“We lost our balance, swayed, Wren trapped and laughing at the heart of our human knot. The sound shivered through us, moving fluidly from one body to the next like a breath of warm air.                                        - if we were villains by m.l. rio

But that is how a tragedy like ours or King Lear breaks your heart—by making you believe that the ending might still be happy, until the very last minute.

per aspera ad astra. i’d heard a variety of translations, but the one i liked best was through the thorns, to the stars.

“were you in love with him?” “yes,” i say, simply. james and i put each other through the kind of reckless passions gwendolyn once talked about, joy and anger and desire and despair. after all that, was it really so strange? i am no longer baffled or amazed or embarrassed by it. “yes, i was.” it’s not the whole truth. the whole truth is, i’m in love with him still.

‘’This,” James said, when he had disappeared. “This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in fortune—often the surfeit of our own behavior—we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars … as if we were villains on necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforc’d obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting-on!

enter the players. there were seven of us then, seven bright young things with wide precious futures ahead of us, though we saw no farther than the books in front of our faces. we were always surrounded by books and words and poetry, all the fierce passions of the world bound in leather and vellum.

“In that one brief moment, I actually wondered if “okay” or something like it might still be possible. But that is how a tragedy like ours or King Lear breaks your heart—by making you believe that the ending might still be happy, until the very last minute.”

but in shakespeare’s world, passion is irresistible, not embarrassing.

there is no comfort like complicity.

- it was just us - the seven of us and the trees and the sky and the lake and the moon and, of course, shakespeare. he lived with us like an eighth housemate, an older, wiser friend, perpetually out of sight but never out of mind, as if he had just left the room

domination, excessive control, lack of discipline, inflexibility. in the reversed position, the emperor can be domineering and rigid in his thinking. it suggests an over-use and abuse of authoritative power. upright, the emperor represents a powerful leader who demands respect and authority while desiring status, power, and recognition.