LONDON — "Curst be he that moves my bones" reads part of the inscription above Shakespeare's grave at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon.
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Kate the Curst is the quintessential example — the trope-namer, if you will — of a female character who's managed to overcome a misogynistic framing as the Shrill Woman, by enduring through the centuries as a stealth symbol of women's independence and unconquerable fire.
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63–66 :Curst be the Man who first a Simile made! :Curst, ev'ry Bard who writes! – So have I seen :Those whose Comparisons are just and true, :And those who liken things not like at all.Hillhouse 1918 p.
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The Farmer's Curst Wife is Child ballad number 278. It has been recorded by Pete Seeger, Jean Ritchie, Hannah James and Sam Sweeney, Patrick Sky, Bellowhead, and John Koerner. The lyrics of the ballad are sometimes sung to the melody of the song Lillibullero.
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Many variations of the song continued to be printed on broadsides in the United States through the 19th and 20th centuries. Throughout New England, it was passed orally and spread by inclusion in songbooks and newspaper columns, along with other popular ballads such as "The Farmer's Curst Wife" and "The Golden Vanity".
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J.B. Varnum used his political standing to appeal to the authorities and was successful in securing Royal's release. The Varnums went so far as to report White's conduct to his superiors in Boston, leading to a tense confrontation. > He was extremely angry, Curst & Swore very Profainly, they dealt him very > sharply for his Conduct to Ryal. He said he did not know Ryal was free.
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Quhen all was gaine, I micht mak na debeat, Bot with my bairns past for till beg my meat. Now haue I tald ȝow the black veritie, How I am brocht into this miserie. DILIGENCE: How did the person, was he not thy gude friend? PAUPER: The devil stick him, he curst me for my teind, And halds me ȝit vnder that same proces, That gart me want the Sacrament at Pasche.
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Anglo-Canadian folk ballads are particularly well-preserved in Newfoundland. The widespread "Barbara Allen" is found in dozens of onions, as are songs like "The Farmer's Curst Wife", "Lord Randall", and "The Sweet Trinity". With the advent of printing, broadside ballads were found throughout Canada, many of them Anglo songs telling sad songs about unfulfilled love. In addition to the influence of English West Country folk music and sea shanties, Newfoundland music heavily incorporates themes from Irish music, with elements of the provinces French and Portuguese history also represented.
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Chambers Book of Days mentions the event entering local legend. "It was long said that no grass would grow on the spot where Arden’s dead body was found; some, in accordance with the superstitions of the times, attributed this to the murder; while others declared that 'the field he hadde cruelly taken from a widow woman, who had curst him most bitterly, even to his face, wishing that all the world might wonder on him.' " In 1592, the events were dramatized in the play Arden of Faversham. The paternity of the play has been long disputed, with William Shakespeare being the most prominent of the candidates, and Thomas Watson purported to be the main author in 2020.
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Written for his daughters as a guide on how to behave appropriately, de la Tour Landry includes "a treatise on the domestic education of women" which features an anecdote in which three merchants make a wager as to which of their wives will prove the most obedient when called upon to jump into a basin of water. The episode sees the first two wives refuse to obey (as in the play), it ends at a banquet (as does the play) and it features a speech regarding the "correct" way for a husband to discipline his wife. In 1959, John W. Shroeder conjectured that Chevalier de La Tour Landrys depiction of the Queen Vastis story may also have been an influence on Shakespeare. In 1964, Richard Hosley suggested the main source for the play may have been the anonymous ballad "A merry jeste of a shrewde and curst Wyfe, lapped in Morrelles Skin, for her good behauyour".
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