Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Hold on a fucking minute...

Uranus' moons are named after characters in classic literature, with all but three of them being characters from Shakespeare's mind.

(beginning twith the closest moon to Uranus' surface)

Cordelia - In Shakespeare's play King Lear Cordelia was a daughter of King Lear.
Ophelia - Ophelia was named after the daughter of Polonius in Shakespeare's Hamlet.
Bianca - Bianca was named after the sister of Katherine in Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew.
Cressida - Cressida is the daughter of Calchas in Shakespeare's play Troilus and Cressida.
Desdemona - Desdemona is the wife of Othello in Shakespeare's Othello.
Juliet - Juliet was named after the young girl in Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet.
Portia - Portia was a rich woman in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice.
Rosalind - Rosalind is a daughter of the banished Duke in Shakespeare's As You Like It.
Belinda - Belinda is named after the heroine in Alexander Pope's The Rape of the Lock.
Puck - Puck is a fairy in Shakespeare's Midsummer-Night's Dream.
Miranda - Miranda was named after a daughter of the magician Prospero in Shakespeare's The Tempest.
Ariel - Ariel was a spirit in Shakespeare's The Tempest.
Umbriel - Umbriel is a character in Alexander Pope's The Rape of the Lock.
Titania - Titania is the Queen of the Fairies in Shakespeare's Midsummer-Night's Dream.
Oberon - Oberon the husband to Titania and the King of the Fairies in Shakespeare's Midsummer-Night's Dream.
Caliban - Caliban was a deformed son of a witch in Shakespeare's The Tempest.
Stephano - Stephano was the drunken butler in Shakespeare's The Tempest.
Sycorax - Sycorax was the witch who enslaved spirits in Shakespeare's The Tempest.
Prospero - Prospero was the protagonist magician of Shakespeare's The Tempest.
Setebos - The God that Caliban was taught to worship in Shakespeare's The Tempest.

But wait... somewhere between Rosalind and Belinda in 1986U10. 1986U10? What was that, MacDuff's license plate number in MacBeth? Isn't that that Van Halen Album? What the Hoary Hell is that all about? Apparently Shakespeare didn't write anything else that they could have culled a character or two from.

I'm going to call it a night and settle down to read THX1138 and Juliet.

Peace, gentle readers!