Please
your ladyship
To visit
the next room, I’ll presently
Acquaint
the queen of your most noble offer;
-Emilia
The Winter’s Tale Act
II, scene ii Line 47
And back once again to The Winter’s Tale. I guess we can
spend a little time on the context here.
It turns out that the king of Sicilia, Leontes, is convinced
that his wife, Hermione, has been cheating on him with his best friend,
Polixenes, the king of Bohemia. If you recall, that last time we visited this
play it was a line out of the conversation of Hermione and Polixenes. Well,
Leontes was watching them have that conversation and decided that those two
were a little over-friendly, and well, he managed to make the leap to conclude
that they were cheating on him behind his back. They weren’t. Anyway, Hermione
got sent to prison (he’s the king so he can do that). While in prison
Hermione’s friend Paulina comes to visit to help. She’s not allowed to see
Hermione, but is allowed to talk Hermione’s lady in waiting, Emila (who
apparently is doing the prison time with Hermione) who tells her that Hermione
has given birth to a daughter. Paulina tells Emila to get the baby from
Hermione and she, Paulina, will bring the baby to Leontes and use it to
convince him that he is wrong and to let Hermione out of prison. And today’s
Totally Random Daily Shakespeare line is Emilia’s answer. Whew, that was a lot
of setup for this line. Makes you wonder if this Totally Random stuff is worth
it!
So where do we go from here? There’s nothing really too exciting
about the line. It’s pretty understandable. I guess we could find a current use
for it (with a little modification). We could discuss the play a little more,
but as I said previously, it’s one that I need to do more work on before I can
discuss it too much. So then, what else? I managed to ramble on about the line
‘Nothing’, so you’d think I could ramble on about this one. And yet, I believe
I’ve hit a wall. So let’s let this one go. We’ll hope for better luck tomorrow.
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