Mojo, The Bard, & Me

 Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

I swear to thee, by Cupid’s strongest bow,

By his best arrow with the golden head,

By the simplicity of Venus’ doves,

By that which knitteth souls and prospers loves,

And by that fire which burn’d the Carthage queen,

When the false Troyan under sail was seen:

By all the vows that ever men have broke,

In number more than ever women spoke;--

In that same place thou hast appointed me,

To-morrow truly will I meet with thee.

Hermia

A Midsummer Night’s Dream       Act I, Scene i, Line 198

Well then - At first blush it might appear that Hermia is making quite a big deal out of promising to meet with Lysander tomorrow. But it’s a bit more than that. Lysander has proposed that they meet tomorrow in order to run off and get married. That’s what Hermia is agreeing to do. So that’s a pretty big deal and makes all this promising and swearing to be a bit more appropriate.

But wouldn’t it be fun to use this whole thing to tell someone that you agree to a meeting tomorrow. I’m talking about an everyday meeting.

Don
So Pete, I’d like to sit down with you to discuss the tax implications of this deal. Do you think we could meet tomorrow sometime in the afternoon?

Pete
I swear to thee, Don, by Cupid’s strongest bow…
…Tomorrow truly I will meet with thee.
And give him all ten lines of it.

Of course, that would require setting all ten lines to memory. I used to be really good at that, but I’m not sure I’ve still got that in me. Still, this is only ten lines, so maybe I should give it a try.

Oh yeah, that’s a great idea. What else could you possibly do that would be a better use of your time than spend it memorizing ten lines of Shakespeare.

Jesus, this guy is a piece of work.

I heard that!