Is there anything to the fact that the last line of the second passage can also be read as "rather would I have a little son than no heir at all"? It feels like there's another riddle buried beneath the purple prose.
To be pedantic, the term catch-22 doesn't really apply here, nor to "taking the bad along with the good" in general. Sitting on 101 is paralyzing, but it's not paradoxical.
Just another prescriptivist linguaphile...
Slashdot Mirror
Is there anything to the fact that the last line of the second passage can also be read as "rather would I have a little son than no heir at all"? It feels like there's another riddle buried beneath the purple prose.
To be pedantic, the term catch-22 doesn't really apply here, nor to "taking the bad along with the good" in general. Sitting on 101 is paralyzing, but it's not paradoxical. Just another prescriptivist linguaphile...