I'm sure that at some point I will change the background again. I'm also well aware that it's dark. Thus why I will likely change it at some point. But for now? It does an excellent job and I like it so - in the absence of my ability to make a proper film noir background at this moment - this will suffice quite well.

Dear Reader,

I will speak specifically to you. Why? I've really no idea..... Just as I've no idea why I'm doing this now! Or at least not one I may articulate.

A lot of life is that way - things I don't understand, can't explain, don't feel, don't have....  Many things I know - but knowing does not automatically equate understanding. Likewise for doing.

Yes, I'm rambling. I doubt there's another Reader here - so you have my full and undivided attention! More or less so.....  I'm not known for making sense save when expounding at length on something dear to me.

Made by Angelique

What rare and precious gift is this I see?

Such purity and innocence can't be

More than just a cunning mask - arrayed

That none can see within the soul depraved.

Mark how with shock and pain at the hard fall

Can cunning sin cover itself withal -

Mark how just like an untouched maid she stands.

Mark how she holds out trembling, pleading hands.

I would believe save for what I did see -

Would I could take her hands in purity...

So take her back this rotten orange you give!

To flee and die is better than chain live.

I will not look on her again - begone!

To close my eyes upon her sin is wrong.

None other took her light from her, she lay

It down right willingly: it's gone away.

No rare and precious gift here do I see:

Such worth and value no more than fantasy...

None can bismirch a perfect, guarded name -

But she that scorns allows to do the same.

The walls were built for her protection and

For her comfort and freedom in her land.

Such seeming beauty and innocence must fail;

Such masks before such evidence must fail.

Answer now the charges laid again' -

Only the one can blot oneself in sin.

Wherefore doth one breathe in again at last?

Is such dishonour wiped away so fast?

So then fall back! I charge thee: do not live.

Better you took the pardon Death can give

Rather than stay despised in all men's eyes:

Virtue alone can kill all evil's lies.

On the subject of Shakespeare.....  It is rather amusing how that - hen I was looking up the fourth act to refresh my memory on Claudio's and Leonato's words - I know so much more of the words than I suppose......  I think I've read that scene only a hundred times. And seen it half as much. There's something about it - a tragedy in the midst of a comedy, a moment out of the light-hearted banter that dominates the majority of the rest of the play. Of course, there's the underlying thread that leads up to this moment - but on the whole, hardly noticeable.

And the odd thing is, that scene is one that I should by all rights hate. I certainly do in other stories. Not so much the 'accusations from the evil toward the innocent' but that specific accusation. It is....too familiar. And Leonato doesn't believe her either! He tells her to die - 'Hence from her! Let her die.' - and at least for him it is as much to spare HER shame as it is to spare himself. Save that he feels none of it for himself, really, but for her. 

So that I still have an abiding love for that scene and what comes of it surprises me immensely.

That, and the sherriff.......  Nevermind Fillion is stuck in my head as him - but here! Pause yet a moment....

Marry, sir, they have committed false report;
moreover, they have spoken untruths; secondarily,
they are slanders; sixth and lastly, they have
belied a lady; thirdly, they have verified unjust
things; and, to conclude, they are lying knaves.

....yes. That all boils down to the same thing. Yes. the numbers are completely off. But what else can you expect from people that - should they find a thief robbing a house - would pass by and thank God that they were not so. AND THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO BE THE POLICE BASICALLY!!!!!

And let's not miss Don Pedro's answer:

First, I ask thee what they have done; thirdly, I
ask thee what's their offence; sixth and lastly, why
they are committed; and, to conclude, what you lay
to their charge.

In the words of Claudio: by my troth, there's one meaning well suited.

You told me to rant......

And as long as we're on the subject of Shakespeare yet, let's move on to my other adored play: that of the Danish Prince. That of the prince that mourns his father and despises his uncle, and takes vengeance for his father on his uncle when bid so by his father's ghost. He pretends to be mad, cuts capers throughout the play until he convicts his mother and accidentally kills Ophelia's father. (Spoilers for the ancient story....)

"What is the matter?"

"Between who?"

"Will you walk out of the air?"

"Into my grave."

Such fun to read, honestly - but was he truly faking it? Or, perchance, did he really go mad? And then I adapted his Soliloquy for a book, studying it.  'Perchance to dream', indeed......

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.

It's not about dreaming. It's about death. It's about someone being so tired  and questioning everything. In the silence, when all is gone.... Putting on a show for everyone else, working for everyone else, and then when the lights turn away and the crowds are gone....   "Be all my sins remembered." "The evil men do live after them, the good is oft' interred with their bones."

When looking at it in that light, it certainly gives a new tack to 'Cheer Up Hamlet'. Because isn't that just what everyone says? "Cheer up. Buck up. Chin up. Stop sulking. Stop pitying yourself. Get ahold of yourself. So your life is terrible - it could be worse, that's no excuse. There are others you need to think about."

There is Ophelia, and there is Horatio. There are the friends we are well aware watch and follow us - those that try to shelter and help us, to hold us back from the worse actions. But life killed Hamlet, and madness killed Ophelia, and guilt killed Claudius, and collateral killed Gertrude, and sorrow bid Horatio live.

And they are all for one and one for all - different shards of the same thing.....

.........and that got morbid even by my standards and didn't say half of what I meant.....

And, seriously??  wherefore doth all of the best lines of Shakespeare go to the men?????? Because I would LOVE to play Shakespeare - it is amazing. Extremely morbid, sure - but amazing. So....challenging and fun and MEMORISING!!!!!!  *grins* "For within that hollow crown keeps Death his court - and there the antic rests."

And now I really want to watch Hamlet again - I'd forgotten how much I love that thing.....  How much I love Shakespeare in general - but I can't find Hollow Crown at the moment....

Although.....That is still an idea. What if someone ran a Shakespeare troupe and left the plays as they were, but just changed most of the parts around? Change the names as need be, and obviously  not all parts would change....  But still.

But Shakespeare wrote it out that way (in a time where women did not act) and Shakespeare is the honourable Bard..... And that idea in us doth seem ambitious....