ShmoopTube

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[ musical flourish ]

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And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by Parliament.

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Sort of like our Congress, but where laws can actually get passed.

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Yeah.

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Check out the passage again.

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Yeah, again. How many times have you read this?

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Keep reading, keep reading... This is awful.

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[ mumbles ]

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Okay, let's go.

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The speaker's choice of syntax in the phrase,

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"he... guilt" (line 17)

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places most emphasis on which of the following words?

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And here are the potential answers.

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[ mumbles ] Hmm.

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All right, well, let's go.

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Okay, so this question wants us to zero in on a particular

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line and figure out what is being emphasized most.

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Unfortunately, none of the words are italicized, so there goes that shortcut.

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Well, here's the line they're citing, plus the one before it for a little context at no extra charge.

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"He conjured them to think of the blood that would be shed,

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and to remember that it would lie at their door;

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they retorted the charge;

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he was the aggressor and his would be the guilt."

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All right. Rather than taking these five choices one by one,

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let's dissect this thing a bit and figure out what it's saying.

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"He conjured them to think of the blood that would be shed, and to remember that it would lie at their door."

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So the king's warning the Houses about all the blood

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that'd be spilled and that it would be in their neighborhood.

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Not a good thing.

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But then "they retorted the charge;"

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(that is they came back with)

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"he was the aggressor and his would be the guilt."

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I.E. it was the king who started it,

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so whatever nasty stuff went down,

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he was the one who'd have to live with it.

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In other words, the Houses are trying to take the blame

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off their shoulders and put it on the king's.

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Well, with that in mind, it seems like "he" and "his"

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are the two most likely candidates here.

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However, we give "his" the nod here because

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"he was the aggressor" is more of a statement of fact,

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while "his would be the guilt" is more of an accusation.

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And people tend to emphasize accusations a bit more than facts.

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So our answer is C.

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And if we're wrong, well, we're just blaming the king.

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[ whining ] [ evil laughter ]

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