Ay,
to such mercy as his ruthless arm,
With
downright payment, show’d unto my father.
-Lord Clifford
King Henry the Sixth Part III Act
I, scene iii Line 33
The line
before this is Clifford’s buddy Northumberland telling Richard the Duke of York
to yield to their mercy. Then Cliff comes out with today’s Totally Random line
which tells me that York can’t really expect all that much mercy from Cliff and
North. I can’t tell you exactly what York did to Clifford’s father, but I’m
guessing he wasn’t too nice to him. On a separate note, that would be a good
name for something, maybe a clothing retailer; Cliff & North. There’s some
North Cliff stuff, a hotel and whatnot, but no Cliff & North. Anyway…
I think
we’ll leave the whole Wars of the Roses thing alone for today. I’m still
grappling with all the names and who’s on who’s side. I’ll get there
eventually. But we can talk about today’s line without going into anymore
context.
First off,
pretty good iambic pentameter. But, once again, that word ‘father’ at the end
of the second line is the eleventh syllable in the line. We couldn’t maybe end
that with ‘dad’? I wonder if Will used ‘dad’, or if that’s a modern word. I’ll
have to keep my eyes open for that word. You too. ‘Dad’, be on the lookout.
What else
can we pick on? ‘with downright payment’, what do you suppose he means by that?
I think we might have to find out specifically what happened when York killed
Cliff’s father. That’s not happening this morning, I can tell you that.
However, I’ll point out that I’ve gone back to reference previous posts when I
subsequently find answers to questions like this. So if I do come up with
anything I’ll mention it and try to put in some references ( I guess reference
from the future post to this one, and then also come back here and pop in a
reference to the future post. Again, if anyone’s out there with some info, now
is the time to comment. James?)
Okay, that
should do it for today.
These are some cliffs in Svalbard, meaning that they are some of the northernmost cliffs in the world. North Cliff, get it?
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