Mojo, The Bard, & Me

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

 

What should you do, but knock ‘em down by the dozens? Is this Moorfields to muster in? Or have we some strange Indian with the great tool come to court, the women so besiege us? Bless me, what a fry of fornication is at door! On my Christian conscience, this one christening will beget a thousand; here will be father, godfather, and all together.

 

Porter

King Henry the Eighth        Act V, Scene iii,  Line 31

 

This is the Porter responding to the question What would you have me do?
The question comes from the Porter’s man who is trying to hold back the crowds who have come to see the christening of Elizabeth.

A few notes on words. Moorfields is a big park where crowds would be expected. The word tool in regards to the Indian means exactly what you were thinking it meant, and the Indian is a reference to an American Indian. The word fry is brood; a brood of fornication. Now, given that, the passage should be pretty understandable, eh?

This scene is Will’s way of trying to show how all of London was excited about the christening of Elizabeth, who would become England’s great monarch of the latter half of the sixteenth century. Elizabeth died sometime around 1600 (give or take a year or two) and this play was written and first performed around 1612 (again, give or take a year or two). She had been pretty popular and Will’s trying to portray her as such. The following scene, the last of the play, is the christening with Cranmer giving a big long speech about how great this child being christened will become.

One more interesting, albeit unrelated, thing. I went to Asimov’s Guide to Shakespeare to see if there was any more info on this particular scene. Alas, no; but I did pick up an interesting tidbit. Asimov gives a rather lengthy discussion of Gardiner’s attempt to destroy Cranmer, and in the process he brings up the Peasants’ War of 1524-25 in Germany. He ends the discussion of this war speaking of how the peasants were punished after they lost, and that there was little indignation of that, for who worries about the inarticulate robots at the bottom of the economic pyramid? Yes, robots. Who but Isaac Asimov would bring robots into a discussion of Shakespeare? You gotta love Isaac.  

 

 

I couldn't find a picture of Queen Elizabeth (I have some postage stamps with Elizabeth II, but not Elizabeth I), and I couldn't find a picture of Isaac Asimov or a robot. So then I thought I'd use a picture of a pyramid. I know I have one somewhere, but I couldn't find it. So I'm going with this picture of a baobab tree. I know, it's not the same as a pyramid, but it's something that's really big and quite iconic, like the pyramids. Right?