And
the creature run from the cur? There thou mightst behold the great image of
authority: a dog’s obey’d in office.--
-King Lear
King Lear Act
IV, Scene vi Line 159
Today’s line is prefaced by Lear asking Gloster if he’s ever
seen a farmer’s dog bark at a beggar. Gloster answers yes, to which Lear replies with today’s Totally Random line. So that the ‘creature’ in the line is a beggar
running from the farmer’s dog.
Now this is well into the play, somewhat towards the end,
when the blind Gloster and his son Edgar meet up with the rambling, a little
bit out of his mind, Lear. And the latter is going on about this, that, and
everything. There’s a ton of analysis to be had in Lear’s ramblings because, of
course, they’re not random ramblings; this is Shakespeare! Is Lear comparing
himself to a dog that’s obeyed by a beggar? I suppose on the face of it that’s
what we see here. But the analysis can be continued on to a much deeper level.
I notice in my compilation that we’ve been on this page
before, so I looked into my archives to see if I’d done any previous analysis
on this scene, or perhaps even a blog post, that might help with today’s line.
Alack, no. The line I picked previously, just a few lines up from today’s line in the scene,
was not blogged about at all. I do that a lot of days. Too busy to write, I’ll
just pick a line, read it, spend a minute or two thinking about it, make a note
of what line it was, and move on with my day. Busy, busy! Remember now, I started this
here habit when I was out of work, and had a bit more time on my hands. But these
days I work a lot. And yet, I’m still here, still plugging away at my Totally Random
(semi) Daily Shakespeare. I’m kind of looking forward to the day when I’ll have
more time to always be able to spend time writing about the line of the day.
But wait, am I really? Am I really looking forward to not working and having
the extra time? So that I will be able…
To
shake all the cares and business from our age;
Conferring
them on younger strengths, while we
Unburden’d
crawl toward death.
Those are some of the very first lines of the play spoken by Lear when he tells his daughters that he’s dividing up the kingdom and giving
it to them so that he can retire from being king. And look how well that worked out for Lear! Look where he is today;
half out of his mind and rambling on about beggars running from farm dogs,
that’s where he is.
No, I’ll keep my day job for now, thank you very much. And
I’ll also keep working on these lines when I have time, and appreciating what I
have. And when I’ve shaken most of these cares and business from my age and
conferred them on younger strengths, I’ll do my best to appreciate the extra
time I have for writing. And, importantly, I’ll do the best I can to learn from
Lear’s experience and do a better job than he did of managing the shaking part.
Yeah, that’s what I’ll do.
Here's Pete dealing with all the cares and business from our age.
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