I will be satisfied: deny me this,

And an eternal curse fall on you!

 -Macbeth

Macbeth                              Act IV, scene i    Line 105

Once again, good ol’ Macbeth. Our protagonist is making one of his visits (I believe his last?) to the prophesizing sisters/witches. Now these are the ladies that got the whole mess started in this story by telling Macbeth that he would be king. Neither he, nor his wife, was entertaining any thoughts of kingship or murder before he ran into these trouble makers in the first act. Now they’re giving him three infamous predictions:  Beware Macduff, and …none of woman born/ Shall harm Macbeth, and Macbeth shall never vanquisht be, until/ Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill/ Shall come against him. But of course he wants to know more, and hence the threat of today’s Totally Random Shakespeare. I mean really, can you blame him?

So this gives me a perfect segue to talk about one of my favourite topics; Shakespeare’s influence on JRR Tolkien. Consider yourself warned, because that’s we’re we’ll be going for the rest of this post. Bail out now if you want.

Okay, first of all let’s make clear that Tolkien clearly disavowed any affinity for Shakespeare. In fact, it would appear that he had little use for much of any literature written much later than Beowulf. And that’s fine; we’ll give him that. However, given that he was raised and educated in England in the early part of the twentieth century, I think it’s a pretty good bet that like it or not he had a pretty healthy dose of exposure to Shakespeare early on. And the stuff in today’s Macbeth selection is pretty good evidence that he ended up using some of these ideas in his own writing.

First take the none of woman born/ Shall harm Macbeth line. We all know that it turns out that the person who ends up killing Macbeth was born via a C-section and thus, at least in the view of Shakespeare’s time, was not ‘woman born’. I know, it seems a bit of a stretch, but that’s what they went with. Compare that to the King of the Nazgul in Tolkien’s epic. “No living man may hinder me!” he claims in the battle on the Pelennor Fields, not realizing he’s speaking to a woman. Eowyn laughs at him saying “But no living man am I! You look upon a woman” before driving her sword through his head.

Next take the until/ Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill/ Shall come against him. Which Macbeth took to mean when the Great Birnam wood moved, which seemed pretty unlikely. And what happened? The opposing army camouflaged themselves with branches from the Great Birnam wood, as they moved against high Dunsinane hill. So the woods moved. Now, what did the men of Rohan see when they looked out from helms deep the morning after the battle? There was a great woods there that wasn’t there the day before. The woods had moved.

Now I’ll grant you two things. One is that I didn’t come up with these two examples. I came across them in my reading several years ago, I can’t remember where, but I am not taking credit for them. Two is that even though I think they’re pretty good examples, I’ll admit that by themselves they’re a little bit sketchy to base a claim that Shakespeare significantly influenced Tolkien’s writing. HOWEVER, I’ve come up with other stuff, on my own, that bulwarks this claim. Now I’m not going to go on here, because this post is already too long,  but when we get to the Tempest next time I’ll bore you with some more. Meantime I’ll start a tab where we can begin to accumulate this stuff and perhaps I’ll get you to see what I’m talking about. I hope.

In the meantime, how about savoring a little Tolkien?

“You look upon a woman. Eowyn I am, Eomund’s daughter. You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone, if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you, if you touch him.”

It’s practically iambic pentameter for goodness sake!

I see a strange confession in thine eye:

-Northumberland

King Henry the Fourth Part II      Act I, scene i       Line 94

This is Northumberland looking for news about his son’s fate. Lord Bardolph has just told him an out and out lie that his son is fine, but Morton has now begun to tell the truth, that Northumberland’s son, nicknamed Hotspur, is indeed now Coldspur (no, really, they use the Hotspur/Coldspur play on words which I think is pretty funny because it sounds exactly like something that I would come up with). And Northumberland sees the news coming and gives us today’s Totally Random line. And it’s a good line. Perfectly usable. In fact, I highly recommend it. If you’re trying to get someone to tell you the truth, and you feel they’re holding out a bit. That’s the time to try it out. For instance, you’re asking your son if he’s got any more homework, and you sense that he’s trying to not lie to you, and yet he’s not telling the whole truth… Let loose with “I see a strange confession in thine eye.” Yeah, actually, maybe that’s not a really good example. Well, it depends on how old the kid is. Maybe find an instance to use it husband to wife. The thing is, it will be a much better way to try to tell him/her that you don’t believe him/her. Compare “Listen, I know you’re lying to me you sorry sack of (insert your choice of expletive), now tell me the truth!” to “I see a strange confession in thine eye.” You can even swap out ‘your’ for ‘thine’ if you want to make a little more twenty-first century. But either way, it’s got a much better chance of getting to the truth without getting to fisticuffs.

Civility, that’s what I’m talking about.

                  

Okay, just a couple of program notes here:

First, today’s post is post #50 on the fiftieth day of posting. So that’s 50 in a row without missing a day. Can I get a ‘Woot, woot!’

Second, I found a great book I’m reading that I want to tell all you Will geeks about. It’s called Shakespeare’s Kings by John Julius Norwich. It’s the real (and relatively readable) history of the kings that Shakespeare wrote his plays about. It starts with Edward III (a play that is not in my compilation or in the First Folio but that has apparently been garnering recent acceptance by the experts as one of Will’s babies) and goes through Richard III. Granted there are some guys in that span who are not covered by Will’s plays, but by understanding all the history, and what all these guys did, it gives a whole new meaning to the plays. And Mr. Norwich does a pretty good job of pointing out just what, and what is not the truth in Will's version of history.

What he cannot help in his nature, you account a vice in him.

-Second Citizen

Coriolanus          Act I, scene i       Line 38

Well since the last post on Coriolanus a few weeks ago I have actually seen Coriolanus! The play, not the guy. Actually, the movie, not the play. But it was still pretty good. It was a recent version starring Ralph Fiennes in the title role, and set in modern day. Like a lot of adaptions, especially movie adaptions, it used original Shakespeare text, but did a liberal job of picking which of those lines to use and which to cut out. But it did do a pretty good job of sticking to the story. And it certainly added to my understanding of the play.

Anyway, today’s line is in the opening scene where the citizens are setting the scene for the play, complaining about lack of food and blaming Coriolanus. Second Citizen (an uncredited actor) is trying to defend Coriolanus. What Coriolanus ‘cannot help in his nature’ is to be very proud of who and what he is and refusing tell the rabble what they want to hear. He pretty much feels he’s above them. And they’re not too crazy about that, especially when they’re starving. I don't know why he didn’t just do a better job of seeing that the food got spread around a little better. Was it a one percenter thing? I’m not sure. There’s a lot of aspects to this play, and Coriolanus’s pride is certainly one of them. But another might be the discontent of the masses because the patricians (the one percenters) control the bread. As I said on my previous Coriolanus post, there’s some really current themes in this one that would make it a really good play to be studying right now.

But what about this pride thing. One could say that Coriolanus has a right to be proud of his military service to his country. Most people probably wouldn't argue with that today. And when I google images of pride I get tons of gay pride pictures. I guess we’re also proud to be American and proud of all sorts of other stuff too. So it's okay to be proud? But wait, isn’t pride one of the seven deadly sins (I googled it and it is). Sooooo…… 

Well I guess I’m just not sure at all about this pride thing. And if you watch the play Coriolanus I think you'll conclude that Will wasn't either.

                                                                                 

I know not where; but wheresoever, I wish him well.

 -Duke

Measure For Measure   Act III, scene ii   Line 92

Ahh, finally a nice easy one. And a nice one too. I mean it’s a nice thought. I’m not going to read into this one, or do a bunch of work on the context. I know next to nothing about this play, so I’m just going to say that this is a very nice sentiment. Perhaps it’s the way we should be expressing ourselves about just about everyone, whomsoever they are. I also like that ‘so’ addition to. It kind of gives it that all encompassing feel. The Duke could have said ‘wherever’, but ‘wheresoever’ is nicer, even if it does get the red underline from Word. And yes, it’s right there in my Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary, tenth editition, hard copy. So I’m sticking with it.

Which brings me to geography where I’d like to spend a few minutes (wheresoever, get it?). The line before this one, to which this is a response, is Some say he is with the Emperor of Russia; other some, he is in Rome: but where is he, think you? So we’re talking Russia, and Rome. And the play is set in Vienna. I guess what I’m saying is that Will did a pretty good job of getting around the world in his plays; Egypt, Denmark, Bermuda, all over Italy, and there’s a ton more. He even makes mention of Mexico in Merchant of Venice. I wonder if he ever gets to Asia? He must at least mention it. I’ll have to look into that one. And what about that ‘undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns’?  Okay, you’re right, we’re not really talking geography on that one. Anyway, I’ll bet if you google… Okay, I took a quick look for a list of all the places that Will’s plays go to, or even places that are mentioned in his plays, but it’s not an easy find on the google. My guess is that it’s out there, but wheresoever that might be on the world wide web is yet unknown to me. You give it a try and let me know. It’s gotta be somewhere. Everything about Will is somewhere on the web.

Anyway, I’m going to try to hold on to this line because it is eminently usable. Check it out:

‘Pete, do you know where WP is?’

‘I know not where; but wheresoever, I wish him well.’

Oh that’ll get the old eyes rolling for sure.

I guess I could even use this line better if you asked me about our other kids, the older ones. They’re spread across the country and at any point in time I really don’t know where the heck any of them are. But if you asked me where they were I’d certainly say

‘I know not where; but wheresoever, I wish him/her well.’

                                                               

Do you not remember, a’ saw a flea stick upon

Bardolph’s nose, and a’ said it was a black soul burning in hell-fire?

 -Boy   

 

King Henry the Fifth       Act II, scene iii   Line 44

Yes, that’s right. This line is spoken by Boy. No, not the one from Tarzan. This Boy is one of the group that hangs with Falstaff. But he is known simply as Boy. I’m not quite clear if that refers to what he is, or if his name is actually ‘Boy’. But I suppose it is of little matter.

And while this line is not spoken by Falstaff, it is fully about Falstaff. Falstaff has just passed away (I didn’t remember Fastaff dying, but I guess he does. I’m not sure how he gets resurrected for the Merry Wives- or maybe that’s a prequel. We haven’t hit that play yet; perhaps we’ll find out at some point) and his crew is sitting in the bar talking about him. I believe the ‘a in the quote is synonymous with ‘he’. In other words, Do you not remember, he (Falstaff) saw a flea… So this is a very, very typical life thing; when someone passes away everyone gathers and talks about him. I remember when my best friend died, I was around 43, and everyone was gathering at the bar next to the funeral home. I went over for a few minutes, but for some reason I did not like doing that, and I didn’t hang around. But I don’t think I’m average in this respect. I think a lot of folks would do exactly what the crew is doing in this scene. It’s an interesting scene and worth the read. A little tough to get through, but short. I’m going to give you the link because I know if you don’t you’ll be too lazy to go look for it. Heck, even if I give you the link the chances are you won’t check it out. But you should check it out, and read it out loud! http://shakespeare.mit.edu/henryv/henryv.2.3.html

Okay, I think that’s enough on that line for today. But a quick note on the random system. This is the second time in 47 days that we’ve hit page 493 in my compilation. It’s also the second time we’ve hit the same page twice, which seems a little odd, since we have 1,232 pages in this book. However, with a quick review I can see that we’ve hit at least once in the tens, the 100’s, the 200’s, the 300’s etc up to and including the 1200’s. So I have faith in the random system being used. Besides, I came up with the random system on my own and I have faith in me. Usually.

This is my old buddy doing his best Larry Csonka impersonation. He was a classic. I don't talk about him much, but I still miss him a lot.

But to the court!

 -Countess          

 All’s Well That Ends Well             Act II, scene ii    Line 6

But to the court! This is being said by the Countess to the clown. Yes, another clown. Between severed heads and clowns. I know, I still can’t get past that severed head thing. But really, clowns?

Anyway this clown and the countess are having a bit of a nonsensical conversation. Nonsensical and yet you know it has meaning, because Shakespeare wrote it. It’s another one of those back and forths that you need to read a few times, and you need to read it out loud. Or even better, see (or at least hear) it performed (which I have done neither). But we can look at just a few lines and you can see if you can get the meaning. We’ll start with the beginning of the scene, since we’re almost there with today’s line. The countess says, ‘Come on, sir; I shall now put you to the height of your breeding.’ The clown replies, ‘I will show myself highly fed and lowly taught: I know my business is but to the court.’ The countess replies, ‘To the court! Why, what place make you special, when you put off that with such contempt? But to the court!’ And that last part is today’s Totally Random line.

This will be a record short post because, to be honest, I don't really know much about this play, or this line. And also I'm not all that interested in this particular line. It just doesn't have that much going for it. I think it's only natural that I come across some lines like this, all things considered. There are some that we've had that have been just amazing, some that have been perfectly serviceable, and a few, like this one, that I really don't feel that I can do much with. So I'm going to let this one go. I'm a little more optimistic about tomorrow's line. It'll be from Henry V. See you then!

                                                                       

That’s all I reck.

I fear ‘twill be revenged:

-Guiderius/Belarius      

Cymbeline                          Act IV, scene ii   Line 154

This is another of those split lines, the first part from Guiderius and the second part from Belarius. And as a point of context, they’re talking about what Guiderius is going to do with the severed head of Cloten that he’s holding. Yes, that’s right, Guiderius starts this page with Cloten’s severed head in his hand. I’m thinking they must have gone through quite a few of those severed head props over the years. And beyond that I’m beginning to wonder just what’s going on here. This is post number forty-five and we have literally had a severed head in four of the scenes we’ve posted on so far. That’s pushing up towards ten percent. Now I’m pretty sure that there’s not a severed head in ten percent of Shakespeare’s scenes. In fact, I’m almost positive, but what the heck? If we randomly sampled forty-five lines from the works of Stephen King I don’t think we’d end up with four severed heads. I’m not sure we’d end up with any. And when we started this project would any of you have guessed that Shakespeare was teeming with severed heads? I wouldn’t have. But I guess I’ll move on for today. Rest assured though, you haven’t heard the last of me on the severed head thing.

So Guiderius has just finished telling Belarius, his sort-of half adopted/ half amber-alert father, that he cut off Cloten’s head with Cloten’s own sword and now he’s going to throw Cloten’s head in the creek so it can wash out to sea and Cloten can tell all the fishes that he’s the Queen’s son. And Guiderius finishes with “I reckon, par’dner (That’s all I reck).” So Belarius replies with a fear that the Queen’s not going to be overly happy that her son’s been killed (I fear ‘twill be revenged). Once again you can see that the full combined line is a perfect iambic pentameter line. Hey presto! Severed head and all, Will is not losing his meter!

…nor have we herein barr’d

Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone

With this affair along.

-King    

Hamlet                 Act I, scene ii      Line 14

The king speaking is Claudius. That’s Hamlet’s Uncle Claudius who is now also Hamlet’s stepfather since he’s married Hamlet’s mother (Claudius’s sister-in-law and widow of his brother (the brother that Claudius murdered)). Got it? This is the second scene of the play, but the first scene where we get the setting of what’s going on. The first scene was on the castle rampart at night where Hamlet got his first glimpse of the ghost of King Hamlet (Hamlet’s father) and there wasn’t too much setup there.

Now Claudius is talking to an assemblage of lords and such, and he’s noting what’s transpired (basically the king died and he, Claudius, has married the king’s widow in pretty quick fashion) and he’s acknowledging that the marriage was pretty quick but, ‘hey, I was listening and I didn’t hear any of you guys objecting’ (that’s what today’s Totally Random Daily Shakespeare line is saying). Of course, Hamlet has yet to weigh in.

So what of this line? It’s part of a long ramble by Claudius that opens Scene Two. Shortly after this speech we get a back and forth between Hamlet and his mother and Claudius and we quickly start to see that Hamlet’s not real happy with the situation. He doesn’t know yet that Claudius killed his dad (the ghost of his dad will tell him that later), but just the fact that this guy married his dad’s widow, and so quickly, has got young Hamlet a bit upset. Can you blame him? I can’t.

Now I can’t help myself, but I’ve gotta comment on the last part of today’s Totally Random line; With this affair along. Here’s the deal: I realize that Will plays around with sentence structure and in particular with word order and the idea is that he needs to in order to get the meter right (remember- iambic pentameter: ten syllables of words with stress, unstress, stress, unstress, etc). So this line fragment works: with THIS af FAIR a LONG, da dum, da dum, da dum. However, if he had used the more conventional word order of Along with this affair it still works. No problem. So why did he use the line With this affair along instead of the more easily understandable Along with this affair. Anybody? I need an answer on this one, so somebody out there take a look at it and let me know.

Okay, that’s it for now. Tomorrow our first look at Cymbeline.

What harmony is this? My good friends, hark!

-Alonso

 

The Tempest                      Act III, scene iii  Line 17

The Tempest. A fabulous work. One of Shakespeare’s last plays and also one of the few (only?) plays that he actually created the story for himself. We think. But we don’t really know that for sure, because we just know so darn little about this guy and how he went about creating his works. Also it’s the play I know probably best of all Will’s works.

So our speaker today is King Alonso. He’s leading a small band of men around an island that they’re sort of shipwrecked on in search of his son. They’ve stopped to rest when suddenly they hear ‘Solemn and strange music.’ Now I could go into more context, but I’d rather spend some time talking/thinking about the music here. Music is a major theme in this particular play. In fact, there’s a whole masque that gets performed at one point in the play. A masque was (as I understand it, and you can correct me if you know better) sort of a musical dance spectacle done with people all dressed up in costumes. Apparently masques were performed in and of themselves, but in this play one is performed as part of the play. A little bit of a performance within a performance, not unlike the play within a play that we came upon yesterday in Hamlet. Random, eh?

So it kind of brings up the question of what kind of music they had when putting on a production like this in 1600. I’m pretty sure there wasn’t an orchestra pit, or anything near a full orchestra. Still, they must have had something to make some kind of music. We’re really going to have to get some kind of expert to start reading this thing so they can comment and maybe answer some of these questions. If you’re reading this and you know any experts you might want to try to get them involved. Okay? Meantime I’m guessing that whoever was playing the spirit Ariel (a character in the play I haven’t yet discussed) was probably providing some sort of music. So we’ll go with that for now.

Tomorrow back to Hamlet, Act One. This random stuff really bounces us around, doesn’t it?

Look, whe’r he has not turn’d his colour, and tears in’s eyes.

-Polonius

Hamlet                 Act II, scene ii    Line 517

Hamlet. Will’s longest, and arguably most famous work, and certainly a masterpiece. And yet, it’s a troubling little line to have to deal with today. I’m afraid I’m going to have to give a little context and try to squeeze a bit of meaningfulness out of it.

This play is full of complexities (one of the things that makes it great) and this scene is no exception. For those of you unfamiliar with the play (and if you’re reading this blog that would seem unlikely, nonetheless…), long story short: Hamlet has spoken with his dead father, King Hamlet (two different Hamlets, one a king, one a prince – keep them straight), who has informed Hamlet that he was murdered by Hamlet’s Uncle Claudius. Meanwhile Uncle Claudius, now King Claudius, has married King Hamlet’s widow Gertrude, making Uncle Claudius Hamlet’s stepfather. Hamlet has promised his dead dad, King Hamlet, that he will avenge his murder and spends the rest of the play acting strange and trying to figure out exactly how to carry out this pledge while everyone else tries to figure out what the heck he’s doing. Got it?

So I taught this play when I was doing my student teaching of high school juniors. We had a good time with it (well, I did, and I think some of them might have enjoyed it a little). I used Kenneth Branagh’s movie version a lot (which, by the way, if you’re going to watch a movie version of Hamlet, of which there are many, you can’t do any better than this one. Mel Gibson’s version- not so good, but on the other hand that one does have Ian Holmes playing Polonius, so that’s a plus.), but I don’t remember much about this scene. Anyway, the speaker of today’s Totally Random line is Polonius. He’s an advisor to King Claudius and he’s got a pretty big role in the play until he gets stabbed for hiding behind a bedroom curtain (let that be a lesson to you- never hide behind a bedroom curtain). At this point, well before the bedroom curtain scene, an acting troupe has arrived at the castle and they are reciting, impromptu, a scene for Hamlet and some others. Polonius’s Totally Random line is in reaction to these actors. There, it took two paragraphs, but that should tell you exactly where we are. Does it?

So Polonius is reacting to someone acting out the scene from a play (a play within a play, so to speak). But what’s he saying? I believe he’s impressed with the actor who’s so good that he’s made himself cry. I have to admit that I’m not quite sure what he’s referring to when he says the actor ‘has not turned his colour,’. I’m going to mull on that one and see if something doesn’t strike me during the day. So we’ll see if we can’t finish this fascinating, unprecedented post this evening.

Okay, I forgot that I have a bunch of Hamlet texts and one of them has a full modern day text and according to it the line means Look, he has turned pale and has tears in his eyes.  I was already on board with the tears, but I struggle to get to the ‘turned pale’ part. Oh well. That's okay. let's not be dismayed and just move on for now. The die tells me that tomorrow’s line will come from The Tempest, and that is one play that I know very, very well. So let’s be optimistic that we’ll be getting a good line and a proper discussion, with a somewhat better conclusion, tomorrow.

                                                    

His insolence is more intolerable

Than all the princes in the land beside:

-Duke of Somerset

King Henry VI Part II       Act I, scene i       Line 176

A lot of King Henrys in the past week, eh? Other than Macbeth’s phony toast to Banquo a few days ago it’s been all Henrys. So I’ve gotta talk about the Henry’s for a minute. Please try to bear with me; this might get a little tedious (right now you’re saying “going to get?”)

So Will covered eight British monarchs in his history plays, and five of them were successive (historically successive, not successive in order of the plays being written); Edward III, Richard II, and Henrys IV, V, and VI. And we can take Edward III off this list since it’s not in The First Folio and not in my compilation, so we won’t be covering it. Edward III is on some lists but not universally accepted as being written by Will. Pretty confusing, isn’t it? And the other three (not part of the successive ones) he did, King John, Richard III, and Henry VIII, were all one-offs. But of this successive group Will started with Henry VI, the last one, and he needed three separate plays to get through this one Henry. Also, these three Henry VI plays are arguably the first plays that Will wrote. I say arguably because we don’t really know for sure and it depends on whose list you look at. In any event, they were most assuredly written quite early in his career. But the main point here (if you’re still with me) is that Richard II through Henry VI Part III, a total of seven plays, is one long successive story. Now I’ve read Richard II through Henry V (though not recently), and I’ve even seen some of Richard II performed, but I’ve not read nor seen any of Henry VI. Anyway, since it’s all one long story, and basically historically accurate, it’s easier to follow if you’ve read/seen all seven of these plays, or alternatively you know some of the details of that seventy year period, roughly 1400 to 1470, give or take. Unfortunately I can’t lay claim to either of those and so I keep going back to play summaries and/or historical references. But since these seven plays take up almost 16% of the pages that I’m randomly sampling, you’d think that it might be in my best interest to cover them. Well, maybes I will. Eventually, not today.

So, if you’re still awake, today’s Totally Random Daily Shakespeare (I’ve been thinking of using the acronym TRDS, but that can come out sounding like turds, so maybe not) is His insolence is more intolerable than all the princes in the land beside. It doesn’t say much for all the princes in the land, does it? On the other hand, we don’t really need to go into much context if we don’t want to. And considering I just bored you to tears with the previous paragraph, I think I’ll stay away from context today. And besides, this context gets into the whole politics and who’s who of the play/period, which I’ve just confessed I don’t know enough about. But on a completely non-contextual note, this can still be a good line and perfect for a young male. I can see using it in reference to a particular thirteen year old I know who can certainly, at times, be insolent. And by using it then I guess I would be calling him a prince and not in a complimentary fashion. So it’s a good line today. Good, and usable. Totally Random Daily Shakespeare strikes again.

                                                                                                                        

More can I bear than you dare execute.

-Duke of Suffolk

King Henry VI Part II       Act IV, scene i    Line 130

Great line! Okay, I’m not going to do any contextualizing or real analysis of this one. I’m just going to sit back and enjoy it.

More can I bear than you can execute. My goodness. Them’s fightin’ words! I don’t know who the Duke of Suffolk is or who he’s talking to, but he’s clearly not afraid of whoever it is. More can I bear! You can’t do nothin’ to me buddy! I guess it could also be used for one of those guys who think they’re the tough guy and don’t realize that the guy they’re talking to is gonna kick their butt. Yeah, it could be that. But I’d rather think of it being said by the guy who really is the tough guy. Or just the guy who’s not afraid and can’t be intimidated; the old fashioned hero like Rambo, or the Rock, or somebody like that.

So it’s a really good line today. One that I guess you can use. It’s got just enough juxtaposition of wording to make it a little confusing if the person you say it to isn’t used to this type of language (or just plain not that bright). And that might be a good thing if the person you say it to is about ready to kick your butt and they’re a lot bigger than you. It might freeze them in confusion just long enough for you to get away (in which case this probably isn’t the line for you anyway). On the other hand if you really are not afraid of what the other person can do then it’s a fabulous line. In fact, it’s made me want to see what the Duke of Suffolk is talking about and to whom he’s saying it. So I’ll be looking at that today, but just for fun. Meantime I’ll just be enjoying the line for what it is; a bit of Hollywood bravado.

Okay, little bit of a postscript here. I did a little reading of the part that leads up to this line and it appears that the Duke of Suffolk is saying this right before he gets led away to be executed. So I guess that changes the meaning of the line in this context a little, but then again, not all that much. I think this Duke is still pretty bad ass.

               

Would he were here! To all, and him, we thirst,

-Macbeth

Macbeth              Act III, scene iv  Line 89

And we’re back to Macbeth. Third time’s the charm.

This is our protagonist Macbeth talking. The ‘he’ in the line is Banquo. Banquo is his friend who Macbeth has had murdered a scene or two earlier. Now Macbeth is at a dinner and he’s making a toast to Banquo. From my point of view he’s doing one of two things; he’s being completely duplicitous and trying to remind everyone that he’s Banquo’s friend and thereby divert suspicion from himself (the rest of the people at this banquet don’t yet know that Banquo’s been murdered), OR he’s regretting having Banquo killed and he really does wish that Banquo were here, alive and well. And I believe it’s the latter. Seconds before this toast Macbeth saw Banquo’s ghost. He’s tormented by what he’s done. He’s the reluctant bad guy throughout this whole play. For a lot of the stuff it’s his wife egging him on. Behind every great man…

So I think it’s a genuine wish on Macbeth’s part. What do you think? I guess you’d have to read a bit of the play to decide on this one. It’s a good play and worth a read. And readable (as opposed to just seeable). It’s relatively small print in my book, but only 26 pages. I’ve posted links to sites that have the full plays online. If you’re going to start with any of Will’s plays to read, this would be a good one. Well, it’s just a thought.

Let’s see, what else can we say about this one this morning? ‘Would he were here!’ I guess we all have people we could say that about ‘Would he/she were here!’ Maybe they’re gone from this life, or maybe they’re just not right here right now. Luckily most of us wouldn’t say that about someone that we’ve had murdered. So in our case it’s an okay thing to say ‘Would he/she were here!’ It’s very okay. It just means there’s someone out there, or someone who was out there, who is or was a good thing in our life. So we’re thinking about that goodness and we can be glad for that. There, I feel better now. That Macbeth play can really bring me down! Maybe you shouldn’t read it.

                                        

Well then, Colevile is your name, a knight is

your degree, and your place the dale:

-Falstaff

King Henry the Fourth Part II      Act IV, scene iii  Line 6

So we have managed to randomly progress (or is it digress? Or congress?) over the past three days from Henry VI to Henry V to Henry IV. The only way to improve on this is to come up with Richard II tomorrow (No, Will did not write a play on Henry III, and it was Richard II who was the immediate predecessor to Henry IV). We’ll see.

Anyway. Checking my cheat sheet I see that we visited Henry IV Part I, but not Part II (two separate plays, one Henry), and that on that visit we also heard from Sir John Falstaff. Very interesting (at least I think it is, you can disagree).

So as I mentioned in that post, this Falstaff fellow is a pretty famous character of Will’s. And he’s mostly comic relief. As well (and I’m not actually sure about this, I’ll have to do some research) I believe that Falstaff is a purely fictional character in a pretty much historically accurate play. Falstaff is the drinking buddy of Hal, the son of Henry IV. And Hal becomes Henry V in, well, Henry V. And in Henry V we see the king who leads the English to victory in France. Henry V is pretty famous in English history. The battle of Agincourt where Henry V leads them to victory is sort of like Washington crossing the Delaware for the Brits. However in Henry IV (which is where we’re at today) Henry V is still Prince Hal, and Falstaff is Falstaff. Much of Falstaff’s time in this play is spent in the Boar’s Head Tavern, but in this scene he’s actually out in the forest, near a battle that’s going on (I think he’s hiding from the battle) and he’s just met up with Coleville who is one of the rebels they’ve been facing.

But what about the line, Pete? What about that line? Okay, I’m getting to that. This is the very beginning of the scene. Falstaff meets Colevile in the forest and asks his name, rank, and where he’s from. Colevile answers ‘I am a knight, sir; and my name is Colevile of the dale.’ To which Falstaff replies with today’s Totally Random line. So it’s not a terribly enlightening line. He simply repeated what Colevile just said. Which if he’d done that today there’s a good chance you’d reply ‘Is there an echo in here?’

Okay, so Falstaff is comic relief. That being said, is this line funny? All he did was pretty much repeat what the guy had just said to him. Why is that funny? Well here’s the thing; on paper it’s not. With the right actor delivering the lines properly it might be hilarious. That’s just the way it is. Delivery is everything. Look at Kramer in Seinfeld. He didn’t really have very many funny lines. His humor is his physical movements and delivery. It’s true of almost any comic performer. Some rely more on the words, others less. I’ve never seen any of the Henry plays performed. I’ve listened to some, but not this one. So I don’t know if this line is funny. And I don’t know exactly what Falstaff would do to make his lines funny. I know it could be. I know that because almost any line can be made funny. If you get a chance, check out Billy Crystal and Robin Williams in Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet. Classic examples.

The taste whereof, God of his mercy give

You patience to endure, and true repentance

Of all your dear offences!

-King Henry

 

King Henry the Fifth       Act II, scene ii    Line 179

All right then, from Henry VI to Henry V. And it’s not such an outlandish thing to work backwards since Will wrote that way. That is to say, he wrote Henry VI first, and then went back and worked his way through Richard II, Henry IV, and Henry V which is in proper order. Anyway, some minor context here; the line previous to this is ‘Get you, therefore, hence,/ Poor miserable wretches, to your death:’ So that the ‘Taste’ being referred to in today’s Totally Random line is the taste of death. Ouch.

Not much needed to explain here. He’s sentenced these three guys (Lord Scroop, Earl of Cambridge, and Sir Thomas Grey) to death for being traitors to England. They don’t deny it. Today’s Totally Random line are Henry’s last words to these guys before they’re led away.

So this line is not that much unlike the line you hear in modern shows where the judge decrees the death sentence in a court and follows it up with ‘And may God have mercy on your soul,’ or some such thing. Now I’ve never been in a real court where a judge passed a death sentence (and I’m guessing most of you haven’t either) and hopefully I never will (and I’m guessing most of you are hoping so too), so I don’t know if the judge would really say this. But even if it’s only theater nowadays, doesn’t it bear a really strong resemblance to what they were saying (at least in the theater) four hundred years ago. Of course, there’s a good chance that these three guys were going to be put to death in a most hideous way, which is something they liked doing back then. So when the king talked about the ‘patience to endure’ he wasn’t kidding. And therein is the big difference between then and now. These days we go to the movies to see our blood and gore, and it’s all fake. Elizabethans weren’t seeing that at the theater, they were going to the public executions to see the real thing. So that’s something to think about. We’ve become more civilized in that we don’t torture people to death in public. And yet, we still seem to have the need to see this same thing, albeit simulated, at the movies. Curious, isn’t it?

And that’s about all I have to say about that.

These are the city gates of Rouen,

Through which our policy must make a breach:

-Joan La Pucelle

King Henry the Sixth Part I          Act III, scene ii   Line 1

I believe the word ‘policy’ translates more or less to ‘strategy’ in this line. And ‘Pucelle’ is ‘Maid’, which is the shortened version of Maid of Orleans, which is another title for Joan of Arc. And if we read the setup for this scene (which we might as well since we’re at the very beginning of it) we will see that we are outside the town of Rouen, France with Joan and four disguised soldiers ‘with sacks upon their backs’. There, that should be all you need to know to understand where we’re at here.

Got it? Yes, that’s right, Joan of Arc and four guys disguised as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are planning on sneaking into the town of Rouen. No wait, that can’t be right. But we’re close.

Okay, let’s take a step back. The line is pretty self-explanatory. This gate is the key to their strategy to getting into the city. Now of course if she was there in reality she wouldn’t have to explain to the four guys that these were the gates to the city of Rouen because you’d think that by the time they got to the gates with the sacks on their backs those four guys would probably know where they were. However, the audience watching the play probably has no idea where they are or what they’re doing, so the actor playing Joan uses this line to set the scene for everyone. So it’s a scene setter. Is this the first time we’ve gotten the very first line of a scene? I don’t think so. I guess some scenes need a scene setting line more than others. This play seems to bop around to different places (albeit like most of them do) with battles and such, so I suppose Will felt we should know where we were to start this scene. Okay.

Now the other kind of interesting thing is this Joan La Pucelle character. Yes, this is Joan of Arc (apparently known as Joan La Pucelle in sixteenth century England) and I had no idea she showed up in Will’s history plays. Did you? Or maybe you’re saying ‘who’s Joan of Arc?’ I hope you’re not saying that. Even if you don’t know much about her (I don’t), you must surely have heard of her or seen pics of this young woman in a suit of armor. No? No worries, I’ll find one to add to this post. Anyway, yeah, she’s prominent in this particular play. Not sure if she meets her demise in this one or not (burned at the stake. Ring a bell?)

So since a picture is worth a thousand words (I wonder if Will would have agreed with that statement?), here’s a pic of me and my friend re-enacting this scene. You can see that he’s saying the line ‘These are the city gates of Rouen, through which our policy must make a breach.’ You’ll have to take my word for it that he did a good job with his line. And I’m standing there with a sack on my back. It kinda looks like I’m saying ‘These gates? Really?’ even though my line was supposed to be ‘Our sacks shall be a mean to sack the city.’ We didn’t have anyone else to play the other three soldiers, but you can use your imagination and picture them standing to the left, behind me just out of view.

Does that help? I'll try to find a picture of St. Joan of Arc? Yes, they made her a saint. I don’t know that whole story. I know my wife read a book on her, but I didn’t, so I really can’t give you much more info on her. Of course, you can use the Google.

Therefore lay bare your bosom.

                                                      Ay, his breast:

-Portia/Shylock

The Merchant of Venice                                Act IV, scene i    Line 250

Well I’m not sure where to start. Perhaps a brief explanation of the line.

The first part of the line, ‘Therefore lay bare your bosom,’ is spoken by Portia who is masquerading as a male doctor, and the second part, ‘Ay, his breast,’ by Shylock (who, by the way, is NOT the merchant of Venice; he’s the money lender of Venice). You will notice that combined it’s a perfect verse of iambic pentameter. At this point in the proceedings it looks like Portia is about to agree that Shylock’s claim is valid and that Antonio (THE Merchant of Venice) is going to have to surrender a pound of his flesh to Shylock. Of course we know how this thing ends up, so no need to worry about Antonio.

Now I’m inclined to get philosophical about this play on the whole (and there’s a lot to philosophize on here), but I’m going to try to stick to this specific line instead even though it’s a somewhat innocuous line (at least in comparison to some of the other ones in this scene). Or is it?

Portia (disguised as Doctor Balthazar, and I’m not even going to start in on Shakespeare and his love of having women masquerade as men – which by the way ends up as men (all the actors in the plays back then were men) masquerading as women masquerading as men) says ‘Therefore lay bare your bosom’ to Antonio. Now keep in mind that Antonio is the guy who started this whole thing rolling by signing this deal in the beginning of the play to borrow money from Shylock. Why did he borrow the money? He borrowed it because he was cash poor; all his money was invested in ships he had out at sea seeking treasure. But what did he need the money for? To give to his friend Bassanio. And what did Bassanio need it for? He wanted to impress a rich young woman so that he could get her to marry him and then he would come into her money at which point he’d be able to pay Antoino back, and then Antonio wouldn’t forfeit on the loan and have to pay the pound of flesh. And who was this rich young woman that he was able to impress and marry? Portia/Bathalzar. The whole plan worked, except not quite quick enough and Antonio defaulted on the loan before Bassanio completed his end of the task.

Now in all the stuff I’ve read about this play (and I’ve read a bit) this little circle of events is never really addressed. There is boatloads of analysis on all sorts of aspects of the play, but I’ve never run into Portia being much troubled by Bassanio’s duplicity in courting her, or Antonio’s part in that duplicity. And yet at this point she knows all these facts. So I say, based on this little circuitous train of thought, and keeping in mind that at this point Portia knows all of it, isn’t it just possible that when she says ‘bare your bosom’ to Antonio she’s asking Antoino to ‘fess up and spill the beans on helping Bassanio to deceive her? Well isn’t it? So this line just might be a really, really key line that no one ever keys in on.

There, I’ve done it. I’ve left the very famous ‘quality of mercy’ and the ‘(but not) one drop of Christian blood’ lines completely alone, and I’ve focused purely on today’s Totally Random Daily Shakespeare line which, as usual, appears to be anything but random. Well I feel pretty good about that.