Mojo, The Bard, & Me

 Today’s Totally Random Lines

Pale trembling coward, there I throw my gage,

Disclaiming here the kindred of the king;

And lay aside my high blood's royalty,

Which fear, not reverence, makes thee to except.

 

Henry Bolingbroke

King Richard the Second               Act I, Scene i, Line 12

Okay - first scene of the play: The speaker is Henry Bolingbroke (later to become Henry IV - he’s first cousin to Richard II). The guy he’s talking to is Thomas Mowbray, the Duke of Norfolk (I think he’s got some royal blood too, but nothing nearly as close to the king as Henry). They’ve come before King Richard so that he can settle a dispute between themselves, and they end up challenging each other to a duel. A gage is an old-fashioned word for glove, and throwing down your glove was a way of challenging and/or accepting a duel.

So Henry, here, has some words for Thomas as he challenges him to a duel, in the process telling Mowbray not to let Henry’s royal blood stand in the way of accepting.

And there’s your context. Was it worth reading that paragraph to know what’s happening in Today's Line?

I know what this guy's answer to that question would be.