Wednesday, January 4, 2017


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.

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