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Trix
Explains (Most of) English 3
A kind of short
person steps out from out of nowhere. Looking at the audience, other
people in Burger Hut, where he worked, he begins to speak.
“All right,
so I was visiting ye olde England, between 449 and 1066, right? All
back where there was the heroic ideal and nature still mattered, not
to mention religion, and the first thing I came upon was some small
piece of work about Caedmon’s hymn. It must have been made through
divine inspiration, cause it was all way over my head, but I know
that that Caedmon was good at singing what he’d seen in dreams.”
“Things got weird when all the Anglo-Saxon guys came in.”
“Then I saw some old nameless “Seafarer” meandering about. He told
me of his hardships (as if they make soft ships) at sea and about
his feelings of fear on the sea when he was inexperienced, and his
feelings now as an experienced seafarer. He told me to love god and
praise him, and I said that I already owned a bible, and had already
found Jesus. He went away looking disgusted. I don’t think he liked
his meal.”
“Then some “Wanderer” entered and asked me where there was a good
mead hall. He also wanted to know where everyone was. He kept saying,
‘Ubi sunt? Ubi sunt?’. This was around the 900s, and while he was
talking about religion, his concluded his elegy and left. I never
got his name either.”
“Even weirder was this ranting guy named Cynewulf. He claimed that
he was a bad man: a sinner. Then, he had some “Dream” of a tree that
became a jewel-emblazoned cross. The rood then told him that, though
it wanted to defend the savior as he was being made to be nailed to
it, it did not go against the will of God. It was badly scarred and
was buried. It was brought up by Christ’s followers and adorned. It
told him of how Jesus saved everyone, and he turned from his sinful
ways. He told me he would write his experience down and that it would
become the best religious poem of its time, and I said he needed a
cold shower. He just sort of walked away after that.”
“Lastly, some unknown guy came in, all beaten up and everything, and
told me that he was friends with another guy named “Beowulf. He said
that his friend had followed a Heroic Ideal and had a mix of Christian
and Pagan beliefs. He then proceeded to tell me the epic narrative
of his friend’s struggles. Apparently, ol’ Beowulf went and tore off
Grendel’s arm. He then proceeded to kill off Grendel’s mother, too.
After that, he went and fought a dragon and he won…sort of. Well,
both of them died, and this guy was lamenting his friend’s death.
All the while, this guy told me all about nature. I gave him a Veggie
Pounder With Cheese, and he left.”
“All right, so all these people told me how important loyalty was
to them. Then they told me about King Alfred the Great and how they
were all Christianized around the 700s. I looked at the clock and
realized that only the drive-thru was supposed to be open at that
time of night, 1066, and shooed them out of the restaurant.”
“The next day,
in 1066, the Normans came into the restaurant and started going all
Medieval on the place. Those French people hung around for 250 years
and never wanted my fries. Meanwhile, the Anglo-Saxons were lowered,
as they didn’t have as much money. The crazy Normans built round towers
and fortresses around the building. When they weren’t off fighting,
they were very pious and polite. Course, they went off crusading,
foolishly. The only positive was they brought more people and commerce,
plus medicine and a cash register, allowing Burger Hut’s employees
to increase their skills in mathematics. Then, all the people around
me started dying of the ‘Black Death’… some bad drink from McBubonic’s
I think… The survivors came in and started to sing ballads to me.”
“Someone told me about how he was bickering with his wife about barring
the door. During that time, a couple of crooks came in and took their
belongings. Then, when the guy spoke, his wife told him that he had
lost the bet and had to “Get Up and Bar the Door”.”
“Someone else bemoaned the disappearance of one Bonny George Campbell,
who had gone riding off at some point earlier on. Only the horse came
back, but there was blood on the saddle. The wife and mother were
distressed because they wouldn’t have someone to do all their chores
for them.”
“Another person told me about Bonny Barbara Allen, who had been upset
at being slighted by her lover. Her lover then died for her, and she
found out. She told her mother to make her bed narrow, as a coffin,
so she could die for her lover tomorrow. They were buried, and from
their graves came a rose and briar, which fused together in love.
I told that person that he should get some sleep.”
“All these supernatural people filed out and in their place came a
trade guild. They acted out their ‘miracle plays’, portraying messages
from the bible.”
“Then, a Frenchman named Malory came in and started to say, “L’Morte
d’Arthur”. I told him to speak in English, and he proceeded to tell
me of King Arthur, who fought bad old Pellinore and was saved by Merlin.
Apparently, he thought it was a romance. Times were strange back then.”
“Another guy came in telling me about his ‘romance’, “Sir Gawain and
the Green Knight”. Didn’t get his name, though. Gawain encountered
the green knight, disguised as a lord. The lord welcomed him into
his house and asked only that Gawain return everything he took. Gawain
returned everything except a belt that would make him impervious,
because he feared this jolly green giant guy. Turns out that it was
all just a test of character, and Gawain paid his penance for his
sin by receiving a slight nick from the giant’s axe. I listened to
the story closely, then calmly explained that we didn’t carry canned
peas and that other people were in line. He scoffed and sulked away.”
“Then, Everyman came in and put on an allegorical play, extolling
good deeds as the one thing that would get a person into heaven. I
told him that the closest thing to ‘good deeds’ that we had was the
Grilled B’Chicken salad.”
“Some guy named Chaucer heard me and piped up, “I hope you’re not
eating Chaunticleer: The Nun’s Priest would get very mad. He then
went on about his realist beliefs and told me of all the people he
had met on his way to the Burger Hut. He noted the corruptions of
church officials by telling me to avoid the Friar, the Monk, the Pardoner,
and the Summoner.”
“Then, in 1215, the Magna Carta was signed, and all those spirits
got bodies of representation, thanks to habeus corpus. Meanwhile,
all the churches nearby were large cathedrals built in a gothic manner
with pointed arches, high cielings, and flying buttresses. At the
same time, there were all these jousting tournaments, and many religious
happenings.”
“I closed the
place for the night. When I woke up and went back to work, it was
1485, and some guy named Henry VII, calling himself the ‘1st Tudor
Monarch’, came in and ordered a Royale with Cheese. I told him that
he could get that at McBubonic’s, but our ‘Pounder Burger’ was much
better. He paid me with some sort of sonnet: an Italian one. It had
‘abba abba cde cde’ written all over it. He said to get used to it,
now that we were in Elizabethan times. He took his ‘Pounder’ and walked
out.”
“A bunch of shepherds came in talking about how impermanent everything
was. They said to live life to the fullest and be carefree. They were
speaking in pastoral poetry and looking for patrons. I told them they
should work for us if that was their game, but they refused, choosing
to stay with the countryside that they loved.”
“A guy named Edmund Spencer applied to be “Fairy Queene”. He used
new forms to apply, and practiced different meters as he waited.”
“Henry VIII came and went, and then came this big monarch butterfly
named Elizabeth I. She was a patron and a shrewd politician and watched
her navy defeat the Spanish Armada in 1588.”
“Ben Jonson came in and was mourning his dead son. His friend William
Shakespeare entered and started rambling off great things.”
“Shakespeare told me of MacBeth, who was crazy and went on a killing
spree before being killed himself by Macduff. I told him that McBubonic’s
had the McBeth, and that he’d have to choose from our better quality
burgers. Unfortunately for him, he asked for a Hamlet, so I gave him
the inferior ‘Pounder Jr.’. He held it up and spoke to it, saying,
“To be or not to be”. The sonnet that he paid me with had ‘abab cdcd
efef gg’ written all over it. Ol’ Shakey then went to eat with Jonson.”
“Then a prodigal son showed up and spent all his money at the register.
He said that he was part of a parable and had to go home so that his
father would forgive him and celebrate his turning away from his lavish
ways, so I gave him his meal ‘to go’.”
“Then, some guy named Bacon (you can imagine how confusing that was)
came in and ordered something else we didn’t have. He asked for some
books to taste, some books to swallow, and some books to chew and
digest. I told him that we weren’t a café, and he got angry
and left. He forgot his bacon.”
“After that, King James came in with 53 other people. They were all
discussing translating the bible to Elizabethan. I told them that
they should have been here when the seafarer was around, and they
just looked at me oddly and made their orders.”
“That was basically the night. I closed at 1625 and went home.”
“The next day,
starting at 1625, there was a big hubbub at the restaurant. The new
sign outside said, ‘Welcome to the Seventeenth Century”. The greatest
poet of the time, Milton, ordered a ‘Puritan Burger’. I told him that
we were not CrabappleBee’s, and that he should tell anyone he saw
to look at the menu before ordering something we didn’t have. He got
our limited edition ‘Pounder Epic’, saying that that was his kind
of thing.”
“Then there was a big civil war, and the king, Charles I got angry
and lost his head. Cromwell swooped in and ruled with a protectorate.
During the war, the sides were the Cavaliers and the Roundheads. Kind
of like breakfast and lunch. Well, breakfast, the puritan Roundhead,
fought with lunch. Then there was a restoration of the monarchy with
Charles II. Then the kings were kicked out during the Glorious Revolution,
and the Germans were brought in. The monarchy really had no power
by now. Parliament had taken it.”
“A bunch of metaphysical poets came in, led by John Donne. They spoke
in extended metaphors and kept calling their speech conceited. Donne
started “Forbidding Mourning” by telling how his love and he were
a ship’s compass. He then meditated and started preaching. He told
me that “no man is an island”. He went on to say that McBubonic’s
shouldn’t be so proud of it’s McDeathburger. He said that after eating
that, one would always wind up at Burger Hut, where we serve ‘The
Afterlife’ and ‘Reincarnation salad’, and that this would inevitably
kill off the McDeathburger.”
“Another was George Herbert. He came in at Easter and ordered wings.
I told him to look at the stores emblem and asked him if he saw a
picture of fried chicken on it. Quickly, the line diminished and he
left. Then, seeing that things were better, more people came back
and the line got bigger again.”
“After that came the Cavalier Poets. Lovelace, Suckling, Whither,
and Herrick came in. They all wanted dead fish, saying ‘Carpe diem,
carpe diem’. I told them that it was fishing season and that they
should seize the day before their time was up. They talked of love,
patriotism, freedom, and youth. Suckling, merrily, said that he was
so very faithful, and had lasted for three whole days in a relationship.
Lovelace put a damper on the occasion by ordering ‘Honor before love’,
another menu item we don’t have. Herrick warned me that I should “Gather
ye rosebuds while ye may”. I told him we didn’t have rosebuds, either.”
“Milton came back up to order, or so I thought. He told me that he
was looking for his “Paradise Lost”. He spoke in an epic. He made
it clear that, though Satan was clever and cunning, he was EVIL!.
The hero, he said, was God. As a matter of fact, after his lengthy
discourse, he told me that he had been speaking to justify the ways
of god.”
“Milton continued to wander about his blindness, asking how he could
continue to serve the lord. God, apparently, told him that he didn’t
need his help. I told him that he was going to need someone’s help
if he wanted to order from the menu, but he just kept talking.”
“He said that Shakespeare had left a monument in his works. He then
went on to do a study in contrast. He went off about “L’Allegro” and
“Il Pentiroso”, dividing his speech by mood and rhythm.”
“John Bunyan came along, telling me about a “Vanity Fair” (From “Pilgrim’s
Progress”), in which there was an allegorical message, being portrayed
by Lord Hate-good, Mr. Love-lust, Christian, and Faithful.”
“Samuel Pepys came in and ordered a flame-broiled ‘Pounder’. Finally,
I found someone good at looking the menu. He left behind his diary,
which told me all about the London fire, Charles II’s coronation,
the execution of the death warrant signer of Charles I, and all of
his personal faults.”
“John Dryden came in and told me that he was the father of English
prose. He paid with an “Essay on Dramatic Poesy”. Afterward, he turned
around and viciously slandered a man named Shadwell who apparently
thought he was superior.”
“I’d definitely had enough for one day. I knew that, at 1700, I was
calling it quits, and I did.”
“I woke up in
the Eighteenth Century. A man named Defoe came up and ordered a “Robinson
Crusoe”. He paid with some fiction account of the plague year. I read
it and didn’t understand his political message, but noticed that he
had done a lot of research for it.”
“Then, we started getting newspapers from some guys named Addison
and Steele: The Tatler and the Spectator. They reported on “Witchcraft”
and “Dueling”: talking about the controversies of the times.”
“A bunch of satirists came in and I told them that they could stay
as long as they hid their pentagrams. They didn’t know what I meant
though. They did, however, go on to pick on people’s faults.”
“Alexander Pope came in and talked about “The Rape of the Lock”, his
mock-epic. He was mocking a bizarre feud over a hunk of hair. He told
me about all the battles and boasting to tell me just how foolish
the whole thing was. He paid with his book of epigrams, but I didn’t
get to look at it yet.”
“Doctor Samuel Johnson followed. He paid with his dictionary, which
was intertwined with his wit. He told me of the “Lives of the Poets”
and critiqued the writings of other people in the room.”
“Boswell, Johnson’s friend, followed him in. He wrote a descriptive
biography about Johnson, which he used to pay for his meal.”
“Jonathon Swift came in and got ready to order. He told me that managers
with Lilliputian minds ran our brobdignagian store, and that few people
were up to snuff with his Houyhnhnm intellect. He ordered “Fried Baby”
and left me with a “Modest Proposal”: slice and dice the impoverished
babies and prepare them as food. He told me that the English should
stop abusing the Irish and left.”
“PreRomantics followed. Oliver Goldsmith came in and began to lament
the effect of the Enclosure acts on his perfect village. He got mad
and bit a dog, I think, or…or something…how ironic.”
“Thomas Gray came from the “Country Churchyard”. He elevated the peasants,
telling me not to mock them.”
“Bobbie Burns came in from Scotland. He also elevated the peasants.
He talked in dialect one minute, confusing me, and turned around and
talked eloquently the next. He told me of how he upturned a mouse’s
home on accident, and I offered him ‘The Rat, with Cheese’. He went
on to tell about how there was a louse on a fine lady’s bonnet and
how it would have been good for the woman to have been able to see
it as he could, before anyone else noticed.”
“Blake came in and ordered and apple. He sang to me his songs of “Innocence”
and “Experience”. He further ordered a ‘Lamburger’ and asked who made
it. I told him that we had an expert team of hamburger flippers in
the back that had made it, and if he didn’t believe me, he should
go and see for himself. He declined and, instead, told of the chimneysweeper.
He then conjured up a burning tiger, which set fire to the cash register.
Since no one paid in cash, I grabbed all the documents and ran out.
When I saw him outside, he held the apple tightly. His nemesis, umm,
Darth Vader, showed up. Blake withheld his apple while carving pictures
for his poems. All I can figure is he got angry and pegged Darth Vader
really hard with the apple, because when I came back, Darth was lying
under a tree.
“During my entire
time at Burger Hut, and later at the rebuilt ‘Burger Hut X’, many
people said things that I’d like to share with you.”
“Marlowe said,
‘Come live with me and be my love’
“Milton’s Satan said,
‘All is not lost’
‘To be weak is to be miserable’
‘Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven’
“His God told him, in regards to his blindness:
‘They also serve who only stand and wait’
“Lovelace said,
‘Stone walls do not a prison make’
“Tennyson said,
‘Better to have loved and lost…’
“Shelley said,
‘Hail to thee, blithe spirit’
‘If winter comes, can spring be far behind?’
“Shakespeare’s Polonius said,
‘To thine own self be true’
‘Neither a borrower or a lender be’
“He himself said, in Sonnet 116,
‘Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments’
“Gray declared,
‘The paths of glory lead but to the grave’
“Pope declared, in his epigrams,
‘To err is human, to forgive, divine’
‘Little learning is a dangerous thing’
‘Fools rush in where angels fear to tread’
‘Just as the twig is bent, the tree’s inclined’
“Burns said,
‘The best laid plans of mice and men go astray’
‘See ourselves as others see us’
‘Let us do or die’
“Keats said,
‘Beauty is truth, truth, beauty.’
‘A thing of beauty is a joy forever’
“Coleridge said,
‘Water, water, everywhere’
‘All creatures great and small’
‘A sadder but wiser man’
“Liz Browning said,
‘How do I love thee?’
“William Wordsworth said,
‘Nature never did betray the heart that loved her’.”
“I’m totally
finished. I never talk this much…except when prompted.”
Everyone there glares at him. He shrugs and says,
“May I take your order?”
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