How like a winter hath my absence been
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!
What old December’s bareness everywhere!
And yet this time remov’d was summer’s time,
The teeming autumn, big with rich increase,
Bearing the wanton burthen of the prime,
Like widow’d wombs after their lords’ decease:
Yet this abundant issue seem’d to me
But hope of orphans and unfather’d fruit;
For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,
And thou away, the very birds are mute;
Or if they sing, ’tis with so dull a cheer
That leaves look pale, dreading the winter’s near.
“Sonnet 97” by William Shakespeare. Public Domain. (buy now)
The coronation of Queen Elizabeth I took place on this date in 1559. She had officially become queen two months before, upon the death of her half-sister, Mary Tudor. She was told of Mary's death at the Palace of Hatfield; legend has it that she was sitting under an oak tree at the time, and quoted the 118th Psalm: "It is the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes."
The coronation was held at Westminster Abbey, and the banquet and festivities cost almost 17,000 pounds — around 3.5 million pounds in today's money. She spent the night of the 14th at the Palace of Westminster, and walked in procession along a blue carpet that ran from the palace to the abbey. John Dee, who was a mathematician and an astrologer, chose the date; he had consulted his star charts and determined it to be propitious. The ceremony was a delicate balance of Catholic and Anglican principals, a tightrope the new sovereign would find herself walking many times during her reign.
"Be ye well assured I will stand your good Queen," she said to her subjects after she emerged from the abbey, holding aloft the orb and scepter of state.
The French playwright, actor, and manager Molière (books by this author) was baptized in Paris on this date in 1622. He was born Jean-Baptiste Poquelin to a wealthy family; his father was upholsterer to the king. His father wanted him to become a lawyer, but instead Poquelin took up with a theatrical family, the Béjarts, when he was 21. They formed a troupe and put on comedies, and he adopted the stage name of Molière. The theatrical life wasn't as lucrative as a law career, though. After serving time in debtors' prison, Molière and his company left Paris to tour the provinces for 13 years. They returned to Paris, triumphant, in 1658, after impressing the king's brother with their performance of The Amorous Doctor. Although he poked fun at the peasant and bourgeois classes, he was careful to leave the church and the monarchy alone; as a result, he never ran into trouble, enjoyed the patronage of Louis XIV — who was the godfather of Molière's first son — and always had work.
Known as the father of French comedic theatre, Molière wrote The School for Wives (1662), Tartuffe (1664), and The Misanthrope (1666). He collapsed onstage during a performance of his Le Malade Imaginaire (The Hypochondriac) in 1673; he finished the performance, but died of pulmonary tuberculosis later that night, and because there was no priest around to administer the Last Rites, he was denied a sanctified burial. After his widow appealed to the king, Molière was buried in the section of the cemetery reserved for unbaptized babies.
From Le Malade Imaginaire (1673): "Nearly all men die of their remedies, and not of their illnesses."
It's the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. (books by this author), born on this day in Atlanta (1929). He is best known for his work as a leader during the civil rights movement and his commitment to nonviolence. On April 4th, 1967, King delivered a speech called "Beyond Vietnam," in which he strongly denounced America's involvement in the Vietnam War. He was concerned that the war was recruiting poor and minority soldiers, that it was draining resources from much-needed social programs at home, and that it was an unjust war anyway, targeting the poor people of Vietnam. He said, "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."
Throughout the next year, he continued to speak out against the war, and said that the civil rights movement and the peace movement should come together for greater strength. He began a "Poor People's Campaign" to fight economic inequality. On April 4th, 1968, exactly one year after his first anti-war speech, King was assassinated while he was standing on the balcony of his Memphis motel room. He was preparing to lead a protest march in solidarity with garbage workers who were on strike.
He said, "If a man hasn't discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live."
And he said: "Here and there an individual or group dares to love, and rises to the majestic heights of moral maturity. So in a real sense this is a great time to be alive. Therefore, I am not yet discouraged about the future. Granted that the easygoing optimism of yesterday is impossible. Granted that those who pioneer in the struggle for peace and freedom will still face uncomfortable jail terms, painful threats of death; they will still be battered by the storms of persecution, leading them to the nagging feeling that they can no longer bear such a heavy burden, and the temptation of wanting to retreat to a more quiet and serene life. Granted that we face a world crisis which leaves us standing so often amid the surging murmur of life's restless sea. But every crisis has both its dangers and its opportunities. It can spell either salvation or doom. In a dark confused world the kingdom of God may yet reign in the hearts of men."