I know I shouldn’t expect people to, like, know stuff any more and I know it doesn’t really matter, but I post this here because:
1. I can’t believe that I seem to be the only person in the world who has noticed; and
2. It’s not often that that English degree I spent three years studying for comes in handy.
According to the story on the front page of today’s The Age, and apparently every other media outlet in the world, President Obama, speaking at a white tie function at Buck House last night, “concluded his toast with a quote from Shakespeare’s Richard III“:
Obama concluded his toast with a quote from Shakespeare’s Richard III.
‘To her Majesty the Queen, to the vitality of the special relationship between our peoples and in the words of Shakespeare, ‘to this blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.”
Except he didn’t, did he, because that quote isn’t from Richard the third, it’s the John of Gaunt, “This Other Eden” speech from Richard the second:
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England
(Funny how he left out the bit about “against the envy of less happier lands”, can’t think why…)
It’s the sort of thing you might expect a good sub editor to pick up.
Oh. Oops. This is the sort of thing that happens why you sack them all, isn’t it…
Meh. Richard II, Richard III. It’s all the same thing really isn’t it?
