Today’s Totally Random Lines

This royal hand and mine are newly knit,

And the conjunction of our inward souls

Married in league, coupled and linkt together

With all religious strength and sacred vows;

The latest breath that gave the sound of words

The deep-sworn faith, peace, amity, true love

Between our kingdoms and our royal selves;

And even before this truce, but new before,-

No longer than we well could wash our hands,

To clap this royal bargain up of peace,-

Heaven knows, they were besmear’d and overstain’d

With slaughter’s pencil, where revenge did paint

The fearful difference of incensed kings:

And shall these hands, so lately purged of blood,

So newly join’d in love, so strong in both,

Unyoke this seizure and this kind of regret?

 

King Philip 

King John                 Act III, Scene i, Line 240

That’s a really long line. I decided to work with the punctuated sentence. It’s all commas and semicolons up to that final question mark, and therefore one sentence.

So, what’s King Philip saying with this really long sentence? He’s saying that he and King John just consummated a treaty, so do they really want to throw that out and go back to warring with each other. I’m not exactly sure who is pushing to throw the treaty out, or why, but the king is using sixteen lines to question that idea. Now if you look at it closely, and take a little time with the lines you can see that they're pretty clear and, of course, quite expressive, to say the least. 

Go back and take a look

The first seven lines talk about the positivity of their relationship with the new treaty.

the conjunction of our inward souls Married in league... religious strength and sacred vows... deep-sworn faith, peace, amity, true love

The next six talk about the horrible situation of war that existed before the treaty.

besmear’d and overstain’d With slaughter’s pencil, where revenge did paint The fearful difference of incensed kings:

And the last three lines question why they would want to go back to that.

And shall these hands, so lately purged of blood,

So newly join’d in love, so strong in both,

Unyoke this seizure and this kind of regret?

Good for King Philip!  

My little buddy's getting in some much deserved and much needed pool time. 

There'll be no worrying about being besmear’d and overstain’d with slaughter’s pencil for this fellow!

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

You come hither, my lord, to marry this lady?

Friar Francis

Much Ado About Nothing    Act IV, Scene i, Line 4

The answer to this question is a flat “No”.

This is the wedding scene. Claudio, the groom, has been fooled into believing that Hero, the bride, has been unfaithful to him. So he shows up for the wedding and when the priest asks him if he’s ready to marry, he says ‘no’. Then, somehow, the ceremony proceeds as if no one heard his answer, until twenty lines down he goes off into his speech about how Hero has cheated on him and how he wants nothing to do with her.

Give not this rotten orange to your friend;  he says to Hero’s father. He calls the bride a ‘rotten orange.’

How’s that!?

Okay, here's a Totally Random picture that has absolutely nothing to do with Today's Totally Random line; but I couldn't pass it up. 

Look at the shirt on this guy! He knows how to celebrate a holiday!

Bravo, Jon!

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

Ah,  ha!—Come, some music! Come, the recorders!—

For if the king like not the comedy,

Why, then, belike,--he likes it not, perdy.--

Come, some music!

Hamlet

Hamlet               Act III, Scene ii, Line 311

 

The word perdy means assuredly. It’s a bastardization of the French per Dieu, or, per God. Anyway. 

This is the scene with the play within the play. Hamlet has had the visiting group of players (not the Cheshire Town Players) stage a play that had a scene which mimics how he believed that Claudius killed King Hamlet (Hamlet’s father). Claudius, upon watching the scene, has just stormed out, after which Hamlet concluded with Horatio that Claudius must indeed be guilty. And with this done, Hamlet says “Bring on the music.”

Interesting.

 

The scene…

Within the play…

With the players…

Staging a play…

That had a scene…

 

I believe the word is “confusing”, not “interesting”.

And I agree with Hamlet, just bring on the music.

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

All this I see; and I see that the fashion wears out more apparel than the man. But art not thou thyself giddy with the fashion too, that thou hast shifted out of thy tale into telling me of the fashion?

Conrade

Much Ado About Nothing     Act III, Scene iii, Line 140

Conrade is speaking with his buddy Borachio. The latter is about to explain to Conrade how he was involved with the scheme to make Claudio think that his fiancé, Hero, was unfaithful to him. However, he begins the tale with this long winded thing about fashion. Honestly, it’s a bit much. It’s fashion this, and fashion that. I think there’s supposed to be humor here, but it’s a bit hard to flesh out; at least for me it is.

Anyway, it seems like Conrade is of the same mind as me since he seems to be telling Borachio just that, …thou hast shifted out of thy tale into telling me of the fashion.

In any event, Borachio apparently takes the hint, and after this line he goes into the tale of what he did concerning Hero.

Now that’s a funny name for a woman: Hero. Don’t you think?

 Oy! Mr. B.!

Are you trying to get us killed?

Maybe you could just let me drive, instead of distracting me with this nonsense? 

Hero, Shmero!

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

Her hair, nor loose nor tied in formal plat,

Proclaim’d in her a careless hand of pride;

For some, untuckt, descended her sheaved hat,

Hanging her pale and pined cheek beside;

Some in threaden fillet still did bide,

And, true to bondage, would not break from thence,

Though slackly braided in loose negligence.

 

Narrator

A Lover’s Complaint         Stanza 5

And now, for something completely different. It’s not a play, or a sonnet; it’s one of Will’s poems. The two long poems he’s most well known for are Venus and Adonis, and Lucrece. This one is a bit shorter, and considered by some to be doubtful as to whether or not it is truly Will’s work. But we’ll assume that it is.

It’s a poem about a maiden lamenting the fact that she’s been abandoned by her lover. Without going into all that, this stanza is completely about her hair. Yes, her hair; it’s all about her hair.

It’s neither loose, nor tied;

It’s proclaimed;

Some of it’s untuckt, descended, and hanging,

And some is true to bondage, albeit slackly braided.

Yes, that’s her hair.

Comments?

This guy wants hair comments.

Are you kidding me?

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

Ah, Gaunt, his blood was thine! That bed, that womb,

That metal , that self-mould, that fashion’d thee

Made him a man; and though thou livest and breathest,

Yet art thou slain in him: thou dost consent

In some large measure to thy father’s death,

In that thou seest thy wretched brother die,

Who was the model of thy father’s life. 

 

Duchess of Gloster

King Richard the Second   Act I, Scene ii, Line 25

Okay then; here's where we're at: The Duchess of Gloster is the widow of Thomas, the latter being Gaunt’s brother. She’s talking to Gaunt about Thomas. Gaunt and Thomas were son’s of Edward III. The current king, Richard II is the grandson of Edward III. There are some, including Thomas of Gloster, who think/thought Richard to be doing a lousy job as king. Thomas has been eliminated by Richard’s people, and his widow wants Gaunt, her brother-in-law, to avenge Gloster’s death. Gaunt says, no; leave it to God.

Gloster’s widow is not particularly happy with that answer and leaves. She ends the scene with a farewell rhyming couplet.

Desolate, desolate, will I hence and die:

The last leave of thee takes my weeping eye.

Just a little bit maudlin, eh? A bit of a Debbie Downer.

A bit maudlin?!? Her husband was "eliminated" by her nephew, and her brother-in-law's not going to do a thing about it! 

Maudlin???

 

Oooh, go easy on that one, Mrs. B; that's the one you drew blood on last time.

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

They shall be satisfied: I’ll read enough,

When I do see the very book indeed

Where all my sins are writ, and that’s myself.  

 

King Richard

King Richard the Second   Act IV, Scene i, Line 273

Bolingbroke has won. They are in Westminster Hall and everyone is present. King Richard has been brought forth and is being asked to read aloud a list of his wrong doings as a way of justifying Bolingbroke’s usurpation of the throne. Richard is quibbling about doing this, and Bolingbroke says he doesn’t have to. Northumberland remarks that the masses will not be satisfied unless Richard reads the list of his sins, and this is what Richard is responding to above. 

So that took me eight and a half lines to set up today’s three lines. Oh, and Richard has already requested a mirror, so that’s what he’s referring to when he says, When I do see the very book. He’s talking about his face. He has a nice little speech when he looks in the mirror. It’s thirteen lines. Oh what the heck.

Give me the glass, and therein will I read.-

No deeper wrinkles yet? Hath sorrow struck

So many blows upon this face of mine,

And made no deeper wounds! – O flattering glass,

Like to my followers in prosperity,

Thou dost beguile me! Was this face the face

That every day under his household roof

Did keep ten thousand men? Was this the face

That, like the sun, did make beholders wink:

Was this the face that faced so many follies,

And was at last out-faced by Bolingbroke?

A brittle glory shineth in this face:

As brittle as the glory is the face;

                       [dashes the glass against the ground]

For there it is, crackt in a hundred shivers.—

Mark, silent king, the moral of this sport,--

How soon my sorrow hath destroy’d my face.

 

And Bolingbroke replies,

The shadow of your sorrow hath destroy’d

The shadow of your face.

 

Richard seems surprised,

                                      Say that again.

The shadow of my sorrow? Ha, let’s see:--

‘Tis very true, my grief lies all within;

And then he goes on, but we won't.

I’m not sure why I felt the need to give you all that. There’s a lot of what Richard has to say in this play that’s really great. I guess I just felt that here’s some of that, so that I wanted to make sure you got it. It’s pretty great just reading it, the beauty of the language; and of course there’s all sorts of meaning that can be mined out of it should you decide to put on your miners helmet with the light and dive on in.

But let’s face it: that's up to you. 

 

He doesn’t think I noticed that he snuck the word ‘face’ into that last sentence just because the whole thing was about faces and facing. 

I noticed. 

This face notices everything!