Poem for Monday

A Midsummer Night's Dream Epilogue
By William Shakespeare

If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber'd here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend:
if you pardon, we will mend:
And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck
Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue,
We will make amends ere long;
Else the Puck a liar call;
So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.

--------

Poem in honor of the RenFaire where we spent most of the day, getting up very early so we could be certain to arrive in time for the original Fight School, which we had not seen in three years. (It's still hilarious, and at one point when one of the performers was fake-dying and was in the process of announcing dramatically that he was slain, my younger son yelled, "SUCKER!" and the entire place including the guys onstage cracked up and the performer broke off his speech, saying he couldn't top that.) We also saw a very entertaining abbreviated Midsummer Night's Dream, an hour and fifteen minutes long, with some rather non-traditional interpretations (Bottom as a cross between Yosemite Sam and George W. Bush, Hippolyta as a middle-aged lusty wench who doesn't want to wait for the wedding night) and an absolutely hysterical production of "The Most Lamentable Comedy And Most Cruel Death of Pyramus & Thisby" in which "Thisby" prematurely popped one of her balloon-breasts embracing Pyramus and them couldn't get the sword to pop the other during her suicide scene.

We wanted to see the Squire of the Wire, but he wasn't performing where the schedule said he would be -- possibly because there were very strong winds whipping through the park by then, so wire-walking might have been dangerous for everyone. We saw the O'Danny Girls, whose show was said to be rated PG but I'd put it at more of an R, as most of the numbers were lewd versions of Irish classics and popular drinking songs -- hysterical, but I was hoping my kids didn't catch a lot of the lyrics! We saw a bit of the Rogues, the Human Chess Game and numerous guitar and dulcimer players. And of course we went to two jousts, though we missed the final one because after the wind it began to rain, and we decided we should get out while our luck held! So (whom I got to see very briefly, huzzah) must tell me how it went! I only took the little camera so my shoulders wouldn't give out from carrying a camera bag...


Pyramus and Thisbe explain to Theseus and Hippolyta that they're not quite dead yet.


Rule Number One: We always talk about fight school! Rule Number Two: You know more than you think you do! Rule Number Three: We are trained professionals!


On the jousting tournament grounds, Sir Henry Clifford demonstrates his skill with a sword...


...and on horseback. Which I watched while eating orange ices out of an actual half-orange, which made taking pictures a sticky affair. (Also had a smoked turkey leg and a lemon with a hollow peppermint stick straw stuck in it, which is one of the best things ever...)


Dancing round the Maypole, a bit off-season...maybe it was a Mabon-pole.

And at night I watched the Brotherhood season finale (it is such a relief to call it that, rather than just finale!) Which I enjoyed enormously, particularly the discovery that at Irish weddings just like Jewish Bar Mitzvahs, everyone is still stuck musically in the late 1970s, the height of American civilization. Also that Rose is a Jewish mother even if she's Irish ("Don't mind me, I don't mind sitting here alone...") The episode felt rushed and there was so much unresolved -- Pete sure cleans up nicely, but what the hell, he was only around for five seconds! And Judd is an asshole, but at least now we know the reason he speaks in overblown metaphors is supposed to be that he's losing it, not that he's written as a cliche. After being at the RenFaire I had to giggle at Eileen's belief that Tommy is like a medieval knight...she has the last line of the episode, "We have to talk," and for every way in which she's screwed up, there is so much he isn't telling her, just like his friend Declan and his wife who really wanted a medieval knight and found out that she just had a struggling cop. Considering how cynical this series has been all along about family, it was no surprise to discover that the bride didn't really want to be there!

Except for Michael...who for all his faults -- to quote Freddie speaking to Tommy, "Your brother's a pandemic. He's a Biblical plague. Flies, frogs, locusts and Michael Fucking Caffee...he's a plague and we've got to take care of him before he kills us all!" -- is the one person who DOES believe in family. Well, and Tommy, who tells Freddie that no matter what what Michael is, he's still Tommy's brother and if Freddie hurts him, Tommy will have his revenge. (Freddie says Tommy said he could break Michael's legs. Tommy says that offer expired. Freddy reminds Tommy he bribed a church for him and took fifteen thousand for himself. Ouch!) Tommy keeps discovering that he can't count on a single one of his so-called friends or political allies, but he can count on his brother who everyone says he has to get rid of. Michael says he'd cut off his hand or give Tommy all his money, but he can't leave home again -- "I'm not leaving again till I die" -- and it's heartbreaking because he means it, and even Mary Rose gets it. But Michael can't get a break; he tells Tommy to tell the prosecutors everything he knows, says he knows his return has been hard on Tommy, says it's okay if Tommy hates him...and they hug. And then Declan nearly kills Michael in his fury over having lost his wife and sold out his life for a family he's not part of. If this series had ended like that, I would seriously hate the producers, so they are just lucky I know we're getting more next year.

And now I must go, as I have pie and porn on the schedule for tomorrow!