Tag Archives: shakespeare

Feb 12 2015
5 Comments
Classics

Romance Advice from William Shakespeare – Part Four

Shakespeare was an intense dude.  Most people were intense way back when.  They put on twenty pounds of clothes just to go out to eat and they used twenty words to say things where one would have done just fine.

The Bard’s words are beautiful, but they aren’t as easily understood by today’s modern English speakers.

So first, study Shake’s immortal love sonnet below, and after that, I will translate.

Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?  (Sonnet 18)

BY: William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

OK.  And now for the translation.  Are you sitting down?  Good.  For I will now translate this masterpiece of old English into modern language:

Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?  (Sonnet 18)

BY:  William Shakespeare

TRANSLATED BY:  Bookshelf Q. Battler

Damn baby, you be fine!

And there you have it.  The Bard’s words brought forth into modern times.  ‘Tis a beautiful thing.

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Feb 11 2015
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Romance

Romance Advice From William Shakespeare – Part 3

Do you believe in love at first sight?

That’s not a trick question.  I’m not going to ask you if I need to walk by again.

Do people instantly connect and have metaphysical fireworks explode in their hearts, or does it take time for love to grow?

Personally, I feel like the older one gets, the harder it is to feel those instant fireworks.  But what do I know?

Shakespeare believed in love at first sight.  And since this is a series about how to get chicks using the bard’s most romantic passages – well, if you meet someone and feel that instant connection, maybe you can recite this to said individual:

No sooner met but they looked;
No sooner looked but they loved;
No sooner loved but they sighed;
No sooner sighed but they asked one another the reason;
No sooner knew the reason but they sought the remedy;
And in these degrees have they made a pair of stairs to marriage…

– William Shakespeare, As You Like It

Love at first sight or love that grows with time?  Is one better than the other?

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Feb 10 2015
2 Comments
Romance

Romance Advice From William Shakespeare – Part 2

Dudes, you have no idea how lucky you are all to have me.  I’m here.  I’m taking time out of my busy schedule to inform you, the reading masses, how to use the writings of the most influential author of the English language, to score points with the ladies.

Bardin’ ‘Aint Easy

OK.  Look at me.  LOOK AT ME.  Take one night out of your life and woo your woman.  All to often men underestimate the power of woo.

What is woo?  It’s not easy to explain.  It’s the effort you put in to make your woman feel special and loved.  Frankly, if you have to ask, some other dude has probably wooed your woman away by now anyway.

Don’t half-ass it like you do everything else.  Your woman is not some rug that you can just sweep dirt under and then pretend like you actually cleaned the floor.  Look at your woman and pitch ridiculous amounts of woo.  Take all of your wooing skills and just send them straight into your woman’s general direction.

Shakespeare’s Henry VI dealt with all of the political power power plays and general nastiness that led to the War of the Roses.  What was that war about?   I don’t know.  One side had some roses.  The other side wanted roses.  So they fought over the roses.  What do I look like?  A history scholar?  We’re not here to talk about roses (although you should order your lady some in advance because they’ll be sold out by Valentine’s Day by dudes who thought of this stuff before you did).

We’re here to talk about this quote:

“She’s beautiful, and therefore to be wooed; She is woman, and therefore to be won”

– William Shakespeare, Henry VI

Take a knee, dudes.  Listen – want a translation of what Bill just said?  Here you go – you can’t phone this shit in.  Your woman is beautiful and so you have to earn that right to be around all that beauty.  Get her flowers.  Sing to her.  Read her poems and shit.  Or if she’s not into all that, then do chores and crap without her complaining about it or acting like a martyr because you had to wash a dish.  Make your woman happy!

Happy Wife = Happy Life.  Woo.  Learn how to Woo.

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Feb 09 2015
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Romance

Romance Advice From William Shakespeare – Part 1

Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, dudes.  And even though I totally just reminded you, you’re going to wait until Feb. 14th at 6 pm to get some tired, left over card and a box of stale candy from the discount bin at the drug store because that’s all they will have left.

So, I’m here to help.  Even if you screw up your gift giving responsibilities, you can still check my blog, and recite some love poetry with the help of my main man, Bill Shakespeare.

“To Mac, or Not to Mac? That is the Question.”

Shakespeare was the most romantic dude of his day, which, alright, was pretty easy, since he lived in an age where people thought bathing was optional.

Alright.  SCENARIO – You get home on Valentine’s Day.  Your lady love is all dressed up, waiting for you to get your romance on, and what do you do?  You’ve got nothing.  You’ve got one of those M and M Dispensers where the cartoon M and M men are doing something hilarious.  But it’s not enough for this woman, because, I don’t know, what, does she think she’s the Queen of England or something?  Why is your woman not cool enough that she can’t just appreciate a good M and M dispenser?  Sheesh.

Alright, anyway, all you do is lay out the Romeo and Juliet action:

But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief,
That her maid art far more fair than she:

– William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

I’m just going to say it.  Women like drama.  Ok some women do.  Not all.  Let’s not use sweeping generalizations.  Some like to have all kinds of attention and have the focus be on them.

What was Bill saying in this scene?  He’s having Romeo tell Juliet, “Hey, Juliet, you’re hot like the sun, and you’re such a hot sun that you’re hotter than the moon.  The moon’s got nothing on you baby.”

You can just skip the poem altogether and just tell your lady, “You’re hotter than the moon.”  Or, just pick a gal she hates.  Her sister.  Your next door neighbor.  The dame she complains about from work.  Just be all like, “Baby you are way hotter than Becky from Accounting.”

Actually, don’t do that.  Then she’ll just accuse you of checking out Becky from Accounting.

The point is – Bill Shakespeare can get you chicks.  So keep following and I’ll tell you how.

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Jan 25 2015
4 Comments
Books

Polonius’ Advice to Laertes – Shakespeare – Hamlet

At some point, you must have heard these infamous words:

“This above all, to your own self be true!”

They originate with the bard himself – William Shakespeare.  And “truer” words were never spoken.  If you aren’t being true to yourself – i.e. if you are trying to be someone you aren’t, then you are just not going to be happy.

It is a scene that plays out all the time – a parent gives advice to a child who is heading off for college.  Here is what Polonius had to say before his son, Laertes, set sail to pursue his studies:

Yet here, Laertes! aboard, aboard, for shame! The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
And you are stay’d for. There; my blessing with thee!
And these few precepts in thy memory

See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportioned thought his act. Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch’d, unfledged comrade. Beware of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,
Bear’t that the opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,  But not express’d in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are of a most select and generous chief in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine ownself be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.  Farewell: my blessing season this in thee!

What say you, readers?  Did Polonius give good advice?  Bad advice?  Discuss in the comments!

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Jan 24 2015
1 Comment
Shakespeare

Deflategate Shakespearized

I like to Shakespearize things – movies, TV shows, songs.  I love Shakespeare.  Maybe it’s trite, but I do feel that the English language’s greatest author walked the earth around 500 years or so ago (give or take a few years here or there).

I hope to turn this into a new feature, and if you have something you’d like to see Shakespearized, let me know.

Without further ado…

DEFLATEGATE SHAKESPEARIZED

By:  Bookshelf Q.  Battler

A Tale Told in the Tradition of the Bard

PRESS MAN #1 – In fair New England where we begin our tale, a legend of great treachery and sanctimonious chicanery, of gladiators of the gridiron and air dispersion most foul.

RANDOM COLTS PLAYER (staring at and holding up a football as if it were a skull) – Is this a ball I see before me?  It’s lack of weight disturbeth me with the passion of the Gods who once clapped in thunderous combat above the skies of Ancient Rome. Fi on thee, Knaves of New England, Mercenaries of the Villainous Cheese Baron!  Something is rotten in the State of the NFL.

ENTER KING BELICHIK –  Friends, Romans, Countrymen!  Lend me your ears!  Good sirs, rest thine ears upon my voice, and hear me as I say that in my four score years of leading mine knights into carefully manicured grassy fields of battle all across our land, this is the first and only time that anyone hath raised the issue of mine balls!  Merry, it surpriseth me greatly to hear men complain of a trivial happenstance, as surely as it would surpriseth me were I to waken on the morrow to find that the sun’s exuberant colors had transferred from yellow to green.

PRESS MAN #2 – Foul!  Foul!  Scandal most foul!  A plague on your house, King Belichik!  For thou failest to taketh the fall in this fake story that we hath manufactured out of whole cloth!  Thou hast thrown Sir Thomas of Brady under the bus!

TYPICAL COLTS FAN –  To inflate or not to inflate?  That is the question.  Whether tis nobler in the mind to inflate your balls to 12.5 pounds per square inch, or to take air out of your balls until they are 11.5 pounds per square inch, and in doing so, ruin them?  To inflate, to deflate, to inflate perchance to dream?  Ay, there’s the rub…on our balls!

SIR THOMAS OF BRADY – Tomorrow, tomorrow, and tomorrow…inflated balls are a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, and signifying slow news days…

COLTS FAN #2 – O, I see Queen Mab!  Come she does, the Queen of the Fairies!  And she telleth me true, she fills my ears with the melodious truth, that had our balls been comprised of more air, we surely would not have had our asses handed to us in a massacre in which we lost by 40 points!  Fi!  By the beard of God I say had the game ball had one but one more pound of pressure inside of it, we would have fought boldly like the mighty warriors of the coliseum of old!

ENTER FOX AND COMPANIONS – Forsooth and hark, for we are Fox and Companions!  Bringeth yon noble viewers news of the death of the Saudi Arabian King?  Nay!  Bringeth ye news of the resignation of the Yemen Government?  Nay!  Gather round and hear a tale of balls deflated with vigorous gusto!

PRESS MAN #3 – But soft!  What lies through yonder window breaks?!  It tis the east, and the underinflated balls are the sun!  Arise fair balls, and kill the envious moon, whose maid art sick and pale with grief, that her maid’s balls are far more inflated than yours!

PATRIOTS FAN -(also holding a football like it was a skull) –  Alas, poor football, I knew him, Horatio.  Twas a football of great jest and most excellent fancy!  Once inflated to 12.5 pounds per square inch and then alas, deflated to a paltry 11.5 square pounds per inch by rapscallions of ignominious cunning and unscrupulous alacrity. Our knights, once a great bastion of the game, now reduced to wicked pissah jokes about deflated balls.

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Nov 16 2014
7 Comments
Writing

National Novel Writing Month – or #NanoWriMo

Are you participating in National Novel Writing Month?

If you’ve never heard of it, the two-cent summary is that it is a challenge to write a novel of at least 50,000 words by the end of November.  It doesn’t have to be a good one.  The end result does not even have to make sense.  Don’t bother editing.  Participants will be quick to remind you to write first, edit later.

Write first, edit later?  Seriously?  “That novel will be a bunch of garbledeegook!” you might say.  And you would not be wrong for saying that.  The thing to remember about NanoWriMo is – every novel starts out as a pile of garbledeegook.

Take any classic novel, film, TV episode, whatever.  They all started out in the brain of a writer and said writer had to mix the thoughts around in his brain for awhile before he got things right.  Consider these recently discovered entries from Shakespeare’s personal notebook:

DAY 1 – The title of my next play?  Romeo and Hildegard!  Two lovers who meet, fall in love, enjoy a delightful wedding ceremony, and take part in many years of bliss all the while their respective familes go out of their way to display their acceptance of the situation.

DAY 2 – What was I thinking who would pay 2 shillings to watch such tripe!  I must think of a way to liven things up!

DAY 3 – Romeo and Hildegard?  Hildegard?  Really?  I have to think of a new name for the female lead.  Jessica? Janet?

DAY 4 – Romeo and Juliet!  They meet!  They fall in love!  Their families despise one another and they send Romeo and Juliet a sternly worded letter that they disapprove of their union!  The End!

DAY 5 – Rubbish, Shakespeare.  Rubbish.  Quit writing and get a job at your father’s used horse dealership while you still can.

DAY 6 – Romeo and Juliet!  Their families are the Montagues and the Capulets and they have a longstanding feud!  Perhaps representatives of the respective families engage in quarrelsome activities that doom the lovers’ union!

DAY 7 – Mercutio gets run over by a horse.  No, he gets brained with a frying pan.  No!  Stabbed by Tybalt!  And his dying words are, “I am very offended to have been stabbed!”

DAY 8 – No, he says, “A Plague on both your houses!”  Yes, thus illustrating how petty feuds often pull unsuspecting bystanders into the fray.

DAY 9 – Romeo and Juliet run away from Verona.  They live till a ripe old age and have many babies.

DAY 10 – No, we must have a sad ending.  Romeo and Juliet attempt to sneak out of Verona.  However, the city is protected by a mighty dragon who eats Romeo.  Distressed, Juliet’s rage gives her magical powers that she uses to burn Verona to the ground.

DAY 11 – Preposterous!  Wait, I’ve got it!  Juliet attempts to get away from her family by taking a drug that makes her look dead but actually only causes her to go into a deep sleep for 2 days.  She sends a message to Romeo to meet her at the tomb.  Romeo fails to receive the message due to the incompetence of the Verona Postal Service.

DAY 12 – Romeo meets her at the tomb.  The drug has turned Juliet into a zombie.  She feasts on Romeo’s brains.

DAY 13 – Juliet wakes up.  Romeo is overjoyed.  They run away, live a long, happy life and have many babies.

DAY 14 – Not sad enough.  At the end of their long happy life together, an underlying residual effect of the drug turns Juliet into a zombie.  Now Romeo has his brains eaten.

DAY 15 – That’s too outlandish.  Romeo gets to the tomb.  Paris is there.  He thinks Juliet is dead and mourns her.  Romeo makes a move to stab Paris.  Paris, positioned just in front of Juliet, dodges to one side to avoid the oncoming sword.  At that moment, Juliet sits up, stretches and yawns and says, “Oh wow, I can’t believe I slept that long!  Oh hey Romeo!  ACK!  Why did you stab me?”

DAY 16 – Romeo then stabs himself because he is distraught over stabbing Juliet by accident.

DAY 17 – OK I like the idea that the lovers kill themselves at the end, but this part where Romeo stabs Juliet by accident is ridiculous.

DAY 18 – Alright, check this out.  Juliet is sleeping in her tomb.  Romeo goes to see her, unaware that she is sleeping, he thinks she is actually dead.  He confronts Paris, kills him, then distraught over Juliet’s apparent death, drinks poison.  Juliet wakes up, sees Romeo dead, gets so upset that she stabs herself with a dagger.  Cut.  Print.

DAY 19 – It still needs a little flourish at the end.  Howsabout this?  The Prince and represenatives of the families come to the tomb, see all the bodies, and says, “You know guys, this is some ridiculous bullshit.  Y’all f’d up royally with this one.”  The End.

DAY 20 – I’ve got it!  The Prince says, “For never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo.”  Done!  Time for chili cheese fries!”

Yes, readers.  Those are the exact, unaltered entries in Shakespeare’s personal notebook.  I am surprised as you are that they had chili cheese fries in his day.

OK, so maybe I made this whole thing up.  The point is that sometimes writers get so bogged down in criticizing themselves that they never write anything.  Meanwhile, those who actually begin the writing with lesser ideas in place eventually find a way to rework those ideas and build them into something better.

So to all you NanoWriMo Participants out there, good luck!  And as a shameless plug for this writer’s work:  check out bookshelfbattle.com and follow @bookshelfbattle on twitter!

(C) Bookshelfbattle.com  – All rights reserved

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Oct 31 2014
2 Comments
Classics, Horror

Double Double Toil and Trouble – The Witches of MacBeth

Happy Halloween!

Have you ever wondered how witches obtained their witchy personality traits?

***Crickets chirp***

Ahem.  This is your cue.

“Hey!  Bookshelf Battle Guy!  How did witches obtain their witchy personality traits?”

Oh thank you, Reader.  I thought you’d never ask.

Well, the common conception of a witch is a nasty old hag throwing all kinds of weird ingredients (usually animals or parts of animals) into a boiling cauldron.

We could discuss all day witch-tastic imagery from all sorts of literature but to me, Act 4, Scene 1 of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth stands out.

So park your broomstick and grab your eye of newt, because here are some excerpts and quotes:

SCENE 1 – A cavern – in the middle is a boiling cauldron.

Thunder.  Enter the three witches.

FIRST WITCH

Thrice the brinded cat hath mew’d

SECOND WITCH

Thrice and once the hedge-pig whined

BOOKSHELFBATTLE – So, four then?  The pig in your hedges whined four times?  Why are you hags making this so difficult?

THIRD WITCH

Harpier cries, ‘Tis time, ’tis time.

FIRST WITCH

Round about the cauldron go;

In the poison’d entrails throw.

Toad, that under cold stone

Days and nights has thirty-one

Swelter’d venom, sleeping got,

Boil thou first i’ the charmed pot

BOOKSHELF BATTLE GUY: Pot of poisoned entrails?  That doesn’t sound charming at all.

ALL

Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn and cauldron bubble!

SECOND WITCH

Fillet of a fenny snake,

In the cauldron boil and bake;

Eye of newt and toe of frog

Wool of bat and tongue of dog

Adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting,

Lizard’s leg and owlet’s wing

For a charm of powerful trouble,

Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

BOOKSHELFBATTLE GUY – My condolences, amputated animals.  Apparently witches used to think your parts were magical.

ALL

Double, double toil and trouble

THIRD WITCH

Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,

Witches’ mummy, maw and gulf

Of the ravin’d salt-sea shark,

Root of hemlock digg’d i’ the dark,

Liver of blaspheming Jew,

Gall of goat, and slips of yew

Silver’d in the moon’s eclips,

Nose of Turk and Tartar’s lips

Finger of birth-strangled babe

Ditch-deliver’d by a drab,

Make the gruel thick and slab:

Add thereto a tiger’s chaudron

For the ingredients of our cauldron.

BOOKSHELF BATTLE GUY – OK, now they’re getting ridiculous.  I don’t even know where to begin.  First of all, allow me to apologize for the racial insensitivity.  What can I say?  This is an excerpt taking from a 1500’s era writer who was writing about ancient witches so it is not like you can really expect a lot of political correctness.  Also, how many babies were getting strangled in those days that their fingers were just apparently readily available to be tossed into witches’ brews?  Those were dark times, my friends, dark times indeed.

ALL

Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

SECOND WITCH

Cool it with a baboon’s blood,

Then the charm is firm and good.

BOOKSHELFBATTLE GUY: – This took place in Scotland, didn’t it?   Where would they have even found a baboon?

ENTER HECTATE to the other three Witches.

HECTATE

O well done!  I commend your pains;

And every one shall share i’ the gains;

And now about the cauldron sing,

Live elves and fairies in a ring,

Enchanting all that you put in.

MUSIC AND A SONG: Black spirits…

HECTATE retires

SECOND WITCH

By the pricking of my thumbs,

Something wicked this way comes.

Open, locks,

Whoever knocks!

ENTER MACBETH

MACBETH

How now, you secret, black and midnight hags!

What is’t you do?

BOOKSHELF BATTLE GUY:  I have no comment, other than I think it is funny that MacBeth openly refers to them as hags.  “Hello, hags!”

Well folks, that concludes my discussion of MacBeth’s witches.  Grab your wolf teeth and dragon scales and toss them into the comment section.

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Jul 30 2014
2 Comments
Monthly Wrap-Ups 2014

Previously on Bookshelf Battle…July 2014 Wrap-Up (Game of Thrones Edition)

Here’s what I wrote about in July 2014, told in Game of Thrones style:

LORDS VARYS AND BAELYSH walk through the empty throne room, the IRON THRONE looming large in their presence.

VARYS: My little birds tell me there’s an idiot out there who doesn’t know how to run a book blog.

BAELYSH: Yes, he’s supposed to be writing about books, not about TV and movies. Why is he boring everyone with his rants about Fargo and Better Call Saul?

VARYS: I confess I know not. Perhaps he thinks he’s the next Roger Ebert.

BAELYSH: To aspire to be the next Roger Ebert is a dangerous goal – like a man reaching for the sun and forgetting to keep his footing on the treacherous ground below him.

VARYS: Even worse, he apparently thinks he’s some type of comedian – making light of Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull. Does he think he could do be better if Hollywood gave him a budget and a crew?

BAELYSH: My whores could make a better movie than that if they were given a budget and a crew.

VARYS: Stupid lowborn.

BAELYSH: Idiot eunuch.

MEANWHILE ACROSS THE NARROW SEA:

The KHALEESI sits on a throne inside a pyramid. SER JORAH is on his knees, begging.

KHALEESI: You spied on me! You sent information about me and my child to the usurper!

JORAH: The info was mostly about your brother and come on, my lady, let’s be honest – he was kind of a dick.

KHALEESI: Even worse, you subscribed to a book blog that ONLY REVIEWED ONE BOOK IN JULY! Only one single, solitary book! How dare he call himself a book blogger if he can’t be bothered to produce more book reviews?

JORAH: But surely everyone wants to read a review of Fletch, Khaleesi!

KHALEESI: Don’t call me that! Leave at once, or I’ll have your head! Don’t come back until you’ve found a book blog that reviews at least TWO books a month!

BEYOND THE WALL…

YGRITTE: You know nothing, Jon Snow.

JON SNOW: Not true. I know all about the poem, Invictus thanks to a poetry discussion on bookshelfbattle.com

YGRITTE: We never should have left that cave.

JON SNOW: We had to. There was no Diet Shasta Strawberry soda in there.

ACROSS THE COUNTRYSIDE:

THE HOUND: All your relatives are dead, nobody to pay me my money, what in Seven Hells are we to do now?

ARYA: I don’t know. Maybe we could sing some Batman Day Carols or watch a Weird Al Music Video

THE HOUND: I’d rather borrow another one of me brother’s toys without asking again.

AT TYRION’S TRIAL

TYRION: I wish to confess. I saved you. I saved this city – and all your worthless lives. I should have let Stannis lecture you all into boredom about whether or not life is a tale told by an idiot.

I didn’t make Joffrey read about “A Plague on Both Your Houses!” though I wish I had!

AT THE FIGHT BETWEEN THE RED VIPER AND THE MOUNTAIN:

RED VIPER: You followed @bookshelfbattle on Twitter! You followed http://bookshelfbattle.tumblr.com/ on tumblr! You liked the Bookshelf Battle page on Facebook! Admit it! I’ll hear you confess! Who gave the order?!

THE MOUNTAIN: YEAH I FOLLOWED ALL THE FABULOUS BOOKSHELFBATTLE SOCIAL MEDIA!!! AND I DID IT JUST LIKE THIS! (Smashes the Red Viper’s computer into a million pieces).

As always, thanks for reading. Looking forward to entertaining you with more booktabulous goodness in August.

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Jul 22 2014
5 Comments
Quote of the Week, Uncategorized

Quote of the Week – “A Plague on Both Your Houses”

Happy Tuesday, blogmeisters.

It’s time for the Quote of the Week. Like last week’s quote, this one also comes from Shakespeare:

ROMEO tries to break up the fight. TYBALT stabs MERCUTIO under ROMEO’S arm.

PETRUCHIO

Away, Tybalt.

Exeunt TYBALT, PETRUCHIO, and the other CAPULETS

MERCUTIO

I am hurt.
A plague o’both your houses! I am sped.
Is he gone and hath nothing?

BENVOLIO

What, are thou hurt?

MERCUTIO

Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch. Marry, ’tis enough.
Where is my page? – Go, villain, fetch a surgeon.

Exit MERCUTIO’S PAGE

ROMEO

Courage, man. The hurt cannot be much.

MERCUTIO

No, ’tis not so deep as a well nor so wide as a
church-door, but ’tis enough, ’twill serve.
Ask for me tomorrow and you shall find me a grave man.
I am peppered, I warrant, for this world.
A plague o’both your houses!
Zounds, a dog, a rat, a mouse, a cat to scratch a man to death!
A braggart, a rogue, a villain that fights by the book of arithmetic!
Why the devil came you between us?
I was hurt under your arm.

ROMEO

I thought all for the best.

– William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet

Poor Mercutio – just an innocent guy who got caught up in the middle of the Montague vs. Capulet feud and ended up getting stuck like a pin cushion. Well, scratched like a nickel on a winning lottery ticket would be more precise but as he said, a scratch is enough.

“A plague on both your houses!” Generally, this quote has become an expression used to criticize two warring factions, so hellbent on destroying one another, that they fail to realize that innocents are being hurt in the process.

Seems a bit relevant, given the news as of late, doesn’t it?

Here at bookshelfbattle.com (where the reviews are as awesome as the author’s humilty), I try not to get political. That’s because, whether you’re a Republican, or a Democrat, or a Libertarian, a Green Party member, or even a member of some odd party that thinks America should turn itself over to intergalactic space alien rule, all I want is for everyone to come together and partake in the joy of good literature.

Also, I want your clicks. Your sweet, sweet clicks. Click on a few links while you’re in here, will you? So far my only visitors are my cat and my Aunt Gertrude.

But I digress. There are some news stories that transcend politics. Stories where we can all agree, something really craptacular happened. Such is the case with the downing of Malyasian Airlines Flight MH17 over the Ukraine last week.

Pro-Russian separatists want to break off from the Ukraine and join Russia. Ukraine claims that the separatists aren’t exactly poor farmers turned rebels but rather are trained flunkies of Mother Russia. The passengers of MH17, a bunch of poor, innocent Mercutios, if you will, got caught in the middle of a brutal Civil War. They had nothing to do with the conflict. Most of them were on their way to an AIDS conference. They were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

All signs indicate that the plane was blown up by bumbling pro-Russians who mistook the civilian passenger plane for a Ukranian military plane. The rocket launcher used to blow up the plane isn’t exactly something you can pick up at the 7-11, and training on how to use one can’t be provided at the local community college, so Russia, now suspected of providing the weapon in question, definitely has a lot of explaining to do.

Russia points the finger back at Ukraine – claiming the appearance of a Ukranian fighter jet in the area needs to be explained. All facts need to be accounted for, but so far if the explanations are:

A) The separatists goofed and mistook a civilian plane for an army plane (or worse did it intentionally?)

or

B) The Ukraine government shot down a civilian plane in an elaborate attempt to frame the separatists and garner the world’s sympathy

Then Arkham’s Razor, which dictates that the simplest explanation must be true, yields that A is the safest bet.

It is an understatement of epic proportions to say that Russia and the rebels look bad here. And perhaps “A plague on both your houses” isn’t the most fitting of quotes in this particular situation, as it appears Russia and the Rebels hold the lion’s share of the blame when it comes to this particular tragedy. However, in the long run, if I may dare be sappy – it would be great if somehow all sides could come together and find a way to end the conflict before more innocents are hurt. It probably won’t happen – but it would be great if they could at least find a way to keep Mercutios from being caught in the middle.

We live in a world where it’s possible to beam any TV show you want to your phone. We also live in a world where girls being kidnapped in Nigeria and sold on the black market is a common occurrence.

We live in a world where it’s possible to think of something you want, order it on Amazon, and have it arrive at your house in a couple days. We also live in a world where parts of Iraq and Syria have been taken over by ISIS – a radical group so bad that Al-Qaeda has even basically said, “Whoa, hold on, don’t lump us in with those guys…”

We live in a world where it’s possible to create a website where the proprietor has little to no knowledge of website production techniques – kind of like bookshelfbattle.com, for example. We also live in a world where a long lasting peace between the Middle East and Israel is unlikely.

So much violence has taken over the world. People take sides, throw down their gauntlets, the innocent Mercutios be damned. It’s not my intention to start a debate over who’s wrong and who’s right. I have my views of who’s wrong and right in all these conflicts and I’m sure you do too. All I’m saying is that if the various warring factions of the world can’t to find peace, then maybe they can find a way to at least avoid hurting people who have nothing to do with it.

Wow, the mood got a little too somber in here. Luckily, that’s about as political as bookshelfbattle.com ever gets. Join us next time as we discuss which True Blood vampires are hot and which are not.

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