Today’s Totally Random
Lines
Marry,
then, sweet wag, when thou art king, let not us that are squires of the night’s
body be call’d thieves of the day’s beauty: let us be Diana’s foresters,
gentlemen of the shade, minions of the moon; and let men say we be men of good
government, being govern’d, as by the sea is, by our noble and chaste mistress
the moon, under whose countenance we steal.
Sir John Falstaff
King Henry the Fourth Part I Act I, Scene ii, Line 29
And so, for two
days in a row, in Totally Random fashion, we have a line (or lines) from Sir John
Falstaff. This is Act I, Scene ii of the play and the very first appearance of
Sir John in Shakespeare’s works. In fact, Falstaff begins the scene with Prince
Harry, whom he calls Hal.
Now, Hal, what time of day is it, lad?
They go back and forth a bit before Falstaff gives us today’s lines which paint a pretty good picture of what he’s about, or at least part of what he’s about. I’m tempted to type out a bigger section of this scene. It’s quite good, and for the most part easily accessible (understandable). Here’s a link to the scene on-line. This link has a bunch of notes at the bottom to help you with words and references that might be difficult. It’s just over two hundred lines, and it will give you a very good flavor of the character of Sir John Falstaff.
Shakespeare's King
Henry IV 1.2 - Prince Hal in London with Falstaff (shakespeare-online.com)
So there you go;
a little homework for you today. Enjoy!
No time for a pic
today. Get out your reading glasses, and get going!
3 comments:
A read it, but it's all greek to me. I like the explanations/notes at the bottom though.
Well, A for effort. I suppose we'll have to read/listen to it together some time.
Yes, I think an in person translator would help.
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