Mojo, The Bard, & Me

Whether it be the fault and glimpse of newness,

Or whether that the body public be

A horse wherein the governor doth ride,

 

-Claudio

 

Measure For Measure   Act I, scene ii      Line 156

We'll keep today's post fairly short.

Claudio is talking about the duke’s new deputy who is enforcing an unused law about lecherous behavior to have him, Claudio, locked up. Claudio is saying that he’s not sure why the new deputy is enforcing this law. Whether it’s just because the guy is new at the job, or whether the guy is enjoying having power over the people. He speculates in the next lines that maybe the deputy is just trying to make a name for himself.

So we’ve been on this very same page just about a month ago. At that time we were talking about Claudio’s sister entering the cloister. And that has to do with tonight’s line as well. That line about his sister is that he wants his friend Lucio to go to his sister in the cloister and ask her to speak to the deputy on Claudio’s behalf.

They’re going to try everything they can to deal with this deputy. After all, the penalty for the law that the deputy is enforcing is for Claudio to lose his head. So that wouldn’t be real good for Claudio.

This is a picture of me while my mom was reading this play to me when I was little. I was excited that I got to act out the part of the governor riding the horse of the body public. But then mom explained to me that it was just a figure of speech and that there wasn’t actually a horse being ridden in the story. She got into the whole figurative vs literal language thing, and that was a bit of a buzzkill. But is was helpful that she explained it to me. And then she changed my pants for me. That was pretty helpful too.