Mojo, The Bard, & Me

 

Hence from Verona art thou banished:

Be patient, for the world is broad and wide.

-Friar Laurence

Rome And Juliet                Act III, Scene iii, Line 15

 

So here we have that troublemaker Friar Laurence again. He’s a piece of work. He’s telling Romeo that he’s been banished from Verona for killing Tybalt, but then counseling him that there are other places, lots of other places, besides Verona. Of course, Romeo doesn’t see it this way. I think he just needs to get over it and realize how lucky he is to just get banished as opposed to imprisoned or executed. But that’s just me.

On a lighter note, here’s that ‘t’ versus ‘ed’ thing again. Will’s using banished as opposed to banish’t. And it appears that he’s using it for iambic pentameter’s sake. He needs the three syllable ban-ish-ed to complete the line. Otherwise it would be ban-isht and the line would only have nine syllables. Very clever. I don’t think Friar Laurence could have worked that out. Do you?

This here is a Lawrence that I knew when I was a kid. I called him Larry, but I believe he goes by Lawrence now. He was a piece of work too, but in a different way than Laurence was. He was my best friend back in the late 60's early 70's. Now he lives in Florida, and I haven't seen him in over thirty years. Time flies.