Floodlights and Goalposts

An online commonplace book

Is this nothing?

LEONTES                                                                         Is whispering nothing?

Is leaning cheek to cheek? Is meeting noses?
Kissing with inside lip? stopping the career
Of laughter with a sigh? - a note infallible
Of breaking honesty! - horsing foot on foot?
Skulking in corners? wishing clocks more swift?
Hours, minutes? noon, midnight? and all eyes
Blind with the pin and web but theirs, theirs only,
That would unseen be wicked? Is this nothing?
Why, then the world and all that's in't is nothing,
The covering sky is nothing, Bohemia nothing,
My wife is nothing, nor nothing have these nothings,
If this be nothing.

Getting those Ecclesiastes vibes reading Leontes’ accusations of Hermione and Polixenes.

We see what we want to.

William Shakespeare. The Winter’s Tale. Edited by Frances E. Dolan. Series edited by Stephen Orgel. New York: Penguin Classics, 2017. pg 16


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