Mojo, The Bard, & Me

 

 Sweet Phebe,--

-Silvius

As You Like It                Act III, Scene v, Line 81

That’s it: Sweet Phebe. Well that’s a pretty short line. And I’m not even going to make you read any of the before or after lines; just Sweet Phebe.

Silvius is sort of pleading with Phebe because he’s in love with her, and she’s giving him a hard time with that. There, that’s your context.

I got nothing else on this today. Wait, I take that back: I do have one thing. It’s sweet. This is a funny word in that it can go both ways. In today’s line Silvius is using it in a positive sense, calling Phebe sweet. But I often find myself using that word in a fairly negative sense when somethings’ not going my way: Sweet mother of…..!

I should probably work on using it more the way Silvius is using it.

Now here's a perfect example of what I'm talking about. When she got accidentally kicked down the stairs and had her leg broken, you can bet she wasn't saying 'Oh sweet Karen.' It had to be something more along the lines of 'Sweet mother of...!'