Extracts from Literature
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘Extracts from Literature’
Shylock is savouring revenge on Antonio for years of disgusting mistreatment, but the judge warns him to temper his demands.
In The Merchant of Venice, Antonio has helped his friend Bassanio by borrowing from a Jewish moneylender named Shylock. Antonio has always treated Shylock with disgusting scorn, so when he defaults on his bond Shylock goes gleefully to court to enforce the grisly penalty agreed: a pound of flesh — unaware that Bassanio’s wife Portia has pulled some strings and will judge the case herself, in disguise of course.
Sensing that the Great Fire of Rome in 64 (though entertaining) was damaging his public image, the Emperor Nero looked around for someone to blame.
In 64, a terrible fire swept Rome, and in little over a week two thirds of the city had been destroyed. The whole spectacle had been watched with fascination by the Emperor Nero, from a place of safety of course, strumming on his harp as he sang an epic lay of his own about the Fall of Troy. There were those who said that the whole catastrophe had been Nero’s idea of performance art.
At the Berlin Congress of Powers in 1878, the draft of the Prime Minister’s keynote speech had his anxious aides scuttling about like ants.
On July 13th, 1878, statesmen gathered in Berlin for a Congress of Powers amid high tensions. The Germans had recently invaded France, Russia was demanding Turkey respect the rights of Christians and Turkey was stoking British fears that Russia meant to invade India. Much rested on the tact of Britain’s Prime Minister, Lord Beaconsfield — which was just what his aides were afraid of.
When the angels rebelled against their Maker, they demanded a kingdom of their own in a land without him — and he gave them what they wanted.
In the Anglo-Saxon poem Genesis, we have heard how God created angels to serve him in glory, and how one — dearly beloved, and the mightiest — roused others to bring war against their Maker, craving thrones and servants of their own. The rebels were thrust forth from heaven, but worse awaited them: for a weak and inferior creature called Man was to take their place.
St Bede examines the connection between Passover and Easter, and shows how the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ complete a pattern.
‘Easter’ is a peculiarly English name for the annual feast elsewhere called Pascha, the Greek word for Passover. As eighth-century English monk St Bede explains here, Pascha takes the Israelites’ memorial of their escape from slavery in Egypt and turns it into a memorial of Christ’s death and resurrection, by which he broke the sceptre not of one earthly king, but of the dark powers lording it over all mankind.
Fiery young attorney Thomas Erskine stood up in the House of Commons to denounce a bill aiming to silence critics of the Government.
In December 1795, the Seditious Assemblies Act was passed in Westminster. Aimed at snuffing out sympathy for the French Revolution, the Act banned critics of the King, the Constitution or even Government policy from airing their views in public without prior permission. William Belsham recorded that crusading lawyer Thomas Erskine, MP for Portsmouth, had reacted angrily at this travesty of English liberties.