Tell Bolingbroke--for yond methinks he stands--
That every stride he makes upon my land
Is dangerous treason: he is come to open
The purple testament of bleeding war;
But ere the crown he looks for live in peace,
Ten thousand bloody crowns of mothers' sons
Shall ill become the flower of England's face,
Change the complexion of her maid-pale peace
To scarlet indignation and bedew
Her pastures' grass with faithful English blood.

-Richard

King Richard The Second                   Act III, Scene iii, Line 96

Be patient, princes; you do know, these fits
Are with his highness very ordinary.
Stand from him. Give him air; he'll straight be well.

-Warwick

King Henry The Fourth Part II           Act IV, Scene iv, Line 115

And since, on two successive days we have skipped, from the end of Richard’s reign to the end of his successor Henry’s reign, I’ve decided to bless you with two Totally Random lines today.

The first selection is King Richard talking about Bolingbroke (Henry IV) and the trouble that’s going to come of Bolingbroke’s actions to take Richard’s crown. And of course, Richard is right. Then, skipping forward, 'his highness' being referred to in today’s line is Bolingbroke again, but better known in today’s play as King Henry the Fourth. Do you suppose that tomorrow’s Totally Random line will be from the end of Henry the Fifth’s reign, and then Henry the Sixth? Given that there are 1,320 pages in the book that I’m picking from randomly, I’d have to say the odds are no.

Which leads me to another discussion: should we be changing the format so as to add some sort of continuity to Totally Random (almost) Daily Shakespeare? Don’t think that I haven’t considered it, because I have. Oh there’s several ways I could go. One that I’ve thought of is to take one play and stick to it for a month. Pick a random line from each successive page, or pick the pages randomly? There is a strong argument for maintaining some element or other of randomness. Hmmm. Well we’ll let that one go for now and perhaps we’ll get back to it at a later date.

Back to today's lines; now sometimes I have to agree with the teacher who said that it’s worth teaching kids Shakespeare just so that they get to hear his words, irrespective of whether they understand or appreciate them. Certainly, I’d like to see them understand and appreciate, but Will’s language is just so incomparable that it’s worthwhile just having these words heard.

…and bedew her pastures’ grass with faithful English blood.

And yet, there are so many people, most of us in fact, who just have no idea…

Then again, what of today’s line, about the ordinary fits of his highness. Well, in my humble opinion it does not stand with many other more notable lines. In fact, I don’t think it quite stands with yesterday’s line. But that’s okay, isn’t it? And if you want another one as striking as the Richard II line? Well…

Be patient, princes (and princesses).

Here's one of my favorite pastures. I've seen it bedewed in dew (redundant?), but I pray it never gets bedewed in blood, English, American, Lithuanian, or otherwise.

Your answer, sir, is enigmatical:

-Benedick

Much Ado About Nothing                   Act V, Scene iv, Line 27

Your answer, sir, is mysterious? It’s puzzling?

Is it puzzling how the pieces in the top picture can be put together to form the bottom figure. It should be because it's a puzzle.

O good Iago,

What shall I do to win my lord again?

-Desdemona   

Othello                         Act IV, Scene ii, Line 170

Okay, this is almost too much to deal with. Hold on, I’ve gotta go take a count.

Well I took a count and it seems that I was mistaken. I was going to tell you how many times already we had had reference to ‘good Iago’ or ‘honest Iago’ so far in our Totally Random lines. But wanna know how many? Zero. I don’t know what I was thinking. We’ve had lots of references, direct and indirect, of Iago’s rottenness, but nary a one line where he got referred to as good or honest. But we do now!

This is our twelfth visit to Othello in 264 days of picking Totally Random lines. Only As You Like It and Coriolanus, with thirteen and fifteen visits respectively have more. We’ve had Desdemona talking before, a few lines from Iago and plenty of references to Iago and his rottenness (we even made up a new word for him – Rattiest), but this is the first time that we’ve got one of the ‘Good’ or ‘Honest’ Iago lines. ‘Bout damn time. It seems like this is all I ever remember from my old days of studying this play. It was ‘good Iago’ this, and ‘honest Iago’ that. In fact, I’ll bet if I go back to the play and start from the beginning we’ll get one of these lines in the first hundred lines of the play. Hold that thought.

Okay, skip that thought. I went back and started from the beginning and was up to Act III and still hadn’t seen any sign of a ‘good’ or ‘honest’ Iago. Perhaps I just have some twisted memory of this play. O well, memory can be quite the teaser, can’t it? Maybe Iago had something to do with my twisted memory?

O good Iago!

I was trying to find something rotten or evil for today's picture, in honor of Iago, but I'm going to have to settle for creepy. Yes, this is a spider and I was face-timing with Nina so I showed her this picture and she assures me that this spider is creepy. How big is he? Well I can't tell you exactly how big, but I can tell you that I took this picture from my car. The spider was big enough that I noticed it while I was driving down the road, so I pulled over and took a picture from the drivers seat. So that's a pretty big spider and a bit creepy, so a good picture for an Iago post.

O good spider!

It is the bloody business which informs

Thus to mine eyes.

-Macbeth           

Macbeth                                              Act II, Scene i, Line 48

This here is a line from Macbeth’s famous ‘Is this a dagger…’ soliloquy. If you’re not familiar with it, well all you have to Google is ‘is this a d’ and Macbeth’s line is the first thing that comes up. In fact, type in ‘it is the bl’ and you’ll get all of today’s Totally Random line. So, yeah, it’s a well known speech, and we’ve actually picked a famous line for once. But I’ll lay it out for you anyway.

You don’t really need to know all the backstory (though it wouldn’t hurt); just know that Macbeth is on his way to murder the sleeping king (with a dagger). He’s in the hallway of the castle on the way to the sleeping king when he starts hallucinating about seeing a dagger. The 'Thus' in the line is the dagger that he's seeing and the 'bloody business' is the murder he's about to commit. Here’s the whole speech.

Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling as to sight? or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
I see thee yet, in form as palpable
As this which now I draw.
Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going;
And such an instrument I was to use.
Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses,
Or else worth all the rest; I see thee still, And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood,
Which was not so before. There's no such thing:
It is the bloody business which informs
Thus to mine eyes. Now o'er the one halfworld
Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
The curtain'd sleep; witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecate's offerings, and wither'd murder,
Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf,
Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,
With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design
Moves like a ghost. Thou sure and firm-set earth,
Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
Thy very stones prate of my whereabout,
And take the present horror from the time,
Which now suits with it. Whiles I threat, he lives:
Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.

You really should read this a few times. It won’t hurt you. But, wow, there’s a tough sentence in here. Check it out, it’s the sentence right after today’s Totally Random line, and it starts ‘Now o’er the one halfworld’ and ends with ‘moves like a ghost.’ The section before this sentence is all about the knife, and the sentence after is about sneaking up and killing the king. But what’s this middle sentence about? It’s a half mile long. The first part is about it being nighttime.

Now there’s quite a bit on this whole passage, and these lines in particular, in Prof. Garber’s Shakespeare After All. You could read that too. But she gets into some pretty, um what’s the word I’m looking for, some pretty in-depth stuff. And in-depth’s not really the word I’m looking for. But anyway, she talks about this being only the second time Macbeth has used the word ‘murder’ and how there’s significance that Will has made murder an entity rather than Macbeth’s act, and that there’s three or four lines between ‘murder’ and what murder does. Pretty esoteric, but of course it’s Shakespeare so you know there’s more there than meets the eye. And though I’m not always crazy about diving quite this deep on Will, I am always pleased to point out this quality of Will. This quality being that you can appreciate Will on whatever level you want, and if you want to appreciate him on the level that Prof Garber is working on, well go at it. It’s there.

Here's my dagger. Not much of a dagger really, but I do carry it with me most of the time. I carry it more for the bottle opener, scissor, and corkscrew than for the blade, and no, I’ve never had any hallucinations about my swiss army knife. None that I can remember.

All blest secrets,
All you unpublish'd virtues of the earth,
Spring with my tears! be aidant and remediate
In the good man's distress! Seek, seek for him;
Lest his ungovern'd rage dissolve the life
That wants the means to lead it.

-Cordelia

King Lear                               Act IV, Scene iv, Line 17

Yes, I know, it’s not just one line. But it’s Cordelia! This is a scene in the latter part of the play, not quite near the end yet. She’s talking about her father, Lear, of course. She knows that he’s been seen nearby and that he appears to be quite mad (crazy, not angry). And this is her form of a prayer for her father’s safekeeping.  And that’s all you need to know. Sweet Cordelia. Read the prayer again and let it sink in. Then maybe you’ll say to yourself, ‘sweet Cordelia’.

This is a prayer for a child that my sister-in-law has in her house. I've always loved this prayer. Sweet Betsy.

You are my father, for methinks in you

I see old Gaunt alive; O, then, my father,

Will you permit that I shall stand condemn'd

A wandering vagabond; my rights and royalties

Pluck'd from my arms perforce and given away

To upstart unthrifts?

  

-Henry Bolingbroke

King Richard The Second               Act II, Scene iii, Line 118

Well, I'll admit that today's line is a little long, but it’s not a tough line, so I don’t feel bad springing it on you.

This is Henry Bolingbroke talking to his uncle. Henry’s father was John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster who died earlier in the play. Henry is talking to Edmund of Langley, who is the Duke of York and also John of Gaunt’s brother. And just to be clear (or perhaps to muddy it up a bit), the father of Richard the Second (the current King that Henry Bolingbroke will shortly be overthrowing) was another brother of John and Edmund. His name was Edward the Black Prince (no, he was a white guy; not sure where the name came from) and he died before he ever got to be king. But since The Black Prince was the first born of King Edward III, his son Richard the Second got to be king. And now we’ll be having Richard’s first cousin, Henry Bolingbroke, having something to say about the royal succession.  But back to the line.

Right now Henry is back in England after being banished by King Richard II, and he’s being confronted by Uncle York (Edmund), who was left in charge by Richard whilst the latter went to Ireland on business. Now Henry is calling Uncle Edmund ‘father’ because he says he reminds him of his dad ‘old Gaunt’. Henry tried calling his uncle ‘uncle’ a few lines earlier. In fact he called him ‘gracious uncle’, and the response he got to that was

Tut, tut! Grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle: I am not a traitor’s uncle.

In other words, Uncle, schmuncle, buddy! So I can see why Henry’s going for the surrogate dad angle now. But don't worry, by the end of the play, Uncle York will come around to Henry’s side. For now he’s going to at least play neutral. After all, Henry’s got a good point. Right after he was banished, his father, old Gaunt, died. And before that body was cold Richard was claiming all of Old Gaunt's assets. Of course we’re talking about assets that should have rightfully passed to John of Gaunt’s son, Henry Bolingbroke. So now Henry is back, out of banishment, and ready to claim those assets that were ‘ pluck’d from my arms perforce and given away to upstart unthrifts!’  Can you imagine? Upstart unthrifts! Well them’s fightin’ words!

And spoiler alert: Henry’s going to decide that he wants a bit more than his dad’s assets; he’s going to decide he also wants Richard’s crown.

This is a limited edition, signed print of a painting by J.F. Lansdowne. Relevance? It was my dad's asset. But I didn't have to raise an army, or argue with my uncle to get it. Actually, after dad passed away no one else wanted it. So I just ended up with it.

I’ll bring her to the Grecian presently:

-Troilus

Troilus And Cressida                                       Act IV, Scene iii, Line 6

Just to re-set: Troilus and Cressida is about the two titular lovers, but it’s also about the Trojan war. It encompasses a lot of the action of the Iliad, but I’m not sure whether or not Troilus and Cressida are part of the Iliad or if they are Will’s add-on to that story. But we’re not going to find that out today.

Anyway, this is a very short scene. Here’s the entirety of Act IV, Scene iii.

 SCENE III. The same. Street before Pandarus' house.

Enter PARIS, TROILUS, AENEAS, DEIPHOBUS, ANTENOR, and DIOMEDES

PARIS

It is great morning, and the hour prefix'd
Of her delivery to this valiant Greek
Comes fast upon. Good my brother Troilus,
Tell you the lady what she is to do, And haste her to the purpose.

TROILUS

Walk into her house;
I'll bring her to the Grecian presently:
And to his hand when I deliver her,
Think it an altar, and thy brother Troilus
A priest there offering to it his own heart.

Exit

PARIS

I know what 'tis to love;
And would, as I shall pity, I could help!
Please you walk in, my lords.

Exeunt

And that’s it. Thirteen lines. Without getting into the whole story too much, what’s happening here is that the Trojans and Greeks have agreed to a prisoner swap. Well, not actually prisoners, at least not both of them. But the deal is that the Trojans sent Cressida (a Trojan) to the Greeks and the Greeks send a Trojan prisoner back to Troy. I think that’s all you need to know for now. I know, you’re asking why do the Greeks want Cressida? Well her father, a Trojan, is now in the Greek camp. Not sure what’s up with that.

So this is the scene where Troilus is being told that it’s time to surrender his babe for the swap. He seems to be taking it pretty well, don’t you think. I mean, he makes the little statement about offering up his heart to an altar, but other than that he doesn’t seem to be fighting the deal. It’s a pretty mild mannered statement. I’ll bring her to the Grecian presently (yawn). And then what? Oh yeah, I think I was gonna go get a haircut. Yeah, that’s what it was. Well this is sort of a comedy anyway, so…

All right then. This is my copy of The Iliad, and this is the pronouncing glossary in the back of the book. If you zoom in you can see Troilus's name there. But if you go to the 'C' page there is on Cressida (that's why Cressida here, holding the book open, looks so pissed off). So it looks like maybe Will invented Cressida, but not Troilus? And if Cressida never really existed then that would explain why Troilus was so cavalier about giving  her up to the Greeks. It's all a bit confusing, isn't it?

For you, mistress,

Save you your labor.

-Gratiano

Othello                                 Act V, Scene i, Line 100

I believe Gratiano is telling Bianca, Cassio’s girlfriend, to not bother with the injured Cassio because they’re going to get the surgeon to look at him. So here’s what’s going on: This is the scene where Iago orchestrates an attack on Cassio by Rodrigo. Naturally Iago isn’t there when the attack takes place but only shows up after Cassio has defended himself against Rodrigo. Then Iago sneaks up behind Cassio and slices his leg and runs away before he’s seen. A few minutes later he sneaks in again and kills the wounded Rodrigo, and again runs away before he’s seen. Then he shows up again and starts spreading the blame on different people for the stuff he’s done. He really couldn’t get much rattier. Yeah, that’s probably not a word, but then again there’s probably never been a villain quite like Iago, so he needs his own word. Rattier. Or perhaps rattiest.

There, Will is obviously a much better wordsmith than I, but that doesn’t mean I can’t come up with a gem now and then. Rattiest. But keep in mind how evil Iago is, and he's the inspiration for the word. So don’t be telling your sister she’s the rattiest just because she left a mess in the living room. She’d have to burn down the living room and steal your boyfriend to even get started on the road to rattiesthood. No, you’ll have to save this word for an extra-special occasion. It’s basically a once in a lifetime word.  

This is a monster that I helped my little buddy make a few years ago. I'm not using him for tonight's picture because of his rattiness. No, I couldn't find anything to illustrate true rattiness. But since I came up empty on tonight's picture I thought I'd use a picture of the monster because I think he's interesting. Do you think he's interesting?

Thrice the brinded cat hath mew’d.

-First Witch

Macbeth                              Act IV, Scene i, Line 1

That’s right, First Witch. There’s three witches in this play, and they show up time and again. In fact, the play opens with them and of course they are integral to the plot since they pretty much get Macbeth going down his path of mayhem. And what are they doing in this scene. Not sure. But they’re obviously up to something. Thrice the brinded cat hath mew’d. What’s a brinded cat?

So check this out. I thought when I read this line that it must certainly be a line that had since been borrowed and re-used for something. Even though nobody these days knows what a brinded cat is, the line itself just sounds cool. And I’m right. Thrice the brinded cat hath mew’d, is a book by Alan Bradley. Look at me, now I’m giving a plug for Alan Bradley, whoever that is. Apparently he’s either a pretty well known author or he’s just got a good web presence because if you google today’s line (which, as you can see, was written by William Shakespeare) you’ll get pages of references to Alan’s new book. Poor Will. Poor us. No offense, Alan.

Oh well.

I'm pretty sure this is not the first, second, or third witch. But it is a witch. I'm sure of that, because I made that witch costume myself.

4/12/17

I know that you can do very little alone;

-Menenius

Coriolanus                                    Act II, Scene i, Line 35

I know you can do very little alone; for your helps
are many, or else your actions would grow wondrous
single: your abilities are too infant-like for
doing much alone. You talk of pride: O that you
could turn your eyes toward the napes of your necks,
and make but an interior survey of your good selves!
O that you could!

That’s the full quote there, those seven lines. I gave you a nice short piece of it for today’s Totally Random line, but I thought you could use the seven lines to give it better context. This is Menenius talking to two of the tribunes (representatives) of the people, Sicinius and Junius. It’s pretty obvious that Menenius has a low opinion of these two guys he’s talking to. And he’s right, because they are pretty sleazy. They are politicians and Will has embodied in them all the things that we don’t like in politicians. Not that all politicians are bad. But these guys are.

You know what is a little curious though, is this thing about turning their eyes toward the napes of your necks. What’s up with that? An interior survey of your good selves, I get that. But eyes toward the napes of your necks?

And this leads me to a little bit of an epistle. Get comfortable.

One of the things I remember from my MAT program (that’s masters of teaching program) was the idea that one of the best ways to go about teaching is to make the subject matter the center of the classroom. In a sense, to take the subject matter, whether it’s Shakespeare, or the area of a triangle, or the atomic weight of wheat (okay, not sure if that last one makes sense), and literally or figuratively put it in the middle of the class and gather round it. And then take turns talking about it, questioning it, or just poking at it. As a teacher you should be doing some poking too. And yes, helping out a bit if you know a little more about the subject matter than the rest. This is in stark opposition to making it a teacher centered classroom where you’re just lecturing and the students are supposed to be paying attention to you.

With that in mind, my point is that Menenius’s seven lines today are a perfect example of how poke-able Shakespeare is. Why would you turn your eyes toward the napes of your neck? Why does Menenius have such a low opinion of politicians. These lines, and the questions I’m raising about these two lines,  are the kind of things that you can toss out into the middle of the circle and start poking. If you stop and look at these little things in the play, in the text, you can find some really interesting stuff. Shakespeare is so incredibly full of interesting stuff. Some of it’s very obscure, like the nape of the neck thing. And some is incredibly relevant and relatable to our world, like the politician thing.  

So that’s my epistle. It’s too bad I don’t have any teachers reading this blog, huh?

Here's my guys going at it again. They are just crazy about this play. That's Jerry, on the left, playing Sicinius and staring at Junius's neck. I coached him a bit on this one because I told him I wanted to put extra emphasis on the neck staring thing. He just took it and ran with it. Beautiful!

Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark?

-Ophelia

Hamlet                                         Act IV, Scene iv, Line 21

I think it’s pretty interesting that I was talking about TWLOHA in my last post and today we’re dealing with Ophelia, another in Will’s long list of tragic characters. Do you ever wonder if Will wasn’t perhaps a manic depressive?

In today’s scene Ophelia is losing her grip on reality. And no wonder! So far in the play her boyfriend (sort of) Hamlet has killed her father Polonius (by accident, sort of). And now Hamlet has been sent away to be killed himself, though Ophelia doesn’t yet know that. I’m not sure, but I think Ophelia’s referring to Hamlet as the ‘beauteous majesty of Denmark.’

Anyway, and more to the point, Ophelia, who dies or kills herself depending on who you ask, has become synonymous in our contemporary world with a name for troubled adolescent girls and particularly girls like the ones that TWLOHA tries to help. There is, in fact, a well known book on the subject of adolescent girls titled Reviving Ophelia: Saving The Selves Of Adolescent Girls.

So last post we talked about TWLOHA and today we run into Ophelia. And it’s all so Perfectly Random.

Yeah, I thought I'd throw TWLOHA another plug. I really don't know much about them, but I think they're legit, and I know this cause is legit.

How love is wise in folly, foolish-witty:

-Narrator

Venus and Adonis                                           Stanza 141

We have arrived, today, at the very page that we started on way back last August. This is, nonetheless , a tough line. At the very least you need the whole stanza. Here it is.

She marking them begins a wailing note
And sings extemporally a woeful ditty;
How love makes young men thrall and old men dote;
How love is wise in folly, foolish-witty:
Her heavy anthem still concludes in woe,
And still the choir of echoes answer so.

 So, for the sake of a little clarity, let me give you a little more. Adonis has just left to go home for the night and Venus is lying alone in the woods. She’s moaning that Adonis left her, and her moans are being echoed by neighboring caves (neighboring caves?). And these echoes are what she ‘marks’ in the first line of this stanza. Then she begins to sing a little song about ‘How love makes young men thrall and old men dote; how love is wise in folly, foolish-witty:’

And that’s about it. Love makes young men slaves (to their passion?) and old men act foolishly. Love is wise in folly and foolish-witty. It sounds like she’s just repeating how foolish love is, especially in the line we’ve picked for today.

How love is wise in folly, foolish-witty.

And this leads me to something completely different. I was going to comment on sort of agreeing with Venus and her view of love, and then I thought of something that I came across yesterday. It was a car with a sticker on the back. The sticker was the letters TWLOHA. I didn’t know what that was. Do you? Well I’ll tell you. It’s a non-profit organization called To Write Love On Her Arms. It’s a group based in Florida whose purpose is to help victims of depression and addiction. What’s it mean? It comes from the story of one young woman that the founder of the group was trying to help. This girl was suffering in silence and her suffering was taking the form of her cutting the word ‘fuck-up’ into her arms. And when the founder spoke about trying to help this girl he said that he was hoping that he would be able to get her to write love on her arms instead. To Write Love On Her Arms. That’s it. So in that case, I don’t think love is foolish at all. In that case love is pretty powerful, and it’s the best thing there is.

The moral of today's story? There's a lot of different kinds of love, and a lot (most?) of them are really good and really important. And yes, some of them can be a bit foolish-witty.

TO

WRITE

LOVE

ON HER

ARMS

twloha

This one's pretty important (consider it a public service announcement).

Keep, then, fair league and truce with thy true bed;

Adriana             

The Comedy Of Errors                    Act II, Scene ii    Line 144

Okay, back to The Comedy Of Errors. Remember, this is a story about twins separated at birth and living apart, not knowing where the other one is. To make it more interesting, each twin has as his personal servant one of another set of twins. And of course to make it supremely interesting, each of these two pairs of brothers has the same name as the other brother. The play takes place over the course of one day when one of the twins, with his servant, wanders into the town where the other lives. During the course of the play none of the twins are ever in the same scene as their twin, and they don’t even know that the other exists in the town. It’s not till the last scene of the play that they all end up on the stage together and realize what’s been going on. Only Will and the Three’s Company writers could have come up with this one. 

Anyway, today’s line is the wife of resident twin talking to the visiting twin (of course thinking he’s the resident twin, that is to say, her husband).  His response will be something along the lines of ‘who are you?’ And her line above is just a small part of what she’s going on and on about. So do we want to talk about this line? I mean, what do we do with it. To wrangle much meaning out of it we’d have to do at least a little context work with it. And honestly, I just don’t know if I’m up for that tonight. I think I’d rather just find some sort of mildly related picture and move on. 

Okay, what's this? It's a rose on a bed. So it seems like this would be a bed that you'd want to keep a truce with. Right?

…younger sons to younger brothers…

-Falstaff

King Henry The Fourth Part I                       Act IV, Scene ii, Line 29

This is two days in a row of Henry IV plays, today part one and yesterday part two, and two days in a row of Falstaff. Yesterday we had a line in reply to Sir John’s question ‘what money is in my purse?’ and today we have Sir John giving a bit of a soliloquy. He’s talking about the troop of soldiers he’s in charge of and in this particular part of the speech he’s talking about how unfit a group of men he has. Here’s the larger piece that I carved today’s Totally Random line out of

and now my whole charge consists of

ancients, corporals, lieutenants, gentlemen of

companies, slaves as ragged as Lazarus in the

painted cloth, where the glutton's dogs licked his

sores; and such as indeed were never soldiers, but

discarded unjust serving-men, younger sons to

younger brothers, revolted tapsters and ostlers

trade-fallen, the cankers of a calm world and a

long peace, ten times more dishonourable ragged than an old faced ancient:

It reminds me of a line from The Two Towers movie when they’re getting ready for the battle of Helm’s Deep and Legolas, looking at the group of men (and boys) getting ready to man the walls says ‘Most of them have seen too many winters’ and I think Aragorn replies, ‘or too few’. ‘younger sons to younger brothers’ is just Will's way of accentuating the youth of Falstaff's soldiers. 

I can't remember whether or not I've already used this pic of me and my younger brother Will in his stylin' plaid pants. But no matter, it's a good pic for today. And Will has two sons, so they'd be younger sons to the younger brother. Luckily, Will and I grew up in a time of no war for our country. God willing the same will hold true for his sons. And mine. And yours.

Seven groats and two pence.

Page

Henry The Fourth Part II                 Act I, Scene ii     Line 242

Thirty cents. That’s what seven groats and two pence is. This is the Page answering Falstaff when he asks how much money he has in his purse. It seems that Falstaff is always short on cash. How much was thirty cents worth in the year 1400 (when Henry IV was alive) or the 1590’s (when Will wrote this play)? I have no idea, but I’m pretty sure it was worth a lot more than thirty cents is today. After all, what can you buy for thirty cents today? Not much.

Well, I googled the value of money back then, and here’s a site you can look at to see how far thirty cents would go when Will was alive. https://abagond.wordpress.com/2007/05/02/money-in-shakespeares-time/ Take a look, it’s pretty interesting. There’ll be a quiz tomorrow.

Quiz!? No, not really, I can’t back that up.

Two small books. That's one thing that seven groats and two pence (thirty cents) would get you in Will's day.

Neighbours and friends, though bride and bridegroom wants

For to supply the places at the table,

You know there wants no junkets at the feast.

-Bapsista

The Taming Of The Shrew            Act III, Scene ii, Line 244

Baptista was the name of my second grade teacher; Sister Baptista. I remember her as being a bit gruff, but that was a long time ago so perhaps that memory has been colored by the years. I don’t know. In any case, the speaker of today’s line is not my second grade teacher, but rather the father of the bride. And I believe the bride in this case is Katharina AKA the Shrew. And Baptista is talking about the wedding feast that’s about to take place. The wedding has just taken place and it seems that Petruchio, the bridegroom, has just carried off Katharina so now Baptista has all these guests for the feast which he still plans on holding even though the bride and groom have left. And that’s what he’s talking about. I believe he’s saying to everyone that though we’re lacking a bride and groom we won’t be lacking of delicacies to eat (junkets). So what do you think of that?

Well it’s an age old scenario. If you’re the host you’d better have food and drink for your guests. And if they’re like most guests that I’ve seen (and sometimes been), while the main purpose, or people, of the gathering are important, they're not quite as important as the food and drink.

This reminds me of a story (don’t worry, I’ll keep it short). When I was in high school my girlfriend threw a surprise birthday party for me, a kegger (let’s say it was the year after graduation, just to keep this on the up and up). Well I found out about it and it turns out had a fairly important previous commitment for that night and I let her know that. So they had the kegger without me. Simple as that. So just like 400 years ago, the purpose of the gathering wasn’t as important for the gathering itself as the food and drink was (in this case a keg). As I recall I didn’t feel very good that they had the party without me, but looking back I should have understood it the way I do now. Or maybe I should have been familiar with this scene of The Taming Of The Shrew back then. Then I would have understood. 

If I looked hard enough in my archives I might be able to find a picture of that girlfriend from 1975 (her name was Dyane, and she was a pretty good girlfriend), but it was a lot easier to take a picture of the Wilton Armetal mug that's sitting on my shelf. This is the kind of thing I was drinking out of at keggers back then. I prefer glass these days.