Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

Think you not on him till to-morrow: I’ll devise thee brave punishment for him – Strike up, pipers!

[Dance. Exeunt.]

 

Benedick

Much Ado About Nothing             Act V, Scene iv, Line 128

 

It’s the last line of the play. Benedick is reacting to the messenger who’s said that they’ve caught the former’s brother, John, and they’re bringing him back to Messina. John is the villain of the play and without him there wouldn’t have been Much Ado, the play would have been mostly About Nothing. So, I guess they should have been talking about rewarding John instead of punishing him. Right?

Wait, what?

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

Counsel, Lucetta; gentle girl, assist me;

And, even in kind love, I do conjure thee,--

Who art the table wherein all my thoughts

Are visibly character’d and engraved,--

To lesson me; and tell me some good mean,

How, with my honour, I may undertake

A journey to my loving Proteus.

 

Julia

The Two Gentlemen of Verona     Act II, Scene vii, Line 1

 

I think we should look at this in detail so we can understand the lines and realize just how easy it is to read Shakespeare. I say that because I’ve been getting a lot of feedback lately on just how difficult it is, and with this I disagree.

First off, counsel is being used as a verb: Counsel me, Lucetta. Give me some advice. Julia continues, in the first two lines, to ask, to beg, Lucetta to help her. Lines three and four are a separate thought in the middle of these lines, set off by the dashes, and referring to Lucetta. These two lines are a lovely metaphor for how close these two women are, but they are not part of the main thought of the lines.

We get back to that main part of the thought after the second set of dashes. So, she’s begged, Lucetta to help her in the first two lines, explained why Lucetta is the one who can best help her in the next two lines, and now she’ll say what she wants help with. So, go ahead, read the last three lines again, and you tell me what Julia wants help with. That’s right, I’m not going to tell you. Go ahead, re-read the last three lines of Today’s Lines.

In the meantime, I’m going back to the metaphor of lines three and four, because I think that’s the best part of Today's Lines. I think that this is a very sweet thing to say to someone:

You,

Who art the table wherein all my thoughts

Are visibly character’d and engraved.

Goodness, that belongs in a love sonnet. I wonder if Lucetta got the compliment. To be clear, Lucetta is a servant, a waiting woman, to Julia. None the less, Shakespeare’s works are full of relationships between servants and their superiors, many of them very close relationships. Apparently Lucetta either didn't get the compliment or decides to pass over it because her response is short and simple.

Alas, the way is wearisome and long.

She cuts to the chase. Clearly, Lucetta read Strunk and White and adheres to the no unnecessary words credo (as just as clearly Julia does not).

But think about it: You are the table, the whiteboard, where all my thoughts are easily read. That is a description of a person who’s very close to you; a person who knows you perhaps better than you know yourself. It’s a very nice thing to say to someone, and it just gets passed over here.

I think there’s a whole lot of stuff in Shakespeare, that’s really, really good stuff, that gets overlooked. Perhaps that’s a metaphor for life, eh?

A metaphor for life, ugghh.

You're a metaphor for life.

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

If thou, that bidd’st me be content, wert grim,

Ugly, and slanderous to thy mother’s womb,

Full of unpleasing blots and sightless stains,

Lame, foolish, crooked, swart, prodigious,

Pacht with foul moles and eye-offending marks

I would not care, I then would be content;

For then I should not love thee; no, nor thou

Become thy great birth, nor deserve a crown.

But thou art fair; and at thy birth, dear boy,

Nature and Fortune join’d to make thee great;

Of Nature’s gifts thou mayst with lilies boast

And with the half-blown rose: but Fortune, O!

She is corrupted changed and won from thee;

Sh’adulterates hourly with thine Uncle John;

And with her golden hand hath pluckt on France

To tread down fair respect of sovereignty,

And made his majesty the bawd to theirs.

 

Constance

King John       Act III, Scene i, Line 48

 

Okay, that's a long one. No sense complaining; let's just get at it.

The line previous to this is Arthur, the son of Constance, saying to his mother,

I do beseech you, madam, be content.

Previous to that, Constance had been on a rant about the horrible peace deal that had been struck with France. It seems that much of the kingdom has been given up and she’s upset because her son, Arthur, who is the heir to the throne of the childless King John, stands to inherit a much lesser kingdom than she thinks he should be getting. That is her issue, and that is what she’s talking about in Today’s Lines.

So what’s she saying to Arthur? She’s saying that if he was born ugly, stupid, and worthless she wouldn’t love him, and he wouldn’t deserve the crown. But he’s not, he’s born to greatness, and nature and fortune dictate greatness for him. However, his worthless Uncle John (again, that’s King John), has corrupted fortune and worked to make sure that the England that Arthur will inherit as ruler will be subservient to France.

And there you have it. Overbearing mother, or a concerned parent with a valid gripe? You tell me.  

Overbearing my butt! This lady is right on. 

I would certainly hope that someone would stick up for me if you were going to screw up all that I'm going to be inheriting from you when you kick the bucket. 

Mojo, you're not going to be inherit....   oh, never mind.

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

Thou shalt inquire him out among the Goths:

 

Titus      

Titus Andronicus           Act V, Scene ii, Line 123

 

This is part of an eight-line sentence full of commas, colons, and semi-colons. I was gonna give you the whole eight lines, but thought better of it, so you just got Thou shalt inquire him out among the Goths.

I mean, that’s enough, isn’t it?

 

Yes!! That’s enough!!

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

So would not I, for your own sake; for I have many ill qualities.

 

Margaret

Much Ado About Nothing            Act II Scene i, Line 96

Margaret is talking with Balthazar; he is telling her that he likes her, and she is telling him not to bother. 

Well, I would you did like me, is Balthazar’s line that Margaret is replying to.

I believe that it’s often syntax, the order of the words in a sentence, that makes Shakespeare hard to understand. And this is why it’s easier to understand when listened to, because if the speaker is someone who knows what the lines mean, they can accent the words in such a way so that it makes the odd order of the words more comprehensible. 

I can think of three reasons for Will using odd syntax: By playing with the syntax he can gain emphasis on different things where he wants it. By playing with syntax he can make the lines properly metrical. Finally, in some cases the syntax he is using was probably the order of the words that was more usual back in 1690.

Syntax.  

Let’s take today’s lines. I guess the other issue today is the use of the word would. Wish is a word that might make this clearer.

Well, I would you did like me.

Well, I wish you liked me. I changed did like to liked.

So would not I. 

I wouldn’t (wish that). I put I at the beginning of the sentence.

If you think of this stuff as Yoda speak, maybe that would make it easier. It occurs to me that no one seems to object to Yoda’s syntax, and it’s not that different from Will’s.

Again, Syntax.

Again, welcome aboard.

And here's what Mojo thinks about syntax.

Going,

Going,

  

Gone!

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

For him, I think not on him; for his thoughts,

Would they were blanks, rather than fill’d with me!

Olivia

Twelfth Night                Act III Scene i, Line 106

Regarding him (Duke Orsino), I don’t think about him at all; regarding his thoughts, it would be better off if his thoughts were about nothing than to be about me.

There. That’s Pete’s version. Pretty simple. It wasn’t that simple when I first read it. But it turns out that it is pretty simple. Sometimes things can seem more difficult at first, but then they come into focus and you realize they’re pretty straightforward. 

I think there’s two things to talk about here, and they’re very related. One is simplicity, and the other is thoughts. So let’s open this up

What Olivia’s saying is simple to understand, and the idea she’s conveying is simple too. Tell the duke to stop thinking about me. Simple as that. But is it so simple to stop thinking about things? Not always. 

And this is true the stressful world of April, 2025 that we’re living in and through.

I think Taylor Swift said it best: Leading up to the election she said that she was voting for Kamala and one of the main reasons was that we needed calm leadership, not chaos and crisis. Well, we got chaos and crisis, and I think we’re all feeling the effects of that now. I know I am. I can do my best to try to pull up, but it’s just not always possible for me. 

It’s as simple and as difficult as that.

 

This little guy here helps me a lot. He helps me pull up (get my thoughts out of the day-to-day stress), and he helps me keep it simple. 

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

‘Have done,’ quoth he: ‘my uncontrolled tide
Turns not, but swells the higher by this let.
Small lights are soon blown out, huge fires abide,
And with the wind in greater fury fret:
The petty streams that pay a daily debt
     To their salt sovereign, with their fresh falls’                     haste

     Add to his flow, but alter not his taste.

 

Tarquin

 Lucrece                         Line  651

Now from where I’m sitting, if I give you just a little context, I believe you should have no problem understanding exactly what Tarquin is saying. But unfortunately, I think I’m probably wrong in that assumption.

Let’s try anyway.

This is Tarquin talking. He’s stolen into Lucrece’s bedroom late at night with the intent of having his way with her. She is scared to death and wants no part of him. That’s not going to stop him. Remember, the poem is alternately titled Lucrece or The Rape Of Lucrece. Our victim has just spent a number of lines trying to talk Tarquin out of raping her. Today’s lines are part of Tarquin’s response to this plea. And one more bit of help: the word let in the second line can be taken to mean obstacle. In this case he’s referring to the obstacle of her trying to stop him.

Soooo, got it? Probably not. 

Okay, here’s the Pete's short version:
First two lines: Stop talking. You’re not going to stop me, you’re just making me want to do this more.
Next two lines: Like a large fire that grows bigger in a wind, my urge grows stronger with your resisting it.
Last three: Okay, I can’t quite figure out what this metaphor is saying, but I’m pretty sure it’s more of the same.

Now do you see it?

  

 See what? Is there another mouse?

Never mind, Mojo.