Cat fights in classics of literature

[jondo53]

A member here quotes Shakespeare on their profile, which reminded me of how in Midsummer Nights Dream he had female characters having an argument with one wanting to fight it out, but the other girls afraid to fight. Pity! Anyway, here's their exchange,

Hermia challenges Helena,
And with her personage, her tall personage,
  Her height, forsooth, she hath prevail'd with him.
   And are you grown so high in his esteem;
Because I am so dwarfish and so low?
How low am I, thou painted maypole? speak;
How low am I? I am not yet so low
But that my nails can reach unto thine eyes

Helena replies,
I pray you, though you mock me, gentlemen,
Let her not hurt me: I was never curst;
I have no gift at all in shrewishness;
I am a right maid for my cowardice:
Let her not strike me. You perhaps may think,
Because she is something lower than myself,
That I can match her.

And as Hermia's anger is not abated Helena chickens out,
O, when she's angry, she is keen and shrewd!
She was a vixen when she went to school;
And though she be but little, she is fierce.
I will not trust you, I,
Nor longer stay in your curst company.
Your hands than mine are quicker for a fray,
My legs are longer though, to run away.

If Shakespeare had actually had the girls scrapping I imagine that would have excited the audience as much as a cat fight in a movie does today, but perhaps he was afraid of offending the sensibilities of the aristocracy and royalty. And it got me wondering if any pieces of classic literature did have cat fights.

[Irada]

i have read Emil Zolya novel of laundry women where two women got in catfight in laundry

[Bear]

In "A Tale of Two Cities" there's a climatic catfight between Miss Pross and Madame Defarge.  Even Charles Dickens couldn't resist. 

[Michelle]

While the sport of boxing may have appeared in relief drawings in the 3rd millennium BC, and Homer (not Simpson) wrote about boxing in the oft-required reading "Iliad," give the British credit for putting some rules around the sport of punching people in the face.

[jondo53]

There's more female fighting in old literature than I thought, even as far back as ancient Greece, I'll have to follow up the ones mentioned here. Must add that quite a few members of this forum express a liking for bitchy verbals before the fight, and returning to Shakespeare's Hermia, I don't think you can beat the insult she makes to Helena, calling her a "painted maypole!"

[Nutmeg]

I am not sure how sexy a cat fight in Shakespeare's plays might have been given no women were actually performing in them at the time 

[jondo53]

I am not sure how sexy a cat fight in Shakespeare's plays might have been given no women were actually performing in them at the time 

Good point! They'd have had to be creative.

[gmenn]

Here is the youtube video of the full comedy wrote by Carlo Goldoni "Le Baruffe Ciozzotte" ("The Brawls in Chioggia", Chioggia is a small town very close to Venice-Italy). The fight start at 1:20:30.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68Qk_bZ-lxc

If you search for "goldoni" and  "baruffe" in google images you'll find some pretty pictures.
Carlo Goldoni wrote another comedy with a catfight, "Il Campiello" (it is the name of a small square in Venice) but I've no video of this.

[CecilBDmented]

I am not sure how sexy a cat fight in Shakespeare's plays might have been given no women were actually performing in them at the time 

Enlightening and ironic as it may be, Shakespeare and FCF may have more in common than originally suspected.  ;-)

[jondo53]

I am not sure how sexy a cat fight in Shakespeare's plays might have been given no women were actually performing in them at the time 

Enlightening and ironic as it may be, Shakespeare and FCF may have more in common than originally suspected.  ;-)

And not only Shakespeare, but other classical authors. We're raising the cultural level of this forum.

[Nutmeg]

I am not sure how sexy a cat fight in Shakespeare's plays might have been given no women were actually performing in them at the time 

Enlightening and ironic as it may be, Shakespeare and FCF may have more in common than originally suspected.  ;-)

I sure hope not since women on Renaissance stages were played by adolescent boys. Granted I admit some I have dealt with here do make more sense as adolescent boys but those have come from both genders 

[DavidUK]

I am not sure how sexy a cat fight in Shakespeare's plays might have been given no women were actually performing in them at the time 

Enlightening and ironic as it may be, Shakespeare and FCF may have more in common than originally suspected.  ;-)

LOL!

[jondo53]

I should give credit to Yvonne, whose quote from the Bard inspired me to start this thread, You can see the words of Shakespeare on her profile, here,


http://www.freecatfights.com/forums/index.php?action=profile;u=27449

[CecilBDmented]

I am not sure how sexy a cat fight in Shakespeare's plays might have been given no women were actually performing in them at the time 

Enlightening and ironic as it may be, Shakespeare and FCF may have more in common than originally suspected.  ;-)

I sure hope not since women on Renaissance stages were played by adolescent boys. Granted I admit some I have dealt with here do make more sense as adolescent boys but those have come from both genders