Mojo, The Bard, & Me

Neighbours and friends, though bride and bridegroom wants

For to supply the places at the table,

You know there wants no junkets at the feast.

-Bapsista

The Taming Of The Shrew            Act III, Scene ii, Line 244

Baptista was the name of my second grade teacher; Sister Baptista. I remember her as being a bit gruff, but that was a long time ago so perhaps that memory has been colored by the years. I don’t know. In any case, the speaker of today’s line is not my second grade teacher, but rather the father of the bride. And I believe the bride in this case is Katharina AKA the Shrew. And Baptista is talking about the wedding feast that’s about to take place. The wedding has just taken place and it seems that Petruchio, the bridegroom, has just carried off Katharina so now Baptista has all these guests for the feast which he still plans on holding even though the bride and groom have left. And that’s what he’s talking about. I believe he’s saying to everyone that though we’re lacking a bride and groom we won’t be lacking of delicacies to eat (junkets). So what do you think of that?

Well it’s an age old scenario. If you’re the host you’d better have food and drink for your guests. And if they’re like most guests that I’ve seen (and sometimes been), while the main purpose, or people, of the gathering are important, they're not quite as important as the food and drink.

This reminds me of a story (don’t worry, I’ll keep it short). When I was in high school my girlfriend threw a surprise birthday party for me, a kegger (let’s say it was the year after graduation, just to keep this on the up and up). Well I found out about it and it turns out had a fairly important previous commitment for that night and I let her know that. So they had the kegger without me. Simple as that. So just like 400 years ago, the purpose of the gathering wasn’t as important for the gathering itself as the food and drink was (in this case a keg). As I recall I didn’t feel very good that they had the party without me, but looking back I should have understood it the way I do now. Or maybe I should have been familiar with this scene of The Taming Of The Shrew back then. Then I would have understood. 

If I looked hard enough in my archives I might be able to find a picture of that girlfriend from 1975 (her name was Dyane, and she was a pretty good girlfriend), but it was a lot easier to take a picture of the Wilton Armetal mug that's sitting on my shelf. This is the kind of thing I was drinking out of at keggers back then. I prefer glass these days.