The Parallel Lives

In Shakespeare’s play, “Romeo and Juliet,” Juliet stands upon her balcony, and complains that Romeo has the wrong last name. Her family, the Capulet’s, and Romeo’s family, the Montague’s, were bitter enemies, locked in a bloody feud. She says,

“’Tis but thy name that is my enemy; Thou are thyself, though not a Montague. What’s Montague? O be some other name! What’s in a name? that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d.”

Shakespeare points out that if a rose carried a different name, for example, “spef,” that name would still fill people’s minds with thoughts of a pleasant smell, a lovely sight, nature’s finest. Change the name, but the effect from hearing remains the same.

Shakespeare liked to coin new words. He is credited with adding 1700 words to the English language. Others may have said them, but he wrote them down first.

He liked to change nouns into verbs, or co-join two words into one word, or add a prefix or suffix to a word. For example, he was fond of adding un- or dis- to an existing word. Hence, “uncomfortable,” and “disturbed.”

In the Bee Gee’s love song, “Words,” they sing, “Talk in everlasting words, and dedicate them all to me. You think that I don’t even mean a single word I say. It’s only words, and words are all I have to take your heart away.”

People choose to drop certain names from common usage. In Germany, since World War II, only fifteen baby boys on average each year receive the name Adolf.

On the night of July 22-23, 1995, in New Mexico, an astronomer named Alan Hale saw a comet slipping into our solar system. At the same time, in Arizona, an amateur astronomer named Thomas Bopp peered through a home-built telescope and saw the same comet.

The International Astronomical Union gave both men credit by naming it “Hale-Bopp.” It was visible from May 1996 until September 1997, eighteen months, a record duration, and was brighter than Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky.

It reached its perihelion, its closet point to the sun, on April 1, 1997, 29 years ago, next week.

Behind Hale-Bopp stretched twin tails, visible with the naked eye: “first, a white, curved dust tail, composed of microscopic grains reflecting sunlight; and also a straight blue ion or gas tail, created by ionized gas blown back by the solar wind.”

Yet, the comet’s name “Hale-Bopp” remains glued to a cult’s name, “Heaven’s Gate.”

On March 26, 1997, an anonymous welfare check call suggested that police should peer inside a mansion in the Rancho Santa Fe subdivision of San Diego. There, police discovered 39 bodies, 21 women and 18 men, disciples of Marshall Applewhite’s cult, including Applewhite.

Each wore black shirts, black sweat pants, and athletic shoes, and were lying on a bed. Police found a $5.00 bill and three quarters inside their pockets.

Each of the dead believed in Applewhite’s UFO religion, New Age plus science fiction. He convinced them that a spaceship was inside Hale-Bopp’s twin tails and that through suicide their souls would leave their “human containers” and ascend to a “Next Level” on a mother ship.

In addition, Applewhite had insisted that followers call him Do (pronounced Doe).

Alan Hale labeled Heaven’s Gate with two words, “ignorance and superstition.” Shall we call it “ignorstition?” Hale said, “Comets are lovely objects, but have no apocalyptic significance. We must use our minds.”

What is in a name? Shakespeare, Montague, a rose, Hale-Bopp, Heaven’s Gate, Applewhite, or Do? “It’s only words, and words are all I have,” the Bee Gee’s sang.