Poisoned Chalice

For the last few weeks, I've had occasion to think deeply about the term 'a poisoned chalice'. A chalice is of course a ritual cup (from Latin calix, also Greek kalyx). The point about it being a ritual cup is that in the right (or wrong) circumstances, you are forced to drink from it; and if it proves poisoned, well, too bad.

Like many interesting phrases of the kind, this one originated from Shakespeare. It comes from that very familiar Scottish play — the one in which the intelligent eponymous monarch is harshly treated and maligned by the foreign playwright who is pandering to his own monarch. Here is the quote, from Act 1 Scene 7 of the play:

If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly: if the assassination
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch
With his surcease success; that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all here,
But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,
We'd jump the life to come.
                                          But in these cases
We still have judgment here; that we but teach
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return
To plague the inventor: this even-handed justice
Commends the ingredients of our poison'd chalice
To our own lips.

The situation the Family has been mulling over is of course one in which a not-so-righteous leader has been eliminated by his own act, and there is as yet nobody who wants the chalice so ingeniously poisoned by that person.

And yet, somebody has to take the chalice, once an honourable vessel and now tainted by the venom of serpents. It is appalling that what should reside in the tail of the wyvern now comes forth from its mouth. But there it is, and only the Divine can do anything about it.