Funny, my memory playing tricks again! Two posts ago I noted a production of The Winters Tale that I had a small part in back in the 1970's. I was all but certain that the year was 1979 but as it turns out (after reading more carefully through a review from the time) it was actually in August 1978! So it seems my memory impairment has a greater span than I had thought! It's odd really that I can still remember most of my lines and those of some of the other characters who were in the same scenes as I was. As I recall, the show ran for six weeks with a Saturday matinee and we often played to full houses. Though I could be wrong!

On another topic altogether, I have begun to read Boccaccio's The Decameron, another famous referral from The Great Courses. Boccaccio uses the conceit of a group of noble-born young men and women, who, hemmed in by plague, decide to decamp to the countryside. They entertain themselves by telling stories of which there are over a hundred in the book. What has surprised me so far is the ribaldry of some of the tales, remembering that this is the 14th Century. I suppose in this matter that there is a foreshadowing of the soon to come Canterbury Tales. It is a safe bet that Chaucer was familiar with The Decameron and drew significant inspiration from it.

An arcadian view of the storytellers.