Today’s Totally Random Lines
Here is a letter from Queen Hecuba;
A token from her daughter, my fair love;
Both taxing me and gaging me to keep
An oath that I have sworn.
Achilles
Troilus And Cressida Act V, Scene i, Line 38
Well, I looked at the scene summary and apparently the oath that Achilles swore was to his girlfriend, Hecuba’s daughter, who also happens to be Hector’s sister. It was an oath not to kill Hector. So there goes tomorrow’s plan about killing Hector. Well, you know what they say, the best laid plans of mice and men go oft awry. Well, at least that’s the way I say it. The original is actually
The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men
Gang aft agley.
That’s from a Robert Burns poem about a mouse. It’s written in 1785 in the Scottish vernacular. I’m tempted to give you the whole poem because it’s just lovely, but I guess I won’t do that to you. Anyway, it’s translated a few different ways. I like The best laid plans of mice and men go oft awry. And ain’t that the truth!
Oh heck, I can’t help myself. Here’s the whole poem. Leave the world
behind for a few minutes and enjoy! It’s only eight stanzas. I know that there
are some parts of it that are hard to understand (though the dialect and words
are so delightful), but if you know the basic premise you can pretty much get
through it. And the basic premise is in the subtitle: he’s turned up a mouse’s
nest with his plow and now he’s talking to the mouse about that, and what it
will mean to the mouse. I particularly like the last two stanzas; and pay
special attention to the last; it has a really good message.
To A Mouse
On Turning her up in her Nest, with the Plough, November 1785.
Wee, sleeket, cowran, tim’rous beastie,
O, what a panic’s in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi’ bickerin brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee
Wi’ murd’ring pattle!
I’m truly sorry Man’s dominion
Has broken Nature’s social union,
An’ justifies that ill opinion,
Which makes thee startle,
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,
An’ fellow-mortal!
I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen-icker in a thrave
’S a sma’ request:
I’ll get a blessin wi’ the lave,
An’ never miss ’t!
Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin!
It’s silly wa’s the win’s are strewin!
An’ naething, now, to big a new ane,
O’ foggage green!
An’ bleak December’s winds ensuin,
Baith snell an’ keen!
Thou saw the fields laid bare an’ waste,
An’ weary Winter comin fast,
An’ cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell,
Till crash! the cruel coulter past
Out thro’ thy cell.
That wee-bit heap o’ leaves an’ stibble
Has cost thee monie a weary nibble!
Now thou’s turn’d out, for a’ thy trouble,
But house or hald,
To thole the Winter’s sleety dribble,
An’ cranreuch cauld!
But Mousie, thou art no thy-lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!
Still, thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But Och! I backward cast my e’e,
On prospects drear!
An’ forward tho’ I canna see,
I guess an’ fear!
The more I read that poem, the more wonderful it is. Once again, proof that I do appreciate writers other than William Shakespeare.
And what are your plans for the day, my wee, sleeket, beastie?
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