Funny exchange at work the other day. Not technically Shakespeare related, but it could just as easily have been:
“You’re a better man than I am.”
“By the living god that made me?”
“…”
“Kipling? Gunga Din?”
“I recognize it, yes, you just caught me off guard.”
“I remember that bit, but I can’t remember how it starts….though I’ve batted and I’ve brayed you? By the living god that made you, you’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din.”
“Sounds familiar, but you’re way beyond me.”
[Google google google] “Ah! Though I’ve belted you and flayed you…”
“That makes more sense.”
“You know, I’m happy that I had that wrong, because if I’d seriously managed to pull a frickin Gunga Din reference out of thin air, and done so accurately, I would have been impossible to live with.”
“Yes, I can imagine that would be true.”