The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 22.0221  Tuesday, 6 September 2011

[1] From:         Anna Kamaralli < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

     Date:         September 5, 2011 8:29:22 PM EDT

    Subject:      Re: Q: Mothers 

[2] From:         David Richman < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

     Date:         September 5, 2011 9:05:26 PM EDT

     Subject:     Re: Q: Mothers 

[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------

From:         Anna Kamaralli < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

Date:         September 5, 2011 8:29:22 PM EDT

Subject:      Re: Q: Mothers

Titania speaks of the death in childbirth of the mother of her little human page, in these incredibly beautiful and moving lines:

Set your heart at rest:

The fairy land buys not the child of me.

His mother was a votaress of my order:

And, in the spiced Indian air, by night,

Full often hath she gossip'd by my side,

And sat with me on Neptune's yellow sands,

Marking the embarked traders on the flood,

When we have laugh'd to see the sails conceive

And grow big-bellied with the wanton wind;

Which she, with pretty and with swimming gait

Following,--her womb then rich with my young squire,--

Would imitate, and sail upon the land,

To fetch me trifles, and return again,

As from a voyage, rich with merchandise.

But she, being mortal, of that boy did die;

And for her sake do I rear up her boy,

And for her sake I will not part with him.

Best regards,

Anna Kamaralli

[2]-------------------------------------------------------------

From:         David Richman < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

Date:         September 5, 2011 9:05:26 PM EDT

Subject:     Re: Q: Mothers

Perhaps Beatrice’s mother dies in childbirth.  Beatrice has no parents: her uncle is her guardian and has the disposing of her in marriage. I find quite poignant the following lines—suggestive of death in childbirth. The scene between Beatrice and Don Pedro is, to my mind, one of those magical scenes in which laughter and pain so thoroughly interpenetrate each other that you can hardly tell where the one leaves off and the other begins.

{Prince}. Your silence most offends me, and to be mer-ry,

best becomes you, for out of question, you were born

in a merry howre.

{Beatr}. No sure my Lord, my Mother cried, but then

there was a starre daunst, and vnder that was I borne: co-sins

God giue you ioy.

David Richman

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