Given how much I enjoy “knowing a lot of stuff about a lot of stuff,” you’d think I would be religiously following the Jeopardy “Greatest of All Time” (GOAT) Tournament, but I have to admit I wasn’t. I was in to Jeopardy back in the day when they faced off against IBM’s Watson computer and the computer just destroyed everybody. But in the interviews afterward the champion, I think it was Ken Jennings then, too, said something that changed my view of the game. He said, “Anybody that’s up there usually knows most of the answers, it’s a matter of being fastest on the buzzer. And nobody was faster than the computer.” He’s not wrong. Once it becomes obvious that the game is more about details like that and less about who knows more, it’s not nearly as interesting.

That doesn’t mean, though, that we don’t like showing off what we know! Given the chance I don’t mind having it on in the background, just to test what I know but also to add to that knowledge for next time.

Sure enough, what came up as the Final Jeopardy question last night? Our dear dear friend Shakespeare;

He has 272 speeches, the most of any non-title character in a Shakespeare tragedy.

Hat tip to @Bardfilm who actually pointed this out to me, by the way. I wasn’t watching.

Nor, I will admit, did I know the answer. It seems obvious in hindsight but off the top of my head I immediately went to the histories, not realizing that “tragedy” was right there in the clue. I could think of plenty of people that it wasn’t – Polonius, Richard III, Falstaff … but it took him patiently walking me through the clue before I got it.

But I’m not telling the answer, I’ll let you folks work it out in the comments. I’m sure some know it already (whether you saw the episode or not), but some will probably have to guess.

I have got to get back into posting general interest Shakespeare stories. Ever since the rise of social media and the “retweet” it’s too easy to see something cool and then just hit one button and call it a day. Where’s the fun in that?

Today’s story comes from Canada, where a young man bought a gift for his girlfriend. That give was the 1757 Theobald collection of Shakespeare’s Complete Works. He’d spotted it in a used book store and, because their first date had been to see a Shakespeare show, he thought it would be a nice gift to get the set and then give her the volumes one at a time at various milestones of their relationship. (Apparently my man spent $800 on the set, good work getting credit for several gifts out of it!)

Here’s the problem — it was an incomplete set. Volume 6 is missing, and he’s on the hunt for it. Really that’s nothing new, there are used book stores all over multiple continents sporting incomplete “complete works” collections. I used to go looking for them myself. But until this article it never occurred to me to actively go looking for the remaining volumes. Especially in this case, seeing as there’s just the one.

What especially caught my eye was that name, Theobald. Anybody recognize it? He’s actually got quite a history, having a bit of personal beef with Alexander Pope over the editing of Shakespeare’s work. But I spotted his name as being the guy who produced a play called Double Falshood, saying that it was a version of Shakespeare’s lost play Cardenio. From what I recall of the story, Theobald basically said “Oh, yes, I have the Shakespeare originals around here somewhere, this is just the cleaned up version.” But he was never able to produce the originals.

So, does anybody happen to have a Volume 6 1757 Theobald lying around in their collection that they want to get rid of? Strangers things have happened!

Alternately, are there any Theobald scholars in the audience who want to fill in the gaps in my Theobald story?

Hello, hello? Is this thing on?

Just a quick test to run the blog through its paces and see what’s still working and what broke. I was hacked on New Year’s Day (thanks to Bardfilm for quickly spotting it) and in the ensuing flood of restorations and updates it looks like more than a handful of things has changed out from under me.

If you see stuff that looks weird, please let me know, either here or on Twitter!

My mom died earlier this week.

There’s no easy way to say that. There’s a starkness to it. A simplicity and inevitability.  There’s a reason why, when defending the universality and relevance of Shakespeare’s work, I typically start by saying, “Hamlet’s father died.” It is something we all have faced or will face.  Shakespeare faced it. His characters faced it. Now it’s my turn.

Though I talk a lot about my kids, I rarely talk about my parents, and that’s not going to change today. They’re not Shakespearean characters, and it would be making this event all about myself to try and paint it as such.  I know grandparents who are CEOs and sit on boards of directors.  My mom’s purpose was much simpler.  Drop her in the middle of a pile of grandchildren who would inundate her with “Look what I made!” and “Watch me dance!” and “I got a good grade on my report card!” and she would, forever and ever, tell each one how proud she was, and how much she loved them. And that was more than enough.  I could say that we’re all going to miss that, and that will be true.  But also … they know. People have faith in a variety of different things, but my children have never doubted their Nanta loves them and is oh so very proud of them.

So then, let’s talk about Shakespeare.  I’ve thought for a very long time about what I would do when this day finally came. I’m not going to dig through my archives but long time readers may remember that I have, in recent years, said goodbye to my own grandmother, and several aunts.  So the question of how Shakespeare can bring some degree of comfort at a time such as this has come up occasionally.  And here I am this week, putting my own beliefs to the test. I believe that Shakespeare makes life better.

I’ve always known a quote here and snippet there that touches on this moment.  There’s Cleopatra’s “Give me my robe, put on my crown, I have immortal longings in me.”  Or Hamlet’s “I shall not look upon her like again,” if you’ll forgive my pronoun switcheroo. We could do this all day, grabbing a line here or there that catches a bit of the feeling that goes on.  I hadn’t realized until I found a link to that Bobby Kennedy speech, that “Cut her out in little stars and hers  will make the face of heaven shine so bright,” could also work here.

Then there are the longer pieces that allow you to pause for a moment and just kind of soak it in. That feeling that you want to just curl the pages up around you like a blanket.  I found myself staring at  Sonnet  60 the morning  it happened:

Like as the waves make towards the pebbl’d shore,

So do our minutes hasten to their end;

Each changing place with that which goes before,

In sequent toil all forwards do contend.

Nativity, once in the main of light,

Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown’d,

Crooked eclipses ‘gainst his glory fight,

And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.

Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth

And delves the parallels in beauty’s brow,

Feeds on the rarities of nature’s truth,

And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow:

And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand,

Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.

Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,
Nor the furious winter’s rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages:
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

Grief fills the room up of my absent child,
Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,
Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,
Remembers me of all his gracious parts,
Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form;
Then, have I reason to be fond of grief?