“Favour” here means appearance; King Henry is telling the men to disguise their kindler, gentler natures with a formidable outward appearance.

Alexander the Great (356 BCE-323 BCE), the King of Macedon, conquered and ruled one of the largest empires in history. In this passage Hamlet uses him (and Julius Caesar below) as an example of an exceptionally powerful historical figure–who became an ugly, smelly corpse like everyone else in history.

Hamlet’s brooding on the death of kings doesn’t come out of nowhere: he’s also subtly reflecting on his father’s death, his intended victim Claudius, and his own fate. He has escaped execution once; now he’s returned to Elsinore, where his time is short.

His meditation extends his (and the play’s) obsession with death, including the gross physicality of death. (Recall: “I’ll lug the guts into the neighbor room.”) It also plays subtly against Rosencrantz’s speech on the “cease of majesty” in 3.3. The death of powerful leaders may powerfully affect those around them, but in some ways it’s just like any other death.

The novel begins by introducing the theme of limitation and confinement, but as we’ll soon see, this is not as gloomy an opening as it first appears. Jane enjoys her confinement indoors, in part because it allows her the chance to read. In fact, when sitting down with her book, she confines herself further behind the curtain, so that she’s “shrined in double retirement.” A walk may be impossible, but reading opens up other possibilities–avenues of exploration and escape.

Sian Pattenden as Jane Eyre, 1983

The silence of a couple “waiting in the clinic” because the guy’s gotten the girl pregnant and she wants an abortion, or one of them’s given the other an STD and/or STI.

The speaker senses something deeply awkward and problematic about the silence surrounding their relationship.

Juliet finds she has infinite reserves of love for Romeo. Her “bounty” or generosity of feeling is as endless, profound, and flowing as the sea.

In Shakespeare’s time–the middle of the Age of Discovery–the seas (oceans) were less easily traversed than they are today. Hence they took on even more significance as symbols of infinity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbMeAOTPJzM

Context and Money

Ten thousand pounds in 1811 had the purchasing power of about $1,035,800 in current (2014) U.S. dollars. An impressive sum in and of itself, but not enough to sustain four people, including three young women, for the rest of their lives.

£10,000 would give the widow and three daughters an income of £400-£500 a year.

After her father’s death in 1805, Austen, her widowed mother, and single sister were left in a similar position, although they did have brothers to help them. After 1809, their income increased to 450-500 pounds per year, similar to what the Dashwoods sisters have to live upon.

Context and Money

One thousand pounds in 1811 had the purchasing power of about $103,580 in current (2014) U.S. dollars.

See the annotation on this amount above.

Three thousand pounds in 1811 had the purchasing power of about $310,730 in current (2014) U.S. dollars.