What Joe Biden was paraphrasing in his eulogy for John McCain:
’A was a man, take him for all in all,That’s from Hamlet, I.2, Hamlet speaking of his father to Horatio. Biden’s paraphrase: “We shall not see his like again.”
I shall not look upon his like again.
[I don’t think there’s yet a transcript of the eulogy. Biden’s words about grief and mourning, reprised from 2012, are online and well worth reading.]
"We shall not see his like again" happens to be a verbatim quotation of a line from the lyrics of Peter Blegvad's song "Sven," although I think it fairly unlikely that Joe Biden is a Blegvad fan.
ReplyDeleteBiden did mention Shakespeare. Do you think Peter Blegvad is paraphrasing Shakespeare too?
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't put it past him, especially since one of his earlier albums was entitled The Naked Shakespeare.
ReplyDeleteInteresting.
ReplyDelete