Mojo, The Bard, & Me

 Today’s Totally Random Line(s)

                 

My heart’s deep languor and my soul’s sad tears.

 

-Titus

Titus Andronicus                     Act III, Scene i, Line 13

Well, you might have known that this was from Titus with a line like that. Let me give you the context. Titus has just watched his two sons get led by off to be executed for a crime they did not commit. He’s pleading with the judges and tribunes for his sons’ lives.

Be pitiful to my condemned sons,

Whose souls are not corrupted as ‘tis thought.

For two-and-twenty sons I never wept,

Because they died in honour’s lofty bed.

For these, these, tribunes, in the dust I write      

[Lieth down, and the Judges pass by him, and exeunt]

My heart’s deep languor and my soul’s sad tears:

Let my tears stanch the earth’s dry appetite;

My sons’ sweet blood will make it shame and blush.

This poor guy lost twenty-two of his sons in the wars. Twenty-two! But that was in honour’s lofty bed, so it was okay. Now he’s about to lose two more, and this time for no good reason (wait, am I saying that war is a good reason to lose sons? No, that’s not right). Oh, and did I mention that his daughter’s about to show up with her hands cut off and her tongue cut out by the guys who raped her? Sucks to be Titus.

Honour’s lofty bed. That’s an interesting image, isn’t it. I’m thinking that in reality, no parent would ever really consider that their son or daughter who was killed in a war died in honour’s lofty bed. It seems to me that they would just consider that they lost their child in some damned war; nothing lofty or honorable about it!

I just can’t imagine trying to put a pic to any of this, but I will leave you with this thought. I little earlier in the day I got an email from a group that was spawned by the Sandy Hook school massacre. I watched the video that was sent, and it was one of the brave mothers talking about the loss of her son. I cannot help but think that these words belong to her. 

        Let my tears stanch the earth's dry appetite; 

        My sons’ sweet blood will make it shame and blush.