Before moving on, I want to make sure that I have not missed anything worth posting about in the concluding section of Orbit Unlimited.
If Dan Coffin imagined monsters beyond the clouds (see here), then he was right because he was attacked by two giant spearfowl when he descended the plateau.
Joshua Coffin's language is Biblical - he says that the spearfowl are "'...like a monster out of Revelation....'" (5, p. 131) - but how much of it is quotations?
"Thy will be done." (7, p. 137)
"...it repented the Lord that He had made man..." (7, p. 141)
"'Strengthen me, God...'" (5, p. 123)
Any more?
10 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
It would be natural for a devout Christian, Protestant or Catholic, who frequently reads the Bible, to unconsciously shape the way he speaks using Biblical turns of phrase. Which would include unknowingly quoting bits of the Bible in his everyday speech.
Sean
Sean,
And English usage is full of Shakespeare, although my granddaughter says that maybe Shakespeare was using turns of phrase common in his day!
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Almost certainly, Shakespeare WAS using common, everyday turns of phrase in his poems and plays. Including then current forms of cussing and slang. So I agree with your granddaughter.
Sean
Shakespeare did use common turns of phrase -- but he's also the first recorded instance of a lot of them. "But me no buts", for example.
Or: "Oh, Sir, if I had the tedium of a -king-, I would give it all to thee."
"All thy tedium... to me?"
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Alas, altho I've read some of Shakespeare's plays, they did not really GRAB me. I put that largely to how the English used by Shakespeare has inevitably come to be archaic after 400 years. My loss, and I know I should try reading Shakespeare again.
But, "...the tedium of a king" is new to me! I could try understanding that in many ways. From how custom and "unwritten rules" limits what a king can do to wading thru the dull minutia of gov't every day if a king is conscientious about his paper work.
Sean
It's Dogberry, in "Much Ado About Nothing".
I was quoting from memory. The actual lines go:
Dogberry: "But truly, for mine own part, if I were as tedious as
a king, I could find it in my heart to bestow it all of your
worship."
Leonato: "All thy tediousness on me, ah?"
-- it's comic relief. Dogberry is an idiot, and thinks Leonato was complimenting him by telling him he was tedious -- not a very common word at the time.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Many thanks! "Tedious" was a fairly rare word in Shakespeare's time. Only goes I should give him another try!
Sean
Sean,
Shakespeare was written to be seen and heard, not read. We don't read film or TV scripts.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I understand that, in principle. But, I have very bad hearing, which has inclined me to favor reading over straining to understand spoken dialogue. Also, I still CHANGES in English over the past 400 years necessarily includes increased archaicism.
Another one or two centuries and Shakespeare will need to be translated into whatever the "English" of the future has become. We get a hint of that in Anderson's A KNIGHT OF GHOSTS AND SHADOWS when the Anglic speaking Flandry told Aycharaych he had read in TRANSLATION Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poem "A Musical Instrument."
Sean
Post a Comment