Tuesday, October 18, 2022

 

Today’s Totally Random Line(s)

  

But if the first heir of my invention prove deform’d , I shall be sorry it had so  noble  a godfather:

 

-Venus and Adonis

William Shakespeare                                  Dedication

 

Well now I certainly hope you’ll agree with me that we have something a bit different today. We’ve randomly picked the first page after the end of King Henry the Eighth, and that is the last play in my book. The first work to follow is the poem Venus and Adonis, and line 80 on this page (80 being today’s random page line) falls right in the middle of Will’s dedication of the poem to The Right Honourable Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southhampton, and Baron of Titchfield. Apparently, Mr. Wriothesley was a patron of Will. What the exact nature of his patronage was, I don’t know, but based on this dedication Will seems to be intent on buttering the Earl up quite a bit. The first heir of Will’s invention would be the poem that follows this dedication, and of course the godfather is the Earl.

So, you might say that this is not a line from one of Will’s works, but I think we could argue that point. Since I don't care to argue, nor am I inclined to type out the whole dedication, I am going to give you the dedication as today’s pic. 

As usual, no need to thank me.



And there you go.

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