A Brush with the Divine
Shakespeare meme -- when you see this, post something from Shakespeare in your journal.
BOTTOM
[Awaking] When my cue comes, call me, and
I will answer: my next is, 'Most fair Pyramus.' Heigh-ho!
Peter Quince! Flute, the bellows-mender! Snout,
the tinker! Starveling! God's my life, stolen hence, and
left me asleep! I have had a most rare vision. I have
had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was.
Man is but an ass, if he go about to expound this dream.
Methought I was -- there is no man can tell what.
Methought I was -- and methought I had -- but
man is but a patched fool, if he will offer to say what
methought I had. The eye of man hath not heard,
the ear of man hath not seen, man's hand is not able to
taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report,
what my dream was. I will get Peter Quince to write
a ballad of this dream: it shall be called 'Bottom's Dream,'
because it hath no bottom; and I will sing it
in the latter end of a play, before the Duke.
Peradventure, to make it the more gracious, I shall
sing it at her death. (A Midsummer Night's Dream IV.i.199-217)
I chose this for two reasons. One is that St. Thomas is in a mini-Rock and Roll revival at his school tonight and I wanted to put something about a show or play in this. The other is that my old Shakespeare professor used to say that there are two characters who Shakespeare uses to speak for himself personally. One is Prospero in The Tempest, whom he uses to say farewell. The other is Nick Bottom, who is a rude mechanical (If I had a rock band, they would be The Rude Mechanicals) who had a brush with the divine. According to my prof, there was a distinct difference between Shakespeare's pre Midsummer and post Midsummer works that makes it evident that Shakespeare in some way had a brush with and was changed by the divine.
BOTTOM
[Awaking] When my cue comes, call me, and
I will answer: my next is, 'Most fair Pyramus.' Heigh-ho!
Peter Quince! Flute, the bellows-mender! Snout,
the tinker! Starveling! God's my life, stolen hence, and
left me asleep! I have had a most rare vision. I have
had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was.
Man is but an ass, if he go about to expound this dream.
Methought I was -- there is no man can tell what.
Methought I was -- and methought I had -- but
man is but a patched fool, if he will offer to say what
methought I had. The eye of man hath not heard,
the ear of man hath not seen, man's hand is not able to
taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report,
what my dream was. I will get Peter Quince to write
a ballad of this dream: it shall be called 'Bottom's Dream,'
because it hath no bottom; and I will sing it
in the latter end of a play, before the Duke.
Peradventure, to make it the more gracious, I shall
sing it at her death. (A Midsummer Night's Dream IV.i.199-217)
I chose this for two reasons. One is that St. Thomas is in a mini-Rock and Roll revival at his school tonight and I wanted to put something about a show or play in this. The other is that my old Shakespeare professor used to say that there are two characters who Shakespeare uses to speak for himself personally. One is Prospero in The Tempest, whom he uses to say farewell. The other is Nick Bottom, who is a rude mechanical (If I had a rock band, they would be The Rude Mechanicals) who had a brush with the divine. According to my prof, there was a distinct difference between Shakespeare's pre Midsummer and post Midsummer works that makes it evident that Shakespeare in some way had a brush with and was changed by the divine.