LAERTES AND OPHELIA, LUKE AND ORGANA (LEIA): AN ODE FOR NATIONAL SIBLING DAY

Whether you're William Shakespeare or George Lucas, you no doubt revel in a good story about siblings.  Shakespeare's stories feature a good number of siblings, from Laertes and Ophelia in Hamlet to the two Antipholuses and the two Dromios of The Comedy of Errors, from the warring siblings Richard, Henry and Clarence in Richard III to the comedic Kate and Bianca in The Taming of the Shrew. George Lucas, Shakespeare's brother from another mother (well, maybe that's stating the case a bit strongly), gave the world one of its most startling—inappropriate? confusing? hair-raising?—sibling relationships in 1983, when Return of the Jedi revealed to all of us that the kiss Leia planted on Luke in The Empire Strikes Back was no more than sisterly devotion.

 

So today, in honor of National Sibling Day, here's an ode to my own sibling—my brother, Erik—in light of Leia, Luke, Ophelia, and Laertes.

 

As siblings go, my brother, thou art best:

There is no storm that we two cannot weather.

No Sith or villain our swift bond could test,

Nor any ventures we may have together.

With thee I'd swing 'cross chasms as dark as night,

Though I'll not kiss, "For luck,"  thy hairy cheek.

With thee I'd save our friends from Carbonite,

Though in bikini metal I'd look bleak.

If thou didst with thy lover have a tiff,

And drown thyself within a watery grave—

Forsooth, this is a most unlikely "if"—

E'en so, with poison'd sword I'ld slice the knave.

Yea, brother, stick with me, and I'll with thee,

And we shall face whatever life shall be.

 

Ian Doescher is the New York Times best-selling author of the William Shakespeare’s Star Wars series. His most recent work, William Shakespeare's The Phantom of Menace, released on April 7!