Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

I’ll follow, sir. But first, an’t please the gods,

I’ll hide my master from the flies as deep

As these poor pickaxes can dig: and when

With wild wood-leaves and weeds I ha’ strew’d his grave,

And on it said a century of prayers,

Such as I can, twice o’er, I’ll weep and sigh;

And leaving so his service, follow you,

So please you entertain me.

 

Imogen

Cymbeline                             Act IV, Scene ii, Line 391

 

The ‘master’ that Imogen wants to bury and say prayers over is Cloten, but Imogen doesn’t know that. She thinks it’s her love, Posthumous, but she’s telling Caius Lucius that it’s someone named Richard du Champ.

Got that? It’s Cloten, she thinks it’s Posthumous, and she says it’s Richard du Champ.

 

Nothing confusing about that, eh Mojo?

I’m pretty sure he agrees with me.

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

Neither.

                 What, neither?

        Neither.

  

Autolycus, 

                Dorcas, 

                            Autolycus

The Winter’s Tale                         Act IV, Scene iii, Line 306

 

Apparently the answer is ‘neither’, and Dorcas needed confirmation of that. Do we care what the question was? It’s something about going to the grange or the mill, and the answer is neither: neither the grange nor the mill.

Do we need to delve further to get a better understanding, or shall we discuss the meter used in a line made up of two different people talking?

How about Neither?

I don't remember asking you.

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

Thou whoreson zed! Thou unnecessary letter!-  My lord, if you will give me leave, I will tread this unbolted villain into mortar, and daub the wall of a jakes with him.—‘Spare my gray beard,’ you wagtail?

 

Kent

King Lear                             Act II, Scene ii, Line 68

 

This is a continuation of the spat between Oswald and Kent. It began because of Oswald’s disrespect for Lear, which Kent would not suffer in the least. It led, a little earlier in this scene to the longest bit of name-calling I’ve ever seen. Here’s Kent’s answer to Oswald when the latter asked him, What dost thou know me for?

A knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats; a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave; a lily-liver’d, action-taking, whoreson, glass-gazing, superserviceable, finical rogue; one-trunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a bawd in way of good service, and art nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pandar, and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch: one whom I will beat into clamorous whining, if thou deniest the least syllable of thy addition.

Don’t hold back, Kent. Tell us how you really feel.

I don't understand half those words, Mr. Blagys, but it doesn't sound like Kent is holding back much.

 

I'm always forgetting that this little guy doesn't get sarcasm.

No, Mojo, he's not holding back much, and I don't understand half those words either. 

 

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

Sir, make me not your story.

 

Isabella

Measure for Measure           Act I, Scene iv, Line 30

 

I think that Sir, make me not your story, might just be an expression, a figure of speech. Lucio has just told Isabella that her brother is in jail for getting a girl pregnant. Get out of town, she might say; or in this case, make me not your story. That’s the only sense that I can make out of it.

I have a glossary of words that Will used that have a different meaning than they have today, but unfortunately I don’t have a glossary of expressions. I do have a number of different compilations of his works, some with more footnotes than others. I could go through those and see if any have a footnote on this line. But I don’t think I’ll be doing that right now. So unless someone has an objection, make me not your story is going to be the same as get out of town.

Okay?

I'm pretty sure that Mojo has no objections. 

In fact, if he were to object I would respond with Make me not your story!

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

Let it not be believed for womanhood!

Think, we had mothers; do not give advantage

To stubborn critics,-- apt, without a theme,

For depravation,-- to square the general sex

By Cressid’s rule: rather think this is not Cressid.

 

Troilus

Troilus and Cressida             Act V, Scene ii, Line 132

 

Let’s see if I can give you some context without going all Long-story-short-Tony.

Titular Troilus has just been spying on titular Cressida whilst she talked with Diomedes. It was made clear to Troilus that Cressida has given him up and is now taken Diomedes as her new guy. Now  Cressida and Diomedes have left, and Troilus is bemoaning the situation to Ulysses. 

Given that, can you make sense of Today’s Lines? Still need help? Read it a few times, knowing that Troilus does not want to believe what he’s just seen. And pay careful attention to the punctuation. I’m sure you can make sense of it. Oh, all right; here’s Pete’s Version.

Oh, don’t believe woman can be like this! Remember: we had mothers, so don’t believe those who want you to believe (without any good cause) that all women are bound to be unfaithful like Cressida has been. I would rather simply believe this was not Cressida.

How’s that? Makes sense?

I think it’s a little funny that he brings mothers into the discussion to justify that all women can’t be unfaithful. After all, mothers are perfect. Right?

Yes they are. 

Is there a question here?

 

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

I am known to be a humorous patrician, and one that loves a cup of hot wine with not a drop of allaying Tiber in’t; said to be something imperfect in favouring the first complaint; hasty and tinder-like upon too trivial motion; one that converses more with the buttock of the night than with the forehead of the morning: what I think I utter and spend my malice in my breath. Meeting two such wealsmen (statesmen), as you are, - I cannot call you Lycurguses (a legendary Greek lawmaker), - if the drink you give me touch my palate adversely, I make a crooked face for it. I cannot say you worships have deliver’d the matter well, when I find the ass in compound with the major part of your syllables: and though I must be content to bear with those that say you are reverend grave men, yet they lie deadly that tell you you have good faces.  

 

Menenius Agrippa

Coriolanus                 Act II, Scene i, Line 50

 

Where to start? Well, first off, I came to the end of a sentence with I make a crooked face for it, but I couldn’t help myself. I had to continue to include the part about the ass and the syllables. That’s right, Shakespeare is having Menenius tell these guys that they’re talking out of their asses. I felt compelled to include that.

This is a scene where Menenius Agrippa, the wise old advisor and friend to Coriolanus, comes upon two of the representatives of the people. These two are real weasels who have it out for Coriolanus, and Menenius knows it. In Today’s Lines he is talking first about himself and then about the two of them and telling them what weasels they are. Unfortunately for me, the word wealsmen has nothing to do with weasles, it’s just an old term for statesmen. Oh well.

I’m finding it very difficult today to stay at 30,000 feet. Every time I see these two wealsmen in Coriolanus, I cannot help but think of all of today’s current wealsmen (better termed weaselmen and weaselwomen), and their Weasel-in-Chief. Sorry, can’t help myself. I considered going into an epic rant, but I’ll spare you, and in the meantime limit my rants to the buttock of the night.

It just occurred to me that Will made reference to the rear end of human anatomy twice today. Menenius talks about conversing more with the buttock of the night than with the forehead of the morning, and later speaks about the ass in compound with the major part of your syllables to the two wealsmen.

Will is the best; so good that he helps me to pull back up to 30,000 feet.  Most of the time.

Something else that helps to keep us both at 30,000 feet: bird watching. 

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

Ah, thou, the model where old Troy did stand,

Thou map of honour, thou King Richard’s tomb.

And not King Richard; thou most beauteous inn,

Why should hard-favour’d grief be lodged in thee,

When triumph is become an alehouse guest.

 

Queen

King Richard the Second                      Act V, Scene i, Line 14

 

This is King Richard’s queen talking, but this is the end of the play and Richard has been deposed by Bolingbroke at this point. The queen is waiting outside the Tower of London to watch Richard go by on his way to imprisonment there.

I believe that thou, in both sentences above, refers to the Tower, and when she says not King Richard she is referencing the fact that Richard’s no longer the king.

So, whilst the five lines can be understood fairly easily, at least on the surface, they’re pretty loaded nonetheless. Should we unload them?

NO!

 Well, I guess the king has spoken.