Mojo, The Bard, & Me

What need the bridge much broader than the flood?

-Don Pedro 

Much Ado About Nothing           Act I, scene i       Line 299

Okay, this is by far and away the best Totally Random Daily Shakespeare line I have come up with yet. I put it on the whiteboard upstairs and I’ve completely worn out my wife and son with the line already. It’s just fabulous and I can’t help it

Now, there is an inherent danger of misinterpreting Shakespeare due to the fact that there are English words and phrases that have completely different meanings in Will’s day than they do now. It’s possible to pick up a meaning that is definitely not what Will had in mind. And I am certainly dumb enough to make this mistake. I am no Harold Bloom or James Shapiro or even Mark Johnston by any stretch of the imagination. However, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that today’s Totally Random Daily Shakespeare line means exactly what it looks like it means. It’s just an idiom to say that we need only so much of anything to get the job done, and no more. Why do we need a bridge that’s longer than the river is wide? I’m not even going to get into the play today. Besides, I really don’t know much of nothing about Much Ado About Nothing.

So let’s see if we can’t come up with some ideas of how to sneak today’s line into your day. After all, shouldn’t that be one of our goals? I think so. So you’re working on an Excel spreadsheet with your co-worker Buster, and he wants to put in a macro that will automatically generate three pivot tables every time a piece of data is entered. You feel that a simple At Sum formula will do the trick. You turn to Buster and say ‘What need the bridge much broader than the flood, Buster?’ Buster is awestruck. Or how about this; perhaps you’re at home and your mom wants you to read twelve books for your summer reading assignment when the teacher specifically said that you need to read three books for your summer reading assignment. ‘What need the bridge much broader than the flood, mom?’ How can she possibly argue with that!  

Now, if you need something truly 21^st century on this line, just go to this website: https://soundcloud.com/julian-eaves/what-need-the-bridge-much

Here you can listen to a fellow named Julian Evans sing ‘What need the bridge much broader than the flood?’ and the next eleven lines in the scene as well. It’s not going to give you any better understanding, but you might enjoy Mr. Evan’s piece nonetheless.

And this gives credence to the statement that absolutely everything is out there on the web. In fact, there is certainly much more out there than needs to be. And so we could say in reference to the world wide web in general, ‘What need the bridge much broader than the flood?’


                                                  



I dunno, that's a pretty long bridge behind me. But is it broader than the flood?