If
he could right himself with quarreling,
Some
of us would lie low.
-Antonio
Much Ado About Nothing Act
V scene i, line 51
This one’s a little tough; short but tough. I believe ‘lie low’
can be understood as ‘be killed’. But what about ‘right himself with quarreling’.
I don’t think there’s any hidden meaning in those words, but I’m guessing it would
help to have a little bit of context. Which I don’t have.
Okay, I did a little reading, and I think I’ve got it.
Ready? Pay attention now; context is everything on this one: Leonato and
Antonio, who are brothers, are talking about Leonato’s grief over the death of
his daughter, Hero (yes, funny name for a girl, and spoiler alert, she’s not
really dead). Antonio advises Leonato to take some of his grief out on the people
responsible for her death, of whom Claudio and Don Pedro are two. Just then Claudio
and Don Pedro show up and Leonato tries to talk to them but they say they’re
too busy to talk right now. Leonato gets testy, and Don Pedro says ‘don’t
quarrel old man’, to which Leonato’s brother Antonio replies with today’s Totally
Random line. There! It makes perfect sense. ‘If my brother, Leonato, could make
himself feel better by quarreling, then someone here (like you Don Pedro, and
your buddy Claudio) might just end up dead.’ That’s my re-write of today’s
line. Got it? Perfect sense. Context!
Do you know who lies low here? That's right, this is on the grounds of the Hermitage outside Nashville, Tennessee and it's Andrew Jackson. If you zoom in on that black plaque you can see his name. In this case though, 'lying low' refers to a resting place, not getting killed. But I guess the two meanings are related.
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