The Bard rocketh

A news article today, trying to take a different tack reporting on the circus encamped on Capitol Hill, explained the hearing shenanigans using quotes from ol' Billy Shakespeare.

As one might expect from this blog's title, I kinda dig the playwright and poet from Stratford-upon-Avon. Though I probably have multiple collections (compendia?) of his works, I'm far from a scholar. Nonetheless, I have a good, passing knowledge of many of them, and can glibly throw out a quote here and there to give the appearance of erudition.

In high school, Mr. George Parks required my freshman class - think Dead Poets Society, and you'll be in the general ballpark - to memorize Hotspur's soliloquy to King Henry IV. Not just bland recitation, but replete with breathing exercises in the gym, and correct intonation and projection. John D. got so stressed when it came his turn to present in front of the class, that he hyperventilated and fainted. At the time, it was just something we laughed about as part of our prep-school experiences, and later recounted at class reunions. But the theme of the soliloquy, that is to say, defending some intemperate words or unwise actions, to a boss/colleague/friend after the fact, has become kind of a ribbon running through my life. I've probably done the "Yeah, um, what I really meant was..." speech a hundred times since high school. In the modern parlance, what Hotspur was really doing in that monologue, was spinning the truth.

Although it wasn't required memorization, one of my other favorite scenes from that play was when Prince Hal and others waylaid Falstaff's band of highwaymen, only to hear a very different version of events, with much mirth, back at the Boar's Head Tavern. Jussie Smollett should've studied this play.

Back to the news article.

The quote that really caught my fancy in describing the impeachment charade comes from Coriolanus, Act II, Scene 1 (a work with which I'm frankly not familiar), and goes thus, "More of your conversation would infect my brain.” 

What a perfect description! And, I must admit, I struggled this afternoon at work to refrain from using it with a co-worker/subordinate.