-therefore, good mother,

To whom am I beholding for these limbs?

-Bastard

King John                            Act I, Scene i, Line 239

Yes folks, this is Bastard talking. No, not the Bastard of Orleans, and not even the bastard; this one’s one of the Brits and he’s simply Bastard. Apparently he is the bastard son of Richard the Lionhearted, who was the brother and predecessor of King John. And this is the scene where Bastard is confronting his mother and asking who his true father is. He’s going to get his answer a few lines down. The question has arisen for Bastard because It seems that he is a fine physical specimen while his brother and his supposed father are, well, not so much fine physical specimens. King Richard, on the other hand, was as well endowed with an impressive body as Bastard is. In fact, earlier in the scene both King John and his mother Elizabeth (who’s also the mother of Richard) remark on how much Bastard reminds them of late, great Richard the Lionhearted. And yes, Richard is exactly who his mother will confess to being Bastard's true father.

Now from what I can understand from my readings, Bastard is a pure concoction of Will’s imagination, a character needed for the play, not a true historical figure. Richard had no children, legitimate or otherwise. In fact, according to Isaac Asimov in Asimov's Guide To Shakespeare, Richard may have had a lion's heart, but it was a heart much more interested in men than women, so he wasn't having any kids, legitimate or otherwise. Hey, don't look at me, I'm just telling you what Isaac said.

Here's a pair that could beat a full house, and I can tell you that these two aren't wondering one little bit who they're beholding to for their limbs. They're much more interested in who's gonna get them more cake, especially that guy on the right.

How heavy do I journey on the way,

When what I seek—my weary travels end—

Doth teach that ease and that repose to say,

‘Thus far the miles are measured from thy friend!’

Sonnet 50

Yes folks, we’ve got a sonnet today. And since it’s only fourteen lines (you knew that, right?), let’s see what the whole thing looks like.

How heavy do I journey on the way,
When what I seek, my weary travel's end,
Doth teach that ease and that repose to say
'Thus far the miles are measured from thy friend!'
The beast that bears me, tired with my woe,
Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me,
As if by some instinct the wretch did know
His rider loved not speed, being made from thee:
The bloody spur cannot provoke him on
That sometimes anger thrusts into his hide;
Which heavily he answers with a groan,
More sharp to me than spurring to his side;
For that same groan doth put this in my mind;
My grief lies onward and my joy behind.

That’s not so bad, is it? In fact, this one’s pretty straight forward. But just in case, I’m going to pull out my sonnet book to see what it says. No wait, let’s take a shot at having a few words about it first.

Um, he’s saying that he doesn’t like traveling away from his love. Duh. Okay, now let’s see what the book says.

                ‘The speaker goes miserably on a journey which takes him away from the young man, and his slow horse seems to sympathize with his reluctance. The sonnet may allude ironically to Sidney, AS, 49, in which Astrophil rides his horse and is in turn ridden by love.’

That’s from The Arden Shakespeare, Shakespeare’s Sonnets, edited by Katherine Duncan-Jones.

Okay, I like my explanation better. It’s much simpler. And simpler is usually a good thing. I think Will would agree with that sentiment. No, really. I do.

Now I was thinking of going another direction with this post. It has to do with a Robert Frost poem. I'll bet you can guess what I'm thinking of. But I'm kind of beat, so I'm going to end it here.

This is my friend taking horse riding lessons last summer. I don't feel very inspired about this picture, but it's the only one I could find that has a horse in it, so I'm going to go with it.

O, what a world is this, when what is comely

Envenoms him that bears it.  

-Adam

As You Like It                                     Act II, Scene iii, Line 14

All right then, we’ve broken our three day streak of the Margaret and Richard show. ‘Bout time!

And now that we’re back to As You Like It, maybe you remember the post where Orlando was complaining about the ill treatment at thehands of his older brother? Now things have gotten much worse as the brother has plans to kill Orlando. I believe that’s called fratricide. And if his brother were to carry through with it, it certainly wouldn’t be an isolated incident in Will’s works.  But the old and faithful family servant Adam, today’s speaker, is warning Orlando what’s going on and telling him to hightail it out of there. And in today's Totally Random line he’s lamenting that fact that Orlando’s goodness is what’s got his brother wanting to kill him. 

And Orlando certainly is not short on goodness. He is indeed,  comely. He had both Rosalind and Celia all gaga over him. And then he took on the professional wrestler and beat him without breaking a sweat. Yes, Orlando’s got a lot to be jealous of. And that's a pretty interesting way to phrase it. ‘…what is comely envenoms him that bears it.’

I'm afraid I'm going to have to do a repeat pic (for the first time). If you remember the post where Orlando was complaining about the treatment he was receiving from his brother (I referenced it above), you'll remember this pic. Yes, that's me on the left, and my older brother. I'm showing the pic again to remark on how uncanny it is that I seem to embody the qualities of Orlando and how amazing that I didn't envenom myself. Don't you agree?

Why, what, I pray, is Margaret more than that?

Her father is no better than an earl,

Although in glorious titles he excel.

-Queen Margaret

King Henry The Sixth Part I                          Act V, Scene V, Line 37

It seems like just about every day we’re ending up with a line about Margaret, or by Margaret. Yikes, so who exactly is this Margaret again?

Margaret of Anjou was born in France, the daughter of French nobility (note the reference to that by Gloucester above: her father is an earl, not a king or prince). She married Henry the sixth, and she was the driving force for a lot of the Lancasterian action in the War of the Roses (Lancasterians vs Yorkists).

With today’s line we are near the beginning of the Henry The Sixth, and at this point Gloucester/Richard is just getting warmed up on Margaret. She’s not actually in this scene. It’s the scene where they’re all talking about Henry marrying Margaret. Henry’s all in on the idea, but Richard, not so much. So he’s pointing out that Margaret’s not exactly royalty. He’s sort of saying that she’s from the wrong side of the tracks, to use an old expression. By the end of the Henry plays Richard is way more than warmed up, and she becomes the ‘false Frenchwoman’ (see post of two days ago). And then in Richard III Margaret is going right back at Richard with the ‘Hie thee to hell’ line (yesterday’s post). No, these two were not friends at all, as our last three Totally Random lines show. And whichever side of the tracks these two came from, they definitely ended up on way different sides, if you know what I mean.

This is me at Paddington Train Station in London. Those are the tracks behind me, and behind that you can see a train. So, am I on the right side of the tracks, or not? Well, I've got my super big coffee in hand, so I probably don't care. Would you?

Hie thee to hell for shame, and leave the world,

Thou Cacodemon! There thy kingdom is.

-Queen Margaret

King Richard The Third                  Act I, Scene iii, Line 143

Well isn’t that a fine ‘how do you do?’ Yes, Queen Margaret (actually the former Queen Margaret; she was Henry the Sixth’s wife and mother to Edward Prince of Wales who would have been King Edward the Fourth.) has no need to hide her hatred for Gloucester (the future Richard III) and she has nothing to lose. And her hate is well founded since Gloucester (again, future Richard III) took part in the downfall of her husband and the death of her son. What’s not to hate?

This scene is just one big slugfest. There’s this whole group of n’er do wells fighting amongst themselves when Margaret shows up. For several minutes she stays hidden to the side of the scene making remarks to herself and the audience (asides), until she finally steps forward and engages, mostly with Richard. Today’s totally random line is one of her asides and it’s in response to Richard (Gloucester) saying that he’s ‘too childish-foolish for this world’. And for the record, ‘hie’ is hasten, and ‘cacodemon’ is some kind of evil spirit. Hurry up and get yourself to hell you devil; that’s where you belong, not here! 

And really, Richard is pretty much deserving of this. If you don’t believe me you can read the end of the scene, the part where he sends the two murderers off to kill his own brother Clarence. Yeah, not a very nice guy, and a perfectly suitable comment by Margaret. And really folks, even though we may feel like doing it from time to time, let’s try not to use this line in our everyday life.

Okay, I tried to explain to these guys what this scene is about, but they refused to take it seriously. I told them that it was supposed to be a group of people having a big argument, but they insisted that they could be arguing while they’re dancing. And what’s up with that skinny guy with the goatee thinking he could pull of the role of Queen Margaret. It’s just really hard to get people to work with you.

And every drop cries vengeance for his death,

‘Gainst thee, fell Clifford, and thee, false Frenchwoman.

-Duke of York

King Henry The Sixth Part III                       Act I, Scene iv, Line 149

Today I’m going to try to spend the whole post on one word. We’ve done a lot of talking about all of the characters and politics that make up Will’s history plays. And it’s obvious that the Duke of York is a little ticked off here, but we’re not going to get into that. Instead, we’re going to talk about the word ‘fell’, as in ‘fell Clifford.’

Now for those of you who are knowledgeable of this particular piece of vocabulary beyond its use as the past tense of fall, or as the verb meaning to cause something to fall, this may not be interesting. But I’m going to go for it anyway. There is a third usage of fell (apparently there’s even a fourth and fifth, but I’m not going there) and it’s as an adjective. Will used it pretty famously (I think we might have even covered it in an earlier post) in Macbeth when Malcom was referring to his whole family having been slaughtered:

All my pretty ones?
Did you say all? O hell-kite! All?
What, all my pretty chickens and their dam
At one fell swoop?

 One fell swoop. And this is the meaning that we’re dealing with today. ‘Fell’ as an adjective is applied to something bad; very, very bad. Usually it’s referring to bad as in deadly. If you’re a Tolkien fan, like me, you’ll be well versed in the use of ‘fell’. The professor used it quite a bit in his writing. It’s a pretty archaic word now. Perhaps it’s less archaic in Britain? I really don’t know. But in this country, aside from Tolkieners and Shakespeareans, you’ll not find too many people who know this meaning, let alone any who use it.

A quick look at oxforddictionaries.com tells me that this adjective has its origins in Middle English from Old French felon meaning wicked (person). And this, presumably is where we get the word ‘felon’. So ‘fell’, an adjective meaning very, very bad is related to the words ‘felon’ and ‘felon’ which refer to bad people and bad acts. So see, it’s not really that far a stretch to find a form of ‘fell’ in our modern usage.

Now I just went and polled the only other person in the house right now, and she had no idea what the adjectival meaning of fell is. And she is an extremely well educated and well-read lady. And indeed, she brought up the one fell swoop thing and pointed out that in modern usage we employ that phrase whenever we talk about getting a bunch of stuff done, with no bad implications involved:

I stopped by work and picked up some papers, met with some students, and dropped off my expense report. I got that all done in one fell swoop.

And of course she’s right. Nothing bad done there, and yet that’s exactly the type of usage you’ll find in 2017 America. We’ve come to think of the ‘fell swoop’ as something to do with how the swoop was accomplished, not the nature of the swoop being bad. I guess that’s a little example of changing language, and I guess that’s all I’ve got for today.

Speaking of Professor Tolkien, here's an illustration from his Children Of Hurin. This is the very end of the tale where Hurin finally meets up with Morwen, and then she dies. I'm not sure if this scene qualifies as being fell, but it's certainly no bed of roses either.

             I know not how,

But I do find it cowardly and vile,

For fear of what might fall, so to prevent

The time of life:

-Marcus Brutus

Julius Caesar                     Act IV, Scene i, Line 103

Well this is an interesting line. I guess I say that a lot, don’t I? But it is. Brutus and Cassius are discussing suicide, of all things. Here they are standing on the plains of Philippi and they are about to go into battle. Cassius asks Brutus what he’ll do if they lose the battle, is he gonna fall on his sword. Here’s Brutus’s whole answer-

Even by the rule of that philosophy
By which I did blame Cato for the death
Which he did give himself, I know not how,
But I do find it cowardly and vile,
For fear of what might fall, so to prevent
The time of life: arming myself with patience
To stay the providence of some high powers
That govern us below.

That pretty much sounds like a ‘no way’ to me. How about you? And yet, Cassius follows up by saying, ‘Okay, then if we lose you’re gonna let them take you prisoner and drag you through the streets of Rome?’ And Brutus replies with an even stronger ‘No way, man!’ So which is it? Is he gonna commit hari kari if they lose the battle, or isn’t he? Well I think I’ve mentioned before that the last time I saw this play was in 1972. And I haven’t read it since then. So you tell me.

There you go. That's my high school diploma and you can see the date. We saw Julius Caesar at the Stratford Shakespeare theater in my freshman year with Father Diaz. He was a feisty little guy. I mean Father Diaz, not Julius Caesar. Julius was dead in the beginning of the third act; not very feisty at all.

If after every tempest come such calms,

May the winds blow till they have waken’d death!

-Othello

Othello                                Act II, Scene i, Line 187

It’s interesting. We’ve had quite a few lines from Othello, and many of them have been lines, or words, that I’ve been able to point out can be used today in many different situations. There was ‘Good Michael’ and ‘Aye, sooth’ ‘What villain hath done this?’  And now we have another.

For context’s sake, this is Othello talking to Desdemona on the docks. She’s been waiting for him and he’s just gotten in, his ship just having sailed through a tempest at sea that sank a bunch of the Turkish ships. Well he’s probably happy just to get on terra firma, but he’s doubly happy to see her there. And so he comes up with this line. And it’s a good line. 

 If after every tempest come such calms, may the winds blow till they have wakened death!

So that will be a pretty significant wind if it blows enough to waken death. 

Now to be fair, there’s a lot of bad stuff coming down the pike for Othello and Desdemona, and this may be a bit of Will foreshadowing here. But for now things are still good. So these newlyweds may as well enjoy the calm while they can.

Is it possible that the winds blew here till they have waken'd the dead? No, this probably got knocked over by some delinquent.

Go hence; good night; and here stands all your state:--

-Friar Laurence

Romeo And Julit               Act III, Scene iii, Line 166

So here’s what the friar is saying-

Get going, good night, and here’s what your situation is:

And then he goes on to tell Romeo what his situation is: Either be gone before the break of day or else leave here disguised; get yourself to Mantua and stay there, and I’ll send your servant with messages from time to time with any good news.

Now, what’s happened in this scene before the good friar says this? Romeo just spent the first part of the scene moaning and crying like a baby because he’s killed Juliet’s cousin Tybalt and that by doing so he’s hurt Juliet. But mostly he’s whining because he’s going to be banished from Verona and from Juliet. (and by the way, today the word is banished, not banist). Interestingly enough, there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of remorse about killing good old Tybalt. And after this good bunch of moaning the friar tells Romeo to stop acting like a little girl and put on his big boy pants and go and see Juliet. And then he can take his banishment until they find a way to straighten the whole mess out. And that’s when he says Go hence, Good night, etc, etc.

So what do we think? Well this is Romeo and Juliet, certainly one of Will’s most known plays. I mean if you asked 100 random people (especially if it was 100 people who really knew little to nothing about Will) to name one play by Shakespeare, you’d probably hear this play named more than any other. Surprisingly and inexplicably, I’ve only come across this play three times before in my random picks, and two of those picks didn’t make it to post time. That’s right, there’s only been one post before this on Romeo And Juliet. And that was way back on 8/20/16. And what does that all mean. I don't really know. I guess not much. Now I'm just rambling. But at least I'm not whining. Not that I'm above whining. I can whine with the best of them. I can also see when it's time to end a post. And that time was clearly several lines ago. So dear readers, go hence and good night.

Good night.

Now, citizens of Angiers, ope your gates,

Let in that amity which you have made;

-King Philip

King John            Act II, Scene i, Line 537

Okay, couple of things here. One is grammar, and two, we’ve been here before  and I still don’t understand  what the heck is going on here.

First, a little bit of commentary re grammar. It seems that Will was really fond of the semi-colon. He really seems to favor it over the period, and I’m not sure why. Oh sure, he uses the period. But it seems that just as much, if not more, he uses the semi-colon to end his sentences. At least it seems like they’re ended in a lot of places where he uses it. Strictly speaking the semi-colon is not the same as a period (the latter of which definitely ends the sentence). The semi-colon is some sort of connecting punctuation. So maybe I’m just missing something here and he’s not really wanting to end sentences. Or maybe they worked with punctuation a little differently back then. I just don’t know.

And secondly, we’ve been here before and I still don’t quite get it. The French and the English are outside a French town that doesn’t want to let either of them in and therefore the French and the English are going to gang up and sack the town? Well, actually at this point they’ve decided not to sack it because the town has come up with a better idea. But that’s still pretty confusing, don’t you think?

It’s a fairly long scene (you can see that we’re on line 537), and stuff has gone back and forth here. In the interest of clarity Itried to read as much of the scene as I could today, but again, 537 lines. Well… 

And by the way, wasn’t Amity the name of the beach town in the original Jaws movie? I’m just saying.

Now this is that same gate from the 2/15 post. Remember? That's the other post about this same scene where I said this gate reminded me of this scene at the gate of Angiers. Except now the girls are on the top of the gate and I climbed a really tall tree nearby and I started to recite some of this scene. I think this is the part where I was saying 'Now, citizens of Angiers, ope your gates, Let in that amity which you have made;' And the girls shouted back 'Amity Schmamity Dad! We're not getting off this gate until you stop with the Shakespeare stuff!'

Walk aside the true folk, and let the traitors stay.

Exeunt COSTARD and JAQUENETTA

-Costard

Love’s Labour’s Lost           Act IV, Scene iii, Line 210

This same shall go.---

-Longaville

Love’s Labour’s Lost            Act IV, scene iii, Line 57

Well, sorry folks, but I’ve been having a bit of a tough time keeping up with my blogging lately. I’d say it’s partly due to a busy schedule, partly due to being under the weather, and partly due to who knows what. But I’m gonna see if I cant’ get back on track here today, so bear with me.

So we’re going with two lines today. The first one is actually today’s Totally Random line and the second one is from back in January from a day that I didn’t post (for whatever reason). And honestly, I don’t have much on the second line (which is probably why it didn’t get posted on). Here’s what I wrote back then on the second line:

We are back at Love’s Labour’s Lost for only the second time and Randomness has us with this same guy, Longaville. It’s a crazy scene where we keep adding guys watching other guys in the scene without being seen. Sound confusing? It sort of is.

I’m not sure today’s line is worth much of spending a lot of time on. I think he’s just talking about some lines of poetry that need to go?

Maybe today’s line needs to go?

Now you see why I didn’t post it. But I included it today because today’s line, which isn’t bad, is from the same scene. At this point in the scene we have Costard talking and, depending on which version you look at, Costard is described as listed in the cast of characters as either a clown, or a country bumpkin, or something of the sort. But in today’s Totally Random line he’s referring to himself and Jaqueneta (a country wench) as the ‘true folk’. I really like the way he does it, refering to himself and her in the third person that way, and with that title 'the true folk'. It's classic! Also, I gave you the stage direction that follows the line. There’s that ‘exeunt’, plural of exit, but more importantly the stage direction makes clear who Costard is referring to as ‘the true folk.’ There might be confusion as to what or who he's talking about when he says 'walk aside the true folk',  but the confusion is gone when right after saying it he and Jaquenetta walk aside.

Okay, I’m about done for today. I guess I’ll put my keyboard down and, you guessed it, walk aside the true folk. Stage direction: Exit Pete.

A lot of true folk walk aside here, some going south, and some going north (can you read the fine print on the metal band on the cement post?).

Marry, sir, I am helping you to mar that which God made, a poor unworthy brother of yours, with idleness.

Orlando

As You Like It                                                      Act I, Scene i      Line 33

As you can see, this is the 33^rd line of the play. So if you want context, you can pretty easily read all of the play up to this point and have as much context as anyone. Here’s the link. But since you’re probably not gonna read it, I’ll tell you a little. And by the way, you’re missing another one of Will’s beginning of the play intros that I was talking about the other day, this one by the main character Orlando himself.

Orlando’s talking to his older brother, Oliver, about the fact that older bro is mistreating him. Apparently Oliver, being the oldest, has inherited the farm, and everything else. And Oliver is sending another brother, Jaques, to school but he’s keeping Orlando on the farm and he’s not doing anything to benefit Orlando. He’s just treating him like a farmhand. And of course Orlando’s fed up with it. I guess I can say I can’t blame him.

And by the way, for any of you newcomers to Will’s world (hey, maybe that’s what I should call this: Will’s World), the word ‘marry’ has nothing to do with marriage. It’s just an exclamation. I think it’s ‘By Mary’, but you can insert ‘For goodness sakes’ or any number of meaningless or explicit expressions.

So this conversation starts with Oliver asking Orlando what he’s making (what’s he up to), and when Orlando says he’s making nothing Oliver asks him what he’s marring (if he’s not making something he must be marring something). And that’s why Orlandos’ talking about marring himself. The line makes pretty good sense if you spend a few minutes with it. Honestly, if you spent the amount of time with this line that you spent with that youtube video of the guy pouring tomato juice in the other guy’s pants you’d understand it full well. And what’s so funny/exciting/engaging/important about that guy pouring tomato juice down that guy’s pants?

Well anyway, this whole dissatisfaction of Orlando with life at home theme leads us into the main part of the play which is Orlando running away and ending of in the forest of Arden with all the other runaways. It’s a little like a Gilligan’s Island episode with a few more people.

This isn't Gilligan's Island, it's me and my big brother Dave. Unlike Oliver, Dave was (actually, still is) a really good big brother. Of course, he didn’t inherit the farm from my dad or anything like that. So I’d never had occasion to say anything to him about him helping to mar me. No, he's just a good guy.

                                            --I do wonder,

Thou naughty gaoler, that thou are so fond

To come abroad with him at his request.

Shylock

The Merchant Of Venice                               Act III, Scene iii  Line 9

We're back, today, to The Merchant Of Venice and this short, somewhat odd little scene. At this point in the play Antonio’s been jailed (gaoler is jailer) and we’re sort of awaiting the courtroom scene. But here is Antonio out of jail, albeit accompanied by his jailer, and come to try to speak with Shylock. The old jew is adamant about getting his pound of flesh and will hear nothing from Antonio. And that’s that. And after Shylock leaves, Antonio, who it would seem came to speak with Shylock (about letting him out of the contract?), is completely resigned to giving up his pound of flesh, and his life with it.

But if we find the scene a little odd, isn’t it funny that Shylock finds the scene odd too. That’s what today’s Totally Random line is all about: Shylock finding it odd that jailed Antonio is wandering about when he's supposed to be jailed. Apparently the word ‘naughty’ has the meaning of ‘wicked’ or ‘corrupt’ and the word ‘fond’ has the meaning of ‘foolish’ in this context. To be sure, Shylock spends most of his time in this scene harping about his bond. In sixteen lines he repeats 'I'll have my bond' five times. It's almost comical (in fact, this is a comedy and Will may be going for the comic effect here) the way Shylock pauses from this bond stuff in the middle to take note of the situation, and speak to the jailer- 'By the way jailer, you crooked so and so, why are you being so foolish as to let this bum Antonio roam about wherever he wants to?' And then right back into 'I'll have my bond!' It's just possible that this could be hilarious depending on how you staged it. Or maybe that's just me.

                                                          My buddy and I were going for a comic effect here, but, well...

My lord, I long to hear it at full.

Salisbury

King Henry The Sixth Part II                     Act II, Scene ii    Line 6

Lo, I present your grace a traitor’s head,

The head of Cade, whom I in combat slew.

Iden

King Henry The Sixth Part II                     Act V, Scene i     Line 66

Here we have a pair of lines from King Henry The Sixth Part II, and a pretty long post. Both lines are very much involved with the real life history that is at the heart of this play. And both manage to twist that history to good effect.

The first line is from early on in the play where Richard Plantagenet is explaining why he, Richard, has more right to the throne than Henry. That’s Salisbury, not the steak, talking to the Duke of York. What he wants to hear in full is the Duke’s explanation of his title to the English crown. I have to say that I long to hear it in full as well. What follows is York’s explanation of what’s gone on with the succession of the crown since Edward III. Now I’ve gone over an awful lot of this in this blog previously, so you readers should be somewhat familiar with this stuff. But I still find it interesting and I had no idea that Will took the time to explain this all out in significant detail in any of the plays. But he does, and here it is. The Duke of York speaking here is Richard III’s father. This guy here is going to make a play for the throne, but it will be his sons, Richard and Edward, who both end up being kings. 

Here’s Will’s explanation of Richard’s right to the throne, as told by Richard (Richard is York). 

YORK 

Then thus: Edward the Third, my lords, had seven sons: The first, Edward the Black Prince, Prince of Wales; The second, William of Hatfield, and the third, Lionel Duke of Clarence: next to whom Was John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster; The fifth was Edmund Langley, Duke of York; The sixth was Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester; William of Windsor was the seventh and last. Edward the Black Prince died before his father And left behind him Richard, his only son, Who after Edward the Third's death reign'd as king; Till Henry Bolingbroke, Duke of Lancaster, The eldest son and heir of John of Gaunt, Crown'd by the name of Henry the Fourth, Seized on the realm, deposed the rightful king, Sent his poor queen to France, from whence she came, And him to Pomfret; where, as all you know, Harmless Richard was murder'd traitorously.

WARWICK 

Father, the duke hath told the truth: Thus got the house of Lancaster the crown.

YORK 

Which now they hold by force and not by right; For Richard, the first son's heir, being dead, The issue of the next son should have reign'd.

SALISBURY 

But William of Hatfield died without an heir.

YORK

The third son, Duke of Clarence, from whose line I claimed the crown, had issue, Philippe, a daughter, Who married Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March: Edmund had issue, Roger Earl of March; Roger had issue, Edmund, Anne and Eleanor.

SALISBURY 

This Edmund, in the reign of Bolingbroke, As I have read, laid claim unto the crown; And, but for Owen Glendower, had been king, Who kept him in captivity till he died. But to the rest.

YORK 

His eldest sister, Anne, My mother, being heir unto the crown Married Richard Earl of Cambridge; who was son To Edmund Langley, Edward the Third's fifth son. By her I claim the kingdom: she was heir To Roger Earl of March, who was the son Of Edmund Mortimer, who married Philippe, Sole daughter unto Lionel Duke of Clarence: So, if the issue of the elder son Succeed before the younger, I am king.

 WARWICK

What plain proceeding is more plain than this? Henry doth claim the crown from John of Gaunt, The fourth son; York claims it from the third. Till Lionel's issue fails, his should not reign: It fails not yet, but flourishes in thee And in thy sons, fair slips of such a stock. Then, father Salisbury, kneel we together; And in this private plot be we the first That shall salute our rightful sovereign With honour of his birthright to the crown.

BOTH 

Long live our sovereign Richard, England's king!

Okay, so did you get all that? Yeah, it's definitely a little hard to follow, but York makes sense. He’s not making stuff up. And did you catch the fact that his father is the grandson of Edward III and his mother is the great-great granddaughter of this same Edward III? So the guy has a legitimate claim to the throne, arguably more legitimate than the guy sitting on the throne, but he's also got a legitimate claim to some very screwed up DNA from inbreeding. But I guess that's another issue.

In any event, it’s a pretty sure thing that the guys in this scene listening really didn’t need to be told this stuff. They knew these details. Will gave us this scene so that we, the audience, can understand all this. Remember, the action of this play (based on historical events) took place about 150 years before the year that this was written and performed. So that while the audience would have been familiar with this historical data, a quick brush up on the facts like this would have been helpful. And to a twenty first century American audience it would be indispensable (not that most of us follow all this ‘issue of Edmund, who was issue of Henry, issue of etc, etc, etc).

Now the speaker of today’s second Totally Random line is a fellow named Alexander Iden. Mr. Iden has a very small part in the play and this line is from much later in the play. It involves, of all things, a severed  head. Well then, it’s been a long time since we’ve had a severed head. Remember back in August when it seemed like we had a severed head every other day? We were lousy with severed heads. Ahhh, those were the good old days!  Anyway, this is the head of Jack Cade, a real life person who led a bit of a rebellion against the crown. Will uses Mr. Cade, or at least his head, to great theatrical effect here in Henry VI part II. I guess you would expect Jack Cade to be a real person since this is a history play. But it’s certain that not all of what Will presents in his history plays is pure historical fact. For one thing, there’s very little documentation of what was said by these historical figures, so Will is making up almost all of the dialogue. And if you read up on this stuff you’ll find that Will also gets a little bit creative with who was where, and when they were there. Occasionally he even makes up characters all together. But not Jack. And in fact, Jack was indeed caught by this Iden fellow in a garden (that’s played out in the scene before this one). But it appears that in true life Cade was dragged in dead but whole. It wasn’t until later that his head was lopped off. But it was good theatrics for Iden to walk in waving a severed head. Old Will was obviously a big fan of the severed head. And good theatrics.

 Today's two lines are both good examples of Will's use of theatrics. In the first one he's got a guy explaining stuff to two other guys what they already full well know (so that we the audience can learn it), and in the second one he's got a character waving a severed head around that was actually still attached to the body (so that we the audience can go 'Ahhhhhhh!!!'). Will: a true man of the theater.

This is me and my buddy doing some our own theatrics. But these theatrics are from about eight years ago and, you know, I'll be darned if I can remember what the heck we were trying to act out.

Pete: not so much a man of the theater.

No, Corin, being old, thou canst not guess;

Though in thy youth thou was’t as true a lover

As ever sigh'd upon a midnight pillow:

Silvius

As You Like It                                     Act II, Scene iv   Line 24

Repair thy wit, good youth, or it will fall

To cureless ruin.

Shylock

The Merchant Of Venice                                               Act IV, Scene i   Line 141

I'm giving you two lines today; two lines that back to back address youth versus old. The first one is a young man talking to an old man, and the second is an old man talking to a younger one.

The second quote is from one of Wills’ most famous characters: Shylock. He’s addressing one of Antonio’s friends who’s really just one of the peanut gallery in this, the courtroom scene. The friend, Gratiano, has just gone into a bit of a rant about what a schmuck Shylock is. And Shylock replies with

Till thou canst rail the seal from off my bond,
Thou but offend'st thy lungs to speak so loud:
Repair thy wit, good youth, or it will fall
To cureless ruin. I stand here for law.

A pretty reasonable, and mild response considering that Gratiano just called him a damn’d, inexecrable dog. All Shylock is saying is that unless you can change the contract with your rant, which you can’t, you might as well put a sock on it, because the law is on my side. And of course he’s right.

Now the bottom line is that Shylock has come down through the intervening centuries with a pretty bad rap. He’s often pictured in society as an evil character, when he’s really done nothing wrong. There was not one bit of deceit in the contract he signed with Antonio: pay the debt by the date on the contract or forfeit one pound of your flesh. It was right there in black and white and Antonio saw it when he signed the contract and took the money. Now the date has passed and Antonio’s not paid the debt. And everyone thinks that Shylock should give in. Why should he?

It’s an interesting question and one that is at the crux of one of the major plots of the play. It’s a question that you could spend a lifetime on. But nonetheless, with today’s line Shylock is simply pointing out what’s true to a young fellow who’s not as smart as he is.

So that’s an older fellow telling a younger one what’s what. The first Totally Random line today is from a young guy speaking to an older one. Silvius is in love with Phebe and right here he’s talking to an older fellow, Corin, about it. Corin’s trying to offer some advice on the matter, but young Silvius is convinced that Corin is too old to understand, and too old to remember what love is all about, and maybe just plain too old period. But it really is a great line, isn’t it?

Though in thy youth thou was’t as true a lover

As ever sigh'd upon a midnight pillow:

I think you’ve got to read it a few times to let it properly sink in, but it’s a beautiful line. It really is.

But putting the beauty aside, what do you think? Is he too old?

Well I think I’m a little biased on the side of Corin and Shylock. But maybe that’s just because I’m too old.

                                      That old vs young theme is as old as the hills. And them there hills is pretty old.

And whilst I at a banquet hold him sure,

I'll find some cunning practise out of hand,

To scatter and disperse the giddy Goths,

Or, at the least, make them his enemies.

 Tamora

Titus Andronicus                                              Act V, Scene ii    Line 77

This is a weird scene in a weird play. I think Tarzan will have abandoned his post nearby and be back up in the rafters by the end of this scene.

So Tamora, the queen of the Goths, who’s caused most of Titus’s troubles has come to Titus’s house with her two sons in tow. The three of them are in some sort of disguise, but we're not sure what they look like. The stage directions says simply 'disguised.' Whatever they're wearing, Titus recognizes them. No, they say, we’re not Tamora and her two sons, we’re revenge and murder and rape. And they think that Titus is so far over the edge that he will believe that. Titus, who isn’t that far over the edge, decides that he’ll go along with them and by doing so gets Tamora to leave her two sons with him. And as soon as she’s gone, out come the knives and the two sons’ throats are cut while Lavinia holds the basin with her stumps (remember; hands cut off by these same sons) as they bleed out into the basins. 

Today’s Totally Random line is Tamora talking to her two sons when Titus leaves the scene for a moment. She’s talking about how she’s going to get the Goths to turn against Titus while she’s at the banquet with him. What she doesn’t realize is that Titus will be feeding Tamora her two sons, without her knowing it, at that banquet.

Like I said, I think we'll be losing Tarzan again on this one.

Told you so. See him way up there and away from my desk on that log hanging against the wall?

Here's a closer up picture. We know you're not one of those Coriolanus actors buddy. You're not fooling anyone.