Michael sent me this one.
In Pompeii, in 237 B.C., Flavius Romulus produced in his garden, a strawberry of prodigious proportions. Word soon got out that there was a strawberry well worth seeing at a house in the Via Ladra. Flavius carefully placed the berry on an ornate marble pedestal in the center of his courtyard. Crowds thronged to the house and each passerby tried to outdo his predecessor in lavish praise of the berry.
Neighbors, some very well connected, quickly tired of the chariots, the horse droppings, all the noise and commotion and they complained to the authorities.
Soon, a Centurion and his squad barged in, and set up a perimeter around the pedestal.
When Flavius asked the Centurion, “Did you men also come to praise my berry?” the Centurion replied,
“Sir, we came not to praise your berry, but to seize it.”
I can already hear all the raspberries because of this groaner.
I see from the comments that some of you don’t get it. For those of you who do not understand this groaner I ask, don’t they teach Shakespeare in the schools anymore? Have you people who don’t get it not been exposed to Shakespeare’s play, Julius Caesar and Marc Antony’s speech?
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
I had to learn that speech in high school and I can still recite the first eight lines of it 50 years later. Likewise Hamlet’s To be or not to be soliloquy. JHFC! Education really has gone down the shitter in this country. Not only did we study Hamlet and Julius Caesar but Macbeth as well. Shakespeare is one of those old white men and was prolly a racist so he can’t be taught in the schools anymore. Sad. Very, very sad. No wonder a racist idiot like Obungleer got elected twice.
Surely Claudia can come up with something – anything – to beat that groaner. Please, Claudia – – –
We all know how painful it can be to have your berry seized.
I don’t get it……..
Glad I’m not the only one. Is it so bad it’s incomprehensible?
Something about burying Caesar. That’s all I know.
Et tu, Denny …
“Brutal”
We’re just attending a berryal. No point to feel crushed and to overly wine. And Roming away will not solve the berry sad jam we’re in. Let’s all stop carping. We all know that our days are numbered. The die is cast for the GOC Legion and, every Monday Night, we’re called upon to groan no matter what the Flav(i)or is. Laetificat!
English is Claudia’s second language and she gets it. She knows who Shakespeare is and has prolly read many of his plays. The state of education in this country is horrible. We let the liberals take over the schools and this is what we get. No more classical education just socialist indoctrination.
… and in my sophomore English class in HS, back in ’66-’67, when we were tested on our ability to write out, verbatim, Marc Antony’s speech, Miss Moseley deducted points if punctuation was incorrect!
Denny – The Latin I learned, in my French College, also helped me with this pun. I could never forget “Carpe diem” and “Alea jacta est”.
But, of course, I read Shakespeare. I actually learned English to be able to read Hamlet in the original language. At 16, I had to write an essay on the play. And Shakespeare in French was agonising. I vowed to myself that, one day, I would understand it all. After I became a nurse, in Montreal, I went to work in English Canada and learned the language by immersion. It took 5 years before I could tackle the Bard. I was 25 then. And I’m still at it, at 85. Who has ever finished reading Shakespeare?
Like you, throughout the years, I memorised many passages. I recite them to myself only as my accent is atrocious. My favourite play is Henry V. My favourite passage is the St Crispin’s Day Speech. I became an enthusiastic anglophile fighting, next to Henry, at Agincourt.
I love it whenever you put your own personal version of the speech. And I’m still faithfully with you, for so many years, because of your love and understanding of Bach and of Shakespeare. “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers…..”
I took Latin in 9th and 10th grade. Read Caesar’s Gallic Wars in second year Latin. And Latin really improved my English as well as helping me with French which I took in 11th and 12th grade. They prolly don’t even teach Latin in public schools anymore. The state of education in America is pathetic which explains how Obungler got elected not once but twice. The majority of people graduating from high school today are not ready for college and have to take remedial classes in the first year of college. I was fortunate to attend very good schools, which is one of the reasons my parents bought a house in Webster Groves in the suburbs of St. Louis. Writing was stressed. The teachers at our high school expected us to go to college so they prepped us for it. There was discipline. We had a dress code. Girls had to wear dresses or skirts. No slacks unless there was a bad snowstorm. A girl was even sent home for wearing culottes. Boys had to wear shirts with collars. When it got hot, boys could wear shorts, but they had to also wear knee socks. No cutoff shorts. That all changed in the 70’s. No more dress codes. Girls could wear bluejeans. Boys and girls could wear T-shirts. Education standards went down as well. I’m an atheist, but if I had children I would try to get them into Catholic schools. It is so sad to see what my generation, baby boomers, have done to this country. Clinton, Obungler, and Cankles. I am so ashamed!
Friends Romans countrymen, lend me your ears. I’ll return them on Friday….. I come to bury Caesar. his folks are poor and can’t afford a proper funeral.
Wish I still had that book of Prose and Poetry.
I just wanna know where I can get some of those berries. We have Rhubarb and need to make some pie.
Never learned Shakespeare.., by the time I hit Junior High in the 70’s education was already going down the drain fast. Many of the teacher were already socialist a communists. Dead serious. Most students were undisciplined and just wanted to fight and do drugs and get drunk. Many dropped out, never even graduated high school. So yes my education sucks compared to your Denny. I wish I had learned Shakespeare and many other things.
Hey, defshepard, not to worry about when you went to school. The decline had been happening for years before that, it was just becoming more pronounced. You may’ve thought you didn’t learn the Bard, but Romeo & Juliet was re-done as West Side Story. Had to dumb it down for the elites who would never have understood it in Old English.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that WSS wasn’t great in its own right.