Yet is the kindness but particular;

‘Twere better she were kist in general.

-Ulysses

Troilus and Cressida       Act IV, scene iv Line 20, 21          

This one’s really good, and I’m going to take this one in the context of the story, since I can’t make too much sense of it otherwise. And you can see that I used two lines because it’s easier to explain what it’s all about with these two together. First of all, I don’t know much of anything about this play. What I do know is that it’s based on Homer’s Iliad which is the story of the Greek siege of the city of Troy. Though I’m not sure who Troilus and Cressida are. I was reading the Iliad earlier this summer and I didn’t run into these two. Regardless, here’s your Shakespeare fact of the day: There are very few stories of Will’s that are original. Just about all of his plays, whether history, comedy, or tragedy, are based on existing stories (as this one is). Of course the beauty and the genius of Will is his use of the English language and what he did to those stories. But just the same, I think it’s worth knowing that just about all of his source material was not his own. Moving on…

Anyway, I read the beginning of this scene and it seems that a bunch of the bosses of the Greek group are hanging around (Achilles, Ulysses, Agamemnon, Ajax) and Diomedes shows up with this babe Cressida (see, here I’m using ‘babe’ to mean a pretty young woman, not a baby). Now keep in mind that these guys have been laying siege to the town of Troy for several years, so presumably they’ve been away from their families and for the most part been just hanging out with a bunch of smelly guys for quite a long time. Now here they’re suddenly in the presence of this young woman who is clearly not a smelly guy. Well as soon as she shows up Agamemnon takes the opportunity to give her a welcoming kiss. Keep in mind that Agamemnon is the ranking guy in this group, the King. But Ulysses, always the crafty guy, sees an opportunity to get in a kiss of his own. So he comes up with today’s Random Shakespeare Line of the Day ‘Twere better she were kist in general’ and follows it up with a kiss of his own. Well this just opens up the floodgate and so now she gets passed around so that everyone can give her a kiss. In fact, Patroclus gets in two kisses, one of them supposedly for Menelaus who’s actually standing right next to him and then wants one of his own.  

As I said, I don’t know much about this play, so I can’t say how this kissing scene fits in (or doesn’t fit in) to the big picture. I do, however, think this scene is a funny idea to imagine, and would be even funnier seeing this play performed in Shakespeare’s time when all the roles on stage, including female roles, were played by men, so that one guy is getting passed around and kissed by all the other guys. But that’s just me.

Okay, I’ve already rolled the die for tomorrow’s page and it’s Richard II. Pretty exciting because I actually know that play! See you then.

By this we gather

You have tript since.

-Hermione

A The Winter’s Tale        Act I, scene ii      Line 77 

And which of us has not tript since? This is Hermione, Leontes’s wife, speaking to Leontes’s friend Polixenes. Polixenes was telling her about growing up with Leontes and how innocent they were as kids, and wishing they had been able to stay that innocent. This provokes Hermione’s question. To be clear, by tript (tripped) she means strayed from the path of innocence. It seems like a bit of a silly question. Again, which of us as adults has not lost our innocence of childhood?

The Winter’s Tale is another of Will’s later plays, but one that he’s credited with doing on his own. It’s also the next play on my list to read. I’ve got an annotated, used paperback copy that I picked up somewhere or other, and I’ve got the arkangel Shakespeare audio version that I burned from the library cd. So this is a good point to talk about listening to Shakespeare, and the Arkangel Shakespeare in particular.

The best way to appreciate Shakespeare is to see a play (as opposed to reading it). In fact, just plain reading it can be downright impossible. But the second best way to appreciate it is to listen to it being performed while reading it. It's surprising how much more understandable the text is when you're hearing it performed. The audio, acted out version enables you to understand stuff that you'd have no idea what it meant. So they put together this series called Arkangel Shakespeare where they got Shakespearean actors to do an audio version of 38 of his plays. I bought a few of the cd's before I realized my local library had the whole set. So now I borrow and burn. That doesn't count as having tript, does it?

If thou lovest me, then,

Steal forth thy father’s house to-morrow night;

-Lysander

A Midsummer’s Night Dream    Act I, scene i       Line 163, 164     

So finally one you’ve all heard of! A Midsummer’s Night Dream. Albeit one I’ve never been very fond of. It’s a comedy and a bit of a fantasy. In this line Lysander is talking to Hermia, the girl he loves, and telling her to sneak out from (steal forth thy) her father’s house tomorrow to meet him. There’s nothing too difficult with the language in this line, so I probably won’t spend too much time with it. It’s got the ‘t’ on the end of the verb, ‘lovest’, and some thy and thou’s, but overall it’s pretty understandable, n’est pas? I kind of like the ‘lovest’ thing. It reminds me of ‘whilst’ instead of ‘while’ which I’ve been doing my best to get back into the language (with a lot of resistance). I just think it sounds nice. And what about the content. ‘If you love me, sneak out of the house to meet me tomorrow night.’ I wonder how many times that line has been spoken in one form or another by a young lover in the history of humankind? Perhaps the first time it was used it was ‘sneak out of the cave’? So not a tremendous amount of creativity on the part of Will with that one. In fact, maybe it’s a line that he himself used earlier in his life with Anne Hathaway (we’ll never know). And nowadays it’s a line that will show up being texted on the cellphone. And in some cases we end up hearing about it on the news with tragic consequences. But let’s not go there right now. This is a comedy, and a light-hearted one at that. 

And speaking of the play in general, I have to say that this is one play that I’ve read, and I’ve seen versions of, and I really don’t much care for it. I’m not exactly sure why but I think it’s just because it’s kind of goofy. I know, seems like I’d be all over it, doesn’t it? It’s got the goofy actors with the goofy names scene, and it’s got the guy getting his head turned into a donkey’s head, and of course the clandestine lovers Hermia and Lysander. What’s not to like? Sometimes there’s just no accounting for taste. The last time I saw it was in the movie theater and Kevin Kline was playing the guy who gets his head turned into a donkey’s head and I think he was riding a bicycle (pretty sure Will didn’t have a bicycle in the original). Perhaps we’ll run into it again and maybe then spend a little more time on it. It takes up about 22 pages of the 1,252 pages of my compilation book, so we’ll see.

‘O, ‘twas the foulest deed to slay that babe,

And the most merciless that e’er was heard of!’

-Lord Hastings

King Richard the Third   Act I, scene iii     Line 185,186      

So here we go! What do we know so far? Sounds like they’re talking about some little kid getting killed. I don’t think they used ‘babe’ for a woman like we might use ‘babe’ today. But we’ll read a few more lines in a minute. In the meantime, Shakespeare’s Richard III is a pretty popular play and it gets performed all the time. If I’m not mistaken it was the role that was being performed by Richard Dryfuss in The Goodbye Girl, and he got an Oscar for that. To be clear, he got the Oscar for portraying an actor who was doing Richard III off-Broadway. He didn’t actually get the Oscar for portraying Richard III. In fact, if memory serves, he didn’t like the role of Richard III, or at least he didn’t like the way the director was making him play it in the movie. But I digress. Again.

As I was saying, it’s a fairly popular play. It’s also somewhat topical in that it’s about the British king that they found in a parking lot a few years ago. Well, they found his hundreds year old remains when they were excavating in a parking lot. But let’s see if we can find out who got slain. It sounds pretty bad; foulest deed, most merciless. 

Okay, so I took a quick look at Richard III (the guy, not the play) and there’s a lot going on there. I had my printout of the British Monarchs somewhere, but I’m going to have to reprint that. In any event, Richard III (the monarch, not the play) was around in the mid 1400’s. Again, Shakespeare wrote around the year 1600. So this guy was 150 years or so in the past. As with just about all of his history plays, Shakespeare used something called Holinshed’s Chronicles as his source for the facts. Of course, like Hollywood today, he played a little loose with the facts. But now we have a lot more than Holinshed for our place to get the facts. So how about if I give you some homework and you can see if you can figure out just what babe got slain. That would be very helpful for me and would give you something constructive to do. Most merciless!!

‘Well met, my Lord Chamberlain.’

-Duke of Norfolk

King Henry the Eighth   Act II, scene ii    Line 12                 

I suppose we were bound to get one of these lines eventually. Remember, full random. In fact, if we keep this up we’re liable to get some real humdinger one word lines. Well, we’ll see.

So this is just a greeting, albeit not one we use today. Maybe you should try it out. I’ll bet we could start something. Can you imagine running into one of your co-workers or classmates in the hallway with this? “Well met Justin.” Justin would look at you with a blank stare. “Well met what?” I think I’ll try it on my son or wife today. They think I’m nuts anyway. I’ll let you know what I come up with. In the meantime, maybe a little about this play.

King Henry the Eighth was one of the last plays that Shakespeare wrote and it is presumed that he wrote this one in collaboration with John Fletcher, whoever that is. Keep in mind that in Shakespeare’s time a playwright had to be a bit careful what he wrote about. Then remember that Henry VIII’s daughter Elizabeth was alive for the first part of Shakespeare’s life. It wasn’t until after her death that he decided to take on this monarch as a subject. Henry VIII died in 1547, his daughter Elizabeth in 1603. This play was written around 1612.

We could discuss the “How are you?” greeting of today that most of us don’t really care for the answer to. It’s just become a customary greeting. So “Well met buddy” is really not that farfetched. Again, I think we need to dust it off, air it out, and give it a go.

In the meantime, my Henry VIII pencil.

 ‘Amen, sir: -- to my poor unworthy service,

He mockt us when he begg’d our voices.’

-Second Citizen

Coriolanus          Act II, scene iii   Line 158               

Okay, sorry about not coming through very well with yesterday’s line. But today is a new day. Now here we are at day three of our project and from the world’s most famous dramatist ever we’ve sampled a non speaking part, a part spoken by an unnamed extra poet, and now a line spoken by an unnamed second citizen. Oh my. Well this is what you get when you go random/rogue. And I’m not sure what that tells us other than the fact that there is a really large body of Shakespeare work out there and a lot of it is pretty obscure.

Anyway, the play Coriolanus is set in Roman times and is about the titular guy and his political life and ultimate demise. Another tragedy. Interesting that we seem to be progressing chronologically through time with this project. We started with the myths (which happened ostensibly before ancient Greece), moved up to Greece, and now we’re in Rome. It certainly points out that Will’s subject matter really spanned the ages. He did not limit himself to contemporary Britain. In fact, did he do any contemporary Britain? Well, I guess we’ll see.

So as usual, it’s my tendency to try to contextualize the line. So I read a few lines before and after. The citizen speaking is referring to Coriolanus and he’s saying what it seems like he’s saying; that they backed this guy and now they’re not so sure he’s a good guy, or whether or not he was being up front with them when they backed him. There, look what I just said: ‘being up front with them.’ So we have trouble with the 1600’s jargon, ‘when he begg’d our voices’ or yesterday’s ‘moves itself in a sea of wax’ but now I’m talking about someone being ‘up front,’ which is pretty idiomatic in itself. Okay, I digress.

Now, I can’t help but relate today’s Totally Random Daily Shakespeare to the current election cycle here in the U.S. You remember that, don’t you? Hillary and The Donald. Well, regardless of whose side you’re coming down on, it's looking like the exact same thing that Will was remarking on four hundred years ago. Is the guy (or in our case, guy or gal) that we’re putting in office really going to be working for us, or is he or she just saying whatever they need to say to get elected. Are we going to end up saying a year from now ‘He (or she) mock’t us when he (or she) begged our voices!’ I hope not, but it’s a pretty good question. Now how’s that for making it relevant? Okay, this one was easier than I realized, even though I managed to make it harder than it had to be.

‘…my free drift

Halts not particularly, but moves itself in a wide sea of wax:’

-Poet

Timon of Athens              Act I, scene 1     lines 48 – 50       

Oof, that's a line! Okay, this is a tough one. Remember, totally random.

Now first off, Timon of Athens is a really obscure play. I did a little research on it and it was one of his later plays and there’s lots of Shakespeareans who believe that it’s not even totally Shakespeare, that he wrote this play with another fellow named Thomas Middleton. So maybe we can blame Middleton for this stupid line.

Anyway, it’s a tragedy about an Athenian named Timon who apparently starts out as a Pollyanna and ends up a dead cynic. What a lovely story! But enough, how to go about working with this line?

Well, since it’s the 48^th line of the play, I’ve tried reading the play up to this point. But I think I’ll have to try that a few more times, and maybe read a little past this line. I’ve also tried to find the internet residence of the complete annotated works of Shakespeare, because that would be really helpful. No dice on that yet. My previous ideas to simply relate the line out of context to whatever seems applicable in my world is hampered by the fact that I can’t understand this line. But let’s stop here for a moment. What are we trying to do?

We’re trying to take one random line a day from Shakespeare and work with it. How? Well, we want to learn a little about Shakespeare and his world/works by working with the line. We want to find a way to understand the relevance of Shakespeare to 2016 by working with the line. We want to have some fun working with the line. We want to get a bit creative working with the line.

Now, having said that, there are a few different types of lines we can end up with. There is the line that is relatively easy to understand (like yesterday’s) so that you can pretty much do anything with it. And now there are the lines like today’s that are a bit tougher. And without being able to understand it, well that makes it hard to do absolutely anything with it. Perhaps a hard copy of annotations to the this play would be helpful?

Fine then, I’ve looked into my Shakespeare Complete copy (this is not the book I’m picking the random lines from, it’s an older copy of his works that I have) and I’ve found some hidden treasures.

This bad boy, printed in 1925, has notes! Well I’ve tried in the past not to use this copy too much because it’s sort of falling apart. But if it’s got the goods, well…

So first let’s look at a little more background. This line is the Poet speaking to the Painter. They’re guests at a party that Timon has thrown. Now this 1925 version actually has a slightly different line. Here’s the whole section, with the line included. They are remarking about the senators that have come to Timon’s party.

Poet:

You see this confluence, this great flood of visitors.

I have, in this rough work, shaped out a man,

Whom this beneath world doth embrace and hug

With amplest entertainment: my free drift

Halts not particularly, but moves itself

In a wide sea of verse: no levell’d malice

Infects one comma in the course I hold;

But flies an eagle flight, bold and forth on,

Leaving no tract behind.

Okay, forget it.  I’m giving up on this line. I can't work out who or what he's referring to. I realize that this is only the second line that I've tried to work with but, no, I'm not giving up on the project. I'm just giving up on this one line. I'll be back with a new random line tomorrow. I promise.