Now he will be swinged for reading my letter,- an unmannerly slave, that will thrust himself into secrets! I’ll after, to rejoice in the boy’s correction.  

-Launce

The Two Gentlemen of Verona             Act III, Scene i, Line 380

 

One definition should help here. Swinged means beaten, thrashed, or flogged. Now it should make pretty good sense. Well, that is to say, the lines will make sense. Exactly who ‘he’ is and what letter he read, that’s a separate issue. Since these are the last lines of a fairly long scene which I have not read, and since I have very little familiarity with this play on the whole, I don’t know the answers to those questions. I only know that ‘he’, whoever he is, is a boy without manners who is facing a beating for reading Launce’s letter, and that Launce is going to be happy to see this beating take place.

I suppose we’d have to dig into at least this scene, if not the whole play, in order to get a full understanding of today’s lines. I don’t really have time for that this morning. Perhaps you do?  

I don't have time to go digging for a pic today either. Perhaps when I retire in a few years... 

 

Now, in the names of all the gods at once,

Upon what meat does this our Caesar feed,

That he is grown so great? Age, thou art ashamed!

Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods!

-Cassius

Julius Caesar     Act I, Scene ii, Line 150

 

Pretty straight forward, don’t you think? Comments?

 

O young and noble Cato, art thou down?

Why, now thou diest as bravely as Titinius;

And mayest be honour’d, being Cato’s son.

-Lucilius

Julius Caesar     Act V, Scene iv, Line 9

O young and noble Cato, art thou down? No, he's not down, and that's not Cato. That's my young associate. We sent him up there to hang the Christmas icicles, and now he's on his phone. 

Oy, get back to work!

 

It appears, by his small light of discretion, that he is in the wane; but yet, in courtesy, in all reason, we must stay the time.

-Theseus

A Midsummer Night’s Dream   Act V, Scene i, Line 245

This is the scene where a bunch of the characters are watching a play, within the play. They’ve just seen one of the players appear with a lantern, doing his best to portray the man in the moon. This is roundly criticized as a poor portrayal of the moon, but then Theseus (who is, after all, the Duke here) comes in with today’s totally random line. He’s telling the other audience members that it appears to be a waning moon, and that they need to lighten up and watch the play: stay the time. See it out. Shut up and watch the play.

That would seem to be sound advice. Advice I myself should follow more often. Stop complaining and questioning, Pete. In courtesy, in all reason, shut up and listen with an open mind. Stay the time.

    Well, I fell down the rabbit hole of looking for a pic for a while, and then I realized that I don't need a pic for every post. So here you go: a pic-less post. After all, no one's going to read this post based on my pics. I'd need a video of a chipmunk dressed in a football uniform dancing to a marachi band in order to get viewers for my blog. I don't have that. Sorry.

 

Mowbray, you overween to take it so;

This offer comes from mercy, not from fear:

-Westmoreland

King Henry the Fourth Part II   Act IV, Scene i, Line 149

 

Okay, I think I got it. It was confusing because in the line previous to today’s Totally Random line Mowbray has said

But he hath forced us to compel this offer;

And compel means be forced to, so it seems like the line says he’s forced us to be forced this offer. But I think it should be read that he’s forced us to be compelled to accept this offer. Yeah, that’s it. And by the way, overween means to presume too much.

So, Westmoreland has come to tell the rebel force that Prince John wants to listen to their grievances and grant them if they’re reasonable. Mowbray’s response is that they’re being forced to do this

And it proceeds from policy, not love.

To which Westmoreland replies with today’s line. There, does it make sense now?

Ahh, you overween to think that there's going to be a picture here, because there is not.

 

Her part, poor soul! Seeming as burdened

With lesser weight but not with lesser woe,

Was carried with more speed before the wind;

And in our sight they three were taken up

By fishermen of Corinth, as we thought.

-Aegeon

The Comedy of Errors           Act I, Scene i, Line 107

We’re in the middle of Aegeon’s tale at the beginning of the play which gives us the backstory to the play. He’s describing how his wife, with two of the four boys, drifted away after the boat split in two and they were picked up by fishermen of Corinth. He’ll go on to explain that he and the other two boys, in the other half of the boat, were picked up by sailors from Epiduarus. And that is the premise for how two of the boys and the mother were separated from the other two boys and their father.

It's a pretty hokey story, but also pretty important as it gives an important part of the premise for the rest of the play. Good ol’ backstory, eh?  

This is a pic from the bridge of the ship. That water is the Drake Passage which can be a pretty rough sea at times. We crossed it to Antarctica and then back again. It was pretty calm, as this pic shows, on the way out, but it got a bit rougher on the way back. Luckily, it didn't get rough enough to break the ship in half, like it did to Aegeon's, but it did get rough enough to give me a real good case of mal de mer, poor soul! I don't think I'll be doing the Drake Passage again anytime soon.

 

No, Master Brook; but the peaking cornuto her husband, Master Brook, dwelling in a continual ’larum of jealousy, comes me in the instant of our encounter, after we had embraced, kiss’d, protested, and, as it were, spoke the prologue of our comedy; and at his heels a rabble of his companions, thither provoked and instigated by his distemper, and, forsooth, to search his house for his wife’s love.

-Sir John Falstaff

The Merry Wives of Windsor        Act III, Scene v, Line 71

And what do you think of that? That's a bit of a long one, so assuming you’re willing to work your way through it, I’ll give you some context.

Falstaff is explaining to Master Brook (who is actually Master Ford in disguise) how he, Falstaff, was surprised by Master Brook whilst he, Falstaff, was in the process of seducing Master Brook’s wife. A peaking cornuto is a sneaking cuckold. Given that definition, and that bit of context, the passage should make some sense. I suggest you read it again armed with this information.

Now I went back and checked. This is the twenty-fourth time that John Falstaff has been the speaker of our Totally Random line. That’s quite a bit. Consider though, that he was in three plays: the two Henry IV’s and this one, The Merry Wives of Windsor. In fact, based on at least one source that I found, Falstaff has more total lines (again, over the course of three plays) than any other Shakespeare character. Yes, Hamlet has the most lines in one play, but he was only in one play, whilst Falstaff has more over the course of three plays.

To be sure, Falstaff is one of the favorites of many, many esteemed Shakespeareans, not the least of which was Harold Bloom. And here’s an interesting fact, I had two connections with Prof. Bloom. It seems his masseuse was my daughter’s good friend and roommate, and his dentist was my dentist of the past forty years (until he retired two months ago, darn it). Isn’t that interesting? Well, I thought it was.

And here is some of the handiwork of said dentist. I can't help but think that if Sir John Falstaff got a look at those gold crowns his first, and perhaps only, thought would be how to get them out of my mouth and into his pocket. 

 

Say, I would die.

-Cleopatra

Antony and Cleopatra                Act V, Scene ii, Line 70

Well, we know that Cleo can be quite the drama queen (and I mean that in the figurative sense because literally she is a queen in a drama), but we also know that in the end she actually does kill herself. We also know that this is the last scene of the play. So I’m going to say that she’s not just being a figurative drama queen here.

No pic today, just a nice short line and a reasonably short post; too much work that I have to get to right now.

 

But that her tender shame

Will not proclaim against her maiden loss,

How might she tongue me! Yet reason dares her no;

-Angelo

Measure For Measure                   Act IV, Scene iv, Line 26

Okay, I’ll give you some context today. Angelo was left in charge of the town whilst the Duke left for parts unknown. During that time Angelo has used his position to force Isabella to have sex with him. Now the Duke is returning, and Angelo is worrying that Isabella will rat on him. He concludes that she won’t, that reason dares her no. Is he right? I guess you’ll have to read the rest of the play to find out.

Well, what do you think, would we allow Angelo to sit on this bench? I rather think not. I think, at best, we might allow him to sit on the Group W bench. That's about it.

 

Not from  his mouth.

Had it th’ability of life to thank you:

He never gave commandment for their death. But since, so jump upon this bloody question,

You from the Polack wars, and you from England,

Are here arrived, give order that these bodies

High on a stage be placed to the view;

And let me speak to th’yet unknowing world

How these things came about: so shall you  hear

Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts;

Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters;

Of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause;

And, in this upshot, purposes mistook

Fain on the inventors’ heads: All this can I

Truly deliver.

-Horatio

Hamlet                            Act V, Scene ii, Line 372

Well there’s a long one for you, but I really didn’t have the heart to break it up. This is the end of the play. Claudius, Gertrude, Laertes, and Hamlet lay dead. Fortinbras has just entered, as have ambassadors from England. The latter report that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead, and they ask from whom they should be receiving their thanks for that act. Horatio kneels by the dead body of his friend Hamlet, and this is his reply to them, and his summation of the play, in a manner of speaking.

What do you think?

   Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts:

            Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters;

                 Of deaths put on by cunning, and forced cause;

Well, I don't suppose I could possibly give you a pic of this, so I won't try.

 

            Didst perceive it?--

-Leontes

The Winter’s Tale                          Act I, Scene ii, Line 215

And here’s where Leontes’s sanity train leaves the tracks, very early on in the play. What he’s asking Camillo, one of the lords of Sicilia, is whether or not he’s perceived what Leontes has perceived. What has Leontes perceived? He has perceived, much incorrectly, that his wife and Polixenes, the king of Bohemia, are getting way too friendly, and that there’s something more than friendship going on between the two. There is not. But that’s what Leontes is perceiving and he’s determined that others must perceive it as well. Others do not. But that won’t stop Leontes from acting disastrously on his jealousy, and the remainder of the action in the play rests on Leontes jealous reactions to what he believes he perceives.

I guess we could get into a really long philosophical discussion about perceptions. But we won’t. Even though I consider myself a bit of a philosopher (and my son-in-law who is himself a professor of philosophy has informed me that I am allowed to call myself a philosopher), I don’t feel qualified to lead such a discussion. So suffice it to say that perceptions can be tricky. Very, very tricky.

This is a piece of modern art of which I am quite fond. I believe there is much to see in it. One of the things I see is a hint of the interstellar. Didst perceive it?

 

Hail heaven!

-Guiderius

Cymbeline                                  Act III, Scene iii, Line 9

I’m not certain whether Guiderius is making a reference to the religious heaven, or a reference to the skies above, that is to say, nature. I guess, based on the context, it’s the latter, but it could also be one of Will’s double entendres.

Okay, looks like I’ve been misusing double entendre. According to MW online it means a word or expression capable of two interpretations with one usually risqué. I wasn’t aware of that second, risqué part. I guess I’ll have to revisit my use of that phrase? Or can I just go with the fact that the second meaning is usually risqué, but not always risqué? Yeah, let’s just do that.

The heavens.

 

Do we all holy rites:

Let there be sung Non nobis and Te Deum.

The dead with charity enclosed in clay,

We’ll then to Calais; and to England then;

Where ne’er from France arrived more happy men.                                           [Exeunt]

-Henry

King Henry the Fifth             Act IV, Scene viii, Line 123

Non nobis and Te Deum are hymns of thanksgiving and glory to God. This is the scene after the Battle of Agincourt and they’ve just listed off how great the French casualties were and how few the English were. This then is the end of the Act IV.

I suppose that Non nobis and Te Deum are not all that well known in today’s world. Though perhaps there’s an anglicized version of one of them that we might recognize? I don't really know.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow,

Praise him all creatures here below.

Praise him above ye heav’nly host,

Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

There, that’s a hymn of praise I remember from my youthful church-going days. I can remember singing it umpteen thousand times. As far as I know, it’s not Non nobis or Te Deum; but who knows?

Doxology: Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow (with lyrics) - Bing video

 Here you go. The link above is to a really nice video of the hymn. The first four lines are exactly as I remember them. There was a second verse that we sang in church, not the way it's being sung here. But it's a really nice, and peaceful video. Maybe save it and watch it next time you're feeling bad about something. 

 

 

I pray you, jest, sir, as you sit at dinner:

I from my mistress come to you in post;

If I return, I shall be post indeed,

For she will score your fault upon my pate.

Methinks your maw, like mine, should be your clock,

And strike you home without a messenger.

-Dromio of Ephesus

The Comedy of Errors           Act I, Scene II, Line 62

First things first. In case you hadn’t figured it out simply by context, maw is belly or throat; in this case more like belly. In modern parlance it’s mouth/throat, but not that far off from the sixteenth century meaning. I could get into a lengthy discussion of reading and understanding Shakespeare, but I think I’ll save that for another day. I believe I can hear that collective sigh of relief.

The part I really like about this passage is Dromio’s comment about one’s stomach being the meal clock. I know mine is, and everyone who knows me well knows that mine is. My daughters have told me that when they travel with me they make sure to carry a granola bar or something like that just in case I start to Hulk out on them. I guess my stomach clock doesn’t strike me home, it’s just rigged to an explosive device that’s ready to go off on the spot.

 

Here I am with the girls visiting San Francisco a few years ago (I'm the one taking the picture). So, which one has the granola bar? I'm guessing Jess. She could have a three course meal in the pockets of that jacket she's holding. 

 

 

 

Illo, ho, ho, my lord!

-Horatio

Hamlet                                    Act I, Scene v, Line 114

Illo, ho, ho is the falconer’s cry to recall the hawk. In this case, Horatio is the falconer and Hamlet is the hawk. What do you think of that?

Believe it or not, just as soon as I finished writing this short blog, I went upstairs and looked out the window and what did I see but a hawk perched atop the pine tree. I know, you can hardly see him, but he's there. This is on full pic-taking magnification on my iPhone. If you take a look at the next pic....

....this is the same pic without magnification. The two trees are the smaller ones in the middle of this picture. You can see that the hawk is pretty far away. I guess I could've opened the window and yelled Illo, ho, ho, but it just didn't seem like a very viable option. Anyway, the back yard looks good, doesn't it?