I've been asked by a respected Spanish-speaking hack whether the title of my blog means "The Turret of Brassieres", fortín apparently being Spanish for turret, and bras being surreptitiously taken for the name of those useful but at times unpleasant depositories of the mammary glands.

I am sorry to say that it's not, as much as I'd like it to be so. As every possible hint thrown around the luminous reality of this blog suggests, the name Fortinbras comes from Zbigniew Herbert's poem "Elegy of Fortinbras". The poem shows Fortinbras, a Norse King, addressing Hamlet at the latter's deathbed. Of course, this interaction was suggested to Herbert by the characters in Shakespeare's play.

So there.

Besides, bras are such a petty and obtrusive thing I cannot conceive of having a blog dedicated to them. Though I must admit that the contents of said bras -and their beholders- are the source of many a tragedy, including, to some extend, that of our good boy Hamlet.

For some reason, Fortinbras has made its way into the Eastern European imagination more conspicuously than Hamlet. One can only wonder why. But at least it explains why a Spanish-speaking deviator would not grasp it.