Mojo, The Bard, & Me

Do you not remember, a’ saw a flea stick upon

Bardolph’s nose, and a’ said it was a black soul burning in hell-fire?

 -Boy   

 

King Henry the Fifth       Act II, scene iii   Line 44

Yes, that’s right. This line is spoken by Boy. No, not the one from Tarzan. This Boy is one of the group that hangs with Falstaff. But he is known simply as Boy. I’m not quite clear if that refers to what he is, or if his name is actually ‘Boy’. But I suppose it is of little matter.

And while this line is not spoken by Falstaff, it is fully about Falstaff. Falstaff has just passed away (I didn’t remember Fastaff dying, but I guess he does. I’m not sure how he gets resurrected for the Merry Wives- or maybe that’s a prequel. We haven’t hit that play yet; perhaps we’ll find out at some point) and his crew is sitting in the bar talking about him. I believe the ‘a in the quote is synonymous with ‘he’. In other words, Do you not remember, he (Falstaff) saw a flea… So this is a very, very typical life thing; when someone passes away everyone gathers and talks about him. I remember when my best friend died, I was around 43, and everyone was gathering at the bar next to the funeral home. I went over for a few minutes, but for some reason I did not like doing that, and I didn’t hang around. But I don’t think I’m average in this respect. I think a lot of folks would do exactly what the crew is doing in this scene. It’s an interesting scene and worth the read. A little tough to get through, but short. I’m going to give you the link because I know if you don’t you’ll be too lazy to go look for it. Heck, even if I give you the link the chances are you won’t check it out. But you should check it out, and read it out loud! http://shakespeare.mit.edu/henryv/henryv.2.3.html

Okay, I think that’s enough on that line for today. But a quick note on the random system. This is the second time in 47 days that we’ve hit page 493 in my compilation. It’s also the second time we’ve hit the same page twice, which seems a little odd, since we have 1,232 pages in this book. However, with a quick review I can see that we’ve hit at least once in the tens, the 100’s, the 200’s, the 300’s etc up to and including the 1200’s. So I have faith in the random system being used. Besides, I came up with the random system on my own and I have faith in me. Usually.

This is my old buddy doing his best Larry Csonka impersonation. He was a classic. I don't talk about him much, but I still miss him a lot.