Tuesday, July 19, 2022

 


--bear your body more seeming, Audrey:--


 -Touchstone

 As You Like It                 Act V Scene iv, Line 70

 

In today’s line we have a situation where Touchstone is talking to Duke Senior and Jaques, and he interrupts himself very briefly to tell Audrey to straighten up, then immediately goes back to his main conversation. Let me show you what the line, in total, looks like (and I’m not quite sure what the main conversation is all about: something about a seventh cause).

 Jaques:           But for the seventh cause: how did you find the quarrel on the seventh cause?

Touchstone:   Upon a lie seven times removed:-- bear your body more seeming, Audrey:--as thus, sir. I did dislike the cut of a certain courtier’s beard. He sent me word, if I said his beard was not cut well…

 And Touchstone goes on and on about the beard and the courtier and cutting the beard and so on, and so on. But the point is that today’s line is a sort of random six words in the middle of a fifteen line rant about something that has nothing to do with Audrey or how Audrey is composing herself. It’s a funny little convention that we probably all have experienced. Perhaps the best example would be when you’re talking to your friend about dinner last night whilst at the same time taking care of a small child.

Well we had just been seated when the waiter showed up to take our order:-- Johnny, get your finger out of your nose!-- and I said to him, well we just got here and I haven’t even seen the menu yet…..

Get the picture?


So, you can put the front windshield down on this vehicle:--yeah, that's a lion, he won't bother you:-- and just as easily put it back up. It's handy sometime to drive with it down as I think you'll see.
Get the picture?

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