Crosword Puzzle

[forester48.livejournal.com]

Does anyone know the answer to the crossword clue in the morning paper (Times or Telegraph, I bet, not the Guardian) at Trennels in Falconer's Lure? It's 'Shakespeare said it 5,3'. I thought it might be an anagram from Fear No More but can't do it.

It's in Chapter 2 p38, my hardback copy when they're all sitting round the breakfast table and Kay's got the paper.

Comments

[colne-dsr.livejournal.com]

For what it's worth, the Daily Telegraph at that time had crosswords with a mixture of cryptic and straight clues. So there's no need to look for anything too obscure.

Why didn't AF give us any of the letters? :-(

[richenda.livejournal.com]

Does anyone know the answer to the crossword clue in the morning paper (Times or Telegraph, I bet, not the Guardian) at Trennels in Falconer's Lure? It's 'Shakespeare said it 5,3'. I thought it might be an anagram from Fear No More but can't do it.

I'm impressed. How did you get to that?
I remember spending some time on variations of "quoth (3)" but getting nowhere.

[forester48.livejournal.com]

Only because Fear No More was the Shakespeare poem that Nick sang at the Colebridge Festival.

There must be an answer or why would AF have put it in?

[ejarh.livejournal.com]

Fear no More is from Cymbeline and and in Act I, Scene II a character called "First Lord" says, "Stand you!" Could that be it?

[forester48.livejournal.com]

Cymbeline is too little known for AFs child audience to be familiar with. I'm convinced it has something to do with hawks or is at any rate in context with something in the book.

Or are you taking the p***? "Stand you!" indeed!

[richenda.livejournal.com]

Cymbeline is too little known for AFs child audience to be familiar with. I'm convinced it has something to do with hawks or is at any rate in context with something in the book

I agree about Cymbeline and you could be right about hawks - but it must also be something that a Times reader could work out from the clue alone?
I was concentrating on "Shakespeare" and "saying" - that's how I got to "quoth"

[forester48.livejournal.com]

Times/Telegraph readers would have the odd letter to help and would be erudite enough to think of an answer that depended on good knowledge of Shakespeare. We only have the falconry conversation to go on so I think it might be hidden in there perhaps. Shakespeare must have said something quotable about falcons/birds?

[richenda.livejournal.com]

. We only have the falconry conversation to go on so I think it might be hidden in there perhaps. Shakespeare must have said something quotable about falcons/birds?

Um. So we are looking for something about which we have the advantage that it might be about falcons/birds that they don't have, but that they might have the advantage of letters that we don't have?

[ejarh.livejournal.com]

It was Shakespeare who said it, not me!

[ejarh.livejournal.com]

Whoops - this should be under Forrester48 a few comments up.

[richenda.livejournal.com]

Clever! But the Times readers don't know that - and mightn't she be deliberately vague?

[forester48.livejournal.com]

I give up. We'll never know if AF was being deliberately vague like richenda thinks or if it's buried too deep in the text to be extracted.

[richenda.livejournal.com]

I give up. We'll never know if AF was being deliberately vague like richenda thinks or if it's buried too deep in the text to be extracted.

Oh I wouldnt be so sure that my suggestion qualifies as thought. But have you noticed that sometimes "giving up" heralds a solution to the mystery?

[leapingirbis.livejournal.com]

I remember worrying that I was unable to solve this and was therefore clearly far too stupid to be a true Antonia Forest reader! I thought maybe an anagram derived from "the bard's quote" or similar - but have never been any good at cryptic crosswords!

[richenda.livejournal.com]

I thought maybe an anagram derived from "the bard's quote" or similar - but have never been any good at cryptic crosswords!

Yessss. What occurs to me yet again is that our difficulty is that we don't know whether we're looking for.
Is it
an alternative phrase for "the poet spoke"
a direct quotation from Shakespeare
an anagram
a combination of two or all of those?

[forester48.livejournal.com]

I didn't worry about it - I just skipped over all the bits in AFs books that tried to make me think which is why I keep finding more and more in them now.

I certainly never identified with any of her child characters - except poor Marie Dobson perhaps - they were far ahead of me in every possible way and I would never have passed the entrance exam to get into a school like Kingscote being a very idle child with no sense of purpose.

Sorry, didn't mean to digress. About the crossword: I would so like to find a plausible answer to the clue. I hope AF wasn't being 'deliberately vague but I've got a feeling she might have been since richenda planted this idea in my head.

[rosathome.livejournal.com]

Don't know the answer but just to put a stop to all the 'anagram' solutions - in a cryptic crossword, anagrams are ALWAYS signalled through a word like 'mixed' or 'confused' or some such. The clue 'Shakespeare said it' either indicates a direct quote from Shakespeare or might be a double definition clue (though hard to imagine quite what) or it might mean that the answer is Shakespearean English for 'it'.

Or something like that.

On balance, I think the quote is the most likely solution but without any letters (or linked clues, which the Times crossword is quite fond of) it's hard to guess.

Plus - remember that if it is an anagram it needs to be of something with 8 letters in it. All the suggestions so far have had more than this.

My guess is it is a proper clue but we'll never know the answer.