I do not know, my lord, what I should think.

Ophelia

 

Hamlet                                 Act I, scene iii     Line 104

Here we have Ophelia. Another tragic figure in Will’s long, long list of tragic figures. She’s talking to her father, Polonius. It’s early on in the play, and she’s explaining to him that she’s not sure what to make of Hamlet’s ‘tenders of affection’ that he has made to her. Of course Polonius tells her what any good father would tell her, to stay the heck away from Hamlet, he’s nuts. And from what we’ve seen of Hamlet so far I think it might be good advice.

Irrespective of her father’s advice though, I think it’s easy to see that Ophelia’s comment is indicative of the major theme of Hamlet, and that is indecision. At least I think that’s what the major theme is. But I can’t say that I’m absolutely sure about that.

Now that I think about it, I have to admit that without the ‘my lord’ part in the middle of today’s Totally Random line a person like me could use this line constantly. ‘I do not know what I should think.’ In fact, this is my response to about half of what I see, hear, and experience on a daily basis. Or maybe it’s more than half, maybe it’s eighty percent. Or maybe it’s ten percent. Maybe it’s ninety percent. I surely don’t know. In fact, I do not know what I should think.

Confusion. Or is it indecision?

Till Noon! Till night, my lord; and all night too.

Regan

 King Lear                                     Act II, scene ii    Line 136

Well I've been having a bit of a hard time keeping up with the daily posts. I'm going to try to make a point of doing better going forward. In the meantime...

This is a line from lovely Regan, one of the two horrible daughters of Lear. It just occurred to me that there’s the two evil daughters and the one good daughter, just like in Cinderella with the two evil step-sisters. But I guess that’s just coincidence.

Anyway, yes, this is Regan and she's talking about Lear’s man, Kent. Lord Cornwall (who, if I’m not mistaken, is Regan’s husband) has just put Kent in the stocks and said that he’s going to stay there until noon. To which Regan replies, ‘Noon schmatz! Leave him there all night!’ This is the same woman who gouges out Gloucester's eyes later in the play and then says 'Let him smell his way to Dover!' No, honest, she actually says that. So today's line is just a little bit of a warm-up for this lady. She is such a sweetheart! Gloucester is in this scene too, and he tries to say something about showing some restraint, but that’s not gonna happen here. Poor Gloucester is constantly trying to do good, and all he gets for his troubles is to be blind and smelling his way to Dover. Well, it is a tragedy, isn’t it?

I had a drawing commissioned for this post. I really like it when someone else does a drawing for something you're writing about because it's always a bit different than anything that you would have pictured yourself, and it's neat to see a different perspective. I especially like the use of purple here. And Regan looks quite a bit younger than I would have pictured her.

Look, the world’s comforter, with weary gait,

His day’s hot task hath ended in the west;

Narrator

Venus and Adonis                                                           Line 530

This is a pretty cool line. He’s talking about the sun. The world’s comforter is the sun. The sun’s got a weary gait (well he travels a long way, doesn’t he?). And the sun’s hot task ends in the west. All he’s saying is that the day is over. But this sounds so much cooler than ‘the day is over,’ or ‘the sun has set’. Don’t you agree? ‘Look, the world’s comforter, with weary gait, his day’s hot task hath ended in the west.’ There’s really no need to go into context, or explain why Adonis is saying this in the poem. We can simply enjoy this line. And you can certainly use it next time you need to say to someone that the day is drawing to a close.

Imagine that you’re working out in the yard on a summer’s late day or early evening and you notice that the sun is going down. You turn to the person with you – friend, spouse, kid, whatever- and you say ‘Look, the world’s comforter, with weary gait, his day’s hot task hath ended in the west.’ And then point towards the setting sun as you say it. Oh my goodness wouldn’t that be great. The person with you will either look at you like you’re nuts, or they’ll look at you and appreciate the heck out of what you just said. Hopefully the latter.

Look, the world's comforter, with weary gait, his day's hot task hath ended in the west.

‘Tis positive ‘gainst all exceptions, lords,

That our superfluous lackeys and our peasants,--

Who in unnecessary action swarm

About our squares of battle,-- were enow

To purge this field of such a hilding foe.

The Constable of France              

 

King Henry The Fifth                     Act IV, scene ii  Line 28

Okay, first off; 'enow' means enough, and 'hilding' means good for nothing, worthless. So knowing that you can see that this is a pretty interesting couple of lines. This is the Frenchies looking down on the battlefield of the battle that is about to take place. They are commenting on what a sorry bunch the English are and how the French are going to so easily kick the English butts. Now of course this is the battle of Agincourt, a pretty famous battle. And in that battle the French are the ones who get their butts kicked. And not just a little. They get spanked very severely. This Agincourt thing is to the Brits what Bunker Hill, or Iwo Jima or one of those deals is to us; very famous. Even though it happened over 500 years ago.

So the Constable of France is saying that the French lackeys and peasants would be enough to beat the Brits. Actually, not just any old lackey or peasant, but the superfluous ones. Now, did any Frenchman in the lead up to Agincourt actually say anything like this? Well we don’t really know the answer to that. But we do know that Will loved to write drama and the he was marvelously gifted at it. And because of that he gets to make some stuff up occasionally.

I was looking high and low for a picture for today's line (and I have to tell you- finding a decent picture for these posts is really the most time consuming part of the task), and lo and behold, I was lucky enough to come across this re-enactment of the Battle of Agincourt! I think these are the Brits that the Constable was looking down on when he made his overconfident comment. I'm not sure what he was thinking because I think they look like a fairly formidable bunch, especially the guy leading the charge with the helmet and green visor. Although I have to wonder about that guy in the upper right hand corner with the monkey on his head. I'm not sure what's up with that.

What touches us ourself, shall be last served.

Julius Caesar

Julius Caesar                     Act III, scene i    Line 8

So this is Act III, scene I, the famous scene where Caesar gets killed and utters his famous ‘Et tu, Brute?’ (followed much less famously by his last three words 'Then fall Caesar!' There, now you've got a great little bit of trivia.) But that’s about seventy lines down the road. At this point he’s talking to some people outside, in a few minutes he’ll be heading inside to get slain. Just the same, I can’t help but wonder if today's line is a reference, a little bit of foreshadowing if you will, to the bunch of knives that are very shortly going to be touching ‘ourself’.

What do you think?

This is what was last served to me tonight. Actually, it was served by me. Well, by me and to me. It's the last thing I ate this evening. But I think Julius was talking about something else when he talked about 'last served.'

Lay hands on the villain: I believe a' means to cozen somebody in this city under my countenance.

 

Pedant

The Taming of the Shrew                 Act V, scene I                Line 35

So here is yet another post about hands; new hands this time. ‘Lay hands on the villain.’

The previous two days’ lines were about hands, although the word ‘hands’ never appeared in either one. And now, in a way to confirm and solidify the hands subject, we have a line with that very word and thought as part of it. No, I can’t say I understand all of the discussion of the importance of hands that Othello and Desdemona were having. This one, though, is a bit simpler. Lay hands on him – Grab this guy! He’s gonna do some mischief and get me blamed for it!

So let’s recapitulate. Two days ago we had a scene from Titus Andronicus and they were sitting there having a meal and Titus spent a bit of time talking about himself lacking one of his hands and his daughter lacking both of her hands. Then yesterday we had Othello talking drawing conclusions about his wife based on feeling how soft and moist her hand was. And now tonight we have the Pendant talking about getting his hands on someone. All about the hand. The first one about a very literal lack of hands, the second one drawing conclusions based on a literal hand, and the third one a bit more figurative.

Lots and lots of hands.

Here's a guy who wishes he had some real hands and not just a couple of candles at the end of his arms.

It yet hath felt no age nor known no sorrow.

 

Desdemona

 

Othello                                                 Act III, scene iv                  Line 37

This is part of an exchange that’s all about hands, and specifically Desdemona’s hand.  Just to give you a little more context, at the end of the previous scene Iago has managed to completely convince Othello that Desdemona’s having an affair with Michael Cassio, and Othello has decided that he’s going to be killing Desdemona. Now in this scene he greets Desdemona and right after that says ‘Give me your hand.  This hand is moist, my lady.’ To which Desdemona replies with today’s Totally Random line, ‘It yet hath felt no age nor known no sorrow.’ Well just wait, the sorrow is coming fast. But before that Othello goes on at length about the hand in reply to Desdemona’s reply.

This argues fruitfulness and liberal heart;

Hot, hot, and moist. This hand of yours requires

A sequester from liberty: fasting and prayer,

Much castigation(self discipline, self correction, self denial), exercise devout,

For here’s a young and sweating devil here

That commonly rebels. ‘Tis a good hand,

A frank one.

And Desdemona replies:

You may, indeed, say so;

 For ‘twas that hand that gave away my heart.

And Othello answers: 

A liberal hand. The hearts of old gave hands;

But our new heraldry is hands, not hearts.

And very shortly after this the scene devolves quickly into the ‘Thehandkerchief!’ issue.  In the meantime, though, it's all about hands. Spend some time with the hand back and forth and see what you can come up with. Perhaps we'll follow up on it tomorrow.

Well this hand is not very moist; it's pretty dried out. And it's felt some age, and known a bit of sorrow, but lots of happiness as well.

So, so; now sit: and look you eat no more

Than will preserve just so much strength in us

As will revenge these bitter woes of ours.

 Titus Andronicus

 Titus Andronicus                              Act III, scene ii                   Line 1

This Titus play really keeps me on my toes. I’ve been complaining since last August that every time we visit Titus they’re either committing, or talking about committing, unspeakable acts. Well finally, in this scene, they seem to be taking it a bit easy (well, they get a little crazy going after that fly later in the scene, but we’ll give them that one). ‘Sit and eat no more than will preserve just so much strength in us as will revenge these bitter woes of ours.’ 

So what exactly is he saying here? Eat just enough to give ourselves (and this is not the royal ‘ourselves’ that we hear in the history plays) strength to revenge our bitter woes. The first few times I read this I thought he was talking about dealing just with their woes, not the people who brought about their woes. But now, I’m not so sure. Which is it? I think that in order to understand it fully, we need to read the whole scene. Oh I know what you’re going to say; “Not the whole scene, Pete! This is supposed to be a line or two.” Well, to be fair, it’s only eighty-six lines, and God knows we all need to practice our ability to concentrate on something longer that a thirty second YouTube video. And add to that that one of the lines is ‘O, O, O,’, and three of the lines are the three lines that are today’s Totally Random Daily lines that you’ve already read. So we’re done to eighty-two lines already. But I’m not going to beg you to read the lines. It’s your loss if you don’t. I read them a few times already today. It’s really good stuff. There is just a ton packed into this short scene. 

Here, I’ll give you a super short recap/context in case you want to read it. Brothers Titus and Marcus are sitting down to dinner with daughter Lavinia and grandson Lucius. Two of Titus’s sons have already been murdered and his daughter Lavinia (present at this dinner) has had her hands chopped off and her tongue cut out. As well, Titus was tricked into chopping off one of his own hands. There, that’s enough to get you going without getting into too much of the gory details. So it’s up to you. I’ll be giving you a picture here one way or the other today, since I short-changed you on that part yesterday. But first, here’s the link in the hopes that I’ve peaked your interest enough to read it

Yes, that’s Tarzan. Even he was intrigued by today’s scene and the fact that it didn’t contain any blood, gore, or guts. He actually came down from the rafters to read it! Surely that should be enough to guilt you into reading it too.

                          Here I clip

The anvil of my sword; and do contest

As hotly and as nobly with thy love

As ever in ambitious strength I did

Contend against thy valour.

Tullus Aufidius

Coriolanus                              Act IV, scene v                  Line 110

My goodness, we end up spending a lot of time in Coriolanus, don’t we? This is the second time that we’ve been on this very page. The last time was on 12/17 when one of the servants was talking about hitting Coriolanus with a cudgel. Remember that?

But this is a pretty interesting line too. This time we have Tullus Aufidius responding to Coriolanus’s offer to join him to fight the Romans. The response? ‘Yes, I love you!’ Well, that’s sort of the response. One way or the other Aufidius makes it clear that he’s pretty fond of Coriolanus and he’s pretty excited about having him join the Volscian army. And why wouldn’t he be? Coriolanus is a kick-ass warrior. Now the part that follows, the part where Aufidius talks about being more excited by the prospect of Coriolanus fighting on his side than he was on his wedding night looking at his bride, well that just gets a little weird if you ask me. But it’s Shakespeare, so who am I to judge. Hear, have a read of Aufidius’s whole speech and see what you think. It’s about thirty four lines starting on line 98 of Act IV, scene v.

This is my Presto Heat Dish. It does a pretty good job of keeping me heated down here in my cellar office in the winter. I'm not sure whether or not it makes me as hot as Aufidius gets with Coriolanus's love, but it's hot enough for me.

Then have I reason to be fond of grief.

Constance

King John                                            Act III, scene iv Line 98

Stick with me for a minute so that I can explain who and what’s involved, and then we’ll get back to the line. Constance, today’s speaker, is the widow of King John’s older brother, Geoffrey. Her young son, Arthur, has a legitimate claim to the throne over King John, and John is very well aware of this. Arthur has just been captured by John’s men and now Constance is sure that John will kill her young son and that she will never see him alive again. She happens to be right, and this is what she’s talking about in this scene.

Cardinal Pandulph (the name alone is enough to make you not like this guy) has just told Constance that she has ‘too heinous a respect for grief’ and that she is ‘as fond of grief as of your child,’ basically, ‘get over it!’ And then she gets into what grief is all about to her.

                Grief fills up the room of my absent child,

                Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,

                Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,

                Remembers me of all his gracious parts,

                Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form;

                Then have I reason to be fond of grief!

Yeah, okay, I added the emphasis and the exclamation point on the last line. But I can see these words being spoken by some mistress of the stage, a Streep or a Mirren, and I can’t help but feel that this last line would be spit at Cardinal Pandulph. Honestly, I can’t read these words without being moved. Grief ‘stuffs out his vacant garments.’ I really don’t think Will ever did any better than this. I really don’t.  Can’t you feel a mother’s broken heart? Please tell me you can.

So there's not going to be a picture today. That's right, sorry, no picture. There is no picture that’s worth these 51 words. Today you’re just going to have to savor the words because you’re not going to be reading anything as well written as this for quite some time. Go ahead, one more time read these six lines again. Please.

                             Grief fills up the room of my absent child,

                    Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,

                    Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,

                    Remembers me of all his gracious parts,

                    Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form;

                    Then have I reason to be fond of grief!

                               

              

                  

Some blood drawn on me would beget opinion

                              [Wounds his arm]

Of my more fierce endeavor:

Edmund

              

King Lear                                            Act II, scene i     Line 34

This is an interesting line. It’s got a stage direction right in the middle of it. Now Will is a little bit famous for his lack of stage direction. If you read his plays you’ll notice this. It makes it a little hard on the reader, it does. Because as you read the play, and you get all the dialogue, it’s sometimes hard to understand what’s going on. That’s why it’s so much better to see the play. When you see the play you might not understand every word, but when you see what’s going on things are a lot clearer. Anyway, I think this lack of stage direction in his plays has been a kind of good thing because it allows for that much more freedom in interpretation when staging these plays. Don’t you agree?

So this is the scene where the rotten kid Edmund is convincing everyone that the good son Edgar is the bad one. He’s alone as he speaks right now, and he’s going to be telling everyone in a moment how Edgar pulled a sword on him and wounded him. So he’s going to cut himself to show everyone his wound [wounds his arm]. I hope he’s had his tetanus shot.

There’s a lot of talk and show of wounds in Will’s plays. Remember all that talk in Coriolanus of how he’s supposed to show his wounds to the voters? I don’t think the theater goers get to see any actual wounds in that instance though. Except at the end when Coriolanus gets stabbed to death.

Yes, lots of violence and lots of swordplay with Will. Though not so much in King Lear. Except here where our buddy Edmund is playing with his sword on himself. Rotten kid.

Here's a sword that we have in our house. It's not as impressive as it looks, and it's certainly not very sharp. As far as I know no one has ever been wounded with this sword. At least I'm pretty sure that no one's been wounded with it since it came into this house. Before then? Well I just don't know.

…face to face

And frowning brow to brow, ourselves will hear

Th’accuser and the accused freely speak:--

King Richard

King Richard The Second                              Act I, scene i       Line 16

Richard’s not talking about a group here, he’s referring to himself as ourelves in the plural. Oh sure, there’s other people there, but Richard is just talking about himself when he refers to ourselves. It’s that royal ‘we’ thing. I guess a reference to themselves as the state and as such, not just themselves, but representing all.

Anyway, this is the very beginning of the play, the sixteenth line of the first act. Bolingbroke (the future Henry IV) and Thomas Mowbray are being brought before Richard. Each of them’s going to be accusing the other of some sort of treason or other and in the end Richard will exile them both. But for now he’s just talking about having them face each other, ‘face to face and frowning brow to brow’. That gives a pretty good mental picture, doesn’t it? There not just going to be in the same place looking at each other, it sounds like they’re going to be on top of each other. Brow to brow. Will their faces be touching each other? It sort of sounds like it, doesn’t it? I can’t remember the last time I was frowning brow to brow with someone. Can you?

We got face to face, and very nearly brow to brow with these critters. But I couldn't quite tell if they were frowning or not. Can you?

Trouble yourselves no further: pray you, hasten

Your generals after.

Lepidus

 

Antony And Cleopatra                                 Act II, scene iv  Line 1

This is a scene where Antony is back in Rome, though in fact Antony’s not in this short scene at all. It’s a really short scene, I think ten lines, and I’m not even sure why it’s needed. But of course it’s Will, so you can bet there’s some really good reason. I think that if I was watching the play, this scene would make more sense, because I’d have a better idea who these guys were and what they’re up to.

But since I don’t know, maybe we could just talk about ‘Trouble yourselves no further.’ I added the ‘hasten your generals after’ because it was part of the thought that began with ‘pray you,’ and ‘pray you, hasten’ was on the line that I picked today. Here look; today’s Totally random line was

Trouble yourselves no further: pray you, hasten

And the next line in the book that followed was

Your generals after.

So you see why I had to add those last three words, don’t you? I get faced with this more days than not. In fact it’s not all that often that I can just take the one line that I randomly picked and use it as a stand- alone line. Am I spending too much time explaining this? Perhaps I am. Well then, if you’re not interested and you’re content to let me worry about how I pick the lines, then I guess I could say to you

                Trouble yourselves no further.

I certainly hope you saw that line coming.

Well here's something that you certainly didn't see coming. It's a picture of my La Brea Tar Pits pencil. What's it got to do with today's Totally Random line? To be honest, I just grabbed a random pencil from my pile of pencils, because I really couldn't think of a relevant picture. But then I got to thinking about it, and well, it seems that I kind of got stuck today trying to come up with much to say about today's line. And the more I tried, the more stuck I got. Sort of like those animals in the tar pits. Once they were in the pit, the more they tried to get out, the more stuck they got. So this is actually a perfectly relevant picture for today's line.

And if you find yourself having a problem with that explanation, then I guess I'd just say

Trouble yourselves no further.

If I were a woman, I would kiss as many of you

as had beards that pleased me, complexions

that liked me, and breaths that I defied not:

Rosiland

 

As You Like It                                    Epilogue               Line 18

Okay, I took stock today. There are epilogues in six of the thirty-seven plays in my compilation. Three are in histories and three are in comedies. You’d think he might have thrown one or two in the tragedies where we really could have used and epilogue to tell us what went wrong.

This is also the only epilogue to be spoken by a female character. Though to be fair, in King Henry The Eighth the speaker of the epilogue is not named, so I guess that could be a woman as well. The other four epilogues are given by a dancer, a chorus, a king, and Prospero. So that’s a pretty wide range of characters.

So I think a lot of this epilogue, like the part that is today’s Totally Random lines, is pretty meaningless, and the meaning that does come out on the whole is simply that she hopes you liked the play. That's it. And if you read the epilogue of The Tempest, that one spoken by Prospero, you’ll find that its meaning is the same; he hopes you liked the play. So I suppose that means I should go read the other four epilogues and see if they all say the same thing. Tell you what, you go read them and let me know.

This is my illustrator (on the left) and his father-in-law. Question: Do you think the beard pleased his father-in-law?

To lend me arms and aid when I required them;

The which you both denied.

Octavius Caesar

Antony And Cleopatra                                 Act II, scene ii    Line 92

This is Antony and Cleopatra, and Antony and Octavius are trying to work out some differences. Octavius is talking about the article of the oath that Antony broke. I’m not too sure of the details so that I can’t tell you exactly where or when Antony failed to provide Octavius the arms and the aid. But before this scene is over it gets decided that the best way to bury the hatchet between these two is for Antony to marry Octavius’s sister Octavia. Yes, that’s right. Octavius’s sister is named Octavia. Apparently the parents were hung up on the eight thing. Maybe they met on the eighth day of the eighth month. Surely I don’t know, but just as surely they liked Octav for a name.

And also just as surely I have a very apt anecdote for today’s line. I was trying to wash out my coffee pot earlier this evening, and was having a hard time fitting my big fat mitt into the pot. I wanted to scrub the bottom inside because there was some burnt coffee inside. My son passed by on his way through the kitchen and I asked him to try because his hands are smaller, but he pretty much ignored me and kept going. Then my wife passed by on her way through the kitchen and I asked her to try, because her hands are smaller and she pretty much ignored me and kept going. So what did I do? Well of course I went to the end of the hallway they had both disappeared down and I yelled. And you know what I yelled, don’t you?

To lend me arms (more so in this case, hands) and aid when

I required them; the which you both denied!

Yeah, I’m not kidding. That actually happened today and that’s what I yelled. I was able to use today’s Totally Random line. Today. It was fantastic.

The aforementioned pot, sponge, and over-sized mitt.

Your uncle York is join’d with Bolingbroke, And all your northern castles yielded up,

And all your southern gentlemen in arms

Upon his party.

Sir Stephen Scroop

 

King Richard The Second              Act III, scene ii   Line 201

Yes, that’s right, Scroop is basically saying to King Richard ‘You’re screwed, pal.’ Bolingbroke is the guy who’s about to become Henry IV. He’s returned from exile while Richard was over in Ireland and he’s managed to get pretty much all of England on his side. Now Richard has returned from Ireland, he’s just landed on the west coast of England, and he’s asking his buddy Scroop what the situation is.  Uncle York is the guy that Richard left in charge while he went on his Irish expedition. And if Uncle York, and everybody in the north and the south has gone over to Bolingbroke’s side, well then… that doesn’t leave too much left for Richard.

About ten lines further down Richard ends the scene with a rhyming couplet that pretty much sums it up.

                Discharge my followers: let them hence away,

                From Richard’s night to Bolingbroke’s fair day.

This was a very fair day, and it's me on my Irish expedition. That's Howth Castle there in the background and I think the Irish Sea beyond that, and yes, that's a golf club I'm holding. I'm golfing with my buddy Garrett just outside Dublin. I wasn't in Ireland to subdue a rebellion like Richard was. And fortunately I didn't come home to a country turned against me. That would have really sucked!

The veins unfill’d, our blood is cold, and then

We pout upon the morning, are unapt

To give or to forgive; but when we’ve stuft

These pipes and these conveyances of our blood

With wine and feeding, we have suppler souls

Than in our priest-like fasts;

Menenius Agrippa

Coriolanus          Act V, scene i     Line 52

This is our old friend Menenius and, oh boy, Menenius is saying that he thinks that if he catches Coriolanus on a full stomach and a belly full of wine that he’ll have a better chance of having Coriolanus listen to him and that he’ll be able to talk the General into not sacking Rome. I’m not sure what Menenius has been smoking, but it just don’t work that easy with Coriolanus. You should have seen Ralph Finnes portrayal of the General. If you had, you would know what a mistake Menenius is making. Yes, the way to a man’s heart may be through his stomach. Sometimes. Not this time.

I'm not sure it's this time either. Yes, that's me, but I have no idea what the heck that is that I'm trying to get into my stomach.

By the eighth hour: is that the uttermost?

Marcus Butus

 

Julius Caesar     Act II, scene i     Line 213

Oh boy, lots to talk about here. For starters, now that we’ve covered Julius Caesar we’ve hit all the plays in my compilation. So that’s 37 plays and it took 141 days. We’ve spent a lot of time on all those Henrys, and quite a bit on Coriolanus. But now we’ve hit them all at least once. So that’s a relief.

Now this is a very interesting scene for one particular thing: it’s got a clock in it. In fact, this line makes reference to that by talking about the eighth hour. Of course you know that Julius Caesar takes place in Roman times. Well a few lines earlier there’s a stage direction Clock Strikes. Of course clocks were not invented until centuries later. I guess they did have sundials, but I’ve no way of knowing whether or not the sundials gave them the ability to schedule things by the eighth hour or not. In any event, when you look up the word anachronistic you have a pretty good chance of getting Julius Caesar’s clock striking as an example. So that’s pretty interesting.

This is also one of the first Shakespearean plays I ever saw. We saw it performed at the Stratford Shakespeare Theater. This was in Connecticut and I was in high school, so it was in the seventies. I don’t know if that theater is even still there. The only thing I remember about the play was that they used a lot of fake blood in the scene where Caesar gets killed. It figures that’s all I remember.

This is the oldest clock I own, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't date back to Shakespeare's time, let alone Julius Caesar's.

I’m vanquished; these haughty words of hers

Have batter’d me like roaring cannon-shot,

And made me almost yield upon my knees.—

 

Duke of Burgundy

 

King Henry The Sixth Part I          Act III, scene iii Line 78

Today’s line is in response to Joan telling the Duke that he needs to switch sides, and he does. As I explained on 11/14, the Duke is a Frenchie who’s been fighting with the Brits. And Joan tells him to get with the program and start fighting against the Brits. And of course he listens.

Now this is the Duke of Burgundy and he’s making an aside in regards to what Joan has just said to him (more on asides in a moment). I think it’s interesting that pretty much all of the French listen to, and are in awe of Joan. Conversely, pretty much all the Brits think she’s some form of witch or prostitute. I mean it’s really amazing, almost alarming.

Okay, asides. There’s a lot of these in the plays. It shows up next to the speaker’s name before the script

                                                Duke of Burgundy [aside]

                I’m vanquished; these haughty words of hers…..             

And it means that the Duke’s not talking to anyone on stage, he’s just telling the audience what he’s thinking. So basically this entire Totally Random line is an aside. Maybe I’ll go back and put that at the beginning of the first post just to cover myself. Anyway, I think (I’m not sure, I didn’t go back and check) that this is the first time in 140 Totally Random lines that we’ve hit an aside, and that’s pretty surprising. There are two asides on this one page alone. To be sure, Will is famous for his lack of stage directions in his works, but he’s fairly liberal with his asides, which are a sort of stage direction.

In any event, it seems to me that the Duke here comes off as a bit of a weenie in that Joan simply tells him he should be fighting with the French since he is, well, French. And he’s all ‘vanquished’ and ‘battered’ and ‘made to yield upon his knees.’ What’s up with that?

Now if you want to talk about something that's battered and vanquished, how about these puppies. These are my little buddie's school shoes, and I think he got about as much out of them as we could have hoped for. In fact, with the shape that they're in I'm surprised he wasn't made to yield upon his knees!

And there will we be too, ere it be long,

Or else reproach be Talbot’s greatest fame!--

 Lord Talbot

King Henry The Sixth Part I          Act III, scene ii   Line 76

And here’s that crazy Talbot guy again. It seems that we just can’t be rid of this guy. And you thought he was dead after the last time we heard from him.

Well this line is from page 16 in my compilation and the last time we heard from him, a few days ago, we were on page 23. So we’ve had a Totally Random line from pages 14, 15, 16, and 17.  In the 139 Random lines that we’ve picked so far we’ve hit these four pages in a row out of a total of 1,252 pages. Kind of makes you question the Randomness of this whole deal, doesn’t it? And yet, on we go.

This is a funny scene. It takes place at the town of Rouen. It begins with English holding the town and Joan sneaking in to open the gates (see Sept post). And then the rest of the French come in and kick out the Brits, who are led by the magnificent Talbot. And then further on in the scene the Brits rally and retake the town. So by the end of the scene we’re back to the beginning. Anyway, today’s line is in the middle right after the French take over the town and they’re talking to the Brits who’re outside looking up at the walls. I’m not quite sure how this scene would be staged but it appears that the entire scene is shown from outside the gates/walls of the town and the players on the wall and outside the wall just keep switching sides. Pretty interesting, don’t you agree?

And by the way, I think Talbot and Gaston (from Beauty andthe Beast, see Nov post) really are pretty interchangeable.

                No one fights like Gaston

                Douses lights like Gaston

                In a wrestling match nobody bites like Gaston

 So this is my wife playing the part of Joan. She’s standing on the parapet yelling down ‘Away, captains! Let’s get us from the walls; ForTalbot means no goodness by his looks.—God b’ wi’ you, my lord! We came but to tell you that we are here.’ Now there were other people around, mind you, and they looked a bit confused. But when I yelled back ‘And there will we be too, ere it be long, Or else reproach be Talbot’s greatest fame!—‘ I think they caught on. In any event, I think she pulled off the Joan La Pucelle part pretty well, though she didn’t quite have her part memorized. If you zoom in on the picture you can make out my little friend to the right. He’s got his hoodie up and he’s facing the other way, but you can see that he’s reading the lines off his Ipod to help my wife. All in all though, I thought she did quite well with her part.