Dying in 1587, just as Shakespeare probably got going, Mary Queen of Scots has been a peripheral figure in my reading, writing and teaching over the past few years. Perhaps unjustly. In her book, ‘Elizabeth & Mary: Cousins, Rivals, Queens’, Jane Dunn fascinatingly posits that one queen can only be defined by contrast to her rival.
It’s easy to forget that Shakespeare pre-dates social media …
‘We’re sitting here like a couple regular fellas. You do what you do. I do what I gotta do. And now that we have been face-to-face, if I am there and I got to put you away?
(pause)
I won’t like it. But, if it’s you, or some poor bastard whose wife you’re going to turn into a widow, brother, you are gonna go down.’ [a]
What if Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots had met … ?
Consider Frodo Baggins …
As comfortable middle age approaches, he’s broadly minding his own business, apart from the desire to perhaps go on a few more foreign holidays. Sure, he’s a little eccentric, and keeps a more eclectic circle of friends and acquaintances than many. But fundamentally a ‘nice, well-spoken gentle-hobbit‘, as Gaffer Gamgee might say. Looking forward to not much more than another 50-60 years of smoking his pipe on the doorstep of Bag End; hiking through the Shire at night; writing; and keeping out of the way of those dreadful oiks, the Sackville-Bagginses.
Adventures? No thank you.
All is well, until that meddling magician, Gandalf arrives …
Continue reading “QotW (#82) Some Have Greatness Thrust Upon Them”
