Mojo, The Bard, & Me

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

Acquaint her with the danger of my state;

Implore her, in my voice, that she make friends

To the strict deputy; bid herself assay him.

 

Claudio

Measure For Measure          Act I, Scene ii, Line 119

 

Claudio has been sentenced to death for adultery. He’s talking to his friend Lucio and asking him to talk to Claudio’s sister. He wants his sister to try to talk to Angelo (the deputy who’s been put in charge by the Duke in his absence) to see if she can put in a good word for him.

So, assay, which is still a very common word, in today’s use means to try to win him over. I don’t think you’ll see it used that much like that anymore. I’m not even sure if it’s defined as such anymore.

I’ve been used to seeing the word assay frequently used as a noun over the past seven years. An assay, in the biotech world is any test which analyzes a substance to determine its properties: the presence or absence of one or more components. I won’t be hearing assay much anymore for two reasons. One is that I am going to be retiring in a few months, and the other is that the company is shutting down anyway. So, we’re not going to be analyzing any substances for my last few months of work, we’re just going to be talking about how to take care of shutting down a business. There might still be a few assays of investors (in the sense of Claudio's use of the word), but I think that's pretty much done with. 

 

Here is my electric biked parked at the office last summer. I' not sure if I'm going to be working there long enough to be riding to the office and parking it here again, but we'll see.