A discussion forum for history enthusiasts everywhere
 
HomeHome  Recent ActivityRecent Activity  Latest imagesLatest images  RegisterRegister  Log inLog in  SearchSearch  

Share | 
 

 Hell Hath No Fury ...

View previous topic View next topic Go down 
AuthorMessage
nordmann
Nobiles Barbariæ
nordmann

Posts : 7223
Join date : 2011-12-25

Hell Hath No Fury ...  Empty
PostSubject: Hell Hath No Fury ...    Hell Hath No Fury ...  EmptySun 06 Jan 2013, 21:20

Women scorned, as William Congreve informed us in his play "The Mourning Bride", are a species best avoided, especially if one is male and most especially if one is the male who did the scorning!

Historically however women - even powerful and important women in society - have been limited with regard to the facilities they can employ when exacting retribution. Boudicca aside, there have not been many others who could, after being slighted, rally a whole nation into arms and lead them into battle against the ones who did them wrong. However that is not to say that women, once bent on such retribution, have necessarily been either slouches or failures in exacting revenge. They've just had to go about it more circumspectively, sometimes deviously, a lot of times with incredible cunning and intelligence, and always in the knowledge that they ran the risk that failure might well be absolute and terrible. Society forced them into a high stakes strategy which many men would have balked at the prospect of pursuing. That they pulled this strategy off, and often with great panache in the process, elevates women who succeeded in pursuing it to the pinnacle amongst history's great achievers - even if the achievement might have amounted often to little more than simple revenge for a real or imagined slight.

As said, Boudicca does not really fit the bill here. Though indeed grievously wronged and bent on revenge she is disqualified in that she basically employed a man's role and tactics in a society which expected nothing less at the time and in doing so unfortunately emulated the wronged male rather too well, especially in not having much of a strategy except for frenzied pillage and murder of all her perceived enemies, and of course ultimately in failing in all her objectives.

What we're looking for here are the women who didn't fail, even if the outcome of their revenge might not always have been exactly as they envisaged. If we can get a list of ten to a dozen we can then have a vote on them to see who was history's most furious, most devious, most intelligent and ultimately most successful scorned woman.

To get the ball rolling I nominate Eleanor of Aquitaine. In 1166 her marriage to her second husband, Henry of Anjou, was (to use a modern expression) under some strain. His accession to the throne of England had done little to help matters - his increasingly megalomaniacal behaviour merely having been accelerated by the development. Eleanor, who had already proven herself an astute and wilfully intelligent woman in how she had ended up his wife (or he her husband might be more precise) was suddenly in a situation not uncommon for many women of her circumstance and station. In danger of being "retired" to a nunnery, house arrest, or worse as Henry increasingly resented her previously welcome input into his political advancement, matters came to a head when his affair with Rosamund Clifford sparked into life that year. Besotted by Clifford, Henry forced Eleanor into silence. She was at that crossroads familar to many others in her position and the dilemma which accompanied it. Open your mouth and you risk violent reaction from the husband. Say and do nothing and you risk losing the wherewithal to defend yourself should he arbitrarily decide to be rid of you anyway. Eleanor however found a third option, one that demanded patience, guile and incredible political acumen, often involved self-sacrifice and hardship, which would result in son rebelling against father, shaped the future of England, and which ensured that Eleanor, in the end, would outlive all of them (her youngest son and daughter aside), her wealth and title intact.

Hell Hath No Fury ...  Eleanor_of_aquitaine

Eleanor's behaviour was not of course prompted by anything as trite as jealousy, a sense of betrayal, or insecurity due to her husband's infidelities. What goaded her into activity - the actual "scorn" in question - was, I have always believed, the sense of insult that a buffoon of a husband could not see the advantage in soliciting her opinion and guidance, and insisted on treating her as a "trophy wife" like many of those others then married to crowned heads in Western Europe. The Clifford affair may or may not have been the spark that ignited her into action (though the timing is right) but there is no doubt that her subsequent activities - each one political to the core - would have put many of her royal male contemporaries to shame with regard to their effectiveness and indeed the stoic courage required to sustain her stance for the rest of her long life.



Last edited by nordmann on Wed 30 Jan 2013, 08:56; edited 1 time in total
Back to top Go down
https://reshistorica.forumotion.com
Islanddawn
Censura
Islanddawn

Posts : 2163
Join date : 2012-01-05
Location : Greece

Hell Hath No Fury ...  Empty
PostSubject: Re: Hell Hath No Fury ...    Hell Hath No Fury ...  EmptyMon 07 Jan 2013, 11:47

Another French lady who wasn't prepared to idly sit and twiddle her thumbs was Isabella (1295-1358), Queen of Edward II.

In the early years of her marriage to Edward, Isabella was quite tolerant of her husband's male 'favourites', even managing to develope a working relationship with his first favourite Piers Gaveston. And after his death in 1312 she must have breathed a sigh of relief that the main rival for her husband's affections was no more.

But things were about to get markedly worse when the next favourite, Hugh Despenser, came on the scene, and she must have despaired as the despised Despenser family gained more power and influence over both Edward and the realm. Finally culminating in the loss of Isabelle's children, the seizure of her English lands and the arrest of her household staff.

Isabelle fled to France where she became a focal point for many of the nobles opposed to Edward's rule. She also took a lover, Roger Mortimer, and together they gathered an army to oppose Edward and they managed to seize England in a lightning campaign. The Despensers were excuted and the hapless Edward forced to abdicate, his eventual fate and possible murder still remain a mystery, and Isabelle ruled as regent until 1330 when her son Edward III took the throne in his own right.

Hell Hath No Fury ...  Retour_d_Isabelle_de_France_en_Angleterre

Isabelle landing in England with her son Edward III in 1326.


Last edited by Islanddawn on Mon 07 Jan 2013, 14:04; edited 1 time in total
Back to top Go down
Priscilla
Censura
Priscilla

Posts : 2753
Join date : 2012-01-16

Hell Hath No Fury ...  Empty
PostSubject: Re: Hell Hath No Fury ...    Hell Hath No Fury ...  EmptyMon 07 Jan 2013, 11:48

I cannot further the list since women who respond as a man might when agrieved is discounted. If you want spited women who vent fury in a female way, I suggest that for the most part they are unknown and unsung - if good at it! That is the art of it, you see. Mmmm?
Back to top Go down
nordmann
Nobiles Barbariæ
nordmann

Posts : 7223
Join date : 2011-12-25

Hell Hath No Fury ...  Empty
PostSubject: Re: Hell Hath No Fury ...    Hell Hath No Fury ...  EmptyMon 07 Jan 2013, 12:01

Yet some were both good at it and duly recognised historically for it too. The "female way" may have been forced on them by society but that didn't mean it had to be either covert or unacknowledged by contemporaries or by history.
Back to top Go down
https://reshistorica.forumotion.com
Priscilla
Censura
Priscilla

Posts : 2753
Join date : 2012-01-16

Hell Hath No Fury ...  Empty
PostSubject: Re: Hell Hath No Fury ...    Hell Hath No Fury ...  EmptyMon 07 Jan 2013, 23:33

Ah well, then I offer Olympia, wife of Phillip II of Macedonia - and close friend of other reptiles.

A princess of Epirus - a wonderous place for oracles, assorted superstitions and cults, Olympias took umbrage when forced into retirement to make way for a new and much younger woman - Cleopatra ( a fated name, that). Olympias' beloved hell raising son Alexander, having spent a spell nurturing bad thoughts in Epirus eventually returned for a formal reconciliation with his father - and an understanding (his anyway) that the new baby would not be heir. However, Olympias, being an explosive kind of woman steeped in spite , had well schooled his wrath and short fused temper that was to gain him an empire. That she - and possibly probably both had had a hand in the assasination plot killing Phillip to give Alexander the kingdom is likely.That she ordered the deah of Cleopatra and the child is certain. Alexannder proclaimed that Olympias would be deified after her death but that was not to be. She survived him by 6 or so years and was in turn assasinated in the civil war fomented by Alexander's warring and greedy generals. In a period of such volatile retribution it is surprising that she lived so long; not a woman to cross, apparently. Will she be considered for the poll?
Back to top Go down
Priscilla
Censura
Priscilla

Posts : 2753
Join date : 2012-01-16

Hell Hath No Fury ...  Empty
PostSubject: Re: Hell Hath No Fury ...    Hell Hath No Fury ...  EmptyWed 09 Jan 2013, 18:12

No further candidates then. On the whole rather unsavoury women go in for revenge and our cliental is not interested. On the other hand women who succed when thwarted in whatever they wanted to do but got there in the end might be better for a poll; this of course means most women of note. Being thwarted is par for the female course.
Back to top Go down
nordmann
Nobiles Barbariæ
nordmann

Posts : 7223
Join date : 2011-12-25

Hell Hath No Fury ...  Empty
PostSubject: Re: Hell Hath No Fury ...    Hell Hath No Fury ...  EmptyWed 09 Jan 2013, 18:18

Ergo a huge number of candidates.
Back to top Go down
https://reshistorica.forumotion.com
Temperance
Virgo Vestalis Maxima
Temperance

Posts : 6895
Join date : 2011-12-30
Location : UK

Hell Hath No Fury ...  Empty
PostSubject: Re: Hell Hath No Fury ...    Hell Hath No Fury ...  EmptyThu 10 Jan 2013, 08:08

I think the original post was unkind and sexist. Many people - both male *and* female - have made complete arses of themselves and have lived to regret it, but most do not want - or have the ability - to unleash a hellish revenge.

But some certainly do.

At the risk of having my knuckles (w)rapped yet again for the terrible sin of deviation, I should like to nominate a *man* from history whose revenge for his own folly in love was cruel, clever - and permanent.

Thomas Wyatt was, like many, dazzled by Anne Boleyn - by her intellect, her wit and her originality. For several years in the 1520s, Wyatt followed her around like a besotted puppy. He wrote a couple of exquisite poems to/about her - "Whoso list to hounte" (better known by the line "noli me tangere") and "They flee from me". The latter may or may not have been a simple fantasy about Anne; perhaps it was more - we will never know. Boleyn must have been flattered by the attention of this remarkable man, but she made it clear she had bigger fish to fry, and poor Wyatt was spurned. Several years later he penned a vicious revenge. The "coles" of his earlier passion now quite "quent" (quenched), he wrote this:

OF THE FOLLY OF LOVING WHEN THE

SEASON OF LOVE IS PAST.


Hell Hath No Fury ...  Y E old mule !1 that think yourself so fair,
Leave off with craft your beauty to repair,
For it is time without any fable ;
No man setteth now by riding in your saddle !
Too much travail so do your train appair ;
Ye old mule !
With false favour though you deceive th'ayes,
Who so taste you shall well perceive your layes
Savoureth somewhat of a keeper's stable ;
Ye old mule !
Ye must now serve to market, and to fair,
All for the burthen, for panniers a pair ;
For since gray hairs ben powder'd in your sable,
The thing ye seek for, you must yourself enable
To purchase it by payment and by prayer ;
Ye old mule.


1 The word “ mule ” was a word used formerly to describe
a woman of a licentious character.


Yelp. Some have disputed that AB was the vain "old mule", but the reference to "sable" hair is as good a clue as any...

Wyatt was actually arrested with the others in May 1536; it looked for several days that he too was for the chop. But he was released. Perhaps Henry - better than most - understood and sympathised with the poet's "great folly" and had approved, even relished, his revenge on the uppity Boleyn bitch. Wyatt's wit was sharper than the headsman's sword.

I for one would have preferred the sword.


Last edited by Temperance on Sat 12 Jan 2013, 07:31; edited 2 times in total
Back to top Go down
Meles meles
Censura
Meles meles

Posts : 5037
Join date : 2011-12-30
Location : Pyrénées-Orientales, France

Hell Hath No Fury ...  Empty
PostSubject: Re: Hell Hath No Fury ...    Hell Hath No Fury ...  EmptyThu 10 Jan 2013, 09:13

I confess I'm having trouble with this assignment too. It's probably due to my traditional male-centric historical education but though I can think of powerful, clever, ambitious, devious, or vengeful women - Cartimandua, Livia Drusilla, Empress Maud, Mary of Guise, Catherine de Medici etc - but whether scorned or just thwarted in their ambitions, they all played the game just like men since they were operating in a male dominated world.

There are the genuinely scorned ones - like Catherine of Aragon and Caroline of Brunswick - for whom the male dominated establishment closed ranks and they found themselves marginalised, out-manoeuvered and frankly treated as doormats by nearly all the men around them. Then there are the ones who once scorned, accepted fate and just make the best of things - Anne of Cleves, Catherine of Braganza - living quietly, perhaps even contentedly, but in the shadows.

But none of these women really conform to the "hall hath no fury" requirement. All the above were operating in the world of high politics - so there may be many other thwarted and scorned women in other areas of society, but as I say, due to my education and history's macho bias, I'm struggling to think of them.
Back to top Go down
Caro
Censura
Caro

Posts : 1514
Join date : 2012-01-09

Hell Hath No Fury ...  Empty
PostSubject: Re: Hell Hath No Fury ...    Hell Hath No Fury ...  EmptyThu 10 Jan 2013, 09:38

The one that I can think of from a NZ point of view doesn't really fit, either. It was the man that had the fury, though both them were scorned from different sections of the community. Kate Sheppard fought her campaign to get the vote against most especially the interests of publicans and the alcohol lobby. The main man in this battle was Henry Fish, whose pronouncements on the subject and on Mrs Sheppard read very oddly now. She got her revenge mostly by perserverance and enlisting the help of other men (and by petitions signed by hundreds of thousands of NZ women), and from posterity, who have honoured her and forgotten him.
Back to top Go down
Islanddawn
Censura
Islanddawn

Posts : 2163
Join date : 2012-01-05
Location : Greece

Hell Hath No Fury ...  Empty
PostSubject: Re: Hell Hath No Fury ...    Hell Hath No Fury ...  EmptyThu 10 Jan 2013, 10:35

I admire Catherine of Aragon and Anne of Cleves greatly for the way they coped with the humiliating situations forced on them by Henry VIII. The grace and dignity with which they conducted themselves only served to backfire on Henry, and he came out of it appearing the coward and bully that he was. The ultimate in revenge, imo.

Edit PS, Temp are you peeved with us? Sad


Last edited by Islanddawn on Thu 10 Jan 2013, 10:39; edited 1 time in total
Back to top Go down
Temperance
Virgo Vestalis Maxima
Temperance

Posts : 6895
Join date : 2011-12-30
Location : UK

Hell Hath No Fury ...  Empty
PostSubject: Re: Hell Hath No Fury ...    Hell Hath No Fury ...  EmptyThu 10 Jan 2013, 10:37

Meles meles wrote:
All the above were operating in the world of high politics - so there may be many other thwarted and scorned women in other areas of society...

Sylvia Plath was one who showed that messing with Medea is not a good idea.

Plath was ditched by her husband, Ted Hughes; he left her for the beautiful and exotic Assia Wevill - "he threw it all away for a whiff of Chanel" - as Plath bitterly noted.

Plath killed herself a few months later, in February 1963 (that terrible frozen winter of 1962-63). There is evidence that she considered taking her two little children with her, but she changed her mind, figuring quite correctly that having two bereaved toddlers to care for would wreck Wevill's and Hughes's relationship. It did. Both Hughes and Wevill were pretty well destroyed by Plath, Wevill literally. She also committed suicide (like Plath, she gassed herself), but Wevill made damn certain that her four-year-old daughter by Hughes, little Shura, died with her.

"My first wife's death was complicated and inevitable, she had been on that track most of her life. But Assia's was avoidable. Her death was utterly within her power, and it was an outcome of her reaction to Sylvia's action." (Hughes, in an interview following the publication of "Birthday Letters").

Terrible business. But perhaps Plath's real triumph over her faithless man was in her poetry.

Hughes - good poet, but *she* was/is one of the greats. And he knew it.


Last edited by Temperance on Thu 10 Jan 2013, 14:41; edited 3 times in total
Back to top Go down
ferval
Censura
ferval

Posts : 2602
Join date : 2011-12-27

Hell Hath No Fury ...  Empty
PostSubject: Re: Hell Hath No Fury ...    Hell Hath No Fury ...  EmptyThu 10 Jan 2013, 10:40

Temp, can I reinforce your 'sexist' point. Although the OP acknowledges the gendered nature of power relationships in the past, there is still a whiff of the harpy in the text. 'Furious'? "even if the achievement might have amounted often to little more than simple revenge for a real or imagined slight."

And can I at least comment on the somewhat stereotypical assumption that violence and force of arms is a 'male' prerogative while devious diplomacy is 'female'? Whereas women may have rarely had the chance to lead an army, the deployment of devious but non violent strategies is hardly limited to the distaff side.

Surely women, like men when they believed they had been treated unfairly, prosecuted their 'revenge', and I'm not really happy with the implications of that choice of word, just deployed the literal and metaphorical weapons available to them?
Back to top Go down
Temperance
Virgo Vestalis Maxima
Temperance

Posts : 6895
Join date : 2011-12-30
Location : UK

Hell Hath No Fury ...  Empty
PostSubject: Re: Hell Hath No Fury ...    Hell Hath No Fury ...  EmptyThu 10 Jan 2013, 12:18

Islanddawn wrote:


Edit PS, Temp are you peeved with us? Sad

Well, I *was* feeling a teeny-weeny bit got-at and mardy on Sunday, ID - if I'm honest I must admit I went quite purple in the face for a while; but the anti-huffamine tablets have kicked in now and I'm back to normal.

But heck, I'm off-topic again. Apologies (honest)...
PS ferval - Hell Hath No Fury ...  3885497126.
Back to top Go down
nordmann
Nobiles Barbariæ
nordmann

Posts : 7223
Join date : 2011-12-25

Hell Hath No Fury ...  Empty
PostSubject: Re: Hell Hath No Fury ...    Hell Hath No Fury ...  EmptyThu 10 Jan 2013, 19:50

I agree - men behaving badly can of course be nominated, but only if they deployed those literal and metaphorical weapons upon which women were much more liable to be forced to rely. Scrub Congreve's sexist quotation above so and let's use Eugene Sue's as inspiration for selecting nominees; "La vengeance se mange très-bien froide".
Back to top Go down
https://reshistorica.forumotion.com
Temperance
Virgo Vestalis Maxima
Temperance

Posts : 6895
Join date : 2011-12-30
Location : UK

Hell Hath No Fury ...  Empty
PostSubject: Re: Hell Hath No Fury ...    Hell Hath No Fury ...  EmptyFri 11 Jan 2013, 18:18

Well, sticking for the time being with the women...

Elizabeth Tudor was not one to cross. She preferred her vengeance cold, but, that said, I'm not so sure it ever brought her much joy.

The reckless and impulsive Earl of Essex deserved to die - he was an undoubted traitor; but Elizabeth had loved him and she could have saved him. Southampton, after all, was shown mercy: he was condemned with Essex, but had his death sentence commuted to life imprisonment. Is it fanciful to suggest that what did for Essex was not his ridiculous rebellion, but those careless, contemptuous words which got back to the old queen (there are various versions - I'm quoting from Lytton Strachey): "Her conditions are as crooked as her carcase!" (sic)

Crooked carcass! Intolerable words - what woman could forgive such an insult? Especially as there was a vicious truth in what the young man had said. Essex had, after all, unwisely burst in upon the queen when she was in her private apartments, and to everyone's horror he had seen her in all her lack of glory, sans make-up, sans wig, sans grand robes. Sans everything in fact - just sitting helplessly there in her shift, a poor, wrinkled, tired, old woman...

What's sometimes overlooked though is that, in sending Essex to the block, Elizabeth also had her revenge on his mother.

On 21st September 1578, Lettice Knollys, Mary Boleyn's granddaughter, widowed Countess of Essex and the mother of the eleven-year-old Robert Devereux, became the Countess of Leicester. She had stolen the queen's "sweet Robin" and had married him. She was pregnant with his child. Elizabeth eventually forgave Dudley, but she had no intention of *ever* forgiving her cousin. Lettice was banished - permanently - from court.

Lettice pleaded for her son's life after his trial and sentencing, but to no avail. In fact, Elizabeth achieved a double whammy in 1601, for, after Dudley died in 1588, his grieving widow had swiftly remarried, choosing for her third husband a man twelve years her junior, Sir Christopher Blount. Blount was deeply implicated in his stepson's rebellion and he too was executed.

And so it was that Lettice, who had been foolish enough to think she could get the better of Gloriana, found herself - after nearly a quarter of a century - doubly bereaved at the queen's command.


Last edited by Temperance on Sun 13 Jan 2013, 14:13; edited 1 time in total
Back to top Go down
Temperance
Virgo Vestalis Maxima
Temperance

Posts : 6895
Join date : 2011-12-30
Location : UK

Hell Hath No Fury ...  Empty
PostSubject: Re: Hell Hath No Fury ...    Hell Hath No Fury ...  EmptyFri 11 Jan 2013, 22:34

Thinking about this a bit more, I suppose Elizabeth Tudor - who of course had great power - is not a very good example.

That said, even Elizabeth's power (unlike her father's) was limited: she could not order the execution of a woman (who had no claim to the throne and whose marriage therefore was no threat to the state) simply because she had got married! I rather suspect Elizabeth would have happily seen Lettice Knollys eviscerated publically at Tyburn, but that, or any other punishment (even imprisonment) - other than banishment from the court - was legally quite impossible. All the humiliated queen could do was "see and keep silent" - and bide her time.

Similarly, she could not have had Essex executed simply because it was alleged that he had made cruel remarks about her appearance. Elizabeth knew that eventually, given enough rope, the young fool would hang himself. Which of course he proceeded to do - taking his mother's much-loved third husband with him.

But the Essex business broke her. Revenge, hot or cold, is never really sweet; often it destroys the destroyer - one way or another.
Back to top Go down
Temperance
Virgo Vestalis Maxima
Temperance

Posts : 6895
Join date : 2011-12-30
Location : UK

Hell Hath No Fury ...  Empty
PostSubject: Re: Hell Hath No Fury ...    Hell Hath No Fury ...  EmptySun 13 Jan 2013, 14:02

These words from A.N. Wilson's "The Elizabethans" make one cringe, but the second quotation from Wilson allows me to offer another *male* candidate, a man who was used to mockery and contempt, Elizabeth's "pygmy" (her cruel name), Essex's mortal foe, and perhaps - even more so than the Queen - his nemesis.

"He (Essex) knew how to play the game, and how to flatter the wrinkled old crone for her beauty, whisper in her ear and lead her round the dance floor in the elaborate steps of the galliard. At the same time, there was something new in this last attachment of the Queen's. Essex behaved with the conscious bullying of the toy-boy towards a pathetically older woman who was grateful for his love...He liked living dangerously, and he did not guard his tongue..."

But to be fair, at the end of his chapter on Essex and Tyrone, commenting on the truly dreadful encounter between the Queen and Essex when the latter returned from Ireland (the incident mentioned above, where Essex burst unannounced into Elizabeth's private apartments), Wilson says this:

"In the morning, a swaggering, mud-spattered young horseman, exhausted by his ride, but a fully powerful, sexually active man in his thirties, had confronted a poor, withered old lady. By the evening, an incompetent public servant who had outlived his usefulness and overstepped every boundary of royal protocol faced his bejewelled, intelligent, ruthless head of state. Elizabeth, in the presence of her councillors, mercilessly confronted Essex with what he had done..."

And by that Wilson refers, not to the Earl's injuring of an old lady's pride, but to his military failure and diplomatic idiocy in Ireland.

And of course one of those councillors was a young man whom Essex had often scorned: that deformed weakling, the "malevolent hunchback", who, unlike his queen's dashing, handsome Earl, had never been a star in the tournament or a performer of reckless deeds of derring-do. But, like his queen, Robert Cecil was a cunning spider - patient, devious and brilliant - and, like the Tudor woman whom he served, he was well able - by hook or by crook - to wipe out the opposition.
Back to top Go down
Temperance
Virgo Vestalis Maxima
Temperance

Posts : 6895
Join date : 2011-12-30
Location : UK

Hell Hath No Fury ...  Empty
PostSubject: Re: Hell Hath No Fury ...    Hell Hath No Fury ...  EmptyFri 25 Jan 2013, 20:49

This is really celebrity gossip, not yer serious stuff, but perhaps I can get away with it by suggesting it's part of "The History of Hollywood". Certainly plenty of women to be found in that town who suffered in love, enduring horrible humiliation and rejection of one kind or another. Not easy to get revenge in Hollywood perhaps, but Debbie Reynolds (a woman who suffered dreadful and much-publicised humiliation) eventually enjoyed a delicious dish of revenge - cold.

During the 1950s, Debbie and her husband, Eddie Fisher, were known as "America's Sweethearts". But in 1958 Reynolds was ditched by Fisher who ran off with Elizabeth Taylor. Taylor was undoubtedly (in 1958) one of the most beautiful women in the world - possibly *the* most beautiful woman in the world, in fact - not exactly someone you'd want interested in your husband!


Hell Hath No Fury ...  Suddenly,+Last+Summer+(1959)

But time can be cruel, and, twenty years or so later, Taylor was unrecognisable: her various addictions to alcohol, food and prescription drugs had wrecked her looks and made her pile on weight. She ballooned to an astonishing 180lbs.

A particularly cruel paparazzi photograph - which showed the unhappy and obese Taylor crouched in a taxi - was published throughout the world. People were shocked to see what had become of the star of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof", "Butterfield 8" and "Cleopatra". No record of that photo can be found on the internet today - did Taylor buy the copyright, I wonder?

In an interview at the time, Reynolds - who, although middle-aged, had worked hard to keep her looks and trim figure - was asked what she thought of this infamous photo of the once stunning woman who had stolen her husband. She simply said, "I've got a copy of it stuck on my fridge door. As a warning."

Now that, ladies, *is* what you might call revenge.



Hell Hath No Fury ...  Image-5



PS The two ladies later resolved their issues - rather like Wilde's Gwendoline and Cecily.

Elizabeth made a determined effort during the 1980s: she lost most of the fat and started flogging cheap scent.
Back to top Go down
Temperance
Virgo Vestalis Maxima
Temperance

Posts : 6895
Join date : 2011-12-30
Location : UK

Hell Hath No Fury ...  Empty
PostSubject: Re: Hell Hath No Fury ...    Hell Hath No Fury ...  EmptySat 26 Jan 2013, 11:12

How the public saw these two Hollywood stars - classic 1950s Madonna v. Whore stuff!


Hell Hath No Fury ...  416qzoaENNL._SL500_



Hell Hath No Fury ...  L_ad23_1_sbl


Last edited by Temperance on Sun 27 Jan 2013, 09:29; edited 1 time in total
Back to top Go down
Caro
Censura
Caro

Posts : 1514
Join date : 2012-01-09

Hell Hath No Fury ...  Empty
PostSubject: Re: Hell Hath No Fury ...    Hell Hath No Fury ...  EmptySat 26 Jan 2013, 23:28

I suspect Elizabeth will be the long-time winner, though. Her absolute beauty in her early movies at least will be her lasting legacy, long after her later illnesses and fat have been pushed well to the side. I don't think I've ever seen someone more gorgeous. (Gina Lollobrigida? Gene Tierney? Koo Stark?)

Debbie? Well, she was my father's favourite actress so I have something of a soft spot for her, but I don't think her movies are generally going to be the classics of the future. She may well not care.
Back to top Go down
Temperance
Virgo Vestalis Maxima
Temperance

Posts : 6895
Join date : 2011-12-30
Location : UK

Hell Hath No Fury ...  Empty
PostSubject: Re: Hell Hath No Fury ...    Hell Hath No Fury ...  EmptyMon 28 Jan 2013, 09:53

Caro wrote:
I don't think I've ever seen someone more gorgeous. (Gina Lollobrigida? Gene Tierney? Koo Stark?)


I agree - although Brigitte Bardot and Marilyn Monroe come a close second. Monroe especially - when not all tarted up in Hollywood style - had something beyond beauty. Some of her "natural" photographs reveal a heartbreaking innocence and trust as well, a desperate neediness that gave her a quality other "professional beauties" of that era lacked. Yet none of these stunningly attractive, desirable women found much happiness in love. Monroe of course was "scorned" by everyone, including the executives at 20th Century Fox, but she didn't live long enough to exact any kind of revenge, even had she been capable of trying.


Hell Hath No Fury ...  51NumWpjZVL._SL500_SS500_


The idea of a "poll" seems rather to have died a death. Could the topic be allowed to include thoughts on revenge generally? I've been reading some quotations on the subject here:

http://goodreads.com/quotes/tag/revenge

"There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness" seems such a nice idea, but it can perhaps be balanced by this quotation from elsewhere:

“Humm humm haaa. Rahmumm humm haaaa," intoned Opal, finishing her chant. "Peace be inside me, tolerance all around me, forgiveness in my path. Now, Mervall, show me where the filthy human is so that I may feed him his organs.” Hell Hath No Fury ...  650269930

EDIT: I have just had it pointed out to me that actually Marilyn Monroe was hugely manipulative - a typical "passive-aggressive" woman. Which of course made me think of the obvious candidate for the poll.
Back to top Go down
Temperance
Virgo Vestalis Maxima
Temperance

Posts : 6895
Join date : 2011-12-30
Location : UK

Hell Hath No Fury ...  Empty
PostSubject: Re: Hell Hath No Fury ...    Hell Hath No Fury ...  EmptyMon 28 Jan 2013, 10:39

Diana, Princess of Wales.

Some of the shots of the late Princess that Stephen Frears used in his film, "The Queen", explored the idea of revenge very well, I thought.



Hell Hath No Fury ...  Princess+Diana+panorama


Bambi.


Hell Hath No Fury ...  Diana+Revenge+Stambolian+1994

Who would you rather have, me or the Rotweiller?



Hell Hath No Fury ...  Img-thing?

But heaven knows, I forgive them all.



PS The black dress shown above was actually called "the revenge dress":


"Princess Diana's "Revenge" dress was by Christina Stambolian, and was purchased for a Vanity Fair dinner at the Serpentine Gallery. The black silk dress had an asymmetrical bodice and came to be known as the "revenge" dress because she wore it on the same day her ex-husband, Prince Charles, admitted to marital infidelities. The dress sold for $74,000 at auction in 1997."


Last edited by Temperance on Wed 30 Jan 2013, 15:47; edited 1 time in total
Back to top Go down
Meles meles
Censura
Meles meles

Posts : 5037
Join date : 2011-12-30
Location : Pyrénées-Orientales, France

Hell Hath No Fury ...  Empty
PostSubject: Re: Hell Hath No Fury ...    Hell Hath No Fury ...  EmptyTue 29 Jan 2013, 21:08

Reading up on the Spanish conquest of South America, I have just encountered Cuxirimay Ocllo. Again she's not really "a woman scorned" and all that, but she does seem to have made her own way through considerable adversity to leave her special mark on posterity. And for me it's been an interesting change to read, albeit rather fleetingly as not that much is known, about a canny woman originating from a culture outside of Europe.

Cuxirimay Ocllo was a royal princess and cousin of the last Inca emperor Atahualpa, and at the age of ten she became his principal wife. At about the same time the Spanish conquistador Pizarro arrived in Peru and Cuxirimay was present in the Inca encampment at Cajamarca in 1532 when Pizarro first met, tricked, and promptly captured Atahualpa. As a loyal wife she accompanied her husband into imprisonment and stayed with him until his treacherous execution in 1533.

Following Atahualpa's execution she was taken to the conquered Inca capital, Cuzco, where she adopted the name Dona Angelina Yupanqui, and presumably embraced catholicism. By 1538, aged 16, she was recognised as Pizarro's mistress (he was then in his 60s) - a position she seems to have at least partly contrived for herself, rather than her simply being taken as "spoils of war". She bore Pizarro two sons, Juan and Francisco. When Pizarro was assassinated by a rival Spanish faction in 1541 she married Pizarro's spanish interpreter, Juan de Betanzos (she herself was fluent in Spanish along of course with her native Quechua). Shortly after their marriage de Betanzos started writing his "Narratives of the Incas", which (in part 1) covered Inca history up to the arrival of the Spanish, and (in part 2) continued as a history of the conquest to 1557. This history is almost unique since it is written from the Inca viewpoint - largely because it was based on the testament of his wife, who as a royal princess had known all the key players and had been privy to many major events and decisions. The Incas themselves had no written language so she had the perfect opportunity to get history recorded her way, and indeed a lot of pre-conquest Inca history is still inevitably based on her account as recounted to de Betanzos.

Her two sons by Pizarro died young but by Juan de Betanzos she had a daugher, Maria Diez de Betanzos Yupanqui, who survived her. Cuxirimay Ocllo/Dona Angelina died aged only 46 but her written legacy has out-lived all her more famous contemporaries. You could say she had, and indeed still has, the final word.

Hell Hath No Fury ...  CuxirimayOcllo_zpsda59d07b
Back to top Go down
Temperance
Virgo Vestalis Maxima
Temperance

Posts : 6895
Join date : 2011-12-30
Location : UK

Hell Hath No Fury ...  Empty
PostSubject: Re: Hell Hath No Fury ...    Hell Hath No Fury ...  EmptyWed 30 Jan 2013, 14:31

Interesting stuff, MM. I'd never heard of your lady before.

This is not relevant at all really - not history or politics - but it made me laugh. From the Mail again, I'm afraid.

A old lady who died recently obviously felt somewhat neglected/scorned. She was a rich woman, and she left a £1million estate.

Her will stipulated that her only son should receive £2,000 "in recognition of all the attention he has paid me over the last 25 years". The remaining £998,000 went to a charity.
Back to top Go down
MadNan
Praetor
MadNan

Posts : 135
Join date : 2011-12-30
Location : Saudi Arabia/UK

Hell Hath No Fury ...  Empty
PostSubject: Re: Hell Hath No Fury ...    Hell Hath No Fury ...  EmptyMon 04 Feb 2013, 19:27

In view of today's news I think that Vicky Pryce should fit the bill. As soon as her husband went off with a younger model - straight to the police to say he had asked her to take driving points for him. Resignation, end of political career and probable time for perverting the course of justice the result.
Back to top Go down
Sponsored content




Hell Hath No Fury ...  Empty
PostSubject: Re: Hell Hath No Fury ...    Hell Hath No Fury ...  Empty

Back to top Go down
 

Hell Hath No Fury ...

View previous topic View next topic Back to top 
Page 1 of 1

Permissions in this forum:You cannot reply to topics in this forum
Res Historica History Forum :: The history of people ... :: Individuals-