So last week I was a ditz more so than I have been any other time this semester! Bobby Singer would have called me an idgit (idiot). I was forgetting things left and right and one things I forgot has to do with a post. Specifically the post about Shakespeare's life. Most of you probably know this already but just in case here it is.
People were very superstitious during Shakespeare's time. They also had a problem with over population of grave yard plots. One thing they did to solve this problem was employ bone (grave) diggers . There job was to dig up old grave so that new bodies could be buried (Ophelia's grave) and then burn the bones. This is said to be where the term bonfire came from, originally they were known as bone fires.
This being common knowledge, and the bard not being famous enough to guarantee a plot for eternity, Shakespeare, in an effort to prevent his bones from being dug up, based on his understanding people was able to design an epitaph that has insured the security of his bones. This play on the beliefs of Elizabethans and Victorians reads as follows:
To dig the dust enclosed here!
Blest be the man that spares these stones,
And curst be he that moves my bones.
When my sister told me this information after returning from her trip to Europe I laughed and thought what a sneaky son of a gun! You can't help but admire things like this, it is like the ending to Ocean's Eleven or Sneakers where you know they have done something wrong but you can't help but respect the characters for it. It is like this MLIA post, you might be annoyed with them, but you would have to be proud of them:
"Today my 5 siblings were "on strike" since my mom said they couldn't watch TV from 9-4. I went to my room to do homework. They all ran into my room screaming "If you're not with us, you're against us!!!!", hog tied me, then drug me down the hall on my back and stuffed me into my brothers closet. My mom had to come rescue me. MLIA"
