Mojo, The Bard, & Me

Send to her, by the man that slew her brothers,

A pair of bleeding-hearts; thereon engrave

Edward and York; then haply she will weep:

Therefore present to her--as sometime Margaret

Did to thy father, steep'd in Rutland's blood,--

A handkerchief; which, say to her, did drain

The purple sap from her sweet brother's body

And bid her dry her weeping eyes therewith.

If this inducement force her not to love,

Send her a story of thy noble acts;

Tell her thou madest away her uncle Clarence, Her uncle Rivers; yea, and, for her sake, Madest quick conveyance with her good aunt Anne.

Queen Elizabeth

King Richard The Third                            Act IV, scene iv Line 280

Okay, I know I really did it to you this time. Yup, that’s right, I gave you a big old honker of a read here. The actual Totally Random line of the day is just the very last part of this, but I just couldn’t help myself. I couldn't break this little speech apart.

This is Elizabeth’s answer to Richard III when he asks her how to go about winning her daughter's heart. She’s talking about all sorts of stuff about that Richard’s done: killed her sons, killed his brother. Of course she’s being facetious and sarcastic. His reply: you mock me ma’am . to which she answers, there is no other way, ‘unless thou couldst put on some other shape And not be Richard that hath done all this.’

And not be Richard. So the answer to his question of how to woo her daughter is either for him to be completely honest with the daughter as to what he is, or for him not to be Richard III. Kind of hard to do that. He is who he is. Right? Which way will he go? Probably neither. Probably a dastardly Richard III way.

 Send her the bleeding-hearts engraved with the names Edward and York; ‘then haply she will weep.’

Give her a handkerchief purple with her brother's blood; ‘And bid her dry her weeping eyes therewith’.

If you stop and think about it, Will really comes up with some pretty twisted stuff. I mean, sometimes I really question the sanity of this guy. Not that he wasn’t genius, because very obviously he was. But the stuff this guy thinks of, while it is genius, is just so far removed from normal. And this is one case. Richard’s asking the mother what he needs to do to woo the daughter, and the answer he gets is… Wow.

So I was reading the line 'madest away her Uncle Clarence' and it reminded me of the time this crew here madest away our Uncle Harry. Yeah, the poor guy drove up from Philly to visit his sister (my mom) and the six of us ganged up on him and straight out drove him out of the house. He couldn't take it. Well little Richard the Thirds we weren't, but I guess we weren't all that pleasant to be around either. I guess we've all got just a little bit of Richard the Third in us, no matter how innocent we look.