To some, caught in the crossfire of diplomatic disputing, politicised interpreting, and industrial espionage over COVID-19, ‘a plague ‘o both your houses’ might express their grief, anger, despair, feelings of futile waste and sense of crippling powerlessness. The main gates of the College were locked, but the scholar had ensured that the little-used back door was left open. Langmuir, MD, Director of the Epidemic Intelligence Service and Epidemiology Program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) began to work closely with Donald A. They have frittered away our future with their inability to control their desire to spend other people’s money.

of Shakespeare’s (1564-1614) tragedy Romeo and Juliet (1597), ‘A plague o’ both your houses’ (when Mercutio is stabbed by Juliet’s Capulet cousin Tybalt), has become an icon of Western nihilism (life has no meaning or values). Benvolio tries to persuade the Prince to excuse Romeo’s slaying of Tybalt; however, the Capulets demand that Romeo pay with his life; the Prince instead banishes Romeo from Verona.Religion and faith/s of every kind take the long view: they hope for an end and final validation of their spiritual quest.

The horrified miller watched it salute him three times before he was able to scramble to his feet and race towards the town screaming for help.The scene closes with an exchange of wordplay between Capulet’s servant Peter and Paris’s musicians. Stephen and Swynford, two Stanmores (the fact that there are two is key to the plot), Wilson and William, Alcote and Augustus, Michael and Matthew, etc. Some elements of Gregory's writing were reminiscent of Sansom's, even if I didn't feel quite the affection for Matthew Bartholomew as I did for Matthew Shardlake. However, the plague is only the backdrop of the mystery that consumes Bartholomew's thoughts and threatens his life. John Wilkes famously responded to an insult in Parliament to the effect that he would die either "of the pox or on the gallows" by saying "That depends on whether I embrace your principles or your mistress.

Although he is a close friend of Romeo he has not been on either side in the feud and has become sick and tired of this ancient grudge that has poisoned the life of Verona and all its citizens, and has now killed him. He jumped violently, as a large cat stalked past his hiding place, glancing at him briefly with alert yellow eyes.

Friar Lawrence then says that Romeo may spend the night with Juliet and leave for exile in Mantua next morning. A plague o’ both your houses” —William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act 3, scene 1 “[W]hen into the distinguished city of Florence, more noble than any other Italian city, there came the deadly pestilence.