No, no, no, no! Come, let's away to prison:
We two alone will sing like birds i' the cage:
When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down,
And ask of thee forgiveness: so we'll live,
And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh
At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues
Talk of court news; and we'll talk with them too,
Who loses and who wins; who's in, who's out;
And take upon's the mystery of things,
As if we were God's spies: and we'll wear out,
In a wall'd prison, packs and sects of great ones,
That ebb and flow by the moon.
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Hello friends —
It takes a tragic situation for a person to be fantasizing about escaping
to prison to be able to spend more time with someone — in this case,
two birds in a cage are better than one bird in a grave. Of all the
tragedies in his life, losing his daughter Cordelia hits King Lear the
hardest. As the eloquence Lear demonstrates here deteriorates, "No, no, no, no!" is echoed by "Howl, howl, howl, howl!" and finally the perfect
iambic pentameter, "Never, never, never, never, never!"
The Duke of Albany concludes the play by reflecting:
The weight of this sad time we must obey;
Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.
The oldest hath borne most: we that are young
Shall never see so much, nor live so long.
In general, I try not to send you poems by long-dead white dudes two days
in a row, but I hope you'll forgive me this exception for the Bard's
birthday.
I hope you've been enjoying National Poetry Month! If you've missed any days or would just like to look back, you can review posts here at meetmein811.blogspot.com.
In honor of Talk Like Shakespeare Day, Fare thee well —
Ellen
Labels: NPM, Shakespeare