Mojo, The Bard, & Me

 

Today’s Totally Random Line(s)

 

 What must the king do now? Must he submit?

The king shall do it: must he be deposed?

The king shall be contented: must he lose

The name of king? O’ God’s name, let it go:

I’ll give my jewels for a set of beads,

My gorgeous palace for a hermitage,

My gay apparel for an almsman’s gown,

My figured goblets for a dish of wood,

My scepter for a palmer’s walking-staff,

My subjects for a pair of carved saints,

A little little grave, an obscure grave;--

 

-Richard

King Richard the Second       Act III, Scene iii, Line 146

 

Yeah, that’s a little bit long, but I could have gone further. He goes on to talk more about the grave, and then he gets into the tears; so I stopped here.

Context: Bolingbroke (soon to be Henry IV) has come to demand his land and inheritance back, along with the repeal of his banishment. He claims that he will be a faithful subject to King Richard. Richard knows full well that he does not have the power to resist Bolingbroke’s demands, and he also knows that once he gives into these demands he is signaling his weakness He knows that by giving in to these demands he is basically giving up the kingship, because irrespective of what Bolingbroke says, everyone knows that he intends to usurp Richard’s crown. Today’s lines are Richard’s reflection on this inevitable outcome.

Richard does a fair bit of reflection in this play. This speech strikes me as similar to the one near the end of the play, just before he dies in prison

        I have been studying how I may compare

        This prison where I live unto the world:

        And, for because the world is populous,

        And here is not a creature but myself,

        I cannot do it; -- yet I’ll hammer it out.

I really love yet I’ll hammer it out. I’ve covered that prison soliloquy twice before: here and here if you’re interested.

Anyway, they are both very similar speeches, very resigned to accepting what’s to come, very fatalistic. Perhaps I relate to these lines because I feel this type of resignation myself quite a bit. And yet, I’ll hammer it out.

In a very literal sense, this is what I've been hammering stuff out with for the past nearly fifty years. I'm not talking about a hammer, I'm talking about this specific hammer. Yes, this specific 16 oz, steel shaft, Stanely hammer. At least, that's what I think it is, but I looked really, really, closely at it just now and I can't find even a trace of manufacturer's markings on it. It's too worn. Anyway, I worked with a carpenter/housebuilder named Lou Forsell for a summer back in 1979. I started the summer with a wood handled hammer, but Lou told me to get a steel shaft because it would hold up to much more pounding and abuse than the wood handled one would. Well, I got this guy, and I've used it ever since. And I've used it A LOT. Come to think of it, I'm not sure I own anything today that I've owned as long as this guy, or gotten as much use out of. What an interesting thought. 

So, thanks for the good advice, Lou.