WOW - Didn't Shakespeare have a way with words? -K.

k wrote:
] [Crossposting from the Supernicety :
]
] Indeed, more proof that Shakespeare has already said pretty
] much everything that’s worth saying… Josh Marshall over at
] Talking Points Memo provides the following excerpt from Henry
] V in which the king, disguised, talks with two soldiers :
]
]
]
] KING HENRY. I dare say you love him not so ill to wish him
] here alone, howsoever you speak this, to feel other men’s
] minds; methinks I could not die anywhere so contented as in
] the King’s company, his cause being just and his quarrel
] honorable.
]
]
] MICHAEL WILLIAMS. That’s more than we know.
]
]
] JOHN BATES. Ay, or more than we should seek after; for we know
] enough if we know we are the King’s subjects. If his cause be
] wrong, our obedience to the king wipes the crime of it out of
] us.
]
]
] MICHAEL WILLIAMS. But if his cause be not good, the King
] himself hath a heavy reckoning to make when all those legs and
] arms and heads, chopp’d off in a battle, shall join together
] at the latter day and cry all ‘We died at such a place’ - some
] swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon their wives
] left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon
] their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die well
] that die in a battle; for how can they charitably dispose of
] anything when blood is their argument? Now, if these men do
] not die well, it will be a black matter for the King that led
] them to it; who to disobey were against all proportion of
] subjection.
]
]
] …Act IV, Scene I
]
]
]
] Our president wishes himself king, and wishes us to be Bates’
] — unknowing, unquestioning followers of his cause, which he
] believes both just and honorable. The neocon movement, by
] denouncing all forms of dissent, subverting open discussion,
] wontonly tossing Coulterian charges of Treason at anyone who
] would challenge their King, would simultaneously have
] themselves absolved of whatever wrong may someday come to
] light. “Our obedience…wipes the crime of it out of us”,
] they’ll say, in so many words… “Who are we to question the
] King… he said there were Weapons of Mass Destruction and we
] obeyed his call to war!” At the same time, they deny that the
] King Himself should shoulder any guilt either, for he is the
] King, whom God alone may judge, not mere mortals, not his
] SUBJECTS, not us.
]
]
] But we are not like Mr. Bates. We have more information and
] more freedom. We are *not* subjects, and we have the capacity,
] the right, and even the duty to challenge our leaders.
] Challenge them to justify their... [ Read More (0.1k in body) ]

skullaria wrote:
] WOW - Didn't Shakespeare have a way with words? -K.
]
] k wrote:
] ] [Crossposting from the Supernicety :
] ]
] ] Indeed, more proof that Shakespeare has already said pretty
] ] much everything that’s worth saying… Josh Marshall over at
] ] Talking Points Memo provides the following excerpt from
] Henry
] ] V in which the king, disguised, talks with two soldiers :

[ Dad has long said that in all of human history, two people stand out as being particularly superior, almost deific even... Shakespeare and Mozart.

Of course, I'm merely aping my father here... it was he who originally showed me that Shakespeare had already covered, usually in the most eloquent manner, every relevant human condition, reaction, or emotion likely to be possible. I'm certainly not the scholar he is, but I've never been able to refute his claim. -k]