Now that this blog has a new format, you’ll have to scroll down to catch up, just like any other blog. Actually, I cheated, because I’m putting both this blog and the one below and ‘before’ online at the same time. I’m a guy who likes each thing under its own heading. So go down, read ‘Bill’s Blog Goes Daily’, then come back and read this.

Done? Great. Doesn’t it feel like a real blog now?

Anyhow, I’ve been having my own personal Shakespeare Renaissance, and among many jewels I’ve discovered are some marvelous bits in As You Like It. The Duke, Senior (that’s his name) has been exiled by his upstart younger brother into the Forest of Arden, “and a many merry men with him; and there they live like the old Robin Hood of England: they say, many young gentlemen flock to him every day, and fleet the time carelessly, as they did in the golden world.”

You’d think the Duke, Senior, might be at least a little bitter about being stripped of his land, money, and power, and driven into the woods like some redneck. But when we first meet him in Act II, he has a surprising take on things…

Duke, Senior: Now my co-mates, and brothers in exile,
Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
Then that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
More free from peril then the envious Court?
The seasons’ difference, as the icy fang
And churlish chiding of the winter’s wind,
Which when it bites and blows upon my body
Even till I shrink with cold, I smile, and say
This is no flattery: these are counsellors
That feelingly persuade me what I am:
Sweet are the uses of aduersity
Which like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head:
And this our life exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in euery thing

Amien (the Duke’s friend): I would not change it. Happy is your Grace,
That can translate the stubbornness of fortune
Into so quiet and so sweet a style.

Duke, Senior: Come, shall we go and kill us venison?

(Text provided courtesy of www.gutenberg.org, a phenomenal site with tons of free e-texts. I modernized the spellings a bit.)

At which point, the kind-hearted duke begins to sympathize with poor deer he will soon eat. Somehow, his sentiments don’t prevent him from heartily enjoying the later feast.

Anyhow, I flipped when I stumbled across Shakespeare going off on going back to the land. Not a literal flip, of course, although there’s room here if I could do it. (Unlike my old apartment, where my dabbles into headstands resulted in a hole in the drywall.)

I’m finally beginning to get why Shakespeare is in a class by himself. When I was in high school I got suitably annoyed with Julius Caesar and thought he (Shakespeare…and Caesar too, I guess) was totally overrated. Now as I read Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, and The Tempest, I realize that while many other authors have, like, one or two excellent parts in a play that you want to remember, a single glass of wine to savor, Shakespeare is like some lunatic invading a winery, popping bottle after bottle open, and drenching everything. Granted, it gets messy at times, but you barely have time to gulp one vintage and cram your nostrils with the scent before another, gloriously different bottle of wine-fire is shoved in your face. I love it.

For one thing, it reminds me of learning to farm. Especially the part about horses. But more on that anon…