Mojo, The Bard, & Me

Ere I could make a prologue to my brains,

-Hamlet

Hamlet                                          Act V scene ii, line 30

First things first; let me give you the whole piece that today’s Totally Random line is a part of –

Being thus be-netted round with villainies,-

Ere I could make a prologue to my brains,

They had begun the play,-I sat me down;

Devised a new commission; wrote it fair:-

I once did hold it, as our statists do,

A baseness to write fair, and  labour’d much

How to forget that learning; but, sir, now

It did me yeoman’s service:-wilt thou know

The effect of what I wrote?

This is the final scene of Hamlet, a pretty famous scene as far as Will’s scenes go. But it’s a long scene and there’s a lot to take place yet before we get to the end where everyone dies. This little piece of the scene has some pretty interesting stuff in it. This is where Hamlet is explaining to Horatio what happened on the ship on the way to England. He’s told Horatio that one night on the boat he couldn’t sleep so he crept into the cabin of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. In their possessions he found a letter, so he took it back to his cabin to read it. The letter was to the king of England instructing him to execute Hamlet immediately upon arrival in England. Today’s Totally Random lines are Hamlet telling Horatio what he did next. Of course, we all know that what he did next was to replace the letter, devised a new commission, with one that he wrote instructing the king to kill Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Ha!

But let’s take a closer look at a few of the lines above.

The only word I found a little puzzling was statist. It just means statesman. You might have derived that from the context.

How about, be-netted round with villainies. That’s a pretty cool phrase. What about be-netted. It sounds like a made up word. Perhaps it is, but it’s easy to understand.

Now the next line, today’s Totally Random line is, at least at first, a little harder to figure out. Ere I could make a prologue to my brains. What exactly is he saying here? Just by context it seems like he’s saying before I knew what was happening. But a prologue to my brains? A prologue to my brains. I guess he’s literally saying before I could explain to my brain, to myself, what was going on. In other words, before I knew what was happening. Yah, the more I look at that line, the clearer it becomes. That’s a good line, isn’t it. Yup, it’s usable.

Ere I could make a prologue to my brains, the cop was handing me a speeding ticket.

Oh that’s a fabulous phrase. I don’t think we need to go any further. We can just stop right there and enjoy today’s line.

Imagine that; Ere I could make a prologue to my brains, I had figured out what today’s line meant!

Ere I could make a prologue to my brains,

I found myself in a grass skirt dancing with Ernie!