Thou dost lie in’t, to be in’t and say it is thine. ‘Tis for the dead, not for the quick. Therefore thou liest.

 

-Hamlet

Hamlet               Act V, Scene i, Line 123

 

So it’s the graveyard scene in Hamlet. First the two gravediggers are going at it, trading puns and barbs, and then one of the gravediggers leaves and Hamlet starts sparring with the one that’s still there. Hamlet has asked whose grave the fellow is digging, he replies that it’s his own, and now they’re going back and forth about lying in or on the grave. They playing with the meaning of ‘lying’ going to and fro between lying- telling an untruth, and lying- laying down.

In any event, the grave is being dug for Ophelia, but Hamlet doesn’t realize that yet. In just a few moments, still ignorant to the death of Ophelia, Hamlet’s going to go into his ‘Alas, poor Yorick’ speech. If the first part of the scene is centered on puns and bad jokes, the Yorick speech changes the pace to talk about life and things lost. Then shortly the king and others come in with the body of Ophelia to bury her, and Hamlet and Laertes almost come to blows, jumping in the grave together. Yeah, it really is a great scene and it’s got everything in it. I guess if I was going to pick just one scene to recommend to someone to get a taste of Shakespeare, this might be it.

This here is Gunther Gebel-Williams. I saw him in the New Haven Coliseum in the early 80's. If I had to pick one circus act, or circus person, to give you a taste of what the circus was about, this is the guy.

 

It is a peerless kinsman.

 

-Duncan

Macbeth             Act I, Scene iv, Line 58

 

Here’s a hot one. Duncan the king is talking about Macbeth, and he calls him a peerless kinsman. Peerless. Indeed? Well, we all know that this peerless kinsman is going to murder Duncan a few scenes down the road. Again, peerless indeed.

So, what do we call this? Foreshadowing? Nah. Irony? I don’t think so. There’s a word for it, but I’m not sure what it is. Let me know if you think of it.

Okay, talk about irrelevant. Here's a pic of the entrance to Tomorrow Land in the Magic Kingdom at Disney World. It's got nothing whatsoever to do with todays post, but I couldn't think of anything, and I like this picture. Also, speaking of something that's got nothing to do with today's post, here's a listing of top 25 Shakespeare blogs that we're now on. Woot, woot. 

 My liege, his railing is intolerable:

If those that care to keep your royal person

From treason’s secret knife and traitors’ rage

Be thus upbraided, chid, and rated at,

And the offender granted scope of speech,

‘Twill make them cool in zeal unto your Grace.

 

-Cardinal Beaufort

King Henry the Sixth Part II             Act III, Scene i, Line 174

 

Okay, today’s actual line was From treason’s secret knife and traitors’ rage, but that’s part of a pretty long sentence so I gave you the whole thing. No need to thank me.

I suppose that treason being what it is, its knife would be secret, wouldn’t it. That’s a rhetorical question; no need to answer. But it’s a pretty good segue into a rant. Here we go.

I’ve recently topped two hundred and forty pounds on the scale. Now I’m over six feet tall, so I can carry a few extra pounds reasonably well; but not two hundred and forty of them. So here’s the thing: I know that I’ve gained over twenty of these pounds in the last five years, whereas I had been at a pretty steady weight before that. So I had to ask myself, ‘self, what’s changed in the past five years.’ Well it’s obvious that I’m eating more and moving less. but why? In other words, are there changes in my world which would contribute to eating more and moving less? Now here’s the segue part so don’t miss it: if I consider this weight gain a sort of treason against my better health, are there any secret knives that I can identify? So I did my best to figure out what’s in, or out, of my life in the past five years that’s different from previously. I thought of many things, some of which might be secret knives and some not. Now keep in mind, I was approaching this from the angle of identifying changes first, and then determining if those changes were relevant to weight gain. Well it occurred to me that I started this blog just about five years ago. Could the blog possibly be a secret knife? Could it? It’s certainly an interesting thought, but one that at first blush does not seem to be a knife. But if it were, and I want to lose this weight, shouldn't I be eliminating that knife by shutting down the blog? 

And here is the traitorous belly. Can this blog possibly be a secret knife of this treasonous offender? And if so, needs this blog be discontinued? To be or not to be, that is the question.

 

Sir, Octavius is already come to Rome.

 

-Servant

Julius Caesar            Act III, Scene ii, Line 267

And the goose of Brutus, Cassius, and company is officially cooked. They assassinated Caesar to keep him from becoming an emperor, and now Octavius has shown up. Octavius is Caesars grand-nephew and heir apparent, and he’s going to join with Marc Antony and Lepidus to form the second triumvirate and effectively end the Roman Republic and start the Roman Empire. And an emperor was exactly what the boys were trying to avoid by killing Caesar. It just goes to show you that the best laid plans of mice and men go oft awry. 

Talk about best laid plans going awry; here's old Spike, and the poor guy is having a devil of a time with his dinner, isn't he? And he's not all that much bigger than a mouse either. I guess you could say that Brutus and Cassius really stepped in their dinner when they decided to murder Caesar.

 

 

The ditty does remember my drown’d father:-

This is no mortal business, nor no sound

That the earth owes:- I hear it now above me.

-Ferdinand

The Tempest               Act I, Scene i, Line 408

 

We've struck upon The Tempest today. These lines are where we first meet Ferdinand. Ariel is leading him onstage with music and a song, a ditty. Prospero and Miranda are watching Ferdinand from the side and will begin interacting with him momentarily. 

I kind of like that word 'ditty'. You still hear that being used now and then. Well, anyway, I use it.

Of course, when we end up in The Tempest we're bound to have a pic from our book. This is the same scene a few moments later when Ferdinand and Miranda are interacting. Ariel is there in the upper left hand corner of the pic, and Prospero in the upper right and lower left. Perhaps eventually we will default to our book illustrations for pics for The Merchant of Venice lines. But not yet. 

 

Hence from Verona art thou banished:

Be patient, for the world is broad and wide.

-Friar Laurence

Rome And Juliet                Act III, Scene iii, Line 15

 

So here we have that troublemaker Friar Laurence again. He’s a piece of work. He’s telling Romeo that he’s been banished from Verona for killing Tybalt, but then counseling him that there are other places, lots of other places, besides Verona. Of course, Romeo doesn’t see it this way. I think he just needs to get over it and realize how lucky he is to just get banished as opposed to imprisoned or executed. But that’s just me.

On a lighter note, here’s that ‘t’ versus ‘ed’ thing again. Will’s using banished as opposed to banish’t. And it appears that he’s using it for iambic pentameter’s sake. He needs the three syllable ban-ish-ed to complete the line. Otherwise it would be ban-isht and the line would only have nine syllables. Very clever. I don’t think Friar Laurence could have worked that out. Do you?

This here is a Lawrence that I knew when I was a kid. I called him Larry, but I believe he goes by Lawrence now. He was a piece of work too, but in a different way than Laurence was. He was my best friend back in the late 60's early 70's. Now he lives in Florida, and I haven't seen him in over thirty years. Time flies.