The poisonous simple sometimes is compacted

In a pure compound; being so applied,

His venom in effect is purified.



-Tarquin



Lucrece                                                                        line 530



WARNING: Long Blog Post!



Today's Totally Random line is Tarquin trying to talk Lucrece into going along with his rape of her. But instead of talking about these   particular lines I'm going to skip forward a little and talk about the ‘rough beast’ that is Tarquin. Let me explain.



Today’s totally random line is taken from Lucrece, also known as The Rape Of Lucrece. As I said, the three lines above are part of Tarquin the rapist’s lines where he’s trying to talk Lucrece into not fighting him. So I was reading some of the stanzas before and after these lines to get some more context, and that’s when I ran into the following stanza, which is a bit further along, where he’s stopped talking and he’s about to get down to the business of rape.



Here with a cockatrice’s (snake’s) dead-killing eye

He rouseth up himself and makes a pause;

While she, the picture of pure piety,

Like a white hind (female deer) under the gripe’s (falcon’s) sharp claws,

Pleads, in a wilderness where are no laws,

To the rough beast that knows no gentle right,

Nor aught obeys but his foul appetite.



And of course, rough beast just jumped up and tackled my attention. In fact, it might just as well have been in bold-faced italics with the yellow, though of course wasn’t.



I've run into this beast before, and so have you if you studied The Second Coming by W. B. Yeats, which you probably did in high school. But is this Yeats’s rough best? Or more aptly, is Yeats’s rough beast from 1900 this same beast of Will’s from 1600? That is today’s question.



Will’s next stanza continues this scene of cosmic disharmony that is present in Yeats’s poem.



But when a black-faced cloud the world doth threat,

In his dim mist the aspiring mountains hiding,

From earth’s dark womb some gentle gust doth get,

Which blows these pitchy vapours from their biding,

Hindering their present fall by this dividing;

So his unhallow’d haste her words delays,

And moody Pluto winks while Orpheus plays.



Of course you may need some refreshing of The Second Coming in order to consider what I’m saying. So I’m going to have to do it to you. That’s right; here is the whole The Second Coming by W.B. Yeats. Don’t worry, it’s not too long. 



Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.



Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming! Hardly are these words out

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?



That’s it. That’s Yeats. Now tell me: did he borrow Will’s beast? That is the question.



Now, just to add a little icing on the cake, I’m going to throw one more beast at you. This one is in Sam Baker’s song from a few years ago, called The Feast. In it he sings repeatedly What rough beast? Close thine eyes on that rough beast. I ran into Baker’s beast a few years ago and quickly realized that it was Yeats’s beast. And to be clear, there are pieces of Yeats's Second Coming sprinkled all over the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. No question about that. Even so, I found Baker's use of the beast interesting (almost exciting). So that may help explain my fascination upon running into Will’s rough beast today.



Now you can certainly argue that two words do not necessarily constitute reference or relationship. It could be coincidence. But given the entirety of Will’s stanzas above, I believe that Yeats’s rough beast, which inspired Baker’s rough beast, is indeed Will’s rough beast. What do you think?

See that guy over my right shoulder, my cellar office-mate? Well he was nice enough to take a break from his screen and listen to my question. He read the relevant Lucrece lines and The Second Coming. His conclusion? Yeats used Will's beast; no doubt about it. I agree.

These griefs and losses have so bated me,

That I shall hardly spare a pound of flesh

To-morrow to my bloody creditor.--

-Antonio

The Merchant Of Venice                                Act III scene iii, line 33

Today’s line has in it a mention of the famous ‘pound of flesh’. Of course, this is Shylock’s payment for Antonio having forfeited on the loan. It’s such a well-known term that it can be used today to refer to anything that is considered extreme in payment. I’m trying to think of an example, but I’m coming up blank. Maybe you can think of one?

By the way, in this context ‘bated’ means diminished and ‘spare’ to be stingy about. Antonio is saying that he’s so overcome at this point that he won’t care about giving up the pound of flesh. He says that now. Wait until tomorrow when Shylock shows up with the knife.

 Do you suppose Shylock's knife looked anything like this?

To thee I do commend my watchful soul,

Ere I let fall the windows of mine eyes:

Sleeping and waking, O, defend me still [sleeps].

-Earl of Richmond

King Richard The Third                    ct V, scene iii, line 116

Richmond is saying a little bit of a bedtime prayer here, and a prayer for success in the battle that’s going to take place tomorrow.

This is an interesting scene because within this one scene we keep flitting back and forth between two tents. One tent has King Richard and his people, and the other tent has the Earl of Richmond (who’s going to become Henry VII) and his people. These are the two leaders of the opposing forces in the Battle of Bosworth Fields that's going to be taking place in the morning. 

Right after Richmond falls asleep ghosts begin to appear. Each ghost comes and to Richard’s tent first, and talks to him. Then comes over to Richmond’s tent and talks to him. I can’t help but wonder how this play was staged in 1590. I suppose they had two tents back to back and somehow represented that they were far apart from each other. 

I’ve never seen this play, but I’ve heard it referred to as the play that brought Shakespeare into the limelight. It was written fairly early in his career and apparently it was his first big hit. After this Will was a star. What do you think of that?

Sam considers himself a bit of a thespian, so I let him take a crack at today's Totally Random line. I have to admit that he mumbled a bit with the lines, so it was a little hard to understand him. But when he got to the 'sleeps' stage direction he absolutely nailed it.