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MRS. PEACHUM: Let me tell you this, Jenny: if all London were after him, Macheath is not the man to give up his old habits.

Now here’s a man who fights old Satan’s battle:
The butcher, he! All other men, mere cattle!
He is a shark with all the world to swim in!
What gets him down? What gets ‘em all down? Women.
He may not want to, but he’ll acquiesce
For such is sexual submissiveness.

Explanation and Analysis:

In this passage, Mrs. Peachum and Ginny Jenny, having newly hatched a plot to catch Macheath at Jenny’s brothel in Wapping and turn him into the police, sing “The Ballad of Sexual Submissiveness.” In this song, Mrs. Peachum laments that a man a...

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Original

Romeo

(aside) She speaks.
O, speak again, bright angel! For thou art
As glorious to this night, being o’er my head,
As is a winged messenger of heaven
Unto the white, upturnèd, wondering eyes
Of mortals that fall back to gaze on him
When he bestrides the lazy-puffing clouds
And sails upon the bosom of the air.

Juliet

O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art though Romeo?
Deny they father and refuse they name.
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.

Modern

Romeo

(to himself) She speaks. Speak again, bright angel! For tonight you are as glorious, there up above me, as a winged messenger of heaven who makes mortals fall onto their backs to gaze up with awestruck eyes as he strides across the lazy clouds and sails through the air.

Juliet

O Romeo, Romeo! Why must you be Romeo? Deny your father and give up your name. Or, if you won’t change your name, just swear your love to me and I’ll give up being a Capulet.

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