Mojo, The Bard, & Me

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

                                              

Yea, this man’s brow, like to a title-leaf,

Fortells the nature of a tragic volume:

So looks the strond whereon the imperious flood

Hath left a witness’d usurpation.

 

Northumberland

King Henry the Fourth Part II     Act I, Scene i, Line 60

                                 

A title-leaf is the title page of a tragedy story, and a strond is a strand of land. 

Morton has just come into the room, returned from the battle. He’s not said a word yet, and Northumberland is remarking about the look on Morton’s face. He is anticipating bad news from Morton, and he’s right to do so.

Northumberland speaks of Morton's brow - his forehead. Yes, there are certainly things you can tell from a fellow’s face. Often in literature we hear about a knitted brow. To move the eyebrows together in a way that shows that one is thinking about something or is worried, angry, etc. That’s the MW definition of a knitting one’s brow. So I suppose we could say that Morton had a knitted brow. And if he had bad news and a knitted brow, (which he did) what would his forehead look like? Well, his eyebrows would be moved closer together. 

However, Will couldn’t use such pedestrian language as knitted brow (even though the idiom of knitted brow has been in use since the fourteenth century). He had to give us the image of land that had been left changed by the high waters of a flood to describe Morton’s brow.

One of the marks of good writing (and this is not according to me: I read this somewhere) is to stay away from standard, time-worn expressions And of course, our famous Bard is prone to better writing techniques, isn’t he.

I thought I'd give you some examples of a knitted brow.

Here's an unknitted, first thing in the morning brow.

And here's that same brow after having read the morning news; in other words, a brow looking like the strond whereon the imperious flood Hath left a witness'd usurption.

See the difference?

Now, here's Mojo without a care in the world.

And here's Mojo after I told him that we're out of treats.

Can you see the difference? 

No, neither can I. 

Apparently a no-knittable brow to go along with the no-opposable thumbs. 

Who knew?