Mojo, The Bard, & Me

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

Hung be the heavens with black, yield day to night!

Comets, importing change of times and states,

Brandish your crystal tresses in the sky,

And with them scourge the bad revolting stars

That have consented unto Henry’s death.

 

Duke of Bedford

King Henry the Sixth Part I          Act I, Scene i, Line 1

 

That’s right, it’s the first line of the play. Not only that, it’s the first play in my book. So it’s the first possible line to be picked. And not only, not only that, but the book has the plays in chronological order based on when Will wrote them. So this is the first line of any play that Will ever wrote.

Well, not exactly. You see, there is general disagreement on the exact order of Will’s plays. Depending on what Shakespearean scholar you ask, Will’s first play could be this one, or Comedy Of Errors, or Taming Of The Shrew, or… well, you get the idea.

No matter what you think, though, I like to think these are the first lines of Will’s put to paper. It’s the Duke’s exclamation, lamentation, about the death of Henry V. And a fine exclamation, lamentation it is!

Whilst some might claim it’s a little bit overdone, I like it. Can you imagine someone getting up at your funeral to give an elegy and starting with this? I think that would be fabulous! Not that I’m in any rush to be eulogized, mind you.

Hung be the heavens with red, not black!

(I decided to give Mojo the day off)

He claims I've been working him too hard, if you can believe that.

 

Wait, what did he say?