Trust
me, sweet,
Out
of this silence yet I pickt a welcome;
And
in the modesty of fearful duty
I
read as much as from the rattling tongue
Of
saucy and audacious eloquence.
-Theseus
A Midsummer Night’s Dream Act V, Scene i, Line 101
Okay, this one’s gonna take a little setup and some
explanation, but I think it will be worth the effort. Here goes.
This is towards the end of the play and Theseus, the Duke of
Athens has been asked to pick a play to be performed. He’s picked a play that’s
to be performed by a bunch of very inept actors. His bride Hippolyta has
questioned his choice because of the poor actors and Theseus is explaining why he
picked this play, and these actors. He’s comparing these actors to some of the
men from whom he’s received formal greetings in places he has visited. With
today’s Totally Random line he’s telling his bride to go along with his choice,
Trust me, sweet, because he knows
that sometimes the people greeting him have been so nervous that they stammer
or say nothing at all and that he is able to get as much out of this type of
greeting, Out of this silence yet I pickt
a welcome; And in the modesty of fearful duty I read as much, as when he
gets the proper flowery language of an expected greeting, as from the rattling tongue Of saucy and audacious eloquence. So he's applying that to the inept actors and saying that he'll be able to get as much out of watching them perform as he would get out of watching good actors perform.
So now read the whole four and a half lines again. Makes
sense, right? Well, hopefully it does.
Since you should be able to get just as much out of a crappy picture as a good one (in line with today's message), I just grabbed the first pic I came across, without any regard for quality or relevance.
Well, what do you think?
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