Robert Wrubel wrote:
>
> Well, that's a breath of foul air!
>
> Bob
>
> It brings an
> entry-level appreciation from which, apparently, bliss follows. But my
> hopes of keeping up have always been dashed within a scene or two by
> simple confusion, curdling via frustration, shame and boredom to cold
> anger by the blessed final curtain.
>
> Actors never help, since their only two options are to be
> self-consciously Shakespearean or -- even more preposterous -- somehow
> contemporary, apeing (or being) Kenneth Branagh, as if modern
> conversational cadences when talking about love and death in iambic
> pentameter were the most natural thing in the world. They aren't. They
> are ridiculous.
[CLIP]
> > Your low-laid son our godhead will uplift: His comforts thrive, his
> > trials well are spent.
The material C.G.E. quotes may contribute to explaining both the power of much in Shakespeare _and_ this sort of response (which is fairly common, just not often voiced so vocifereoulsy). "His comforts thrive" _does_ force a fairly concscious shifting of mental gears. "Comfort" is not usually plural, and comforts are not the sort of thing that, usually, "thrive" (with its marginal sexual force). And after taking this in, one has to mentally first reword "'trials well are spent" as "trials are spent well," then again sort our the senses of "trials" and "spent" that make sense of the conjunction. But that kind of complex response is about as "natural" or "spontaneous" as the butterfly stroke in swimming. (And to follow it on stage is yet another matter; since my hearing has degraded I get nothing from Shakespeare on stage or screen -- but a good deal from Shakespeare on TV with close captioning. You have to hear and take in _all_ the words: "His drawl is pent" would not quite do it.
There is a technical matter too, beyond my capacity to analyze, but there is something to be said about (a) the vowel progression in the first line as a whole and (b) in particular in the last three words, combined with the stress there. The line is in some (weired?) way uplifting. And the second line rests at the end.
Carrol