Today’s Totally Random Lines

O, why should wrath be mute, and fury dumb?

Aaron

Titus Andronicus               Act V, Scene iii, Line 185

This is actually the line before Today’s actual Totally Random Line, but the TTRL runs for six lines (which I’ll give you in a moment), so I’m giving you this easier line up front.

Aaron has just been sentenced to be buried breast-deep and to be left to starve to death. That’s what he’s reacting to above. He goes on, since he’s already said that wrath and fury should be verbalized, and here is that verbalization: 

I am no baby, I, that with base prayers

I should repent the evils I have done:

Ten thousand worse than ever yet I did

Would I perform, if I might have my will:

If one good deed in all my life I did,

I do repent it from my very soul.

There, how’s that for wrath and fury; he's not a nice fellow at all. Luckily, Lucius, Titus’s son, get’s the last words of the play after Aaron speaks. He’s not terribly nice either, talking about tossing Tamora’s body forth to beasts and birds of prey. But, thankfully, he ends this whole torrid affair on a little bit  more of an upbeat note:

Then, afterwards, to order well the state,

That like events may ne’er it ruinate.

Yeah, I don’t think anyone would want events like those that took place in this play (murder, rape, mutilation, cannibalization, etc, etc) to ever repeat. That could very definitely ruinate the state.

Of course, there are other types of actions that could ruinate the state as well, but I'm not gonna go there today.

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

Signior Benedick, no; for then were you a child.

Leonato

Much Ado About Nothing    Act I, Scene i, Line xxx

I can’t believe it took me so long to figure this line out. Here’s the setup: Don Pedro asks Leonato if the young woman with him is his daughter. Leonato replies, Her mother hath many times told me so. Wise-ass Benedick chimes in, Were you in doubt, sir, that you asked her? That's when Leonato replies with Today’s Line, no; for then you were a child.

How did I not get that? In case you’re as dull witted as myself, Leonato is saying that he wasn’t in doubt because Benedick was too young then to have fathered her. In other words, Leonato is saying that Benedick is a lady’s man, to put it nicely, and since he was just a child when this girl was born, he (Leonato), does not have to worry about his wife having cheated on him with Benedick. How hard is that? How did I not get that right away?

I'll bet old sleepy head over there wouldn't have got it either. I think all of this stuff is over his head anyway. 

Just kidding, buddy. Just kidding. I'm sure you got it the first time you heard it. 

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

Madam, I was very late more near her than I think she wisht me: alone she was, and did communicate to herself her own words to her own ears; she thought, I dare vow for her, they toucht not any stranger sense.

 

Steward

All’s Well That Ends Well     Act I, Scene iii, Line 106

Steward is telling his boss, the Countess, that he was eavesdropping on Helena talking to herself. Yup, that’s what he’s saying. He’s being a bit long-winded about it, isn’t he. Four and a half lines to say I overheard Helena talking to herself.

Sometimes I wonder why the Bard will so often take so many words to communicate something that can be said with so few. For instance, the last part - she thought, I dare vow for her, they toucht not any stranger sense. Why not – I think she thought she was alone. Seven words vs thirteen. Clearly Will never read Strunk and White – No unneeded words! Just as clearly Will was the Poet Playwright. I guess we’ll leave it at that.

I can only wonder how many words Will would use to describe Mojo in this picture. I can sum it up with two words:

Complete Disinterest.

Perhaps, as you read this, you're feeling the same as Mojo here?

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

I dare not say I take you ; but I give

Me and my service, ever whilst I live,

Into your guiding power.- This is the man.

 

Helena

All’s Well That Ends Well     Act II, Scene iii, Line 104

 

Perhaps I should tell you what’s going on here.

The king was dying until Helen came in and saved him with a miracle cure. Helen is the daughter of a late and great physician; that makes her a commoner. The king, in his gratitude to Helen, tells her that she may pick any one of the men in court (counts, and nobles, and such) to marry. She goes down the line and speaks to four men telling them that she won’t be picking them. Then she comes to Bertram and gives us today’s line. So it looks like Betram is the lucky winner of a wife. The only problem is that Betram wants no part of Helen:

A poor physician’s daughter my wife!- Disdain

Rather corrupt me ever!

And now we have the set up for the rest of the play. The king will insist, so what will Bertram do? What will Helen do? Will they marry and live happily ever after? Or will all  sorts of shenanigans take place? I guess you’ll have to experience the play to find out.

I wish some girl with amazing healing powers would want to marry me. This Bertam guy sounds like a real dick.  

Mojo! Language!

Oh, sorry. Sounds like a bit of  dick.

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

Antony,

The posture of your blows are yet unknown;

But for your words, they rob the Hybla bees,

And leave them honeyless.

  

Cassius

Julius Caesar             Act V, Scene i, Line 34

Octavius and Marc Antony are at the head of one army, whilst Brutus and Cassius lead another. The four men are meeting for a parlay before the battle that’s about to take place. This particular exchange begins with Brutus saying 

Good words are better than bad strokes, Octavius.

I’m pretty sure that Brutus doesn’t want to have this battle, but Marc Antony throws those words right back in Brutus’s face,

In your bad strokes, Brutus, you give good words;

Witness the hole you made in Caesar’s heart,

Crying, ‘Long live! Hail, Caesar!’

Well, he’s got a really good point there: Brutus and Cassius are part of the group that stabbed Caesar to death. But Cassius nevertheless fires right back with Today’s Lines about Marc Antony’s words being so sweet that they could rob the Hybla bees of their honey. Hybla was famous for it’s honey, and Cassius is implying that Antony’s words are sweet but treacherous since they rob the honey. And they are treacherous; Marc Antony is very dangerous with his words. 

This is the scene before that battle, near the end of the play, and Cassius and Brutus will both be dead shortly. Marc Antony and Octavius will have avenged the killing of Caesar. 

Words and actions: both can be pretty dangerous.

No need to worry little buddy; the Hybla bees are safe for today, and so are you. 

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

Well, as time shall try:

‘In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke.’

  

Don Pedro

Much Ado About Nothing       Act I, Scene i, Line 245

 

Yup, act one, scene one. Don Pedro and Claudio are talking to Benedick. The latter is telling them that he will ever remain a confirmed bachelor, and the other two are telling him that eventually he will marry. Benedick replies,

If I do, hang me in a bottle like a cat, and shoot at me; and he that hits me, let him be clapt on the shoulder, and called Adam. 

And to this, Don Pedro replies with Today’s Line about the savage bull bearing the yoke. Well, the thing about the savage bull bearing the yoke is not bad, but it’s not half as good as Hang me in a bottle like a cat and shoot at me. That’s fabulous! I think that’s one I need to find a way to remember so that I can use it at an opportune moment; like when I see something entirely out of the ordinary that defies all expectations. An instance where you might expect to hear someone say, Well don’t that beat all! Yeah, instead I’ll say Hang me in a bottle like a cat and shoot at me! It’s perfect. Can you imagine the look on their faces? I gotta find a way to remember that. 

Hang me in a bottle like a cat and shoot at me!

That's a great idea, Mr. Blagys.

YIKES! Just when I thought this guy couldn't get any whackier, he manages to out-whack himself. I guess I should be thankful he's not talking about hanging a dog in a bottle. 

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best,

Even to thy pure and most most loving breast.

  

Narrator

Sonnet 110             Concluding Couplet

All right then; that’s the last two lines of the sonnet, and this being a sonnet, like many of them, it’s hard enough to understand in its entirety, so it makes no sense at all trying to figure out these two lines. Unless of course we take a stab at the whole thing. Well that being said, no, I don’t mind if I do. Here goes.

As I’ve said many times, the sonnets are best viewed a quatrain at a time. Here’s number one.

Alas, ‘tis true I have gone here and there,

And made myself motley to the view,

Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,

Made old offences of affections new;

Sounds like he’s saying that he’s been a pretty big jerk. It’s hard to tell exactly what he’s done, but he’s acted poorly, that’s for sure.

Most true it is that I have looked on truth

Askance and strangely: but, by all above,

These blenches (turnings aside) gave my heart another youth,

And worst essays (trials or tests) proved thee my best of love.

This second quatrain gets a little tougher. I think he’s reiterating that he’s done wrong, but by doing so it has allowed him to see anew that thee (whoever that is) is his true love.

Now all is done, have what shall have no end:

Mine appetite I never more will grind

On newer proof, to try an older friend,

A god in love, to whom I am confined.

I’m pretty much throwing up my hands and waving the white flag on this quatrain. Okay, I’ll take a crack at it. Now that all is said and done, there’s nothing he can do about it. But he’s changing and never again will try something new to test his love for thee, to whom he is committed solely.

 

Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best,

Even to thy pure and most most loving breast.

He’s saying, ‘please welcome me back and accept me, you who are the next thing to heaven for me; welcome me to your loving breast.’

There, I did it. Now, as is always the test, let’s take a look at what Katherine Duncan-Jones has to say in The Arden Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Here’s her one sentence summation.

The speaker acknowledges that he has strayed in affection from the youth (Thee), but claims that this has served only to strengthen his original and continuing devotion.

Yeah, that’s pretty much what I said, isn’t it? Ahhh, sonnets; they’re the best!

Mojo slept through the entire Daily Mojo. 

Oh well, who can blame him.