‘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.
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