What he cannot help in his nature, you account a vice in him.

-Second Citizen

Coriolanus          Act I, scene i       Line 38

Well since the last post on Coriolanus a few weeks ago I have actually seen Coriolanus! The play, not the guy. Actually, the movie, not the play. But it was still pretty good. It was a recent version starring Ralph Fiennes in the title role, and set in modern day. Like a lot of adaptions, especially movie adaptions, it used original Shakespeare text, but did a liberal job of picking which of those lines to use and which to cut out. But it did do a pretty good job of sticking to the story. And it certainly added to my understanding of the play.

Anyway, today’s line is in the opening scene where the citizens are setting the scene for the play, complaining about lack of food and blaming Coriolanus. Second Citizen (an uncredited actor) is trying to defend Coriolanus. What Coriolanus ‘cannot help in his nature’ is to be very proud of who and what he is and refusing tell the rabble what they want to hear. He pretty much feels he’s above them. And they’re not too crazy about that, especially when they’re starving. I don't know why he didn’t just do a better job of seeing that the food got spread around a little better. Was it a one percenter thing? I’m not sure. There’s a lot of aspects to this play, and Coriolanus’s pride is certainly one of them. But another might be the discontent of the masses because the patricians (the one percenters) control the bread. As I said on my previous Coriolanus post, there’s some really current themes in this one that would make it a really good play to be studying right now.

But what about this pride thing. One could say that Coriolanus has a right to be proud of his military service to his country. Most people probably wouldn't argue with that today. And when I google images of pride I get tons of gay pride pictures. I guess we’re also proud to be American and proud of all sorts of other stuff too. So it's okay to be proud? But wait, isn’t pride one of the seven deadly sins (I googled it and it is). Sooooo…… 

Well I guess I’m just not sure at all about this pride thing. And if you watch the play Coriolanus I think you'll conclude that Will wasn't either.

                                                                                 

I know not where; but wheresoever, I wish him well.

 -Duke

Measure For Measure   Act III, scene ii   Line 92

Ahh, finally a nice easy one. And a nice one too. I mean it’s a nice thought. I’m not going to read into this one, or do a bunch of work on the context. I know next to nothing about this play, so I’m just going to say that this is a very nice sentiment. Perhaps it’s the way we should be expressing ourselves about just about everyone, whomsoever they are. I also like that ‘so’ addition to. It kind of gives it that all encompassing feel. The Duke could have said ‘wherever’, but ‘wheresoever’ is nicer, even if it does get the red underline from Word. And yes, it’s right there in my Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary, tenth editition, hard copy. So I’m sticking with it.

Which brings me to geography where I’d like to spend a few minutes (wheresoever, get it?). The line before this one, to which this is a response, is Some say he is with the Emperor of Russia; other some, he is in Rome: but where is he, think you? So we’re talking Russia, and Rome. And the play is set in Vienna. I guess what I’m saying is that Will did a pretty good job of getting around the world in his plays; Egypt, Denmark, Bermuda, all over Italy, and there’s a ton more. He even makes mention of Mexico in Merchant of Venice. I wonder if he ever gets to Asia? He must at least mention it. I’ll have to look into that one. And what about that ‘undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns’?  Okay, you’re right, we’re not really talking geography on that one. Anyway, I’ll bet if you google… Okay, I took a quick look for a list of all the places that Will’s plays go to, or even places that are mentioned in his plays, but it’s not an easy find on the google. My guess is that it’s out there, but wheresoever that might be on the world wide web is yet unknown to me. You give it a try and let me know. It’s gotta be somewhere. Everything about Will is somewhere on the web.

Anyway, I’m going to try to hold on to this line because it is eminently usable. Check it out:

‘Pete, do you know where WP is?’

‘I know not where; but wheresoever, I wish him well.’

Oh that’ll get the old eyes rolling for sure.

I guess I could even use this line better if you asked me about our other kids, the older ones. They’re spread across the country and at any point in time I really don’t know where the heck any of them are. But if you asked me where they were I’d certainly say

‘I know not where; but wheresoever, I wish him/her well.’

                                                               

Do you not remember, a’ saw a flea stick upon

Bardolph’s nose, and a’ said it was a black soul burning in hell-fire?

 -Boy   

 

King Henry the Fifth       Act II, scene iii   Line 44

Yes, that’s right. This line is spoken by Boy. No, not the one from Tarzan. This Boy is one of the group that hangs with Falstaff. But he is known simply as Boy. I’m not quite clear if that refers to what he is, or if his name is actually ‘Boy’. But I suppose it is of little matter.

And while this line is not spoken by Falstaff, it is fully about Falstaff. Falstaff has just passed away (I didn’t remember Fastaff dying, but I guess he does. I’m not sure how he gets resurrected for the Merry Wives- or maybe that’s a prequel. We haven’t hit that play yet; perhaps we’ll find out at some point) and his crew is sitting in the bar talking about him. I believe the ‘a in the quote is synonymous with ‘he’. In other words, Do you not remember, he (Falstaff) saw a flea… So this is a very, very typical life thing; when someone passes away everyone gathers and talks about him. I remember when my best friend died, I was around 43, and everyone was gathering at the bar next to the funeral home. I went over for a few minutes, but for some reason I did not like doing that, and I didn’t hang around. But I don’t think I’m average in this respect. I think a lot of folks would do exactly what the crew is doing in this scene. It’s an interesting scene and worth the read. A little tough to get through, but short. I’m going to give you the link because I know if you don’t you’ll be too lazy to go look for it. Heck, even if I give you the link the chances are you won’t check it out. But you should check it out, and read it out loud! http://shakespeare.mit.edu/henryv/henryv.2.3.html

Okay, I think that’s enough on that line for today. But a quick note on the random system. This is the second time in 47 days that we’ve hit page 493 in my compilation. It’s also the second time we’ve hit the same page twice, which seems a little odd, since we have 1,232 pages in this book. However, with a quick review I can see that we’ve hit at least once in the tens, the 100’s, the 200’s, the 300’s etc up to and including the 1200’s. So I have faith in the random system being used. Besides, I came up with the random system on my own and I have faith in me. Usually.

This is my old buddy doing his best Larry Csonka impersonation. He was a classic. I don't talk about him much, but I still miss him a lot.

But to the court!

 -Countess          

 All’s Well That Ends Well             Act II, scene ii    Line 6

But to the court! This is being said by the Countess to the clown. Yes, another clown. Between severed heads and clowns. I know, I still can’t get past that severed head thing. But really, clowns?

Anyway this clown and the countess are having a bit of a nonsensical conversation. Nonsensical and yet you know it has meaning, because Shakespeare wrote it. It’s another one of those back and forths that you need to read a few times, and you need to read it out loud. Or even better, see (or at least hear) it performed (which I have done neither). But we can look at just a few lines and you can see if you can get the meaning. We’ll start with the beginning of the scene, since we’re almost there with today’s line. The countess says, ‘Come on, sir; I shall now put you to the height of your breeding.’ The clown replies, ‘I will show myself highly fed and lowly taught: I know my business is but to the court.’ The countess replies, ‘To the court! Why, what place make you special, when you put off that with such contempt? But to the court!’ And that last part is today’s Totally Random line.

This will be a record short post because, to be honest, I don't really know much about this play, or this line. And also I'm not all that interested in this particular line. It just doesn't have that much going for it. I think it's only natural that I come across some lines like this, all things considered. There are some that we've had that have been just amazing, some that have been perfectly serviceable, and a few, like this one, that I really don't feel that I can do much with. So I'm going to let this one go. I'm a little more optimistic about tomorrow's line. It'll be from Henry V. See you then!

                                                                       

That’s all I reck.

I fear ‘twill be revenged:

-Guiderius/Belarius      

Cymbeline                          Act IV, scene ii   Line 154

This is another of those split lines, the first part from Guiderius and the second part from Belarius. And as a point of context, they’re talking about what Guiderius is going to do with the severed head of Cloten that he’s holding. Yes, that’s right, Guiderius starts this page with Cloten’s severed head in his hand. I’m thinking they must have gone through quite a few of those severed head props over the years. And beyond that I’m beginning to wonder just what’s going on here. This is post number forty-five and we have literally had a severed head in four of the scenes we’ve posted on so far. That’s pushing up towards ten percent. Now I’m pretty sure that there’s not a severed head in ten percent of Shakespeare’s scenes. In fact, I’m almost positive, but what the heck? If we randomly sampled forty-five lines from the works of Stephen King I don’t think we’d end up with four severed heads. I’m not sure we’d end up with any. And when we started this project would any of you have guessed that Shakespeare was teeming with severed heads? I wouldn’t have. But I guess I’ll move on for today. Rest assured though, you haven’t heard the last of me on the severed head thing.

So Guiderius has just finished telling Belarius, his sort-of half adopted/ half amber-alert father, that he cut off Cloten’s head with Cloten’s own sword and now he’s going to throw Cloten’s head in the creek so it can wash out to sea and Cloten can tell all the fishes that he’s the Queen’s son. And Guiderius finishes with “I reckon, par’dner (That’s all I reck).” So Belarius replies with a fear that the Queen’s not going to be overly happy that her son’s been killed (I fear ‘twill be revenged). Once again you can see that the full combined line is a perfect iambic pentameter line. Hey presto! Severed head and all, Will is not losing his meter!

…nor have we herein barr’d

Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone

With this affair along.

-King    

Hamlet                 Act I, scene ii      Line 14

The king speaking is Claudius. That’s Hamlet’s Uncle Claudius who is now also Hamlet’s stepfather since he’s married Hamlet’s mother (Claudius’s sister-in-law and widow of his brother (the brother that Claudius murdered)). Got it? This is the second scene of the play, but the first scene where we get the setting of what’s going on. The first scene was on the castle rampart at night where Hamlet got his first glimpse of the ghost of King Hamlet (Hamlet’s father) and there wasn’t too much setup there.

Now Claudius is talking to an assemblage of lords and such, and he’s noting what’s transpired (basically the king died and he, Claudius, has married the king’s widow in pretty quick fashion) and he’s acknowledging that the marriage was pretty quick but, ‘hey, I was listening and I didn’t hear any of you guys objecting’ (that’s what today’s Totally Random Daily Shakespeare line is saying). Of course, Hamlet has yet to weigh in.

So what of this line? It’s part of a long ramble by Claudius that opens Scene Two. Shortly after this speech we get a back and forth between Hamlet and his mother and Claudius and we quickly start to see that Hamlet’s not real happy with the situation. He doesn’t know yet that Claudius killed his dad (the ghost of his dad will tell him that later), but just the fact that this guy married his dad’s widow, and so quickly, has got young Hamlet a bit upset. Can you blame him? I can’t.

Now I can’t help myself, but I’ve gotta comment on the last part of today’s Totally Random line; With this affair along. Here’s the deal: I realize that Will plays around with sentence structure and in particular with word order and the idea is that he needs to in order to get the meter right (remember- iambic pentameter: ten syllables of words with stress, unstress, stress, unstress, etc). So this line fragment works: with THIS af FAIR a LONG, da dum, da dum, da dum. However, if he had used the more conventional word order of Along with this affair it still works. No problem. So why did he use the line With this affair along instead of the more easily understandable Along with this affair. Anybody? I need an answer on this one, so somebody out there take a look at it and let me know.

Okay, that’s it for now. Tomorrow our first look at Cymbeline.

What harmony is this? My good friends, hark!

-Alonso

 

The Tempest                      Act III, scene iii  Line 17

The Tempest. A fabulous work. One of Shakespeare’s last plays and also one of the few (only?) plays that he actually created the story for himself. We think. But we don’t really know that for sure, because we just know so darn little about this guy and how he went about creating his works. Also it’s the play I know probably best of all Will’s works.

So our speaker today is King Alonso. He’s leading a small band of men around an island that they’re sort of shipwrecked on in search of his son. They’ve stopped to rest when suddenly they hear ‘Solemn and strange music.’ Now I could go into more context, but I’d rather spend some time talking/thinking about the music here. Music is a major theme in this particular play. In fact, there’s a whole masque that gets performed at one point in the play. A masque was (as I understand it, and you can correct me if you know better) sort of a musical dance spectacle done with people all dressed up in costumes. Apparently masques were performed in and of themselves, but in this play one is performed as part of the play. A little bit of a performance within a performance, not unlike the play within a play that we came upon yesterday in Hamlet. Random, eh?

So it kind of brings up the question of what kind of music they had when putting on a production like this in 1600. I’m pretty sure there wasn’t an orchestra pit, or anything near a full orchestra. Still, they must have had something to make some kind of music. We’re really going to have to get some kind of expert to start reading this thing so they can comment and maybe answer some of these questions. If you’re reading this and you know any experts you might want to try to get them involved. Okay? Meantime I’m guessing that whoever was playing the spirit Ariel (a character in the play I haven’t yet discussed) was probably providing some sort of music. So we’ll go with that for now.

Tomorrow back to Hamlet, Act One. This random stuff really bounces us around, doesn’t it?