Mojo, The Bard, & Me

 Today’s Totally Random Line(s)

 

Mad world! Mad kings! Mad composition!

John, to stop Arthur’s title in the whole,

Hath willingly departed with a part;

And France - whose armour conscience buckled on, 

Whom zeal and charity brought to the field

As God’s own soldier, - rounded in the ear 

With that same purpose-changer, that sly devil, 

That broker, that still breaks the pate of faith,

That daily break-vow, he that wins of all,

Of kings, of beggars, old men, young men, maids,

Who having no external thing to lose

But the word “maid”, cheats the poor maid of that,

That smooth-fac’d gentleman, tickling commodity,

Commodity, the bias of the world -

 

-Bastard

King John                       Act II, Scene i, Line 567

 

And then he goes on (and on) about Commodity. Let me give you a few things up front:

A composition in this case (Mad Composition!) is an agreement, truce or settlement.

Rounded (rounded in the ear) is whispered.

And finally, That broker, that daily break-vow, that smooth-fac’d gentleman are all references to commodity, and commodity in this reference pretty much means self-interest.

Here’s my Shakespeare App’s summary of what Bastard is talking about here -

The Bastard expostulates on how quickly self-interest makes people forget their oaths, and he decides that he might as well do the same himself.

There, that’s your head start.

 So, Today’s Totally Random Lines are fourteen lines of a thirty-eight line scene-ending soliloquy by Bastard (You gotta love that the guy’s name throughout the play is simply Bastard). The random line picked is in the middle of the fourteen lines, and I couldn’t find any kind of a complete thought without keeping these lines intact. Even with this, the thought is not completely done. Bastard goes on about how commodity, or self-interest runs the world and he’s going to let it run him.

King John is that odd, sort of out of place, history play about the twelfth century king who was halfway between William the Conqueror and Edward III, the progenitor of the War of the Roses. All the other history plays are contiguous, from Richard II to Richard III (oh sure, there’s Henry VIII, but that’s almost contemporary), but this one is a loner. And it’s a little bit odd. Will supposedly wrote it in the middle of his history play writing period. It’s almost as if he needed a break from the War of the Roses saga that he was writing with the other eight history plays.  

Anyway, what to say about this line, this soliloquy, this scene, this play, this mad world? I'm not sure I've anything of substance to add. I think perhaps I’ve said enough. 

Okay, two justifications for this pic: Today's lines begin and end 'with world' - from Mad world to bias of the world. This pic is from near the end of the world, Ushuaia, Argentina and it's got a prison convict escaping down the side of the building, which is a little bit crazy, or mad. And the second justification - Argentina. Since they won the world cup two days ago, and since this one of the very few pics I have taken in/of Argentina...well, there you go.