of Macbeth's speeches in the first act. And we get that same reference to Much Ado About Nothing in the couplings at the end of that chapter (though oddly the semicolon becomes a comma here): "It's a ten-hankie twosome - much ado about nothing, they cry till they laugh" (p. 192). Then we get a reference to The First Part Of King Henry The Fourth: "Like Shakespeare's born king Prince Hal, the young Leo will live a life of knavery, to some extent, often experiencing an outright obsession with gaming and gambling" (pages 198-199). That chapter contains another similar reference: "just as Arthur fills the seats at his Round Table with only the best and brightest, while Shakespeare's Henry must eschew such losers as Falstaff and company" (p. 204). That chapter also contains a reference to Hamlet: "and insures she'll never again suffer the slings and arrows of his emotional witholding" (p. 209). The phrase "slings and arrows" comes the most famous soliloquy. The chapter on Leo women contains a few references to Romeo And Juliet: "Purring and cooing, she disarms a would-be Romeo by rendering unnecessary his seductive lover-boy strategies" (p. 231); "Though she's not quick to fall in love, especially not on first sight like the Geminian Juliet, Leo is certainly no saint in between times" (p. 232); "And so she rumbas her ruffles into run-ins with unreserved, illustrative lover-boys, barnyard Romeos to whom she may feign to play Juliet, a character that couldn't be further from her true self" (pages 232-233); and "This is not the kind of girl to deliver a believable balcony scene, some bird in a gilded cage" (p. 233). A sidebar in that chapter includes this: "Shakespeare's Cleopatra ('Father's glory') and his aptly named Kit in The Taming of the Shrew are fiercely Leonine characters" (p. 232).
The chapter on Scorpio man contains a reference to Hamlet: "He delights in seeing his slings and arrows soar clear over the heads of unsuspecting victims" (pages 338-339). There is also a Hamlet reference in the chapter on Sagittarius man: "Just as there was an inherent method to Dionysus' madness, Sagittarius is likewise not a sign of disorder, but rather of new order" (p. 377). That refers to Polonius' line "Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't." That chapter also includes that Macbeth reference: "self-revelation is the be-all-end-all of experience from the Sagittarian male vantage point" (p. 386). There is also an Othello reference in that chapter: "Because Sag is beyond even so blatant a duality as the vividly described 'beast with two backs'" (p. 387). That phrase comes from Iago's speech to Brabantio when he tells him that his daughter and Othello are "making the beast with two backs." The Capricorn man chapter includes a reference to Shakespeare: "speaking, as he does, in a smarmy stage whisper of a voice, often with perfect Shakespearean pronunciation, which might seem to be some sort of put-on" (p. 426). That chapter also includes a couple of references to Hamlet: "He is, like Hamlet (synonymous with harbor or haven), an eternally tragic figure - the word tragedy itself comes from the Greek word tragoidia meaning 'goat song.' And let's face it, there's no easy way of telling these skull-gazing Hamlets of the world to simply lighten up" (p. 433) and "What Mr. Hamlet or Mr. Haven needs to realize is that the safe-harbor scenario is really a two-way street" (p. 434). Then a sidebar in the chapter on Capricorn woman reads, in part: "She is Spencer's Fairy Queene and Shakespeare's Titania (Rhea the Titan) from A Midsummer's Night Dream, who steals away a young prince, just as Rhea whisked off prince Zeus" (p. 451). (And, yes, it does say A Midsummer's Night Dream instead of A Midsummer Night's Dream). That chapter also contains a Hamlet reference: "all too often having suffered their slings and arrows during her uglier-duckling days" (p. 452). There are two more references to that phrase from Macbeth: "a fitting denotation for this be-all-end-all of water signs" (p. 512) and "translates into the Piscean female's fancying herself the 'be all, end all' of womankind" (p. 536). There is also a reference to Richard The Third: "Lady Anne forms a 'pieta' mourning Henry IV in Shakespeare's Richard III" (p. 538).
Sextrology: The Astrology Of Sex And The Sexes was published in 2004.
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