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What You Will
by Count Orsino

While casting my eyes across the sheets of yesterday's Daily Illyria, I discovered a most marvelous tale. One Sir Thomas Beatie, a man who gave birth to three children, now seeks to divorce his wife.  The nation of Arizona, in which he resides, is denying him this request because there is nothing in the law that allows one to define a mother as a man. The King, therefore, will not allow a divorce because, saith he, the pair could never have been wed to begin with. 

Now, I verily do believe that men can give birth—why only last week I heard tell of a French maiden who sprouted a penis while running after her sow. I do not see why such a common event should have made the news. But I cannot, nor never shall understand the King's logic. Why may not a maid and a man with certain female parts marry?  I myself have taken to wife a boy who is a girl who plays a eunuch. Such diversity of parts makes for many a merry marriage, and it is plain madness to deny it.

I am much relieved that I live in sixteenth-century Illyria and not 21st-century Arizona. 

The views expressed by Count Orsino do not necessarily reflect those of Everydayshakespeare.