Friday, October 20, 2006

Tempest in a blog comment

Sometimes it's the little things. That's why I love this internets thing. There are always lots of little things.

I stumbled onto this little exchange on a rather large political blog I've been known to frequent:

* Off topic to khereva

"And he'll never drown, for he was born to hang."


Where do you have that expression from? I've not seen it in English before.

In Norwegian it's "He drowns not, who was meant to be hanged." Often used
to shrug off what could have been a life-threatening situation.


*
* It's an old sailor's myth...

...that a man destined to hang could die by no other means before meeting his destiny. It shows up in Shakespeare's Tempest, Act 1 Scene 1, Gonazalo (speaking of the Boatswain):

I have great comfort from this fellow. Methinks he hath no drowning mark upon him, his complexion is perfect gallows. Stand fast, good Fate, to his hanging, make the rope of his destiny our cable, for our own doth little advantage. If he be not born to be hang'd, our case is miserable.


Stuff like this reminds me how much I miss hanging out with my friends.

4 comments:

S.M. Elliott said...

Norwegian Shakespeare? Cool.

Anonymous said...

We used to string somebody up at least once, sometimes twice a week. God, those were good times.

Shawn said...

SME - The world needs more Norwegian Shakespeare's...if you ask me.

Josh - It was the bi-weekly drownings that I always enjoyed. That, and the monthly wienie roast that Peter would do.

tshsmom said...

Yeah SME; I think we just found our niche. ;)
How come we never heard that expression before?

Thanks, Shawn! That was informative...and FUN!