Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

I had as lief have heard the night-raven, come what plague could have come after it.

Benedick

Much Ado About Nothing     Act II, Scene iii, Line 131

Had as lief means just as soon as, and a night-raven is an ill omen. He’s saying he’d just as soon as listen to a raven sing as listen to Balthazar. The latter just sang a little ditty for everyone.

I wonder if had as lief is an idiom still used in England. They do have a lot of different ways of saying things and spelling things and doing things over there. Those crazy Brits.

I'm always a little nervous when this guy gets behind the wheel.

No Mojo, let's NOT pretend we're in England. I'd as lief we just stay on the right side of the road, okay?

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

Go hang yourself, you naughty, mocking uncle!

 

Cressida

Troilus and Cressida              Act IV, Scene ii, Line 25

I wouldn’t think we need a lot of explanation regarding what Cressida is saying. I suppose a little context might be nice. Well, it’s a short scene, so perhaps I’ll listen to it.

Okay, I read the short summary and listened to the scene. This is the scene where Cressida finds out that they’ve traded her to the Trojans as part of a deal to end the war. But that’s not what she’s reacting to here. The beginning of this scene is her waking up with Troilus. Her uncle Pandarus has entered and is teasing her for having had Troilus in her bed all night. 

Her reaction to Pandarus later in the scene when he tells her she’s been traded to the Trojans is much different. First she says she won’t go. Then, when Pandarus says she must, she replies

I will not, uncle: I have forgot my father;

I know no touch of consanguinity;

No kin, no love, no blood, no soul so near me

As the sweet Troilus.—O you gods divine,

Make Cressid’s name the very crown of falsehood,

If ever she leave Troilus! Time, force, and death,

Do to this body what extremes you can;

But the strong base and building of my love

Is as the very centre of the earth,

Drawing all things to it.—I’ll go in and weep,--

 

She has a little more to say, but I think you get the gist of it.

I think I lost him on consanguinity.

Heck, I think I lost myself on consanguinity.

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

But yet methinks it is very sultry and hot for my complexion.

 

Hamlet

Hamlet                    Act V, Scene ii, Line 97

What an interesting line. Hamlet is concerned that the heat will ruin his complexion? It seems a rather odd comment, doesn’t it?

It’s actually part of a back and forth between Hamlet and a nearly anonymous henchman named Osric. I guess you’d call it a bit of comic relief; the calmedy (I just made that word up) before the storm of deaths that comes next and makes up the finale of the play.

Fittingly, Robin Williams played Osric in Branagh’s 1996 production of this play. And a fine Osric he was! Whereas Jack Lemon tried, and failed, to pull off the part of a nearly anonymous soldier at the beginning of this production, Williams does America proud near the end of this mostly Brit dominated production with his Osric portrayal. In fact, there's no actor that I can think of, British or American, who could have done better. 

I could've pulled that off. I could've played Osric. Yeah, definitely. 

 Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:

Sonnet 18                Third Quatrain

Well how about that. I’ll bet you have no idea what Sonnet 18 is. Let me give you the first few lines of it.

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate;
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimm’d;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:

So long as men can breathe, or eyes to see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.


Okay, I couldn’t help myself and I gave you all fourteen lines of it. Surely you’ve heard this one before. It’s probably the most famous of Will’s 154 sonnets.

I can’t help but wonder where Will came up with the idea of saying that words would give eternal life to someone, anyone. It’s an interesting concept. I wonder if it’s his, or one that he picked up somewhere. I would guess the latter, but who knows.

Yes, Will is definitely number one on my list of people, living or dead, that I’d like to have dinner with. Though I’m not sure I’d remember to ask him that question. I guess I’d better start making a list of questions so that I don’t forget.

You're going to start making a list of questions to ask William Shakespeare when you have dinner with him? 

Shall I compare thee to a nut job?

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

Do, then, dear heart; for heaven shall hear our prayers

Or with our sighs we’ll breathe the welkin dim,

And stain the sun with fog, as sometime clouds

When they do hug him in their melting bosoms.

 

Titus

Titus Andronicus           Act III, Scene i, Line 112

Absolutely beautiful lines. The welkin is the sky, or the heavens. I think that other than that one word you should need no help understanding what Titus is saying. Remember, he’s just had his hand cut off, and with today’s line he’s talking to his daughter who’s been raped and had her tongue cut out. The two of them have good reason to be sighing.

Shakespeare seems to have a fondness for writing about the father-daughter relationship. He had two girls of his own. It’s at the heart of King Lear and The Tempest, and he dwells on it a bit here. I was tempted to compare these lines to Lear’s We two alone will sing like birds in a cage speech that he speaks to Cordelia, but I took a look, and those lines are from a very different situation. Even though it is father and daughter suffering together, the birds in a cage line is the only part of it that has any relevance to Titus’s line.

So let’s just end by taking another look at today’s line. No, I’m not going to write it out again. I mean that you should go back up to the top and read today’s line one more time.

Go ahead.

A cage, birds in cage! That's brilliant! Why didn't I think of that? 

I can catch 'em and put 'em in a cage!

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

-Here’s flowers for you;

Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram;

The marigold, that goes to bed wi’the sun,

And with him rises weeping: these are flowers

Of middle summer, and , I think, they are given

To men of middle age.

 

Perdita

The Winter’s Tale          Act IV, Scene iii, Line 103

Today’s line is all about flowers and herbs, isn’t it?

Gardener Mojo tending to his basil.

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

I had forgot, --three months, you told me so.

Well, then, your bond; and let me see,--but hear you;

Methought you said you neither lend nor borrow upon advantage

 

Shylock

The Merchant of Venice                Act I, Scene iii, Line 68

Today we have the scene where Bassanio has gone to Shylock seeking a loan with Antonio’s credit. And now Antonio has shown up, and he and Shylock are negotiating the terms of the loan (the bond). Shylock is pointing out that Antonio just said that he makes it a habit to neither lend nor borrow upon advantage (with interest), and this leads to further talk.

They get into a fairly complicated discussion about the interest, and if interest will be charged or not. It’s an important part of the play, because it lends insight into both Antonio’s and Shylock’s true motives. Unfortunately though, it would take years and cost millions of lives to do a proper analysis of the next hundred or so lines, and I’m not willing to pay that price this morning. Perhaps another time.

If you’re truly interested, here’s a link. The whole scene’s only about 175 lines, so it won’t kill you to read it. Let me know what you think.

Shakespeare's Comedy The Merchant of Venice - Shylock's Pound of Flesh from Antonio (shakespeare-online.com)

 

Millions of lives?!?

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

Love’s counselor should fill the bores of hearing,

To the smothering of the sense -

 

Imogen

Cymbeline              Act III, Scene ii, Line 58

This short bit is part of a really long sentence, but it sort of stands on its own, so we’ll take it that way. It’s a pretty understandable line, isn’t it? Okay then, what’s it mean?

When loves counselor is talking, you shouldn’t be able to hear anything else? But who or what is love’s counselor? Well, Imogen is talking to Pisanio and asking for his input. So, I guess Pisanio is love’s counselor, at least in this case.

Irrespective of what she’s trying to say, it’s some pretty nice phraseology. Fill the bores of hearing, to the smothering of the sense. 

Now that I think about it, you could use this anytime you want to tell someone to listen to you. For example,

"Marty, Marty…I’m gonna take it slow and easy, and I’m going to make this just as simple as I can. If you’re smart, you’ll let my words fill the bores of your hearing to the smothering of the sense!"

The first part of that example is something the plant controller used to say to one of his minions on an audit job I did many years ago. The controller was a caustic old guy, but adding the bores of hearing part would have really added a little je ne sais quois to what is otherwise a really demeaning little rant. 

See - a little Shakespeare can make just about anything better.

Who's Marty?

 Today’s Totally Random Lines

Pale trembling coward, there I throw my gage,

Disclaiming here the kindred of the king;

And lay aside my high blood's royalty,

Which fear, not reverence, makes thee to except.

 

Henry Bolingbroke

King Richard the Second               Act I, Scene i, Line 12

Okay - first scene of the play: The speaker is Henry Bolingbroke (later to become Henry IV - he’s first cousin to Richard II). The guy he’s talking to is Thomas Mowbray, the Duke of Norfolk (I think he’s got some royal blood too, but nothing nearly as close to the king as Henry). They’ve come before King Richard so that he can settle a dispute between themselves, and they end up challenging each other to a duel. A gage is an old-fashioned word for glove, and throwing down your glove was a way of challenging and/or accepting a duel.

So Henry, here, has some words for Thomas as he challenges him to a duel, in the process telling Mowbray not to let Henry’s royal blood stand in the way of accepting.

And there’s your context. Was it worth reading that paragraph to know what’s happening in Today's Line?

I know what this guy's answer to that question would be. 

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

Not know my voice! O time’s extremity,

Hast thou so crack’d and splitted my poor tongue

In seven short years, that here my only son,

Knows not my feeble key of untuned cares?

 

Aegeon

The Comedy of Errors                   Act V, Scene i, Line 308

There is only one scene in Act Five of this play, so we’re at the end of it where all the confusion and mistaken identity stuff gets resolved. This line is pretty easy but for the last part. Here’s GB Harrison’s take on the fourth line above:

Knows not my voice made feeble by my sorrows.

Better? So if you read the first three lines and use that for the fourth it should make sense. At least I hope so.

Aegeon is speaking to Antipholus and Dromio of Ephesus who are claiming not to know him. Aegeon, of course, thinks they’re the guys from Syracuse whom he raised from infants up until seven years ago when they went off in search of their brothers. These guys from Ephesus, that Aegeon is talking to, last saw him when they were infants and getting separated in the shipwreck. So of course they don’t recognize him. Don’t worry though; this is all going to be resolved in the next hundred or so lines.

One thing about the comedies is that they do usually have a pretty happy ending, albeit contrived and often unbelievable; not just a bunch of dead bodies like the tragedies.  

Dead bodies? What dead bodies?

Ugghh. 

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

            My sons, I must,

From mine own part, unfold a dangerous speech,

Though, haply, well for you.

 

Belarius

Cymbeline                      Act V, Scene v, Line 313

Haply, though it sounds a bit like a shortened version of happily, means perhaps. Haply: Perhaps. No further help should be needed to understand what’s being said in today’s line.
Context? Well, that’s another story; haply a long one. We’ll try to keep it as short as possible.

As you can see, we’re in Act V, Scene v, so this is the end of the play; the last scene. Will used a lot of different number of scenes in the acts of his play, but all his plays have exactly five acts. In this particular play act five has five scenes, making this the last scene of the play. There are only about 170 lines left in the play after Today’s Totally Random Line.

So, what’s going on? Do you really want to know? Well I guess I’m going to tell you whether you do or not.

I forget why, but for some reason Belarius ended up in a cave, raising the king’s two sons as his own. Now, after many years, he’s about to reveal to the king who he and the boys (now young men) really are, and he’s not sure how that’s going to go over.

That was pretty short, eh? Haply it leaves you with a few questions, but that’s okay too.

Haply, Schmaply.

I could be chasing those birds out there, but no, I get stuck reading Shakespeare with this nut.

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

Nay, he reserved a blanket, else we had been all shamed.

 

Fool

King Lear               Act III, Scene iv, Line 64

We’ve got a scene with Lear, who’s going mad, Edgar, who’s pretending to be mad, Kent, who’s fully sane and acting so, and Fool, who’s the sanest one there, though playing the role of the fool.
They’ve just come across Edgar who’s pretending to be poor Tom the beggar/madman. 

Lear assumes that since he, Lear, is going mad because he has been mistreated by his daughters that it must be poor Tom’s daughters that drove him mad. He asks Tom if he gave everything to his daughters like he, Lear, did. Fool answers that question with today’s line, which I think is meaning that Tom gave everything but a blanket which he is using to cover his nakedness with.

This scene is a really good commentary on the world, then, now, or whenever. Who’s really mad, and who really knows what they’re talking about? Sometimes that is really, really, hard to figure out, isn’t it.

And sometimes I guess it just doesn't matter. Right, Mojo?

Mojo knows.

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

In sooth, good friend, your father might have kept

This calf, bred from his cow, from all the world;

In sooth, he might: then, if he were my brother’s,

My brother might not claim him; nor your father,

Being none of his, refuse him: this concludes,--

My mother’s son did get your father’s heir;

Your father’s heir must have your father’s land.

 

King John

King John               Act I, Scene i, Line 123

Oh boy! So here’s what we have. Two brothers have come before the king to have him arbitrate a dispute between them. The younger brother, Robert, claims that the older one, known throughout this play as Bastard, is not only a bastard, but the son of King John’s deceased brother King Richard. Further, he claims that his father knew this and left all his estate to him, the younger brother.

Today’s lines is King John’s ruling. He’s talking to Robert and saying that it’s possible that the father knew that Bastard was a bastard, but kept it a secret. Therefore, since King Richard wasn’t going to claim Bastard as his own son, the father wasn’t about to disown Bastard. Conclusion: Though King Richard may have begotten the father’s heir, Bastard is still that heir and therefore must inherit the father’s estate.

In the end though, even though the ruling went against the younger son Robert, everyone one turns out happy. Why? Because King John, realizing that Bastard probably is the son of his brother Richard, offers Bastard a knighthood if he will disown his father’s estate. Bastard is thrilled to get the knighthood and younger brother Robert gets what he came for. Like I said, everybody’s happy.

Got it?

I got it up to the part where you said, "So here's what we have".

 

 

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

All is well yet.--

 

Posthumus Leontanus

Cymbeline              Act II, Scene iv, Line 39

I guess that the word yet means that Posthumus is waiting for something to happen. What could it be?

All is well yet for the bug that's between the sunshade and the window. However, all will not be well for the sunshade if our hero keeps this up. 

I got up and raised the shade after taking these pics.

I'm not sure if all is still well for that bug.

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

More direful hap betide that hated wretch,

That makes us wretched by the death of thee,

Than I can wish to adders, spiders, toads,

Or any creeping venom’d thing that lives!

 

Lady Anne

King Richard the Third                 Act I, Scene ii, Line 20

Here we have Lady Anne, the daughter-in-law of Henry VI, mourning over the former’s dead body. Henry, and Henry’s son Edward, who was Lady Anne’s husband, were both killed by Richard, and that’s the hated wretch she’s referring to.

Let me give you Pete’s version of the first two lines.

I hope the most terrible fortunes befall the hated wretch that killed thee, Henry;
More terrible than I could wish on adders…

Anne is just one more in the long line of Richard haters. The funny thing is that she ends up marrying Richard before things are done. Yup; believe it or not.

Wait, what? She marries the guy that killed her husband and her father-in-law?

That’s right Gilligan. What do you think about that?

 

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

Stay, father! For that noble hand of thine,

That hath thrown down so many enemies,

Shall not be sent: my hand will serve the turn:

 

Lucius

Titus Andronicus   Act III, Scene i, Line 110

Lucius is trying to give his father a hand here. Sorry, I couldn’t resist that one.

Okay, so Aaron the Moor has come in and told the folks at Titus’s house that Titus’s other two sons are about to be executed for a crime they didn’t commit. But, says Aaron, the emperor has decided to spare them if Titus will send his severed hand in their stead. This, of course, is a complete lie, but they all fall for it.

In Today’s Line, Titus’s son Lucius is trying to convince his father to let him, Lucius, be the one to lose a hand. Ultimately, it will be Titus who loses a hand, and his other two sons lose their heads anyway.

Yes, this is Titus Andronicus. Quite the uplifting piece, isn’t it?

He's going to cut off his hand, and then his two sons' heads get cut off??

This is SOME Bullsh-

MOJO, stop!

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

The crown o’the earth doth melt.—My lord!

O, wither’d is the garland of the war,

The soldiers’ pole is faln: young boys and girls

Are level now with men; the odds is gone,

And there is nothing left remarkable

Beneath the visiting moon.

 

Cleopatra

Antony and Cleopatra    Act IV, Scene iv, Line 67

These are the first words out of the mouth of Cleopatra after Antony dies, admittedly a little hard to understand. Let’s take a shot at a Pete’s version this morning. I’ll enlist the help of G.B. Harrison’s footnotes. 

The crown of the earth melts.

Withered are the glories of war.

The guiding star has fallen.

Children are on the same level as grown men,

and there is nothing left remarkable beneath the visiting moon.

That's a little better, eh? I really like that last part, there is nothing left remarkable beneath the visiting moon. That really drives home the desperate tone of the whole thing, doesn't it?

Mr. Ham-it-Up decided that he wasn't interested in Cleopatra's words this morning, he just wanted to play the part of Antony. 

Yes Mojo, that's a very creditable dead Antony. Bravo. 

 

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

One score ‘twixt sun and sun,

Madam’s, enough for you , and too much too.

Pisanio

Cymbeline              Act III, Scene ii, Line 70

Today’s Lines are the answer to Imogen’s question

How many score of miles may we ride

Twixt hour and hour?

So Imogen wants to know how many miles they can go per hour, but Pisanio answers how many miles they can go per day. One score; that’s twenty miles. Remember? Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth… Eighty-seven years between 1776 and the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863. Simple math. A score is twenty. And how far away is Milford-Haven? That’s where Imogen wants to go because she believes her husband is there. I don’t think we know. And in fact, I don’t think her husband is actually there. As usual, a bit confusing.

So rather than spend any more time on this line, let’s take a look at another truly brilliant piece of writing. Yes, there are other brilliant writers out there other than Will.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But in a larger sense, we can not dedicate - we can not consecrate - we can not hallow - this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.   

There: if I can type the whole thing (took about ten minutes), you can read it (should take two or three minutes). Perhaps I should say a few words about it.

As noted within this speech, it was read at the dedication of a cemetery at Gettysburg for the soldiers who died in that battle. Lincoln and another gentlemen, Edward Everett – a noted orater, spoke at that ceremony. The latter spoke at length, great length: about two hours worth. Lincoln got up afterwards and gave this ten sentence speech which lasted only a few minutes. As I said, Lincoln’s short speech is a masterpiece.

This speech was given on November 19, 1863, but the battle of Gettysburg began 161 years ago today, and lasted three long days. So it is altogether fitting that we take a look at the speech today.  

One final note: Abraham Lincoln was known to be a learned man and one of the things he was quite learned about was the works of William Shakespeare. What do you think about that?

Wait a sec, Lincoln was a Shakespearean? Like you?

Well, not exactly like me, Mojo; but yes, Lincoln was a Shakespearean.

And please don't talk with food in your mouth.