"But that was in another country, and besides, the wench is dead." - The Jew of Malta, Christopher Marlowe

Act 4, scene 1, Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta.

Barabas the Jew is trying to excuse and explain away his sins, to two friars.
They accuse him, "Thou hast committed..."
And he replies, "Fornication? But that was in another country, and besides, the wench is dead."

I have always liked Christopher (no, I don’t call him Kit) Marlowe – he was dashing and risk-taking and fun. Oh, and a kick-ass writer. (Never mind that he was killed in a bar brawl in a dispute over the tab.) I do not think he wrote Shakespeare’s stuff; I personally hold the opinion that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare’s stuff, but what do I know? A few post-bacc classes in Renaissance lit with a brilliant and encouraging professor, and suddenly, everyone’s an expert.

Last night, after an interminable parent-teacher meeting - and the sinking realization that my mother-in-law is just too old to handle watching the baby anymore - I went out with my friend whom I would like to henceforth refer to as Dr L, since she successfully defended her dissertation. (See, L, you can be Dr Initial-of-Your-Choosing, too...) But I’ll probably forget…

We went to the little neighborhood bar that I like because of their yummy buffalo bites. We ate, we drank (I drank too much), she threw some darts. And we, lo and behold, began chatting with some of the regulars. Because, you know, who doesn’t want to talk to L? She’s tall and thin and has long blonde hair and is adorable.

The George Hamilton lookalike was very serious about his darts; the dude in the San Fran shirt looked like L’s long-time love only twenty years younger; the guy whose hair was maddeningly in his eyes ALL NIGHT LONG sounded like he was from France, but actually hails from Maine; and we were both fairly certain that the robotics engineer who first started speaking to us was gay.

I was chatting with Hair-In-His-Eyes Guy and he used a quote I have heard before, but couldn't place. I asked him where it was from, but he didn't know, said he'd tried to find out for ages. He had first run across it in Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, but we both knew it was from another source. We spent a few minutes trying to figure it out, along the way trying to decide who Shakespeare was, or more accurately, if Christopher Marlowe was Shakespeare.
And this is where I turn into a total dork - I came home at midnight and LOOKED IT UP. And then I emailed the source to him.

Moral of the story: You can take the librarian out of the library - but don't take her to a bar.