Mojo, The Bard, & Me

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

By heaven, I will not do thee so much ease.

Clarence

King Henry the Sixth Part III      Act V, Scene v, Line 72

 

Margaret, having just witnessed her son murdered, has asked Clarence to kill her. Today’s line is his reply to her.

What on earth are we going to say about this? Well, I suppose we could note that it’s two days in a row of a woman requesting help in dying. Cleopatra got the guy to bring her the asp/worm, whilst Margaret will have no such help. Clarence wants nothing to do with her. Remember also Antony requested the help of one of his soldiers in killing himself, and that soldier took his own life rather than help Antony take his.

So we’ve seen three very different answers to the request for help in ending it all. Very interesting. Also interesting that none of the responses had anything to do with helping the person cope with whatever was driving them to suicide. I guess though, that sort of response would not really fit into the Shakespearean drama, would it? It's hard to imagine Clarence responding, Well Margaret (or Cleopatra, or Antony), you know there are people you can talk to when you're having these urges. In fact, I have the address of someone who's been terribly helpful to me when I've been going through bad times. Why don't you look him up. Honestly, things are bound to get better.

Whilst that may be an appropriate and good thing to say nowadays, I really can't see Will writing that into his script. Can you?

 To Write Love on Her Arms is a non-profit movement dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury, and suicide. TWLOHA exists to encourage, inform, inspire, and also to invest directly into treatment and recovery.

Just in case you think I'm not taking suicide seriously enough, the link above is to the site of  TWLOHA, a group that I've donated to in the past. They seem like good folks. 

I don't think Will could have written his words without suicide in them, but we can live out our lives without suicide. The world is full of goodness and beauty, even though sometimes that's hard to see or believe.  

Don't be thinking that you're in the sixteenth century where no one cares. 

People do care, and everyone matters.