Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

Who is it that can tell me who I am?--

 

Lear

King Lear                   Act I, Scene iv, Line 230                                   

 

We’re doing something just a little bit different this morning. Today I am using the daily quote from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s Substack column which just happens to be a line from King Lear. It also happens to coincide very nicely with today’s Waking Up meditation which had a more ethereal take on the same question. Coincidence? I’m not sure how to explain it, but somehow, I think not.

Now, I’m not exactly sure what to do with this. I don’t want to go into an explanation of Kareem’s take on Lear’s question, and neither would I attempt to talk about what Sam Harris was trying to explain in this morning’s meditation. It was an eyes-open meditation that Mojo and I did whilst sitting out back. I guess I would just ask you to take today’s Totally Random (but not really random) Line and just spend a minute or two with it. Read it a few times and see where, if anywhere, it takes you.

Safe travels.

Our Morning Meditation

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

The other two, slight air and purging fire,

Are both with thee, wherever I abide;

The first my thought, the other my desire,

These present-absent with swift motion slide.

 

Narrator

Sonnet 45                                                

 

That’s the first quatrain of Sonnet 45. Here’s the rest of it.

For when these quicker elements are gone

In tender embassy of love to thee,

My life, being made of four, with two alone

Sinks down to death, opprest with melancholy;

Until life’s composition be recured

By those swift messengers return’d from thee,

Who even but now come back again, assured

Of thy fair health, recounting it to me:

        This told, I joy; but then no longer glad,

        I send them back again, and straight grow sad.

Well, what do you make of that?  Here, let me give you a little blurb from my Shakespeare’s Sonnets Edited by Katherine Duncan-Jones and see if that helps. Speaking of Sonnet 45...

This follows on immediately from the preceding sonnet’s focus on the speaker’s confinement in the elements of earth and water. The remaining, mobile elements of air and fire have been dispatched from the poet to his friend, leaving him depressed and heavy.

That’s it in a nutshell, and it's still pretty confusing. I think we'll just pass on this one.

Wait, what? Did he say he's passing?

Whew, that's a relief! 

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

As many, worthy lady, to yourself.

 

Eglamour

The Two Gentlemen of Verona     Act IV, Scene iii, Line 8                                   

Right back at you. That’s what Eglamour is saying to Silvia in response to her Sir Eglamour, a thousand times good morrow. The word morrow was used to mean morning.

I had thought for a moment that perhaps Today’s Totally Random Line might be one of those that we could work into our daily lives, but on second thought, perhaps not. The problem is that it only works because Sylvia offered a thousand times good morrow, not simply good morning. If someone were to wish you good morning and you replied with as many, worthy lady (or sir), to yourself, well, that just doesn’t make much sense. So perhaps we should work on getting Silvia’s line into daily use. Instead of good morning, next time you’re greeting someone, try going with a thousand times, good morrow; or maybe a thousand times, good morning, since morrow may throw them off. Then, if we use that enough, eventually we’ll get other people to use it, and we will then have our openings for As many, worthy lady (or sir), to yourself.

Yeah, that sounds right.

Update: My sister Jean, who stayed over with us last night, just came into the room where I’m typing. Naturally, I took the opportunity to say a thousand times, good morrow (I should have gone with morning). Jean, thinking I said a thousand times we quarrel replied with, that sounds about right. 

So that didn’t work out at all. Don't worry, I’ll keep trying.

A thousand times good morrow, Mr. Blagys. Say, I don't suppose you have any treats up there, do you?

See! Mojo gets it! 

As many to yourself, little buddy; but, sorry, no on the treats. 

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

Who’s there? Othello?

Ay, Desdemona.

 

Desdemona

                       Othello

 

Othello                Act V, Scene ii, Line 24                                   

 

This is the last scene of the play, and Othello being a tragedy, you know what that means. Yup, lots of dying about to happen.

Othello spends the first twenty-three lines of this scene talking to himself and the sleeping Desdemona about how and why he must kill his wife, before she wakes and utters the first part of Today’s Totally Random Line. He goes on talking to her and, after chatting for a bit, that’s exactly what he does: he smothers her with her pillow.

Again, tragedy.

Mojo listened to this last act of Othello with me (I have the Arkangel CD of Othello stored on my pc), and now the little guy is practically in tears. He was especially touched when Desdemona's maid Emelia started singing 'Willow, willow, willow' over her lady's dead body.

He's such a sensitive little fellow. 

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

No longer Earl of March, but Duke of York:

The next degree is England’s royal throne;

For King of England shalt thou be proclaim’d

In ever borough as we pass along;

And he that throws not up his cap for joy,

Shall for the fault make forfeit of his head.

 

Earl of Warwick

King Henry the Sixth Part III     Act II, Scene i, Line 195                                   

Warwick is talking to Richard who will become Richard the Third. No, not in this play, but in Will’s later play aptly titled Richard the Third.

You know, I can’t seem to help it, but that line about losing your head if you don’t throw your cap for joy as Richard passes makes me think of the United States of America in 2025…

Quick! Pull up Mr. Blagys, pull up!

 

Today’s Totally Random Line

What! Is my Lord of Winchester install’d,

And call’d unto a cardinal’s degree?

Exeter

Henry the Sixth Part I               Act V, Scene i, Line 29                            

I’ve no idea what’s going on here other than what I read in the stage direction: Enter Winchester [in Cardinal’s habit], a Legate, and two Ambassadors.

Presumably, based on Exeter’s comment, the Cardinal’s habit is something new for Winchester. I suppose I’d be a bit surprised too if someone I knew showed up in a Cardinals habit.  

These two see a lot of cardinals in cardinal habits. 

No surprises here.

 

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

Away, and talk not; trouble us no more.

 

Saturninus

Titus Andronicus                          Act I, Scene i, Line 478                                   

I’m not sure what the context is here as far as Titus Andronicus goes, but it has perfect context to the phone conversation we just ended. We’ve been in Cally the past six days, and we just got off the phone. with Walker who’s back minding the ranch. We called to check in and make sure everything’s ok. Naturally, things are fine: he’s fine, Mojo’s fine, everything is fine. Walker was not too interested in talking (no surprise), and though he didn’t say it, we’re pretty sure his feeling was Away, and talk not; trouble us no more.

It's just amazing how incredibly timely these Totally Random Lines can be!

A Cally resident we ran into this morning.

Again, no Mojo; he's back at the ranch with Walker P.

 We'll be flying home tomorrow and back with Walker Peter and Buster P. Mojo late in the evening.

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

His discontents are unremoveably

Coupled to nature.

 

Senator

Timon of Athens     Act IV, Scene iv, Line 227                                   

 

Of course, in today’s context, the senator is talking about Timon, who wants nothing to do with humanity. Timon has had it with people. I believe his attitude can be summed up in the immortal words of my friend Uwe: I hate people.

But, in a larger sense I think we can apply Today’s Line pretty much universally. Sometimes the nature referred to can be our own, and sometimes that nature can be nature at large. Case in point:

If either of our young men here, whether it be mild mannered Otto or SuperAug, makes a wrong move, his subsequent discontent will be unremoveably coupled to nature (in this case the nature being embodied in gravity).

 For the record, there were no wrong moves in this case. 

And just so you know, Mojo was not present for today's pic. He is averse to any situations that have a possibility for discontent, unremoveably coupled with nature or otherwise.