Madam,
methinks, if you did love him dearly,
You
do not hold the method to enforce
The
like from him.
-Charmian
Antony and Cleopatra Act
I, scene iii Line 6
First off, and
before we get too far into today's Totally Random line, what about this ‘methinks’ thing. I mean, all
you have to do is start off with, or heck even midway through throw in, a
‘methinks’ and you’re putting a Shakespearean spin on it. And why not? You
don’t even have to own the Shakespeare part of it, you can just use it and own
it for the way it sounds. It sounds good. At least I think it does. But anyway,
the line…
So with our
first step into Will’s only play set in Egypt (I think it’s his only one.
James?) we have a pretty good line because it speaks to a major theme of the
play and that is the way that Cleopatra is doing her best to wrap Antony around
her little finger. And it seems to be the right hand men and women who want to
bring this theme to our attention. In fact, if you go back a few pages to the
first lines of the play you’ll see Philo, one of Antony’s friends, talking
about this same thing. But today’s Totally Random speaker is Charmian,
Cleopatra’s attendant, and she’s reacting to the queen’s commands to basically
go spy on Antony. Cleopatra’s been telling Charmian the different things to
tell Antony depending on what kind of mood he’s in. And I believe Charmian’s
Totally Random line is just saying that if you really love the guy, then be
straight with him. But Cleopatra response to this is to tell Charmian that
she’s a fool. So while the role of Cleopatra speaks to cleverness, but also the
deceitfulness of women, I think that the simple honesty of Charmian speaks to
the goodness of women. As in a lot of cases with Will, he’s not painting a
picture to tell us how it is, he’s painting of picture with a little bit of
everything in it so that we can decide on how it is. Clever fellow that Will.
Now, as a
little bit of a post script on today’s blog, this is one of the first plays
that I read while listening to the Arkangel Shakespeare CD (yeah, CD; can you
believe it?). Cirian Hinds plays Antony. If you don’t recognize the name you
would recognize the face and the voice if you heard it. He’s really good. So
I’m plugging Arkangel again just because I feel they’re that good. Especially
if you’re trying to introduce someone to the written Shakespeare. Get them to
listen/read it. You won’t regret it.
What the…
What’s that guy doing back? But okay, that’s Ciaran Hinds he’s pointing to.
Recognize him? I mean Ciaran, not the guy in the funny outfit.
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