For no ill will I bear you.

-Phebe

 

As You Like It                     Act III, scene iv    Line 69

Well today we’re back to one of Will’s scenes with the woman pretending to be a man (again, if you count the actor playing the role of the woman, it’s a man pretending to be a woman pretending to be a man). In this case it is the country girl Phebe falling instantly in love with Rosalind, the latter being disguised as the young fellow named Ganymede. But of course Rosiland/Ganymede has no feelings for Phebe because she’s not gay and is only interested in men, and in particular in Orlando. So this raises an interesting question; is Will attempting, in his inimitable cagey fashion, to address gayness in 1600 England? Let’s be clear on a few items. First, I’m not historically savvy enough to know much of anything about gay society in 1600 England, but I’d have to guess that it’s not exactly an open thing. Second, Will spent quite a bit of time having various female roles masquerading as men, and in many of these cases it was pretty clear that the sexual orientation question was not on the table (consider Portia/Balthazar in Merchant Of Venice). However, the wordplay and the scenario in this particular scene lends itself to this question of whether or not he’s trying to address gayness. Phebe appears to be head over heels with Ganymede/Rosalind. So I put it to you; Is Will bringing up the matter of gay women or gayness in general, and if he is, what’s he saying about it? In this scene Rosalind realizes that Phebe is interested in her and is doing everything she can to dissuade her. But she’s having a tough time of it. In the meantime Phebe has a man after her, but she seems to want no part of this fellow as she pursues Ganymede/Rosalind. So what gives?

For no ill will I bear you. That’s what infatuated Phebe is saying to Ganymede/Rosalind. Is Will talking here? Is he saying that he’s perfectly accepting of women who are attracted to other women (even if she is dressed as a man)? Well, what do you think?

In the interest of fair disclosure, and to recognize Halloween (which I’m pretty sure was not being celebrated as a costume holiday in Will’s time), here’s a pic of two young ladies I know. I believe I had something to do with the older one’s costume which is her being dressed up as a guy (I can't take any credit for the little cheeseburger LT, that was Aunt Nancy's doing). And I’m pretty sure I wasn’t trying to make any kind of a statement about gayness at the time, so maybe I’m just completely off base with my line of thinking about Will above. Oh, and this pic is pretty old, about twenty years or so, but apparently you can’t dress as a hobo anymore because it’s insensitive. So, sorry about that.

Nay, then I’ll stop your mouth. --- Bring

thou her husband:

-Chiron

Titus Andronicus                              Act II, scene iii     Line 185

Today I’m keeping it short, and I’m tempted, and not for the first time, to toss the Totally Random thing and go back to yesterday’s play, Othello. Yes, there’s a bunch of bad stuff to come in that one, but Good Michael, look you to the guard tonight. It’s such a simple line and the Good Michael is just so lovely.

But we'll move to today’s line. To be clear, Chiron is talking to Lavinia, telling her he’s going to shut her up, and then telling his brother to bring over the dead body of Lavinia’s husband. Oh, and what was Lavinia talking about that Chiron wants to shut her up? Lavinia was pleading with Chiron’s mother Tamora to kill her instead of letting Tamora’s two son’s Chiron and Demetrius rape her. No, Tamora’s not going to be stopping them. She’s cheering them on. And for the record, Chiron’s going to stop her mouth (after they rape her) by cutting out her tongue. Oh and they’ll cut off her hands for good measure. Sweet Jesus, give me ‘Good Michael’ any day!

Okay, this is pretty random, but I wanted to put a picture of something good, and completely apart from today's Totally Random line. This is about the best book I ever read, and I remember the first time I read it almost fifty years ago.

Good Michael, look you to the guard tonight:

-Othello

Othello                 Act II, scene ii      Line 1

Okay, the first thing I have to talk about, and something that I don’t remember at all from when I studied this play ten years ago is the name Michael. Cassio’s name is Michael Cassio. There’s Othello, and Iago, and Rodrigo, and a bunch of other one name guys, and then there’s Michael Cassio. How does this guy rate two names? It reminds me a little of Michael Corleone. It’s a very nice name though. All the other guys sound like they belong living in 16^th century Venice, which is appropriate. But Michael Cassio? That sounds like someone I might have gone to high school with. Now I forget what happens to Mr. Cassio, but I’m thinking it can’t be good. Iago makes such a mess of things that just about everyone is either targeted or just collateral damage. Ah wait, remember? Back on our 8/31 post. That was from Act V and the rat Iago stabs Cassio there. But I’m not sure if Michael dies or not. I’m hoping not because I’m really feeling good about Mr. Cassio. Guess we’ll have to get back to that one.

Good Michael, look you to the guard tonight. It’s a very pleasant demeanor displayed by our tragic hero Othello in this line. He’s a good guy that Othello. In fact, as I recall pretty much everyone in this play is a pretty decent. Except for that one trouble maker Iago. He is not a decent fellow and he makes trouble for just about everyone up to the very end of the play. And nobody picks up on it. How is that possible? Just five lines down from today’s Totally Random line is Othello saying “Iago is most honest.” Really!?!

But getting back to Will’s good guys and bad guys, and the ones we’re not sure about. Well I think we’re pretty sure about this guy Iago from the giddyup. No, the other folks in the play are fooled. But we the audience, we know pretty much from the start that this guy is just plain evil. Almost to the point where we want to yell to the other actors on the stage and warn them. I wonder if anyone ever did? Maybe the groundlings? I guess we’ll never know.

In the meantime, let’s let this be our take away. Let’s try to address someone today prefixing it with ‘good’. Wait, I just realized something; this is going to work much better with some names than others. You need a name with the accent on the first syllable, like Michael. Good Peter, Good William, Good Walker… these all work. Good Patrice, not so much. So assuming you can find someone with a good name, give it a try. Nothing fancy…

Good Walker, can you hand me that book over there.

Good William, how was your day.

See how it works. I’m thinking people will like being addressed as ‘good’. And if you can make someone happy with something as simple as this, why not do it? What do you say, good reader?

I met a fellow named Michael from Ukraine this afternoon. He was a salesman helping us in a furniture store. As we were leaving I said 'Good Michael, thank you very much.'

This day my sister should the cloister enter,

And there receive her approbation:

-Claudio

Measure For Measure                   Act I, scene ii        Line 175

If I’m not mistaken, we  had another Claudio quote only a few days ago. Oh wait, that was Claudio in Much Ado About Nothing. Different Claudio, different play. Carry on.

It looks like this is our third visit to this play. We had the ‘wish him well’ line in sept, and the ‘justice, justice, justice, justice line’ earlier this month. Okay, so we haven’t really done a thing with context in this particular play. Well I see no reason to change that today. Besides, as I noted elsewhere we’ve got about 342 years of material for these posts, and we’re only on our 79^th day of posting, so we’ll have plenty of time to flesh out Measure For Measure at a later date. Let’s just look at the line for today.

So he wants his sister to join the convent. Interesting.  I’m really tempted to dive into this one and find out what’s going on and why Claudio wants his sister to join the convent. I can certainly tell you that I never had any thoughts about either of my sisters joining the convent. And they didn’t. They both got married. In fact I was talking to one the other day because she had been in the hospital for a week and a half and I didn’t even know it. Do you run into that kind of stuff with your family? Of course my other sister lives in Phoenix so that if she was in the hospital for a month and a half I might not ever know it. But again, the convent? I don’t think so. And this could get us back to that discussion we were having last week with Prospero’s Tempest line about fathers putting the daughters’ boyfriends to the test. I was saying then that I really didn’t relate to that, and if I don’t relate to trying to control what my daughters are doing then it follows that I’m really not going to relate to trying to control what my sisters are doing. Ooof. So I guess I’ll just say, Jean, Marie, you’re free to join the convent if you want, but please don’t think that I’m advocating it. What our friend Claudio is thinking, well I have no idea. Moving on…

This is what the sisters in the convent looked like when I was a kid. That's Sister Catherine Marie on the right, my eighth grade teacher. I don't know whether or not her brother had anything to do with her joining the convent. Heck, I don't even know if she had a brother.

One, but painted thus,

Would be interpreted a thing perplext

Beyond self-explication.

-Imogen

Cymbeline                          Act III, scene iv    Line 7

I’ve got a new way of working with these lines. I’ve completed downloading all the Shakespeare Arkangel cd’s on to my PC. So now I have at my fingertips every line of every play acted out. This morning’s line didn’t make too much sense right out of the chute. It’s not complete gibberish, but not the clearest. So I read the play summary to see what’s going on (Imogen’s husband thinks she’s cheating on him and so he’s sent Pisanio to kill her. Imogen’s line above is directed to Pisanio who is there to kill her, but doesn’t want to kill her. She doesn’t realize yet that he’s there to kill her). Just having an idea of what’s taking place helps a lot. But then listening to Imogen and Pisanio talking adds even more. What Imogen is saying to Pisanio is that he looks extremely perplexed. And he is. He’s been tasked with killing Imogen and he doesn’t want to, or perhaps doesn’t feel he’s able to. Apparently Pisanio is a servant of Imogen’s husband. Since I’ve not read this play I don’t know what kind of guy Imogen’s husband is. I guess we can assume he’s not all that forgiving for one thing. I’m also not sure whether or not Imogen is guilty as charged either, though from reading further on in the scene I’m guessing not. And also I don’t know how much Pisanio knows about Imogen’s guilt or innocence of the charge. Lots of unknowns!

So let’s just stick with the line, shall we?

You look more perplexed than can be explained, even by you, the one who is perplexed.

That’s what Imogen is saying. Fairly simple. And again, Pisanio is quite perplexed and who can blame him. He has orders from his master to kill this woman, and he does not/cannot kill her. That is perplexing.

Have you ever seen someone who looked perplexed beyond explanation? Perplexed beyond the point that even the perplexed one could not explain why he/she was perplexed? I really feel like I’m that perplexed sometimes. I wonder if people see me that way or if my perplexiveness is apparent or not. Yeah, I really feel like I spend an inordinate amount of time being perplexed. Why do you suppose that is?

So it’s a good line for me. Or at least quite relevant. I’m guessing I won’t be hearing it too soon. But maybe sometime real soon I’ll hear someone say ‘Hey Pete, you look really perplexed.’ And if I do, I can reply, ‘Well do I look like one, but painted thus, would be interpreted a thing perplext beyond self-explication?’ Then they would be the one perplext!

This is Spike. He can't figure out that he can get past this gate just by going around it. He thinks he's stuck. You can't see the expression on his face, but if you could you might say one, but painted thus, would be interpreted a thing perplex beyond self-explication.

Courage enough: I do not fear the flaw:

It hath done to me the worst.

-Pericles

 Pericles                 Act III, scene i      Line 39

Okay, first things first. This is our second trip to Pericles. You can check out the 8/30/16 post for a little (very little) background on the play. Second things second. This is a pretty screwy play. I’m not sure if it’s considered a comedy or a tragedy. It’s listed in my A.L. Rowse compilation as a tragedy, and yet it seems to have a pretty happy ending.

In regards to today’s line, this is Pericles on a ship in a storm making reference first to himself, having courage enough, then to the storm or perhaps fate in general, the flaw, and finally to the fact that his wife has just died in childbirth on the ship, It hath done to me the worst. So, yeah, I admit that this sounds a bit tragic at this point, but the tale really does have a happy ending and there’s quite a bit of screwy stuff going on from beginning to end.

And now, a quick note on something I noticed; assisting the storm. A few lines up from today’s Totally Random line, when Pericles shows signs of getting upset that his wife has died in childbirth the nurse says to Pericles ‘do not assist the storm’ (don’t make matters worse). I recognized that ‘assist the storm’ from The Tempest in the first scene when the king’s men are yelling at the sailors in the storm and one of the sailors yells back ‘you do assist the storm.’ From what I’ve read, these two plays were both written about the time that voyages to the New World were very big in the news. And so Will has two plays that have scenes upon the high seas (though, yes, Pericles's seas are the Mediterranean Sea). And in both he uses the same phrase about ‘assisting the storm’. I’m pretty sure that Will never got off dry land, so I wonder if this was a popular phrase from back then in the accounts of sea travel. Anyway, I just thought it was interesting.

So anyway, Courage enough: I do not fear the flaw: It hath done to me the worst. It’s a surprisingly optimistic line if you think about it. He’s taken just about everything that fate can throw at him, and he’s still standing. It seems like he feels good about that. Yeah, that’s right: Pericles may not be an actual bad ass, but he’s not backing down or giving up either. We could all use a little of Pericles attitude to get us through the day. Joel Osteen would be proud of Pericles, and good for him!

                                                                                         My wife is big on Joel. Good for her!

Go with me to my tent, where you shall see

How hardly I was drawn into this war,

How calm and gentle I proceeded still

In all my writings.

-Octavius Caesar

 

Antony and Cleopatra                   Act V, scene i       Line 75

These are the words of Octavius Caesar upon learning of the death of Antony. For starters, ‘hardly’ in this context means ‘with great difficulty’. Consider now that Caesar came all the way to Egypt to fight Antony because Antony was rebelling, sort of. Consider also that Caesar and Antony were compatriots, even friends, at one point. Caesar does not sound triumphant in this line. Contrast this with “Taking Comfort” at the severed head of Macbeth in the 8/27 post. Caesar sounds tired in this line, and in the lines that lead up to this he’s downright sad. If you listen to this scene acted out (it’s a pretty short scene and this is the end of it), which I did, you’ll really get the sadness and resignation in Caesar’s voice.

I’m not quite sure what Will is making reference to in ‘all my writings’. There are actual writings of Octavius Caesars that survived, but this is a little confusing. It’s an interesting little line and it seems to get more interesting the more I look at it. Like almost all of Will’s stuff. Somehow the tone of this line reminds me a little of Prospero at the end of The Tempest when he’s inviting Alonso and his group back to his cell. It’s a very different play, a comedy as opposed to a tragedy, but there’s just something about the tone that I find familiar. I can’t help but think that over the course of thirty-whatever plays that Will wrote that he came to the same place of human feelings many times, even if this is not what I think it is in regards to The Tempest specifically. In any event, I think that’s all I’ve got on this one for today.

                         The death of the just is like the aurora of a beautiful day which will never end.

This is a picture I took today of a grave marker on a church grounds in Southington. It’s the only marker there, and it doesn’t appear to be a cemetery, but there it was nonetheless. I was struck by the death of the just... epitaph on the stone more than anything else, and I felt it resonated somehow with the death of Mark Antony, a death that precipitated today’s Totally Random line.

Thou dost love her, because thou knowst I love her,

And for my sake even so doth she abuse me,

Suff’ring my friend for my sake to approve her;

-Narrator

Sonnet 42

And here were are, finally; Sonnets. Now if you thought reading A Lover’s Complaint was tough, well think again. You’re probably thinking ‘Wait a minute Pete, I’ve heard some of these sonnets, and they’re not so tough. “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”’ Yeah, well that one’s not too bad, but unfortunately most of the other ones (there’s 154 of them in total) are not so simple. And it seems that they are mostly all connected and they keep following a theme, almost a story, and they can get pretty difficult to comprehend.

Now take this one here. I have (actually, it’s ‘had’; past tense—see the picture below) a really good book of Wills’ Sonnets with really good explanations. Keep in mind that these sonnets are all fourteen lines long. That’s pretty short. My book has footnotes for just about every line of every sonnet, and also a brief summary/explanation of each sonnet. Here’s the summary of Sonnet 42:

The poet grieves more for the loss of his young friend than for that of his mistress, but tries to persuade himself that the common ground between the young lovers is himself, and that, in loving the youth, the woman is manifesting her love for the poet with whom the youth, too, is united in love. An exercise in self-consolation, sonnet 42 explores what may be said in the manner of Sidney’s Astrophil’s attempts ‘to make myself believe that all is well’.

Got that? Yeah, that’s what I said.

Just for reference, and in case you're keeping score, that’s a quote from The Arden Shakespeare copy of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, edited by Katherine Duncan-Jones. That’s about as good as I’m going to get for citing here; I hope that’s enough for you.

Anyway, the point is that these sonnets are pretty tough. I wish they were all ‘Shall I compare thee…’ but they’re not. Let’s let this one go for now. The next time we hit the sonnets (they take of 19 of the 1,252 pages of my book) we’ll perhaps get into it a little more. In the meantime, I’m off to the Giant (see picture in yesterday’s post).

And this is my Arden Shakespeare's Sonnets. If you're wondering what happened to it, I'll tell you. I was sitting in the living room reading it, and one of the dogs walked in, looked at me, and proceeded to lift his leg and pee on the cabinet. Without taking his eyes off me! Well I threw the book at him, and of course it ended up landing in the puddle. I rinsed it off and put it outside to dry. But I'm afraid my Arden Shakespeare's Sonnets isn't ever going to be the same. Oh world, thy slippery turns!

I would I were invisible, to catch the strong fellow by the leg.

-Celia

 As You Like It     Act I, scene ii        Line 206

This is a pretty easy scene to set. Orlando (one of the main characters) is going to wrestle Charles (a very minor character, but in this scene he’s the ‘strong fellow’). I think they’re wrestling for money. In any event, they’re wrestling for a crowd, and Charles is a professional wrestler while Orlando is not. Celia (the speaker) is in the crowd with her cousin Rosalind. Apparently Orlando is quite the young hunk because it seems like both Celia and Rosalind are instantly in his fan club. You’ll remember that in our 8/23 post we had Rosalind giving Orlando a chain to wear. That line was from the same page that we’re on now, but occurs after the wrestling match is over. And you might guess based on that line that it’s Rosalind who ends up with Orlando. But for now, it’s Celia who’s sending her wishes that she could help Orlando in the wrestling match.

There, that’s what’s going on and why Celia utters today’s Totally Random line. Anyone out there got any thoughts? Because I have to be honest, I’m drawing a blank. For once I am very familiar with the play and the scene. And the language is perfectly easy to understand. But I just can’t think of much to add. So where do we go from here?

This makes me think of the time I was in Composition 101 as a freshman at St. Bonaventure. One day the professor had us write an essay in class. He told us to pick any subject, absolutely anything, and write a few pages on it. Everybody else started writing away. I sat there thinking, and thinking, and thinking. Finally I started writing about the fact that I couldn’t think of anything to write about. And I wrote a couple of pages on that. I handed that in and got a decent grade.

So I can think about a fairly meaningless experience I had in 1976, but I can’t think of anything to say about Celia’s comment that she’d like to get invisible so she can help Orlando win the wrestling match. Well this isn’t going to be a very good Totally Random Daily Shakespeare post if all you get is my lame story from 1976. But it will certainly qualify as Totally Random, and with the line up above you’re getting your Daily Shakespeare. Hmmm. I guess I can get away with that for today. Come to think of it, not much different than what I got away with in 1976, is it? I guess I’d just as soon be a little bit invisible today. How about you? Ever feel like being a little bit invisible?

Today’s Totally Random line is the first one that touches on any sport, in this case wrestling. There’s a lot of fighting in Will’s plays, but very little sports. Tomorrow morning I’m going to take a crack at my favorite sport. Can you guess what it is? And by the way, this sport was invented in Scotland about a hundred years before Will was born. Hey, I wonder if it's mentioned in any of his plays?

This done, see that you take no longer days,

But send the midwife presently to me.

-Aaron

 Titus Andronicus              Act IV, scene ii     Line 166

Let’s be clear here. The ‘this done’ that the speaker is referring to is the burying of the body of the nurse he just killed. And the reason he wants them to send the midwife to him is so that he can kill her too. So we’ve picked one Totally Random line from this play (okay, there’s two lines because I wanted to finish the sentence) and it is talking about not one, but two, murders. Now this is the second time that we’ve come across Titus Andronicus and if you’ll recall, the last time we were here (I believe it was 8/29) we were dealing with a severed hand and two severed heads. At that time I was ranting about what a bizarre and violent play this is. I guess I can just continue the rant, eh?

Titus was one of the first plays that Will wrote, and of course we really have no idea what he was thinking when he went into this one. Oh the Greenblatts and the Shapiros would have you know that Will ‘could have’ been reacting to his event, or ‘may have’ been present at that event which ‘might possibly’ have shaped his way of thinking. But the reality is that we just don’t know (one of these days I’m going to get into a serious rant about how much we don’t know about Will, but not today). We don’t even know for sure when he wrote this play but it seems to be in pretty good agreement that it was one of his first. That being said, was he going for the shock and awe effect, or what? I guess I could go back and count the murders and dismemberments, but…

So I guess the moral of the story is that if you’re trying to get some teenage boys interested in Shakespeare then, sorry to say, you might want to use this play. And that comment can lead us into a really long discussion of violence in today’s society, video games, movies, etc., etc. But I’m really not prepared to go there right now.  Let’s see if we can’t just find something a bit more restful or peaceful to end today’s post on.

                                                                   This is a Tennessee sunset. Pretty, isn't it? And Peaceful.

‘ “The diamond,--why, ‘twas beautiful and hard,

Whereto his invised properties did tend;…” ’

-Narrator

 

A Lover’s Complaint                         Line 212

We are finally back to a non-play line, and what do we have? It’s A Lover’s Complaint, a poem by Will that’s 329 lines long. It tells the story of an old man coming across a young girl out in the woods sitting by a stream. The girl tells the old man the story of a young man that she fell for who then dumped her. Part of the story (including today’s Totally Random line) is the young girl quoting what the young man said to her. He had told her, among other things, that he’d been with a lot of women and that many of them gave him gifts, including precious stones. He lists out the gems and the first that he lists is diamonds, and these two lines are about these diamonds. So really all we have for today is that a diamond is as hard and as beautiful as it should be. Not very exciting.

Now I have to be honest, I did my best to read most of these 329 lines last night. You guessed right; I fell asleep. If you think Will’s plays are hard to understand, you should try this poem. And I was reading a fully annotated version. It’s just really difficult to follow. This morning I found a good summary of the poem if you’re interested.

https://www.mcgoodwin.net/pages/otherbooks/ws_loverscomplaint.html

If you read the summary first (and it’s pretty short) it of course makes Will’s words easier to understand. But you still pretty much need an annotated version. And there is a spoken version out there on the web if you’re interested. Honestly, I really wasn’t.

Apparently this is another one of those Will works that has some serious academic thought that it’s not really Will’s work. What else is new.  

I did have one very striking thought when reading this poem. There is a band called the Gabe Dixon Band and they have tune called And The World Turned. The tune is about a girl standing on a rock by the water and lamenting a lost love. It kind of seemed (at least to me) that Mr. Dixon had just read this poem when he wrote that song. I found the song on YouTube if you want to take a listen. There’s a good chance that you won’t hear what I heard in terms of relation to the poem, but there it is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFA9l5Ji-8g

Finally, my compilation has fifty-seven pages of non-play materials; sonnets and poems. That’s about 5%. We’ve done 72 random selections and this is our second non-play selection. That’s about 3%. So we’re not too far off and I maintain that the random selection system is working just fine, thank you. Also, this poem takes up 3 pages of my 1,252 page compilation, so there’s about a .2% chance of coming back here on any given day. That’s .2, as in 2 in 1,000 chance. That being said, we’ll probably be back here tomorrow. Ooof.

These are the guys. I saw them as the backup act for Loggins and Messina and their song reminds me of A Lover's Complaint. What do you think?

Then march to Paris, royal Charles of France,

And keep not back your powers in dalliance.

-Duke of Alencon

King Henry the Sixth Part I                          Act V, scene ii      Line 4

There are only 21 lines in this scene. It seems that the plays with the battle scenes are the ones with a lot of very short scenes. This is true of the latter part of Antony and Cleopatra when Augustus Caesar comes to Egypt for the fight. But today’s Totally Random line is not from in Egypt, it’s in France. The French and English are fighting in this play, and in this scene Charles (I’m not sure if he’s king yet, or still prince) of France is discussing the situation with some of his boys and with Joan of Arc. The scene is the plains in Anjou, and the Duke here, is telling Charles to go to Paris and muster up his forces there to fight.

So the past two days we’ve been dealing with battle scenes, or more precisely, people talking about the battles. Yesterday they were discussing the sea battle about to take place, and today they’re talking about mustering the troops in Paris. There are lot of battles fought in Will’s plays. Most of the fighting, though, takes place off stage and we find out what’s happening from the people talking about it or showing up with severed heads. Of course Will had to write it this way because there was only so much he could expect to be able to perform on a stage. I really don’t know how much battling they actually portrayed on the stage. I’m guessing that most of it was limited to a few guys swinging swords around. These were stages, after all, and I’m guessing somewhat primitive special effects. I’ve heard that back in the day the Romans were able to fill the coliseum with water and stage mock sea battles. They weren’t able to do this at the Globe theater and hence you get a lot of people talking about battles, and not so much of them acting out battles.

This is a real Roman Coliseum. It's not the big, famous one in Rome. It's a smaller one in Spain. But it's still Roman. I'll tell you, though, that we didn't see any battles taking place there. Too bad.

       Let the Egyptians

And the Phonecians go a-ducking: we

Have used to conquer, standing on the earth,

And fighting foot to foot.

-Soldier

Antony and Cleopatra                   Act III, scene vii                   Line 63

Well at least we’ve gotten away from the history plays for the day. Although this one’s not too far removed from history, just a different time and place’s history. But I believe it’s classified as a tragedy. Either way, what we have here is another uncredited cast member, this time Soldier, giving Marc Antony the very solid advice to fight on land and not sea. I’m pretty sure that when he says ‘go a-ducking’ he means act like ducks and go out on the water (in boats). I like that: Go a-ducking. Regardless, does Antony listen? Of course not. Does it turn out well for him? Of course not. You know, it’s the little guy, the uncredited guys in life who really do know what the heck they’re talking about a lot of the time. I feel like that little uncredited guy a lot. 

So I googled Marc Antony (the Roman guy, not the play, and not the singer) and of course all I got was results for Marc Antony the singer. I had to use ‘Marc Antony Roman’ to get the guy I was looking for. I was just looking to see how well Will had stuck to history on this one. And he did a pretty good job. Oh I doubt that the uncredited soldier advised Antony to fight on land. But we do know that Antony got his butt kicked in the sea battle. What a maroon!

This is an interesting play, and Will pretty much paints the picture of a fairly manipulative, kind of spoiled brat, woman and a guy who is really obsessed with her and being led by her, and by his own stupidity, to make a lot of bad decisions. I’m not sure exactly what Will was trying to say with this play. Be careful who you fall in love with? That warning could apply to Antony or Cleopatra.

Well anyway, let’s walk away from this one with the thought that you really should give a little bit of a listen to the uncredited guys and gals. Just because they’re not the stars of the show doesn’t mean they don’t know what they’re talking about.

I asked my friend to do his interpretation of the Antony’s forces at the naval battle that ensued. He takes his roles pretty seriously, don’t you think?

Ay, to such mercy as his ruthless arm,

With downright payment, show’d unto my father.

 -Lord Clifford

 King Henry the Sixth Part III                        Act I, scene iii     Line 33

The line before this is Clifford’s buddy Northumberland telling Richard the Duke of York to yield to their mercy. Then Cliff comes out with today’s Totally Random line which tells me that York can’t really expect all that much mercy from Cliff and North. I can’t tell you exactly what York did to Clifford’s father, but I’m guessing he wasn’t too nice to him. On a separate note, that would be a good name for something, maybe a clothing retailer; Cliff & North. There’s some North Cliff stuff, a hotel and whatnot, but no Cliff & North. Anyway…

I think we’ll leave the whole Wars of the Roses thing alone for today. I’m still grappling with all the names and who’s on who’s side. I’ll get there eventually. But we can talk about today’s line without going into anymore context.

First off, pretty good iambic pentameter. But, once again, that word ‘father’ at the end of the second line is the eleventh syllable in the line. We couldn’t maybe end that with ‘dad’? I wonder if Will used ‘dad’, or if that’s a modern word. I’ll have to keep my eyes open for that word. You too. ‘Dad’, be on the lookout.

What else can we pick on? ‘with downright payment’, what do you suppose he means by that? I think we might have to find out specifically what happened when York killed Cliff’s father. That’s not happening this morning, I can tell you that. However, I’ll point out that I’ve gone back to reference previous posts when I subsequently find answers to questions like this. So if I do come up with anything I’ll mention it and try to put in some references ( I guess reference from the future post to this one, and then also come back here and pop in a reference to the future post. Again, if anyone’s out there with some info, now is the time to comment. James?)

Okay, that should do it for today.

These are some cliffs in Svalbard, meaning that they are some of the northernmost cliffs in the world. North Cliff, get it?

If she deny, Lord Hastings, go with him,

And from her jealous arms pluck him

perforce.

-Duke of Buckingham

King Richard the Third                   Act III, scene i    Line 35

Today, not only are we back at Richard III, we’re back in act three, scene one only fifteen lines from where we were last month. In that post (9/10) we were hearing from young Edward V who was entering London, assumedly to be crowned king, and wondering where his mother and brother were. They were hiding, because the mom know what was up with Richard’s plans for her two sons (not good). Well we’ve only slid down fifteen lines and now we hear that Lord Cardinal and Lord Hastings are going to be sent to go get that other brother (apparently they don’t need the boys’ mother, the one with the jealous arms). The two boys, sons of the king who just passed away, are going to be locked in the Tower of London and no one will ever be seeing them again. In fact, there’s quite a few stories, maybe legends, of exactly where these two ended up. Suffice it to say that their gooses got cooked.

So, what’s our take-away from this line? Get the kid and don’t take no for answer and use force against the mother if you need to. And apparently Lord Hastings is the strong arm here. Nice people, huh?

Well I’ve been to this Tower of London place, not inside, but I’ve seen it from the outside. We were in London for a few days and I ended up taking a real long walk, through Hyde Park, past Buckingham Palace and Parliament, over the bridge and past the London Eye, along the south bank of the Thames for a few miles, back across the river on the Tower Bridge, and that got me to the Tower of London. And it’s not a tower, it’s more of a fort. Maybe there’s a tower inside the walls. But I didn’t go inside to pluck any kid from any jealous arms, so I’m not sure if there’s really a tower or not. But I am pretty sure those kids are not there these days. At least that’s what I hear.

I saw this building on the south bank of the Thames on my walk that day. Know what it is?

O day untowardly turn’d!

O mischief strangely thwarting!

O plague right well prevented! So will you say when you have seen the sequel.

-Don Pedro/Claudio/Don John

Much Ado About Nothing                           Act III, scene ii   Line 110

A few disclaimers up front. For one, I still know next to nothing about Much Ado About Nothing. And second, these are three lines spoken in turn by those three guys listed above. I could have stuck with the one Totally Random line, but I thought the sequence was pretty cool, so I gave you three lines. No need to thank me.

Now then, not knowing anything won’t stop me from giving you a little context. Maybe you think it should stop me, but it won’t.

Apparently Don John is the bad guy in this play, but remember, it’s a comedy, so he probably won’t be showing up with any severed heads. And that’s a relief! In any event it turns out that Don John (I can’t help but think of Don Johnson when I say Don John, but I don’t think it’s the same guy) has concocted some scheme where he’s going to make it look like Claudio’s fiancé, Hero, is cheating on him. Yes, that’s right, Claudio’s girlfriend/fiancé is named Hero. But let’s leave that one alone for now. So Don Johnson has told these two (I believe Don Pedro is friends to both of them) that Hero has men sneaking in her bedroom window at night. Unbeknownst to these two guys, Don John (see, I started to type Johnson there) has arranged for someone to be sneaking in the window tonight and he’s just talked these guys into going there tonight to spy on Hero. And today’s Totally Random lines is what each of them says as the scene ender.

Now if you haven’t realized by now, Will’s works (especially the comedies) are chock full of these deception/mistaken scenarios. I think the folks who did the writing for Three’s Company back in the seventies/eighties must have been avid Shakespeareans. But anyway, the line, the line.

So today’s Totally Random line is Claudio. And he’s the one who just found out that the woman he’s supposed to marry is cheating on him. And he say’s O mischief strangely thwarting! That seems like a pretty funny thing to say. I’m not sure if it was supposed to be funny, but maybe it was. This is, after all, a comedy. But it kind of seems like the right thing to say as well. His fiancé cheating on him certainly qualifies as mischief. And apparently he feels that this will thwart their relationship, or the wedding. And strange? Well yeah, if he’s not expecting it you could say it’s strange. So I guess it’s a pretty apt response if you stop and think about it. Right? And a lot more specific to the situation than just ‘Son of a bitch!’ or something like that.

I dunno, but I think this crew could cause some strangely thwarting mischief; especially that little guy in the plaid shirt in the front. I wonder if they’re dressed in that gay apparel ‘gainst the triumph-day? (see 10/4 post)

For in the marches here we heard you were

Making another head to fight again.               

-Earl of Warwick

 

King Henry the Sixth Part III                        Act II, scene i     Line 140

Okay, I give up, I’m going to read/listen (and in some cases re-read/re-listen) to Richard II through Richard III (to be clear, that’s eight plays with all those Henry plays in-between). And I’m going to see, in the process, if it really does cover those two Edwards that sneak in between Henry VI and Richard III. But in any event there’s just too much of the Shakespeare canon that’s tied up in these 8 plays. And it’s all one big story anyway. In the meantime, today’s line…

For now, short tale to make (that’s Will’s way of saying ‘long story short’), this is the Earl of Warwick catching up to Richard and Edward, just after they’ve heard the news of their father’s death in battle. But don’t ask me which Richard or which Edward this is. There are just too many names. And of course they all keep repeating. Generations of Henrys and Richards and Edwards. Ooof! Believe it or not I started to draw my own version of the family tree of Edward III down to Henry VIII. I haven’t quite finished that yet. And I’m giving up on Shakespeare’s Kings for a bit. I’ll get back to it, but I have to give it a rest for a while. When I do I’ll work my way through all these names as I work my way through Richard II to Richard III (and to be very clear, while Henry IV, V, and VI are father, son, and grandson, Richard II is some great uncle or third cousin half removed or something like that to Richard III, but certainly not his father or grandfather). So let’s not worry about who is exactly who for today. Bottom line is that a bunch of guys have come with the Earl to join Edward and Richard and there’s basically a civil war going on in England right now. And in fact, there’s a civil war of sorts going on with this whole history series. Richard II gets supplanted by his first cousin Henry IV. And while the succession runs smoothly for Henry V and VI, that’s pretty much where it ends. Henry VI’s son dies young in battle and once that happens all bets are off. And I’m pretty sure that Henry VI dies here in this play so that by the end of King Henry the Sixth Part III we’re really into Edward IV. And King Richard the Third starts with one of the Edwards as king. Got all that?

Now for the record, it looks like today’s two lines are both pretty much impeccable iambic pentameter. So kudos to Will on that one. And one final note; I thought the ‘here we heard’ part of the line was interesting. Good thing it wasn’t present tense or it would have been ‘here we hear’. That might have sounded a bit awkward. Hey, you gotta look at these things closely. It’s Shakespeare!

This is the name tag I would have these guys wearing on stage with these Henry and Richard plays.