O me, lieutenant! What villains have done this?

-Iago

Othello                 Act V, scene i     Line 55

Well if we’re going to do a quote from Othello we can’t do better than Iago! This guy, if you didn’t know it, is widely considered the best villain that Shakespeare ever created. And if you were thinking that Iago was just the Gilbert Gottfried voiced parrot in the movie Aladdin, well I think it’s time we widened your horizons a wee bit.

So Iago is the guy in the play who starts all the bad stuff happening. If I recall, Iago’s main issue is that he gets passed over for promotion by Othello in favor of Cassio, a younger guy, so now he’s just gonna be a real nasty little creep and do everything he can to ruin everyone’s lives. And he does a pretty good job of it. And the thing is that he’s Othello’s right hand man and Othello has no idea that Iago is a bad guy until the very end of the play.

Today’s Totally Random Daily Shakespeare line is a perfect example of Iago’s treachery. His question is to Cassio who’s been sliced in the back of the leg. But the answer to ‘what villain?’ is himself. Iago! Iago snuck up behind Cassio, sliced him, and ran without being seen. Then he’s back a little while later pretending he was never there, and pretending to be shocked over what happened to Cassio. We couldn’t have picked a better line to show the spirit of Iago and this play if we had spent hours poring over the text! Amazing! Either this random stuff actually works or, more likely, Shakespeare’s texts are so packed full of good stuff that it’s hard to come up with a bad line!

So I guess this is the line you can use when mom discovers that someone (you) has eaten the whole container of mint chip ice cream and put the empty container back in the freezer. If you walk in the kitchen and see her looking with disappointment at the empty container you can try this line, “What villain has done this!” The thing is, your mom is probably smarter than Cassio and she’ll look right back at you and say “You know damn well what villain, Porky!”  

Come your ways.---My masters, you say she’s a virgin?

-Boult

Pericles                 Act IV, scene ii   Line 40

Well we’ve got a few interesting things that we can talk about this morning. Let’s start with the play we ended up with. Pericles was a real person in Greek history, a great leader. But this play is not about the real life of Pericles but rather some made up adventures of Pericles. Also, this play is generally considered to be only partially (the second half of the play) written by Shakespeare and the first half written by some other guy. Finally, I suppose to lend some credence to this latter assumption, this play is NOT included in the First Folio, and that’s got to mean something.

Okay, let’s go into a few sentences on the First Folio, for those of you who don’t know what that is. The only publications of Will’s plays during his lifetime were done surreptitiously, mostly printed as Quatros (sort of like pamphlets) and without Will or his theater group’s consent. Around seven years after Will’s death two of his associates from his theater group put together a definitive collection of Will’s works and published it as a bound volume (a book). It has become known as the First Folio. Around half of the plays in the First Folio existed nowhere in print before the First Folio and if these two guys hadn’t published this book all those plays would have been lost. So kudos to those two guys (John Heminges and Henry Condell). There are a few hundred original copies of this book still kicking around today and, as you can imagine, they’re a bit pricey. If you want one, consider selling your house, and maybe a few neighbor’s houses.  We could spend a lot of time talking about the First Folio (whole books have been written about it, and I’ve read at least one of them) but let’s move on for now.

So there are a handful of plays that show up on various lists of Shakespeare’s plays that are not in the First Folio. Pericles is the one play in my complete works compilation that’s not in the First Folio. There are four or five others that aren’t in my book or the First Folio (and therefore we obviously won’t be drawing any lines from those). And then one last note; Today’s line comes from well past the halfway point in the play so, ostensibly, today’s line was actually written by Will. But who really knows?

Okay, what about the line? Well, I’m not sure about the ‘Come your ways’. I believe that’s just a 1600’s jargon intro’ish type phrase. Sort of like ‘All rightee then mates.’ But I don’t have any authoritative work to back that up. Anyway, the meat of the line is exactly what it looks like. These guys are bartering for Marina (she was born at sea, hence the name; get it?) to use as a sex slave for profit, and they want to know if she’s a virgin, which apparently she is. But wait, it’s not all that bad as it turns out. Marina is sold into slavery, but she manages to convert all the clients sent to her to more pure ways, and so in the end there is no prostitution taking place, and then eventually she is reunited with her father Pericles (This is, after all, a comedy, for whatever that’s worth).

And that’s pretty much the story of today’s Totally Random Daily Shakespeare line.

Come, let me see what task I have to do.

-Titus Andronicus

Titus Andronicus              Act III, scene i    Line 275

What a simple, little, easy to understand line. And how ironic to have randomly picked it from such a bizarre play. I could easily ramble on about how we can use that line in everyday situations. Granted, it would be a little bit stilted to say these exact words. Can you imagine the person sitting at the desk near you at work, or perhaps in study hall, and they say out loud to themselves, “Come, let me see what task I have to do.” First off you might think they’re a bit goofy for talking out loud to themselves, but beyond that you’d probably think them goofy for the style of language, but beyond that you would certainly understand what they’re saying. And based on what they’re saying you wouldn’t be particularly engaged. It’s just a simple little line. “Okay, what’s next on the to-do list?” Right?

And yet, this play is just one bizarre, violent scene after another. Severed heads, slaughtering prisoners, mutilated bodies, cannibalism, rapes… it’s a Sam Peckinpah smorgasbord. In fact, it’s sometimes hard to reconcile it as a Shakespearean work. At least it is for me.

Now I’ve read/listened to this one a few years back. It’s one of Will’s early works. And if I’m not mistaken, most of the big Will thinkers don’t spend much time with this one. Also (and I looked this next one up), it’s only been made into a movie once, in 1999 with Anthony Hopkins in the title role.

But getting back to today’s Totally Random Daily Shakespeare; “Come, let me see what task I have to do.” The really bizarre, and very spooky, thing about this line is that it appears to be so innocuous, when it is anything but. It appears to be a line that you’d say while sitting there having a cup of coffee. “Should I finish washing the dishes, or should I go bring in the empty garbage cans? What task should I take care of?” In fact, Titus utters this line shortly after he has been tricked into cutting off his own hand, and then had his sons’ two severed heads presented to him. The task about which he is uncertain has to do with a response to these matters, these very bizarre matters. The expected line would be something more along the lines of “WHAT THE HELL I’M I GONNA DO NOW!!!” But that wouldn’t be half as spooky. Instead, and I really would love to see Anthony Hopkins say this, instead Titus says simply “Come, let me see what task I have to do.” I can just picture Hopkins saying that with one of his hands missing and the severed heads of his sons sitting there.  And that, my friends, is the genius of Shakespeare (and maybe Anthony Hopkins).

It is myself I mean; in whom I know

All the particulars of vice so grafted

That, when they shall be opened, black Macbeth

Will seem as pure as snow and the poor state

Esteem him as a lamb, being compared

With my confineless harms.

-Malcom

Macbeth              Act IV, scene iii  Line 50-55

Yes, that’s right; Macbeth two days in a row! Honest, it’s random!

It seems that yesterday you got off easy. I could have gone on a bit about that line, but I’m afraid I let my writing go late into the day (instead of first thing like I usually do) and I ran out of gas. But not so this morning. So today we’ll move on and try to get you your money’s worth.

To get you on the right footing here, Macbeth is a play about a good guy gone terribly wrong. So wrong that by the end of the play (evidenced in yesterday’s line), everyone is comforted by seeing Macbeth’s severed head on a spike. That’s gone pretty wrong. And in the beginning he’s described as a bit of a hero. A brutal hero, but fighting on the right side of the King.

Today’s line takes place three quarters of the way through the play. Malcom is the son of the king that Macbeth has murdered, and Macduff (who he’s speaking to) is with him. They are in England trying to figure out what to do about Macbeth who has taken over the kingship of Scotland and ruining the country in the meantime. At this point Malcom plans to lead a revolt to get his rightful kingship back, but he wants to test Macduff to make sure his motives are pure. He’s testing Macduff by trying to convince him that he, Malcom, is a really bad guy (in fact, worse than Macbeth) and that he would be very bad for Scotland if he got power. Macduff will fail the test if he will follow Malcom anyway, or pass the test if he would reject Malcom and instead put Scotland’s better interests first. (spoiler alert, he passes).

So that’s a long explanation for a long line! It turns out that Malcom is a true blue guy; true to goodness, not any one person. In the end Macduff chooses Scotland’s better interests over Malcom, but then Malcom lets Macduff know it’s a test and they go off to get Scotland back from Macbeth. (yes, it is a little confusing, but if you saw it performed it would be clearer).

Now I think it’s really interesting that this play is about the blackness of Macbeth (I mean that’s really what it’s all about) and that in two successive days we picked two totally random lines (out of about 2,500 lines in this play) and both specifically highlight what a really bad guy this Macbeth is. The first pronouncing the comfort to be received seeing his severed head, and the second literally describing him as ‘black Macbeth’. And they say there’s no such thing as coincidence. In the acting world they have some crazy superstition about this play so that they won’t even say the name of the play, they just refer to it as ‘the Scottish play’. That’s how crazy this whole thing gets. Well hopefully we’ll get back to this Scottish play again at a later date not too far in the future. There’s just tons of good stuff in this one to talk about.

Here comes newer comfort.

-Seyward

Macbeth              Act V, scene viii Line 92

Aye, that Scottish play. Now we’ve tapped into a good one! I studied this one in my MAT class about ten years ago, but I've not looked at it since, so I’m a bit rusty with it. But, like Hamlet, Lear, and Othello, it is one of Shakespeare’s classic tragedies.

Now just consider what comes right after this line. Seyward has just concluded his discussion and thoughts of his son who just got killed in battle with the words 'And so God be with him.' But then he quickly changes the subject with today's Totally Random line 'Here come newer comfort.' And what is he referring to? His line in the play's text is immediately followed by the stage direction 'Enter Macduff with Macbeth's head.' OUCH! Yes, I certainly can't imagine anything more comforting than seeing someone's severed head on a spike. 'Here comes something to make us feel better guys. It's that bastard Macbeth's head on a spike!'

Well it's a pretty gruesome play with a lot of killing and description of killing in it, perhaps only exceeded by Titus Andronicus (you experts correct me if I'm wrong). So I guess this type of line is to be expected.

Just the same, and no matter how bad a guy Macbeth was--- would you be comforted by the sight of his severed head?

Commend these waters to those baby eyes

That never saw the giant world enraged;

-Louis

King John            Act V, scene ii    Line 56-57

Don’t cry. Or perhaps, don’t be a cry baby. That’s the shortened version of these two lines. Of course, would our favourite playwright ever say something so direct (well, maybe) and miss an opportunity to use words in such a way as to frame and enlighten and entertain and enrich? Probably not. What then is Will trying to tell us with this elongated version of ‘don’t cry?’ Well admittedly, we would need to have some context in order to know that. This is the second time we’ve hit King John in a week and interestingly enough, it’s the same character speaking that we had five days ago. I’ll give you just a little context here to see if that helps you draw some conclusions.

Louis, the son of the King of France, has enlisted several British noblemen to betray the British crown and come to fight for him against King John. One of these guys, the Earl of Salisbury, has just finished talking about what a sad day it is that he is going to be fighting against his own country; so sad that it’s making him cry. We know (if we’ve read/seen the play or if we’ve read some good notes) that Louis is a conniving bastard and the he plans to kill all the British noblemen who are helping him once he defeats King John, but that for now he needs these guys on his side. And this ‘don’t cry’ line is in the middle of a pep talk telling them all how they’ll all share in the prosperity once they’ve won the fight (which of course, they won’t).

Now, you tell me; what are the two lines telling you that you wouldn’t get out of a simple ‘don’t cry’. Is he taking a ‘don’t be a cry baby’ tone? Or is it something else? Go back and read the whole response of Louis. It’s less than thirty lines and with the background I just gave you, pretty easy to understand. Maybe even read Salisbury’s talk that Louis is responding to. That one is just over thirty lines. There, about sixty lines of Shakespeare. Do you think you can do it? Here’s the link

http://shakespeare.mit.edu/john/john.5.2.html

The first seven lines is Louis (in this online text it’s Lewis, in my hardcopy book it’s Louis) talking to the Brits about the pact they are making with him to go against John. Then it gets right into Salisbury’s regrets and Louis’s response to that. Louis spends a lot of time talking about the tears and praising Salisbury. He doesn't seem to be calling him a cry baby. He is honoring him (or maybe buttering him up); referring to the tears as ‘honourable dew,/ that silvery doth progress thy cheeks:’ It’s really beautiful imagery. An ‘effusion of such manly drops’. Almost hyperbole? Not sure. Spend some time with it and see what you come up with. Don't expect me to do all the work!

--I say we must not

So stain our judgement, or corrupt our hope,

To prostitute our past-cure malady

To empirics;

-King

All’s Well That Ends Well             Act II, scene i     Line 121-124

Okay, this is a bit of a tough one and will require some re-reading of the line. Did you ever run into stuff like that? The stuff that you have to re-read two, or three, or more times in order to understand it? I’m not talking about Shakespeare, I’m talking about stuff you run into that was written in this century. And a lot of times it’s not because it’s got words that you don’t know (yeah, sometimes there’s words that you need to look up) but rather that the length of the sentence, or the structure of the sentence is such that by the time you get to the end of it you forgot where you were in the beginning and you lose track of the meaning. Like that sentence you just read. Sometimes when I run into that kind of writing I just give up. Sometimes I decide that I’m really not that interested in what I’m reading, or that it’s just not that well written. Sometimes I get pissed off at the author for writing that way. But sometimes I’m reading something that I feel is worth the effort. And sometimes I’m reading stuff by a writer who has already won my respect so that I’m willing to put in the extra time or effort. One really good example of this is Toni Morrison and her Nobel Prize acceptance speech. It’s a fabulous piece of writing that took me several times reading it to understand. I found that to be true of some of her other non-fiction writing as well (in fact I have gotten a little pissed off at her for some of the other stuff), but the Nobel speech is really a superb piece of writing. If you ever get the chance just google Nobel Prizes to find it. Oh heck, I’ll do it for you. Here’s the link https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1993/morrison-lecture.html

But trust me, unless you’re way smarter than me (okay, yeah, that’s possible), you’re going to have to invest a little time in this one.

Anyway, the moral of the story (or of that long paragraph you just stumbled through) is that there is some good stuff out there that you have to work for if you want to get it. And that’s true of quite a bit of Shakespeare’s stuff. So let’s take a second (or third) look at this line.

First off I’ll tell you that I don’t know this play (By now you’re not surprised, and you may be asking yourself if I know any plays, and what the heck am I doing writing a Shakespeare blog. You can get a little bit of an answer to this by reading the ‘About me’ on this blog), so I’m going into this blind. There are two words that kind of threw me; prostitute and empiric. The first one gets a little confusing when being used as a verb and the second is confusing when being used as a noun. Further I think the second one might have a particular meaning in 1604 that it doesn’t have today. But the most confusing part of this line is the order, so let’s break it down. Oh, and by the way if you read the page leading up to this line you’ll realize that the King is addressing someone who’s come to offer a cure to his sickness. I don’t know yet what his sickness is, but apparently it’s an incurable disease (past-cure malady).

So I used the glossary that is included in my Shakespeare App, which I believe is from PlayShakespeare.com, and it told me what I had assumed, and that is that empiric is 1600 speak for medical quack. So bottom line, pretty much what the king is saying is that he doesn’t want to use bad sense and take false hope by buying into some quack’s advice for a cure to his sickness. But you probably already had that figured out, didn’t you?

Let me go, I say.

-Oliver

As You Like It     Act I, scene i       Line 66

So two days in a row with As You Like it. Perhaps this is a sign that we should spend time talking about this play? Okay, why not.

This is the first play that I ever read while listening to the Arkangel Shakespeare CD, and mostly I listened to it in the car commuting to work. It’s a pleasant little play, a comedy and it’s got the basic Shakespeare comedy elements; romance, clowns, girls masquerading as guys, etc. All that stuff. The five word line that is today’s Totally Random Daily Shakespeare is from Oliver who is fighting with his brother Orlando. But it’s not a real serious fight where someone gets hurt or killed. It’s just two brothers wrestling around. And Orlando does let him go. Orlando is apparently a good fighter because a little later on he wrestles a professional wrestler and wins. But as I recall, that’s about all the fighting there is in this play.

This play also contains the famous line ‘All the worlds a stage…’ but since we didn’t end up with that line through our random choice we’re not going to talk about it. Besides, there are plenty of people who have analyzed the bejeesus out of that line. That line goes on into a pretty long quote, taking up many lines, so perhaps we’ll strike upon it sometime in the future.

 ‘Let me go, I say.’ It’s got that quintessential phrase ‘I say’ in it. So totally British. ‘I say, old chap, what the devil have you been up to?’ It’s one of those completely meaningless phrases. Why on earth do you need to tell me that you’re saying it, when it’s quite clear that you’re the one who’s saying it because you just said it! ‘I Say!’ And don’t even get me going on ‘I’m just saying’!

Gentleman, (giving him a chain from her neck)

Wear this for me;

-Rosiland

As You Like It     Act I, scene ii      Line 238

Okay, pretty straight forward stuff here today. Rosalind hands a chain to Orlando and asks him to wear it for her. Got it? Good. Now, what would you like to talk about? We could discuss stage direction (or lack thereof) in Shakespeare’s works. We could discuss the different versions of Shakespeare’s works. We could discuss a personal connection to this line. Ok, those are my three choices. Or we could discuss all three. Since the first two will probably come up again, we’ll go with the personal connection.

Wearing something, a chain, or a necklace, or a ring as a symbol of love for someone is a pretty common thing in today’s world. And what’s more exciting is that my daughter called me last night to let me know that she was going to do just that because she had become engaged. So that’s pretty big news. Now I’m pretty sure her boyfriend/fiance didn’t use the exact phrase ‘Gentleman, wear this for me,’ because obviously my daughter’s name is not Gentleman. In fact, I really have no idea exactly what he said. But regardless of what he said, I think it’s pretty cool that this is today’s Totally Random Daily Shakespeare line. And it’s also pretty cool that my daughter got engaged because I think she’s pretty happy about it. So that’s a really good thing. Random indeed!

What need the bridge much broader than the flood?

-Don Pedro 

Much Ado About Nothing           Act I, scene i       Line 299

Okay, this is by far and away the best Totally Random Daily Shakespeare line I have come up with yet. I put it on the whiteboard upstairs and I’ve completely worn out my wife and son with the line already. It’s just fabulous and I can’t help it

Now, there is an inherent danger of misinterpreting Shakespeare due to the fact that there are English words and phrases that have completely different meanings in Will’s day than they do now. It’s possible to pick up a meaning that is definitely not what Will had in mind. And I am certainly dumb enough to make this mistake. I am no Harold Bloom or James Shapiro or even Mark Johnston by any stretch of the imagination. However, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that today’s Totally Random Daily Shakespeare line means exactly what it looks like it means. It’s just an idiom to say that we need only so much of anything to get the job done, and no more. Why do we need a bridge that’s longer than the river is wide? I’m not even going to get into the play today. Besides, I really don’t know much of nothing about Much Ado About Nothing.

So let’s see if we can’t come up with some ideas of how to sneak today’s line into your day. After all, shouldn’t that be one of our goals? I think so. So you’re working on an Excel spreadsheet with your co-worker Buster, and he wants to put in a macro that will automatically generate three pivot tables every time a piece of data is entered. You feel that a simple At Sum formula will do the trick. You turn to Buster and say ‘What need the bridge much broader than the flood, Buster?’ Buster is awestruck. Or how about this; perhaps you’re at home and your mom wants you to read twelve books for your summer reading assignment when the teacher specifically said that you need to read three books for your summer reading assignment. ‘What need the bridge much broader than the flood, mom?’ How can she possibly argue with that!  

Now, if you need something truly 21^st century on this line, just go to this website: https://soundcloud.com/julian-eaves/what-need-the-bridge-much

Here you can listen to a fellow named Julian Evans sing ‘What need the bridge much broader than the flood?’ and the next eleven lines in the scene as well. It’s not going to give you any better understanding, but you might enjoy Mr. Evan’s piece nonetheless.

And this gives credence to the statement that absolutely everything is out there on the web. In fact, there is certainly much more out there than needs to be. And so we could say in reference to the world wide web in general, ‘What need the bridge much broader than the flood?’


                                                  



I dunno, that's a pretty long bridge behind me. But is it broader than the flood?

May be he will not touch young Arthur’s life,

But hold himself safe in prisonment.

-Louis 

King John            Act III, scene iv  Line 160

Another of the history plays and, if I don’t mind saying so, it looks like my random system is doing a pretty good job so far as we have sampled 11 different plays/poems in as many days. So kudos to me (might as well, no one else is gonna give them). Anyway, of the 65 or so British Monarchs, Shakespeare covered eight of them in his plays (Of course 19 of the 65 lived after Shakespeare so it would have been fairly difficult for him to cover them). John is the earliest one he covered. Remember, even though he covered other historical figures (Julius Caesar, etc) only the plays about the British monarchs are considered Shakespeare’s histories. The rest fall under his tragedies. I’m not sure what the rationale there is.

So John, is that guy who’s pretty much always portrayed as the bad guy. He’s the King who’s trying to get Kevin Costner in Robin Hood before Sean Connery (King Richard the Lionhearted) comes back from the crusades in the end. He’s also the guy who’s such a bad ruler that the English people come up with the Magna Carta and force him to accept that. You all know what the Magna Carta is, right? That’s the document that gave power to the people and took it away from the King. Pretty important document that became 800 years old last year. But let’s get to today’s Totally Random Daily Shakespeare.

This is Louis, the son of the French King, talking to Cardinal Pandulph. They are discussing John’s nephew Arthur who is the rightful heir to the British throne and whether or not his Uncle John (clearly not the Uncle John with the band that Jerry sang about) is going to kill him. Louis thinks maybe he won’t. Actually, the scene following this one is pretty touching, Act IV, Scene i. In that scene Hubert De Burgh has Arthur in the dungeon and he’s been charged with burning the lad’s eye’s out, and there’s a really good back and forth between Hubert and Arthur. In the end Arthur makes out a lot better than Gloucester in King Lear (remember ‘Out vile jelly!’ when he’s getting his eyes gouged out? Now that is some serious Shakespeare!). Louis is at least half right in that Hubert decides to spare Arthur’s life and try to help him. Unfortunately the kid dies later trying to escape; remember history, not comedy.

So it’s a pretty easy to understand line for once. And with a little context it makes perfect sense. It’s not necessarily a line you’re going to get any current use out of. Not like ‘Well met!’ or ‘Pink for flower’, but then this is Totally Random Daily Shakespeare, not Perfect Shakespeare Lines for Daily Use. I’m not sure where that latter Blog is, but it’s probably pretty boring.

Pink for flower.

-Romeo 

Romeo and Juliet  Act II, scene iv   Line 53

So finally, we’ve hit upon perhaps the most famous, well known character in all of Shakespeare. Romeo! A character whose name is invoked in popular culture probably more than any other; ‘How’d you make out with that girl last night, Romeo?’ And yet, what the heck is he saying? Well, you have to read a bunch of the scene to give it context. But pink means pink and flower means flower. And I believe ‘for’ means ‘as in.’ So Romeo is saying ‘Pink, as in flower.’ Again, context please. We would need context if this were a quote from ‘The Bachelor’, because without knowing what we’re talking about it just doesn’t have much meaning.

So the context? Well I’ve read through the several lines around this one and it’s all just a bunch of puns that Romeo and Mercutio exchange. In other words, it doesn’t really have much meaning. It’s just not worth explaining the whole exchange other than to say it’s a fairly meaningless exchange. Hmmm, how about that? We’ve concluded that this line from Shakespeare doesn’t have much meaning. ‘Pink for flower.’ Meaningless. Now, having said that, I’m sure that we can find analysis of it (because after 400 years there is analysis of pretty much every syllable of Shakespeare), and there is someone who will explain how these three words are representative of the genius of Shakespeare (and he’s probably right), but I’m not going to go looking for that analysis this morning. I’m going to pass on it. I’m going to leave it up to you, dear reader (and I purposely made that singular as I’m pretty sure there’s only one of you). You can go into the text and read it. You’ll have a hard time with this. I can tell you that I have a copy of Romeo and Juliet that has a modern language, line for line, translation and I needed it to understand this battle of puns between Rome and Mercutio. When one of you writes in and asks for it I’ll print it. Until then… well we’ll just move on, won’t we.

Oh heck, no we won’t. Okay, here it is. At this point in the pun battle they’ve mixed up curtsy and courtesy and Mercutio says ‘Nay, I am the very pink of courtesy,’ meaning that he’s the paragon, or flower of courtesy. Romeo responds with ‘Pink for flower,’ that is to say ‘Pink as in flower,’ clarifying what Mercutio means with the word ‘pink.’ Then they go on further playing with the word ‘pink.’ So if you want to use today’s line in conversation (which I’m sure you’re tempted to since it’s nice and short), you’re going to have to wait for someone to utter a sentence in which they are using the word ‘pink’ for the word ‘flower.’ That seems fairly unlikely. Albeit not totally impossible. Wait a minute! Hold the presses!

‘In the pink!’ I’m not sure how I missed this. ‘In the pink’ is an expression used to describe something in very good condition, particularly as it relates to health (in the pink of health- in other words in the flower of health, or in very good health), and if you google the origin of this expression you will actually find a reference to Mercurio’s line, ‘the pink of courtesy.’ So today’s random line is not quite so random as we thought. It is the proper reply to anyone that you run into today who uses the idiom ‘in the pink’ when describing good health, or anything else in good condition. It will still confuse them, but it’s the proper reply. Of course, you’re going to have to find some old timer who actually uses that expression first. So I suggest you visit a grandparent if you have one. Got it? I didn't think so.

Which else would post until it had return’d

These terms of treason doubled down his throat.

-Thomas Mobray, Duke of Norfolk 

 Richard II             Act I, scene i       Line 57 

Here’s a little more context for this line:

‘First, the fair reverence of your highness curbs me

From giving reins and spurs to my free speech;

Which else would post until it had return’d

These terms of treason doubled down his throat.’

The single line (the last one above) really needed the three previous ones to make sense. What we have here is the very beginning of Richard II with two guys trash talking each other. This is Thomas Mobray’s reply to being accused of treason. He and his accuser, Bolingbroke, have been called before the King where Bolingbroke has taken the opportunity to call Mobray a traitor: ‘With a foul  traitor’s name I stuff thy throat.’ Today’s random lines is Mobray’s response to that. First saying that he can’t speak with full freedom out of respect for the King, Mobray then throws the treason charge right back at Bolingbroke. It’s pretty much an ‘I know you are, but what am I?’ response. And by the way, it’s Bolingbroke who comes back at the end and takes over the throne to become King Henry IV. So who’s treasonous in the end? And who’s mocking who whilst begging their voices (see post from six days ago).

Well I’ve got the fully annotated, with tons of analysis, copy of Four Histories that I used when I was taking a course on Shakespeare working on my MAT. It covers Richard II, Henry IV (parts one and two), and Henry V. These three guys ruled in succession from 1377 to 1422. And Will’s plays about them are more or less historically accurate, but always dramatized to make it a better show. Of course, with the way things went back then with overthrows and tortures and beheadings I’m not sure how much dramatization you needed to make it more interesting. And the Brits, by the way, are for the most part pretty up on their knowledge of the monarchs. They have some little ditty that kids learn in school that lists out all 65 monarchs that helps them memorize them all. So that’s 65 monarchs starting with Egbert in the year 802 all the way up to today’s Elizabeth II. There’s a song about the 44 U.S. presidents that I heard in a grammar school show once, but I know I never learned it. Heck, I just had to google U.S. presidents because I didn’t even know what the total number was. Oh well, that's the way the cookie crumbles.

Yet is the kindness but particular;

‘Twere better she were kist in general.

-Ulysses

Troilus and Cressida       Act IV, scene iv Line 20, 21          

This one’s really good, and I’m going to take this one in the context of the story, since I can’t make too much sense of it otherwise. And you can see that I used two lines because it’s easier to explain what it’s all about with these two together. First of all, I don’t know much of anything about this play. What I do know is that it’s based on Homer’s Iliad which is the story of the Greek siege of the city of Troy. Though I’m not sure who Troilus and Cressida are. I was reading the Iliad earlier this summer and I didn’t run into these two. Regardless, here’s your Shakespeare fact of the day: There are very few stories of Will’s that are original. Just about all of his plays, whether history, comedy, or tragedy, are based on existing stories (as this one is). Of course the beauty and the genius of Will is his use of the English language and what he did to those stories. But just the same, I think it’s worth knowing that just about all of his source material was not his own. Moving on…

Anyway, I read the beginning of this scene and it seems that a bunch of the bosses of the Greek group are hanging around (Achilles, Ulysses, Agamemnon, Ajax) and Diomedes shows up with this babe Cressida (see, here I’m using ‘babe’ to mean a pretty young woman, not a baby). Now keep in mind that these guys have been laying siege to the town of Troy for several years, so presumably they’ve been away from their families and for the most part been just hanging out with a bunch of smelly guys for quite a long time. Now here they’re suddenly in the presence of this young woman who is clearly not a smelly guy. Well as soon as she shows up Agamemnon takes the opportunity to give her a welcoming kiss. Keep in mind that Agamemnon is the ranking guy in this group, the King. But Ulysses, always the crafty guy, sees an opportunity to get in a kiss of his own. So he comes up with today’s Random Shakespeare Line of the Day ‘Twere better she were kist in general’ and follows it up with a kiss of his own. Well this just opens up the floodgate and so now she gets passed around so that everyone can give her a kiss. In fact, Patroclus gets in two kisses, one of them supposedly for Menelaus who’s actually standing right next to him and then wants one of his own.  

As I said, I don’t know much about this play, so I can’t say how this kissing scene fits in (or doesn’t fit in) to the big picture. I do, however, think this scene is a funny idea to imagine, and would be even funnier seeing this play performed in Shakespeare’s time when all the roles on stage, including female roles, were played by men, so that one guy is getting passed around and kissed by all the other guys. But that’s just me.

Okay, I’ve already rolled the die for tomorrow’s page and it’s Richard II. Pretty exciting because I actually know that play! See you then.

By this we gather

You have tript since.

-Hermione

A The Winter’s Tale        Act I, scene ii      Line 77 

And which of us has not tript since? This is Hermione, Leontes’s wife, speaking to Leontes’s friend Polixenes. Polixenes was telling her about growing up with Leontes and how innocent they were as kids, and wishing they had been able to stay that innocent. This provokes Hermione’s question. To be clear, by tript (tripped) she means strayed from the path of innocence. It seems like a bit of a silly question. Again, which of us as adults has not lost our innocence of childhood?

The Winter’s Tale is another of Will’s later plays, but one that he’s credited with doing on his own. It’s also the next play on my list to read. I’ve got an annotated, used paperback copy that I picked up somewhere or other, and I’ve got the arkangel Shakespeare audio version that I burned from the library cd. So this is a good point to talk about listening to Shakespeare, and the Arkangel Shakespeare in particular.

The best way to appreciate Shakespeare is to see a play (as opposed to reading it). In fact, just plain reading it can be downright impossible. But the second best way to appreciate it is to listen to it being performed while reading it. It's surprising how much more understandable the text is when you're hearing it performed. The audio, acted out version enables you to understand stuff that you'd have no idea what it meant. So they put together this series called Arkangel Shakespeare where they got Shakespearean actors to do an audio version of 38 of his plays. I bought a few of the cd's before I realized my local library had the whole set. So now I borrow and burn. That doesn't count as having tript, does it?

If thou lovest me, then,

Steal forth thy father’s house to-morrow night;

-Lysander

A Midsummer’s Night Dream    Act I, scene i       Line 163, 164     

So finally one you’ve all heard of! A Midsummer’s Night Dream. Albeit one I’ve never been very fond of. It’s a comedy and a bit of a fantasy. In this line Lysander is talking to Hermia, the girl he loves, and telling her to sneak out from (steal forth thy) her father’s house tomorrow to meet him. There’s nothing too difficult with the language in this line, so I probably won’t spend too much time with it. It’s got the ‘t’ on the end of the verb, ‘lovest’, and some thy and thou’s, but overall it’s pretty understandable, n’est pas? I kind of like the ‘lovest’ thing. It reminds me of ‘whilst’ instead of ‘while’ which I’ve been doing my best to get back into the language (with a lot of resistance). I just think it sounds nice. And what about the content. ‘If you love me, sneak out of the house to meet me tomorrow night.’ I wonder how many times that line has been spoken in one form or another by a young lover in the history of humankind? Perhaps the first time it was used it was ‘sneak out of the cave’? So not a tremendous amount of creativity on the part of Will with that one. In fact, maybe it’s a line that he himself used earlier in his life with Anne Hathaway (we’ll never know). And nowadays it’s a line that will show up being texted on the cellphone. And in some cases we end up hearing about it on the news with tragic consequences. But let’s not go there right now. This is a comedy, and a light-hearted one at that. 

And speaking of the play in general, I have to say that this is one play that I’ve read, and I’ve seen versions of, and I really don’t much care for it. I’m not exactly sure why but I think it’s just because it’s kind of goofy. I know, seems like I’d be all over it, doesn’t it? It’s got the goofy actors with the goofy names scene, and it’s got the guy getting his head turned into a donkey’s head, and of course the clandestine lovers Hermia and Lysander. What’s not to like? Sometimes there’s just no accounting for taste. The last time I saw it was in the movie theater and Kevin Kline was playing the guy who gets his head turned into a donkey’s head and I think he was riding a bicycle (pretty sure Will didn’t have a bicycle in the original). Perhaps we’ll run into it again and maybe then spend a little more time on it. It takes up about 22 pages of the 1,252 pages of my compilation book, so we’ll see.

‘O, ‘twas the foulest deed to slay that babe,

And the most merciless that e’er was heard of!’

-Lord Hastings

King Richard the Third   Act I, scene iii     Line 185,186      

So here we go! What do we know so far? Sounds like they’re talking about some little kid getting killed. I don’t think they used ‘babe’ for a woman like we might use ‘babe’ today. But we’ll read a few more lines in a minute. In the meantime, Shakespeare’s Richard III is a pretty popular play and it gets performed all the time. If I’m not mistaken it was the role that was being performed by Richard Dryfuss in The Goodbye Girl, and he got an Oscar for that. To be clear, he got the Oscar for portraying an actor who was doing Richard III off-Broadway. He didn’t actually get the Oscar for portraying Richard III. In fact, if memory serves, he didn’t like the role of Richard III, or at least he didn’t like the way the director was making him play it in the movie. But I digress. Again.

As I was saying, it’s a fairly popular play. It’s also somewhat topical in that it’s about the British king that they found in a parking lot a few years ago. Well, they found his hundreds year old remains when they were excavating in a parking lot. But let’s see if we can find out who got slain. It sounds pretty bad; foulest deed, most merciless. 

Okay, so I took a quick look at Richard III (the guy, not the play) and there’s a lot going on there. I had my printout of the British Monarchs somewhere, but I’m going to have to reprint that. In any event, Richard III (the monarch, not the play) was around in the mid 1400’s. Again, Shakespeare wrote around the year 1600. So this guy was 150 years or so in the past. As with just about all of his history plays, Shakespeare used something called Holinshed’s Chronicles as his source for the facts. Of course, like Hollywood today, he played a little loose with the facts. But now we have a lot more than Holinshed for our place to get the facts. So how about if I give you some homework and you can see if you can figure out just what babe got slain. That would be very helpful for me and would give you something constructive to do. Most merciless!!

‘Well met, my Lord Chamberlain.’

-Duke of Norfolk

King Henry the Eighth   Act II, scene ii    Line 12                 

I suppose we were bound to get one of these lines eventually. Remember, full random. In fact, if we keep this up we’re liable to get some real humdinger one word lines. Well, we’ll see.

So this is just a greeting, albeit not one we use today. Maybe you should try it out. I’ll bet we could start something. Can you imagine running into one of your co-workers or classmates in the hallway with this? “Well met Justin.” Justin would look at you with a blank stare. “Well met what?” I think I’ll try it on my son or wife today. They think I’m nuts anyway. I’ll let you know what I come up with. In the meantime, maybe a little about this play.

King Henry the Eighth was one of the last plays that Shakespeare wrote and it is presumed that he wrote this one in collaboration with John Fletcher, whoever that is. Keep in mind that in Shakespeare’s time a playwright had to be a bit careful what he wrote about. Then remember that Henry VIII’s daughter Elizabeth was alive for the first part of Shakespeare’s life. It wasn’t until after her death that he decided to take on this monarch as a subject. Henry VIII died in 1547, his daughter Elizabeth in 1603. This play was written around 1612.

We could discuss the “How are you?” greeting of today that most of us don’t really care for the answer to. It’s just become a customary greeting. So “Well met buddy” is really not that farfetched. Again, I think we need to dust it off, air it out, and give it a go.

In the meantime, my Henry VIII pencil.

 ‘Amen, sir: -- to my poor unworthy service,

He mockt us when he begg’d our voices.’

-Second Citizen

Coriolanus          Act II, scene iii   Line 158               

Okay, sorry about not coming through very well with yesterday’s line. But today is a new day. Now here we are at day three of our project and from the world’s most famous dramatist ever we’ve sampled a non speaking part, a part spoken by an unnamed extra poet, and now a line spoken by an unnamed second citizen. Oh my. Well this is what you get when you go random/rogue. And I’m not sure what that tells us other than the fact that there is a really large body of Shakespeare work out there and a lot of it is pretty obscure.

Anyway, the play Coriolanus is set in Roman times and is about the titular guy and his political life and ultimate demise. Another tragedy. Interesting that we seem to be progressing chronologically through time with this project. We started with the myths (which happened ostensibly before ancient Greece), moved up to Greece, and now we’re in Rome. It certainly points out that Will’s subject matter really spanned the ages. He did not limit himself to contemporary Britain. In fact, did he do any contemporary Britain? Well, I guess we’ll see.

So as usual, it’s my tendency to try to contextualize the line. So I read a few lines before and after. The citizen speaking is referring to Coriolanus and he’s saying what it seems like he’s saying; that they backed this guy and now they’re not so sure he’s a good guy, or whether or not he was being up front with them when they backed him. There, look what I just said: ‘being up front with them.’ So we have trouble with the 1600’s jargon, ‘when he begg’d our voices’ or yesterday’s ‘moves itself in a sea of wax’ but now I’m talking about someone being ‘up front,’ which is pretty idiomatic in itself. Okay, I digress.

Now, I can’t help but relate today’s Totally Random Daily Shakespeare to the current election cycle here in the U.S. You remember that, don’t you? Hillary and The Donald. Well, regardless of whose side you’re coming down on, it's looking like the exact same thing that Will was remarking on four hundred years ago. Is the guy (or in our case, guy or gal) that we’re putting in office really going to be working for us, or is he or she just saying whatever they need to say to get elected. Are we going to end up saying a year from now ‘He (or she) mock’t us when he (or she) begged our voices!’ I hope not, but it’s a pretty good question. Now how’s that for making it relevant? Okay, this one was easier than I realized, even though I managed to make it harder than it had to be.

‘…my free drift

Halts not particularly, but moves itself in a wide sea of wax:’

-Poet

Timon of Athens              Act I, scene 1     lines 48 – 50       

Oof, that's a line! Okay, this is a tough one. Remember, totally random.

Now first off, Timon of Athens is a really obscure play. I did a little research on it and it was one of his later plays and there’s lots of Shakespeareans who believe that it’s not even totally Shakespeare, that he wrote this play with another fellow named Thomas Middleton. So maybe we can blame Middleton for this stupid line.

Anyway, it’s a tragedy about an Athenian named Timon who apparently starts out as a Pollyanna and ends up a dead cynic. What a lovely story! But enough, how to go about working with this line?

Well, since it’s the 48^th line of the play, I’ve tried reading the play up to this point. But I think I’ll have to try that a few more times, and maybe read a little past this line. I’ve also tried to find the internet residence of the complete annotated works of Shakespeare, because that would be really helpful. No dice on that yet. My previous ideas to simply relate the line out of context to whatever seems applicable in my world is hampered by the fact that I can’t understand this line. But let’s stop here for a moment. What are we trying to do?

We’re trying to take one random line a day from Shakespeare and work with it. How? Well, we want to learn a little about Shakespeare and his world/works by working with the line. We want to find a way to understand the relevance of Shakespeare to 2016 by working with the line. We want to have some fun working with the line. We want to get a bit creative working with the line.

Now, having said that, there are a few different types of lines we can end up with. There is the line that is relatively easy to understand (like yesterday’s) so that you can pretty much do anything with it. And now there are the lines like today’s that are a bit tougher. And without being able to understand it, well that makes it hard to do absolutely anything with it. Perhaps a hard copy of annotations to the this play would be helpful?

Fine then, I’ve looked into my Shakespeare Complete copy (this is not the book I’m picking the random lines from, it’s an older copy of his works that I have) and I’ve found some hidden treasures.

This bad boy, printed in 1925, has notes! Well I’ve tried in the past not to use this copy too much because it’s sort of falling apart. But if it’s got the goods, well…

So first let’s look at a little more background. This line is the Poet speaking to the Painter. They’re guests at a party that Timon has thrown. Now this 1925 version actually has a slightly different line. Here’s the whole section, with the line included. They are remarking about the senators that have come to Timon’s party.

Poet:

You see this confluence, this great flood of visitors.

I have, in this rough work, shaped out a man,

Whom this beneath world doth embrace and hug

With amplest entertainment: my free drift

Halts not particularly, but moves itself

In a wide sea of verse: no levell’d malice

Infects one comma in the course I hold;

But flies an eagle flight, bold and forth on,

Leaving no tract behind.

Okay, forget it.  I’m giving up on this line. I can't work out who or what he's referring to. I realize that this is only the second line that I've tried to work with but, no, I'm not giving up on the project. I'm just giving up on this one line. I'll be back with a new random line tomorrow. I promise.