Mortal Coil Quotes

To die, - To sleep, - To sleep! Perchance to dream: - ay, there's the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause: there's the respect That makes calamity of so long life;

To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep; No more; and by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep; To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause: there's the respect That makes calamity of so long life; For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pangs of despised love, the law's delay, The insolence of office and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, The undiscover'd country from whose bourn No traveller returns, puzzles the will And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, And enterprises of great pith and moment With this regard their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action.--Soft you now! The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons Be all my sins remember'd!

They say sarcasm is the lowest form of wit," Valkyrie said. China glanced at her. "They've obviously never met me.

It's not that I want you to go, it's just that I don't want you to stay." - China Sorrows -

Stairs," Valkyrie said, disappointed. "Not just ordinary stairs," Skulduggery told her as he led the way down. "Magic stairs." "Really?" "Oh, yes." She followed him into the darkness. "How are they magic?" "They just are." "In what way?" "In a magicky way." She glared at the back of his head. "They aren't magic at all, are they?" "Not really.

I need a weapon,” Valkyrie muttered. “You’re an Elemental with a Necromancer ring, trained in a variety of martial arts by some of the best fighters in the world,” Skulduggery pointed out. “I’m fairly certain that makes you a weapon.” “I mean a weapon you hold. You have a gun, Tanith has a sword... I want a stick.” “I’ll buy you a stick for Christmas.

So he has no head' 'Thats usually what headless means' 'No head at all?' 'Your really not getting the whole headless thing are you?' 'Its just kind of silly even for us...

Plans are invitation to disappointment.

Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep; To sleep, perchance to dream—For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause, there's the respect, That makes calamity of so long life

You're under arrest for multiple counts of murder. You have the right to not much at all, really. Do you have anything to say in your defense?

She had been a teenager once, and she knew that, despite the apparent contradictions, a person's teenage years lasted well into their fifties.

I find it rude to laugh at a man with a sword.

But I'm really enjoying my retirement. I get to sleep in every day. I do crossword puzzles and eat cake.

Sometimes it's not what you say, Valkyrie, it's just the fact that you're saying it.

Personally, I think knees should be kept for the eighth or ninth date, or the wedding day. As a nice surprise you know? 'oh, my darling, you have knees! I never would have thought

Corrival looked around. 'So is this it? Is everyone here? Erskine, maybe you should start the ball rolling. I have places to go and things to do.' 'Me?' Ravel asked. 'Why do I have to start it? You're the most respected mage here. You start it, or Skulduggery.' Skulduggery shook his head. 'I can't start it. I don't like most of these people. I might start shooting.

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,Must give us pause

I mean you ACRES of harm,' Dalrymple growled. 'Untold QUANTITIES of harm. I will visit a whole CONTINENT of harm upon you before we are through.

Don’t kill me,” he sobbed as he lay there. “Oh God, please don’t kill me.” “If you had let me finish,” Skulduggery said, slightly annoyed, “you would have heard me say, ‘Come out, we’re not going to hurt you’. Idiot.” “He probably wouldn’t have said idiot,” Valkyrie told the sobbing man. “We’re trying our best to be nice.” The man blinked through his tears, and looked up. “You’re... You’re not going to kill me?” “No, we’re not,” Valkyrie said gently, “so long as you wipe your nose right now.

Valkyrie Cain got out of the passenger side. She zipped up her black jacket against the cold, and joined Skulduggery as he walked up to the front door. She glanced at him, and saw that he was smiling. "Stop doing that,” she sighed. “Stop doing what?” Skulduggery responded in that gloriously velvet voice of his. “Stop smiling. The person we want to talk to lives in the only dark house on a bright street. That’s not a good sign.” “I didn’t realise I was smiling,” he said. They stopped at the door, and Skulduggery made a concerted effort to shift his features. His mouth twitched downwards. “Am I smiling now?” “No.” “Excellent,” he said, and the smile immediately sprang back up.

The problem with living so long is that we get used to it. We watch the mortals age and wither and die around us, watch the world change and decay...but no matter the hardship or the pain or the sorrow we suffer, we choose to continue living. Out of sheer habit, I think.

Valkyrie smiled patiently. "I like how you do your make-up. Do you use a brush, or just dip your head in the bucket?

I understand perfectly. Darquesse isn't a separate entity. She isn't another person. She's you. If you make the wrong choices, if you stop loving the people who love you, if you allow the world to twist and turn and change you, then yes, the future we've seen will come to pass. But if you fight, and if you kick, and struggle, and refuse to give in to the apathy, or the anger, or the hopelessness, then you'll change the future, and you'll walk your own path. And I'll be right there beside you, Valkyrie. I'll always be beside you.

When you love someone for their mind, you can't expect that their heart will belong to you too.

Tanith frowned. Did people still go on DATES any more? She was sure they did. They probably called it something different though. She tried to think of the last date she'd been on. The last PROPER date. Did fighting side by side with Saracen Rue count as a date? They ended up snuggling under the moonlight, drenched in gore and pieces of brain - so it had PROBABLY been a date. If it wasn't, it was certainly a fun time had by all. Well, not ALL. But she and Saracen had sure had a blast.

People ask, “Why is there poverty in the world?” It’s a silly question. Poverty is the default human condition. It is the factory preset of this mortal coil.

It always surprised Valkyrie whenever she realized just how close the weird and the wonderful, and the fierce and the frightening, lived to the rest pf the non-magical, mortal world.

She’s not… She’s not datin’ the skeleton, is she? How would that be even possible, let alone… nice? He’s got no skin, or lips, or… or nothin’.

It’s funny, that saying—I’d rather die. It’s funny because nobody means it. The truth is that when you’re facing death, there’s no telling what you’ll do.

All right," he said. Magnus whipped toward him in the dark, all coiled energy now, all cheekbones and shimmering eyes. “Really?” “Really,” Alec said. He reached out a hand, and interlinked his fingers with Magnus’s. There was a glow being woken in Alec’s chest, where all had been dark. Magnus cupped his long fingers under Alec’s jawline and kissed him, his touch light against Alec’s skin: a slow and gentle kiss, a kiss that promised more later, when they were no longer on a roof and could be seen by anyone walking by. “So I’m your first ever Shadowhunter, huh?” Alec said when they separated at last. “You’re my first so many things, Alec Lightwood,” Magnus said.

Wow," she said. "It's like you're teaching me something and being all wise." "You are not easy to get along with," Skulduggery said.

He'd once known a man who said that life hinged on the moment, that everything changed in the blink of an eye. Tesseract knew the truth of that as well as anybody. It was in those moments that he struck, after all, snatching people's lives away. He'd always known that it was only a matter of time before one of those moment's worked against him.

What's a Dullahan?' 'He's a headless horseman, in the service of the banshee.' 'Headless?' 'Yes.' 'Seriously?' 'Yes.' 'So he has no head?' 'That's usually what headless means.' 'No head at all?' 'You're really getting hung up on this headless thing, aren't you?' 'It's just kind of silly, even for us.' 'Yet you spend your days with a living skeleton.' 'But at least he has a head.' 'True.' 'He even has a spare.

But he's in shackles, right? You beat him?" "I like to think I beat him in a moral sense, in that he's an assassin and I'm not, but apart from that, no, not really.

With riddles as black as coals, and answers as invisible as our past, I can only depend upon the crest of the rolling wave I now traversed; a romance worshiped only by the dreamer in us all, a psithurism of trust making its way through the years of our ascension to one day climb above the kaleidoscopic canopy of this mortal coil.

I got mixed up with some oddness in my youth, and the long and short of it is that I can't shuffle off this mortal coil until I have read the ten most boring classics.

Personally, I think knees should be kept for the eight or ninth date, or the wedding day. As a nice surprise, you know? 'Oh, my darling, you have knees! I never would have thought!

In fact, when I finally shuffle off this mortal coil, you will have to pry a book out of my cold, dead hands.

Reading the genetic code behind a feather or a cell can make you feel like you’re reading poetry written by God.

Which college?' 'Hmm?' 'Which college do you go to?' Fletcher nodded. 'Yes.' 'I'm sorry?' 'Oh,' Fletcher said, and laughed. Valkyrie's parents looked at Fletcher in near bewilderment. Fletcher looked back at them in total bewilderment. Valkyrie shook her head.

His hair is huge!... Look!... It's just sticking up at odd angles! Like a demented porcupine! - Desmond, about Fletcher's hair

I wondered how a soul could feel so tired after only sixteen years on this mortal coil.

You Necromancers have your messiah," Finbar said, "now we Remnants have ours.

You’re as sharp as a marble.

This is what leading people means, Jun Bei. It's not always about marching them to victory. Sometimes it's about standing with them when they fall.

Each person must develop a wholesome personal response to enduring the hardships of daily life and witnessing the discord, disharmony, dissension, and suffering of the world. We can either become an emotional hypochondriac or accept the fact that we are insignificant in a desolate and meaningless world. How we respond to the vale of tears until we shuffle off this mortal coil imbrues poetic meaning to our life.

The Puffer Fish: Wherein the author flaunts his vocabulary. His father was IRA and his mother was Quebecois, and they had reliquished their mortal coils in the internecine conflagration that ended their conjoined separatist movement, IRA-Q. The appellation he was given by his progenitors was Ray O'Vaque ("Like the battery," he'd elucidate, with an adamantine stare that proscribed any mirth). In his years of incarceration, however, he had earned the sobriquet "Uncle Milty" for his piscine amatory habits. He had been emancipated from the penitentiary for three weeks, and now his restless peregrinations had conveyed him to this liminal place, seeking compurgation in the permafrost of the hyperborean tundra, which was an apt analogue of the permafrost in his heart. He insinuated himself into the caravansary with nugatory expectations, which were confirmed by the exiguous provisions for comfort. But then the bartender looked up from laving the begrimed bar, his eyes growing luminous as he ejactulated, "Milt!

If there is a design that underpins us, Catarina, then it is cold, it is violent, and it is cruel.

There's no point in fighting for a future when we won't be able to live with the things we did to reach it.

Tanith immediately told them that Valkyrie had beaten up a priest and an old woman.

I meant what I said, just so you know. I’ll break your fingers if you touch me.

The only real purpose of time is to escort humanity in and out of this mortal coil in an orderly fashion.

I will continue to judge on the content of character and not the shape or color of a mortal coil. My heart demands no less of me, my spiritual peace must be held as the utmost goal.

If a Remnant takes control of me... I... I would rather you kill me than allow me to hurt anyone." - Scrutinous. "You have my word. And if one of those things takes control of me, I... I want you to leave me alone and let me about my business." - Random

...Brain death didn't allow one time to heal, and the brain was the warehouse for the spirit. Punch a hole in that and you'd shuffle off your mortal coil right away. Keeping your coil unshuffled was the problem.

Personally, I thin knees should be kept for the eight or ninth date, or the wedding day. As a nice surprise, you know? 'Oh, my darling, you have knees! I never would have thought!

This outbreak has broken us. I don’t know if people will ever get past it if we keep living with the pain of the last two years.

Whatever people do to animals, they'll eventually do to their enemies. And whatever they do to their enemies, they'll eventually do to one another.

What a couple you two would make. You must have the combined IQ of a small planet.” The tension in my shoulders releases. “A medium-size planet, surely.

Most of human behavior and its relationship to DNA is still undiscovered territory. We know what genes make rats afraid of eagles, and we know why birds fly south in the winter, but the complexities of human nature are still a mystery to science.

He stepped on it. Squished it. Squashed it. Killed it. Cut it down in its prime. It kicked the bucket, turned up its toes, shuffled off this mortal coil. It was... an ex-rabbit." "He's a dangerous man, your father." "The baby better learn to dodge.

A man in a topiary maze cannot judge of the twistings and turnings, and which avenue might lead him to the heart; while one who stands above, on some pleasant prospect, looking down upon the labyrinth, is reduced to watching the bewildered circumnavigations of the tiny victim through obvious coils - as the gods, perhaps, looked down on besieged and blood-sprayed Troy from the safety of their couches, and thought mortals weak and foolish while they themselves reclined in comfort, and had only to snap to call Ganymade to theeir side with nectar decanted. So I, now, with the vantage of my years, am sensible of my foolishness, my blindness, as a child. I cannot think of my blunders without a shriveling of the inward parts - not merely the disiccation attendant on shame, but also the aggravation of remorse that I did not demand explanation, that I did not sooner take my mother by the hand, and- I do not know what I regret. I sit with my pen, and cannot find an end to that sentence.

She's not... She's not dating the skeleton, is she? How would that even be possible, let alone... nice? He's got no skin, or lips, or... or nothin'. And he talks. Good God, he talks and he never shuts up." - Billy-Ray

Hello, Davina. You're under arrest for multiple accounts of murder. You have the right to not much at all, really. Do you have anything to say in your defense?" Marr remained unconscious. "Splendid," Skulduggery said happily.

I witnessed the birth of time itself. I watched the mortal coil spring forth from perfect darkness. I watched the stars form, watched this world coalesce, watched as life was breathed into it and as your kind rose to rule it." She put both hands on the table and leaned toward me, her blue eyes cold and hard. "Thus far, I have behaved as a guest ought. But do not mistake propriety for weakness, mortal. I beg you not to oblige me to take further action.

Death is inevitable; by facing Rupert you areonly learning how to prolong your miserable end. Strength is nothing when we jump off this mortal coil, and offers no sweet solace when it is over,” he said. “ See?” Celestina planted her hands on her hips. “He also thinks you need to attack more.” “How on earth did you get ‘attack more’ out of that?

This was the problem of being a narcissist: No one appreciated you as much as you knew you deserved." Louis Piper, Prince of Darkness, Lucifer, The Morning Star.

That man," Carol said. "The thin man at Gordon's will reading, with the ridiculous name. He's involved in this, isn't he?" "Skulduggery Pleasant," Valkyrie nodded. "And yes, he is.

Kenspeckle was your friend." "When all this is over, we'll see who's alive and who's dead and then I'll cry, OK?... Clarabelle's going to feel so bad when this is done with.

But when you love someone for their mind, you can’t expect that their heart will belong to you too.

When, you wonder, does Sarah go west and build her rambling mansion? Not yet. Soon, but not yet. First, her husband has to do a blood-coughing two-step off this mortal coil.

You are one in a million; do not shuffle off your mortal coil as a blank space in the rear rank.

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off13 this mortal coil,

shuffled off this mortal coil.

Ahimsa is a comprehensive principle. We are helpless mortals caught in the conflagration of himsa. The saying that life lives on life has a deep meaning in it. Man cannot for a moment live without consciously or unconsciously committing outward himsa. The very fact of his living - eating, drinking and moving about - necessarily involves some himsa, destruction of life, be it ever so minute. A votary of ahimsa therefore remains true to his faith if the spring of all his actions is compassion, if he shuns to the best of his ability the destruction of the tiniest creature, tries to save it, and thus incessantly strives to be free from the deadly coil of himsa. He will be constantly growing in self-restraint and compassion, but he can never become entirely free from outward himsa. Then again, because underlying ahimsa is the unity of all life, the error of one cannot but affect all, and hence man cannot be wholly free from himsa. So long as he continues to be a social being, he cannot but participate in the himsa that the very existence of society involves. When two nations are fighting, the duty of a votary of ahimsa is to stop the war. He who is not equal to that duty, he who has no power of resisting war, he who is not qualified to resist war, may take part in war, and yet wholeheartedly try to free himself, his nation and the world from war.

The time will come when our bodies will irretrievably break down, but it is possible, indeed suggested within the script of nature, that a part of us might outlast these mortal coils.

Souls do not break neither do hearts. Ravaged by time, they continue living within us and it is our choice whether to remove the walls of self preservation that we build as protection or to hide behind them and remain hardened within our comfort zone. Life is precious, giving it your all is preferable to withering and dying even before you fall off this mortal coil.

Shakra scowled. "You're a moron." "Being rude does not make you more intelligent that I." "No, being more intelligent than you makes me more intelligent than you, you goat-brained simpleton." "I did not come here to be insulted." "What, do you have somewhere special to go for that kind of thing?

She said I'd have to die," Valkyrie answered. "Which you have already done," Nye nodded... "The truly tragic thing about all of this," it said, "is that you won't feel any of the great pain I'm about to put you through.

What about you?" he asked, his words not much more than a mumble. "Regrets?" "Many," Skuduggery said. Tesseract's breath rattled in his chest. "That's the goo thing about living. You get to make up for past mistakes." "Or make brand-new ones.

There's someone I want you to meet," she said, a little nervously. "Before you do, I just want you to know that I didn't like keeping this a secret." She tapped the stone again, and Gordon appeared. Eyes widened. Mouths dropped open. Skulduggery remained still.

People referred to the symbolism of the empty Cross more than once on its journey. It would seem obviously to point to our faith in Jesus’ resurrection. It’s not quite so simple though. The Cross is bare, but in and of itself the empty Cross does not point directly to the Resurrection. It says only that the body of Jesus was removed from the Cross. If a crucifix is a symbol of Good Friday, then it is the image of the empty tomb that speaks more directly of Easter and resurrection. The empty Cross is a symbol of Holy Saturday. It’s an indicator of the reality of Jesus’ death, of His sharing in our mortal coil. At the same time, the empty Cross is an implicit sign of impending resurrection, and it tells us that the Cross is not only a symbol of hatred, violence and inhumanity: it says that the Cross is about something more. The empty Cross also tells us not to jump too quickly to resurrection, as if the Resurrection were a trump card that somehow absolves us from suffering. The Resurrection is not a divine ‘get-out-of-jail free’ card that immunises people from pain, suffering or death. To jump too quickly to the Resurrection runs the risk of trivialising people’s pain and seemingly mapping out a way through suffering that reduces the reality of having to live in pain and endure it at times. For people grieving, introducing the message of the Resurrection too quickly cheapens or nullifies their sense of loss. The empty Cross reminds us that we cannot avoid suffering and death. At the same time, the empty Cross tells us that, because of Jesus’ death, the meaning of pain, suffering and our own death has changed, that these are not all-crushing or definitive. The empty Cross says that the way through to resurrection must always break in from without as something new, that it cannot be taken hold of in advance of suffering or seized as a panacea to pain. In other words, the empty Cross is a sign of hope. It tells us that the new life of God surprises us, comes at a moment we cannot expect, and reminds us that experiences of pain, grief and dying are suffused with the presence of Christ, the One Who was crucified and is now risen.

I, Johannes the bard, the sorcerer, the miscreant, hereby make a statement. Let this be my claim. "I claim only those places and spirits as far as the reach of my voice," he said. "I claim this space and only this space. I claim the connections here and only those connections." "I name this space my demesnes, a place where convention doesn't hold, beyond those conventions which I openly decide to be fair and right. I claim this alone, with no bloodline of note behind me, and no intent to mark a bloodline after me. This demesne is forfeit when I have passed from this mortal coil." He exhaled slowly. "I claim this space as mine, as I dislike that which lies elsewhere. I would return to old times, stable times, and let this place be a sanctuary, both for Others that would come here, and for myself. For I do not like where things are going elsewhere, and I would hope to change the destination... or delay it." "Let this be my challenge. All who would deny me this demesne, declare your right to challenge me, and find me here." The words were ominous, and they held power.

Take him to an Egyptian funeral parlour. They'll wrap him in bandages and put him in a sarcophagus and he'll be right as rain come Judgement Day." - Funeral director "Really?" - Scapegrace "No. Those idiots across the road paid you to come in here and waste my valuable time, didn't they?

At a gesture, the window flew open and China vaulted out.

Any moment now, China was about to perspire.

He said he was Lord Vile. - Skulduggery

All men want, not something to do with, but something to do, or rather something to be. Perhaps we should never procure a new suit, however ragged or dirty the old, until we have so conducted, so enterprised or sailed in some way, that we feel like new men in the old, and that to retain it would be like keeping new wine in old bottles. Our moulting season, like that of the fowls, must be a crisis in our lives. The loon retires to solitary ponds to spend it. Thus also the snake casts its slough, and the caterpillar its wormy coat, by an internal industry and expansion; for clothes are but our outmost cuticle and mortal coil. Otherwise we shall be found sailing under false colors, and be inevitably cashiered at last by our own opinion, as well as that of mankind.

Zombies were an accident - much like champagne and penicillin, but much less welcome. Necromancers weren't working on a way to turn people into shambling pieces of unintelligent rot-" - Kenspeckle

Once his scars were revealed, Tanith kissed him, once, on the lips. "I like steak," she said. "Can't go wrong with steak." "Steak it is," he murmured. He stepped away, and Valkyrie grinned at Tanith. "Oh, good God," China said, rolling her eyes. "I do hope the Remnants kill me first.

And the high mandate of his sire. Led by the Lord who rules the sky, The Gods and heavenly saints drew nigh, And honoured him with worthy meed, Rejoicing in each glorious deed. His task achieved, his foe removed, He triumphed, by the Gods approved. By grace of Heaven he raised to life The chieftains slain in mortal strife; Then in the magic chariot through The clouds to Nandigráma flew. Met by his faithful brothers there, He loosed his votive coil of hair: Thence fair Ayodhyá's town he gained, And o'er his father's kingdom reigned. Disease or famine ne'er oppressed His happy people, richly blest

Formerly we accorded to man, as his inheritance from some higher order of beings, what was called "free will"; now we have taken even this will from him, for the term no longer describes anything that we can understand. The old word "will" now connotes only a sort of result, an individual reaction, that follows inevitably upon a series of partly discordant and partly harmonious stimuli - the will no longer "acts," or "moves."... Formerly it was thought that man's consciousness, his "spirit," offered evidence of his high origin, his divinity. That he might be perfected, he was advised, tortoise-like, to draw his senses in, to have no traffic with earthly things, to shuffle off his mortal coil - then only the important part of him, the "pure spirit," would remain. Here again we have thought out the thing better: to us consciousness, or "the spirit," appears as a symptom of a relative imperfection of the organism, as an experiment, a groping, a misunderstanding, as an affliction which uses up nervous force unnecessarily - we deny that anything can be done perfectly so long as it is done consciously. The "pure spirit" is a piece of pure stupidity: take away the nervous system and the senses, the so-called "mortal shell," and the rest is miscalculation - that is all!...

What all this means is that he could be living across the street from me and I'd never know it. It means that I have not heard one single rumour about him in twenty years, and the fact that he is here and I didn't know about it causes me no small amount of alarm and drives me to unimaginable fury. I am, however, hiding it well. - China

She held her sword like she was ready to use it on anyone who got close. Darquesse could see her own reflection in the blade. A pretty girl with a scar on her cheek, fifteen years old and dark-haired. Her pale face splattered with other people's blood. Her eyes, dark-ringed. Is this what they all saw, she wondered, or did the see something else? Something magnificent and terrible? Something monstrous?

Now the wind, which sings and weeps, Down the dark road swoops and leaps. Crow’s wings ripping through the clouds Tear the heavens into shrouds. Naked tree with shaking boughs Black and dreadful mops and mows. Morgan the Fairy sings and sighs, Morgan sings and Morgan cries, Morgan moans and Morgan weeps, Down the dark road swoops and leaps And within his dwelling creeps Morgan the Fairy’s icy breath Bring him to dole and death. Make him drink from your black cup, Wine of mulberry make him sup. So his pain may longer be, Long his spirit’s agony. Fill his clothes with biting lice, Curse his horse with stinging flies, Crack his bones until he dies. Strike his nerves with mortal cold Rot his flesh with creeping mould So his pain may longer be, Long his spirit’s agony And his body maggot’s fee.

For many years Minos has been lucky to have in his court the most gifted inventor, the most skilled artificer outside of the Olympian forges of Hephaestus. His name is Daedalus and he is capable of fashioning moving objects out of metal, bronze, wood, ivory and gemstones. He has mastered the art of tightly coiling leaves of steel into powerful springs, which control wheels and chains to form intricate and marvellous mechanisms that mark the passage of the hours with great precision and accuracy, or control the levels of watercourses. There is nothing this cunning man cannot contrive in his workshop. There are moving statues there, men and women animated by his skill, boxes that play music and devices that can awaken him in the morning. Even if only half the stories of what Daedalus can achieve are true then you can be certain that no more cunning and clever an inventor, architect and craftsman has ever walked this earth.

Take the oft-repeated injunction to get “its” and “it’s” straight. Everyone claims it’s remarkably easy to remember that “its” is possessive and “it’s” is a contraction. But logic tells us that in English, ’s attached to a noun signals possession: the dog’s dish, the cat’s toy, the lexicographer’s cry. So if English is logical, and there are simple rules to follow, why doesn’t “it’s” signal possession? We know that ’s also signals a contraction, but we don’t have any problems with differentiating between “the dog’s dish” and “the dog’s sleeping”—why should we suddenly have problems with “it’s dish” and “it’s sleeping”? This type of grammar often completely ignores hundreds (and, in some cases, well over a thousand) years of established use in English. For “it’s,” the rule is certainly easy to memorize, but it also ignores the history of “its” and “it’s.” At one point in time, “it” was its own possessive pronoun: the 1611 King James Bible reads, “That which groweth of it owne accord…thou shalt not reape”; Shakespeare wrote in King Lear, “It had it head bit off by it young.” They weren’t the first: the possessive “it” goes back to the fifteenth century. But around the time that Shakespeare was shuffling off this mortal coil, the possessive “it” began appearing as “it’s.” We’re not sure why the change happened, but some commentators guess that it was because “it” didn’t appear to be its own possessive pronoun, like “his” and “her,” but rather a bare pronoun in need of that possessive marker given to nouns: ’s. Sometimes this possessive appeared without punctuation as “its.” But the possessive “it’s” grew in popularity through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries until it was the dominant form of the word. It even survived into the nineteenth century: you’ll find it in the letters of Thomas Jefferson and Jane Austen and the speechwriting notes of Abraham Lincoln. This would be relatively simple were it not for the fact that “it’s” was also occasionally used as a contraction for “it is” or “it has” (“and it’s come to pass,” Shakespeare wrote in Henry VIII, 1.2.63). Some grammarians noticed and complained—not that the possessive “it’s” and the contractive “it’s” were confusing, but that the contractive “it’s” was a misuse and mistake for the contraction “ ’tis,” which was the more standard contraction of “it is.” This was a war that the pedants lost: “ ’tis” waned while “it’s” waxed.

She then pulled him to the ground and clasped him in her arms. Immediately, the cry went up: "Tam Lin is away!" The Elf Queen's black horse reared and she pulled him to a halt. Turning, she cast her mesmerizing emerald eyes toward Janet and Tam Lin. As Janet held Tam Lin fast, the Elf Queen put a spell upon them. Tam Lin shrank and became a small, scaly lizard which Janet clutched to her breast. Janet then felt a slithering sensation through her fingers. The lizard had become a cold, slippery snake which she gripped tightly, even as it coiled around her neck. Suddenly, a searing pain ran through her hands. The snake had been turned into a red-hot cinder. Tears of agony ran down her cheeks, but still, Janet held on to Tam Lin and would not let him go. At last, the Elf Queen knew that she had lost Tam Lin because of the steadfast love of a mortal woman. She then shaped him in Janet's arms in his own form - as naked as the day he was born. In triumph, Janet covered Tam Lin with her cloak.

The introduction of cinematography enabled us to corral time past and thus retain it not merely in the memory - at best, a falsifying receptacle - but in the objective preservative of a roll of film. But, if past, present and future are the dimensions of time, they are notoriously fluid. There is no tension in the tenses and yet they are always tremulously about to coagulate. The present is a liquid jelly which settles into a quivering, passive mass, the past, as soon as - if not sooner than - we are aware of it as present. Yet this mass was intangible and existed only conceptually until arrival of the preservative, cinema. The motion picture is usually regarded as only a kind of shadow play and few bother to probe the ontological paradoxes it presents. For it offers us nothing less than the present tense experience of time irrefutably past. So that the coil of film has, as it were, lassoed inert phenomena from which the present had departed, and when projected upon a screen, they are granted a temporary revivification. [...] The images of cinematography, however, altogether lack autonomy. Locking in programmed patterns, they merely transpose time past into time present and cannot, by their nature, respond to the magnetic impulses of time future for the unachievable future which does not exist in any dimension, but nevertheless organizes phenomena towards its potential conclusions. The cinematographic model is one of cyclic recurrences alone, even if these recurrences are instigated voluntarily, by the hand of man viz. the projectionist, rather than the hand of fate. Though, in another sense, the action of time is actually visible in the tears, scratches and thumbprints on the substance of the film itself, these are caused only by the sly, corrosive touch of mortality and, since the print may be renewed at will, the flaws of aging, if retained, increase the presence of the past only by a kind of forgery, as when a man punches artificial worm-holes into raw or smokes shadows of fresh pain with a candle to produce an apparently aged artefact. Mendoza, however, claimed that if a thing were sufficiently artificial, it became absolutely equivalent to the genuine.

Two sailors hauled on ropes, hoisting the jolly boat up to the ship’s side, revealing two apocryphal figures standing in the center of the small craft. At first glance, Sophia only saw clearly the shorter of the two, a gruesome creature with long tangled hair and a painted face, wearing a tight-fitting burlap skirt and a makeshift corset fashioned from fishnet and mollusk shells. The Sea Queen, Sophia reckoned, a smile warming her cheeks as the crew erupted into raucous cheers. A bearded Sea Queen, no less, who bore a striking resemblance to the Aphrodite’s own grizzled steward. Stubb. Sophia craned her neck to spy Stubb’s consort, as the foremast blocked her view of Triton’s visage. She caught only a glimpse of a white toga draped over a bronzed, bare shoulder. She took a jostling step to the side, nearly tripping on a coil of rope. “Foolish mortals! Kneel before your king!” The assembled sailors knelt on cue, giving Sophia a direct view of the Sea King. And even if the blue paint smeared across his forehead or the strands of seaweed dangling from his belt might have disguised him, there was no mistaking that persuasive baritone. Mr. Grayson. There he stood, tall and proud, some twenty feet away from her. Bare-chested, save for a swath of white linen draped from hip to shoulder. Wet locks of hair slicked back from his tanned face, sunlight embossing every contour of his sculpted arms and chest. A pagan god come swaggering down to earth. He caught her eye, and his smile widened to a wolfish grin. Sophia could not for the life of her look away. He hadn’t looked at her like this since…since that night. He’d scarcely looked in her direction at all, and certainly never wearing a smile. The boldness of his gaze made her feel thoroughly unnerved, and virtually undressed. Until the very act of maintaining eye contact became an intimate, verging on indecent, experience. If she kept looking at him, she felt certain he knees would give out. If she looked away, she gave him the victory. There was only one suitable alternative, given the circumstances. With a cheeky wink to acknowledge the joke, Sophia dropped her eyes and curtsied to the King. Mr. Grayson laughed his approval. Her curtsy, the crew’s gesture of fealty-he accepted their obeisance as his due. And why should he not? There was a rightness about it somehow, an unspoken understanding. Here at last was their true leader: the man they would obey without question, the man to whom they’d pledge loyalty, even kneel. This was his ship. “Where’s the owner of this craft?” he called. “Oh, right. Someone told me he’s no fun anymore.” As the men laughed, the Sea King swung over the rail, hoisting what looked to be a mop handle with vague aspirations to become a trident. “Bring forth the virgin voyager!