Mojo, The Bard, & Me

If I know you well,

You were the duke’s surveyor, and lost your office

On the complaint o’the tenants: take good heed

You charge not in your spleen a noble person,

And spoil you noble soul: I say, take heed;

Yes, heartily beseech you.



-Queen Katherine



King Henry The Eighth                        Act I, scene ii, line 176



Let’s start with a little context, and I’ll keep it as short as possible.



Cardinal Wolsey doesn’t like the Duke of Buckingham, so he’s told the king that the duke is plotting against him. The cardinal has gotten the duke’s former surveyor to come to the king’s court to testify against the duke. Queen Katherine (that’s Katherine of Aragon, Henry’s first wife) is listening to this testimony. She has a pretty good idea that the surveyor is lying and that the cardinal has put him up to it. So today’s totally random lines is what she says to the surveyor. She’s saying that the duke fired him for good cause so don’t be lying about the duke because you’re mad at him for that. Charge not in your spleen: don’t talk out of anger.


Actually, charge not in your spleen is pretty good universal advice. It’s never good to speak with your spleen. You should be speaking with your head. Not that I’ve always adhered to this advice. I’ve charged in my spleen plenty of times. I’d like to think I do it less as I get older. But still…

Well, I couldn't think of any picture to go with today's line, so I decided to just go with a fun pic. This is me and my buddy trying to move this humungous chain that is sitting in a waterfront park we visited in Oslo. But after posting it, I realized that it's actually relevant. You see, we didn't really think this through. It's not like we were going to accomplish anything by moving the chain (and by the way, we barely budged it). We were just charging in our spleen, not our heads. To be clear, I'm not sure if charging in your spleen means acting out of anger or just acting out of emotion. In the case of this picture I'm assuming the latter, because we weren't mad at the chain. In any event, luckily I didn't hurt my back, and no Norwegian park rangers came and arrested us. And I got this pic. So it actually worked out okay.