Your Shakespeare Lesson for the Day

I remember the good old days when I actually had pretensions to do something other than programming. I came across this posting on the web this morning (I was digging around in Yahoo and Google based on some referrals to my blog), from back when I lived and breathed English literature and history. I was actually reading Lear for fun at the time. It makes me just a little sad to realize I didn't follow this path in life. Of course, if I'd have stuck with every path in life that I had temporarily been on, like Navy ROTC (they FUBARed it, I escaped), I'd have been either dropping smart bombs on Iraqis through one or two conflicts during my 6+ post-college years with them, or designing better materials for smart bombs so someone else could drop them. Not really my cup o' tea.

(I'm the responder, by the way, not the questioner).

From: Scott D. McVay
Date: Monday, 17 Mar 1997 20:46:43 -0500 (EST)
Subject: 8.0363 Re: Disguise and Queries
Comment: Re: SHK 8.0363 Re: Disguise and Queries

In a message dated 97-03-17 10:08:31 EST, Lisa Hopkins
writes:

<< b) I was reading _King Lear_ last night and was struck for the
first time by the phrase 'milk of Burgundy'. The Arden editor glosses
this as something like 'pasture - the effect for the cause', but does
anyone know of any other comments? >>

I have The Complete Signet Classic Shakespeare (1972), with a trans. of
King Lear by Russell Fraser (U of Michigan). His note on I.i.84 -- "The
vines of France and milk of Burgundy" is: "milk i.e., pastures."
Wouldn't Lear just be categorizing France and Burgundy by their
stereotypical agricultural products?

Scott D. McVay (TudorVII)