Friday, September 13, 2024

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

He knows me, as the blind man knows the cuckoo,

By the bad voice.

 

Portia

The Merchant of Venice   Act V, Scene i, Line 112


This, for our purposes (and for once), is pretty much a stand-alone line. We can simply read it and respond to it. I guess we could get the context and discuss it within that context. But today we have the choice of looking at the line without looking at the speaker or the situation. Let’s do that.

So, the cuckoo has a bad voice? In southern Africa there’s a bird they call the go-away bird because it has an annoying call, but I don’t think it’s the cuckoo.

Okay, I just googled it, and the African Grey Go-away bird is so named because of its call which sounds a bit like “go away”. So I guess that’s not really pertinent to our discussion of today's line, and therefore I should just delete what I’ve typed here? But if I do that, you’ll never know what I was thinking. Of course, if I don’t, then you can see the process of my thoughts on this writing. I think I should leave it.

Do you think a blind man (if this was written in Braille) would know me by the convoluted way of my thinking?

 


Yes! Just, yes. 


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