Mojo, The Bard, & Me

Nay, then I’ll stop your mouth. --- Bring

thou her husband:

-Chiron

Titus Andronicus                              Act II, scene iii     Line 185

Today I’m keeping it short, and I’m tempted, and not for the first time, to toss the Totally Random thing and go back to yesterday’s play, Othello. Yes, there’s a bunch of bad stuff to come in that one, but Good Michael, look you to the guard tonight. It’s such a simple line and the Good Michael is just so lovely.

But we'll move to today’s line. To be clear, Chiron is talking to Lavinia, telling her he’s going to shut her up, and then telling his brother to bring over the dead body of Lavinia’s husband. Oh, and what was Lavinia talking about that Chiron wants to shut her up? Lavinia was pleading with Chiron’s mother Tamora to kill her instead of letting Tamora’s two son’s Chiron and Demetrius rape her. No, Tamora’s not going to be stopping them. She’s cheering them on. And for the record, Chiron’s going to stop her mouth (after they rape her) by cutting out her tongue. Oh and they’ll cut off her hands for good measure. Sweet Jesus, give me ‘Good Michael’ any day!

Okay, this is pretty random, but I wanted to put a picture of something good, and completely apart from today's Totally Random line. This is about the best book I ever read, and I remember the first time I read it almost fifty years ago.