Today’s Totally Random
Line
Sir,
his wife, some two months since, fled from his house; her pretence is a pilgrimage
to Saint Jaques le Grand; which holy undertaking, with most austere sanctimony,
she accomplist; and there residing, the tenderness of her nature became as a
prey to her grief; in fine, made a groan of her last breath; and now she sings
in heaven.
First Lord
All’s Well That Ends
Well Act IV, Scene iii, Line 46
The first and
second lord, two anonymous henchmen here, are bringing us up to date on what’s
going on with the two main people of the play. Betram is working on getting
into bed with some local babe (this was related earlier in the scene), whilst
his wife Helena, having given up on her marriage, went on a pilgrimage and
subsequently died of grief. Spoiler alert: she’s not really dead.
So, what can we
say about Today’s Line? Should we talk about Will’s use of anonymous henchmen
to relate off-stage happenings to keep the play flowing? He does this a lot in
some of his plays. Should we spend some time with his language: became a
prey to her grief. Perhaps we can discuss Will’s propensity for really long
sentences: seven plus lines full of commas, and semicolons. Or is there something
else. Or perhaps we don’t discuss the line at all? Thoughts?
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