‘Tis nothing but some bond that he is enter’d into

For gay apparel ‘gainst the triumph-day.

-Duchess of York

King Richard the Second               Act V, scene ii    Line 55

Well this is a bit of a confusing little line. Let me set the scene. It’s mother, father, and son in the scene. The son, it turns out, is in cahoots with a bunch of guys to kill King Henry IV so that Richard II, who was recently deposed by Henry IV, can get his throne back. In this scene, at the family’s home, the father notices a piece of paper that the son has, apparently tucked in his shirt? The son doesn’t want to show it to dad, and mom is trying to tell dad not to bother with it and that is today’s Totally Random line

First off, dad notices the paper: What seal is that that hangs without thy bosom?/ Yea, look’st thou pale? Let me see the writing. So what’s the deal here? I guess the son has the paper stuffed in his shirt? Dad sees the wax seal that’s on the paper. That kind of makes sense. They go back and forth for a few lines – ‘Let me see it,’ ‘No,’ ‘Yes,’ ‘No’ – and then mom steps in with today’s Random Daily line. Ok, wait, I think I get it. She’s saying that the paper has something to do with a deal that he’s entered into for what he’s going to be wearing to the festivities. The festivities is either the celebration of the crowning of King Henry IV or the celebration of some recent military victories. Okay, let’s go with that. Mom says, ‘It’s nothing but a receipt. He bought some new clothes for the celebration.’

So young Duke of York has a document of a treasonous plot stuffed in his shirt and the Duchess of York is telling her husband, old Duke of York, that it’s a receipt for some clothes. Now eventually dad grabs the paper, reads it, and goes running off to tell King Henry IV, like any good dad would do. And that’s today’s Totally Random Daily Shakespeare.

Comments? Because other than figuring out what the heck it means, I don’t have much more to say about it.

I had rather be a country servant-maid

Than a great queen, with this condition,---

-Queen Elizabeth

King Richard the Third   Act I, scene iii     Line 107

For starters, and to be clear, this is not Queen Elizabeth I (who was in power in Shakespeare’s time) and it is certainly not Queen Elizabeth II (who is currently reigning and does not figure into any of Will’s works). This Queen Elizabeth is the wife of Edward IV. I believe that makes her the sister-in-law of Richard III. But again, I’m only up to Henry IV in my Shakespeare’s Kings book, and I don’t have a lot of familiarity with Will’s Richard III.

But what of the line? Without having to do much work I can tell you that the ‘condition’ the queen refers to is the ‘blunt upbraidings’ and ‘bitter scoffs’ of the Duke of Gloster. Apparently she’s not too happy with the way the Duke is talking to her. And she is, after all, a queen. Or at least she’s married to the king. There appears to be some difference between being a queen in your own right (like Queens Elizabeth I and II) and being a queen by virtue of being married to the king (note that this Queen Elizabeth doesn’t rate a number). Either way, she doesn’t feel that she’s got to put up with any lip from the duke.

So about this number thing; Not too many of us get a number. My brother, my father, and my grandfather are all Williams. But my dad and my grandfather had different middle names, so no junior there, and then my dad gave my brother the same middle name so that Billy became Bill jr, and not Bill the third. But now Bill jr.’s son is the fourth William, but with a new and different middle name. So is my nephew William IV??? Heck if I know. All I know is I’m Peter. Not Peter I or anything. Just Peter. And I guess I’d rather be a country servant that put up with the duke’s crap as well. I really don’t like putting up with anyone’s crap if I can help it. Who does?

But moving on from this number stuff, just noticed that the page I am on in my compilation today is 104, and page 105 has the Totally Random line for blog post #5, way back a month and a half ago. Remember, that line about ‘the foulest deed to slay that babe’, that babe that we never quite figured out who it was? Well apparently that babe was 17 year old Edward of Westminster, son of Henry VI. Apparently Richard III is being held responsible for killing this kid (hardly a babe). It gets all the more confusing because Will manages to conflate a lot of the historical facts in the process of his history plays. If I ever get to the end of Shakespeare’s Kings I’m pretty sure I'll have it all figured out, but right now I'm still more than a bit confused. But I’ll certainly keep you posted.

                                             

And, commendable proved, let’s die in pride.

-Lord Talbot

King Henry the Sixth Part I                          Act IV, scene vii Line 58

And cut! Yes, that’s the last line of the scene, followed by the stage direction ‘Exeunt’, which I learned is the plural of ‘Exit’. So if it says ‘Exit’ it means one person is leaving, and if it says ‘Exeunt’ it means everybody out. So Exeunt usually means it’s the end of the scene, but not always.

First off, let me report that I am certainly making progress in reading Shakespeare’s Kings. Second I’ll tell you that this progress includes getting up to King Henry IV, but unfortunately not Henry VI. And since I’ve not added Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part I, II, or III to the plays that I’ve read, well, you guessed it, I really don’t know what’s going on with this line too much. But it’s a short scene, and I read it, so I can give you the micro context, if not the macro version.

The scene includes Lord Talbot, today’s speaker, and his son John Talbot. They are caught up in the middle of a battle (I believe the Talbots are English and they’re fighting the French), and the two Talbots are discussing the merits of the younger one hightailing it out of there while he still can. Apparently the battle’s not going all that well for the English, and sticking it out may not work out that well for either of them. In the end though, they both agree that they’ll stick it out together whatever the outcome and thus Father Talbot’s line in today’s Totally Random Daily Shakespeare. And commendable proved, let’s die in pride. Not terribly optimistic, but I guess you can say it’s a positive attitude. I mean, if they’re gonna go, they might as well go together as opposed to apart and running away like cowards. Just the same, I think getting killed in war is a little over-rated.

So today’s line doesn’t quite have the cachet Oh world, thy slippery turns! Yeah, that’s right, I’m still stuck on that one. Honestly, I think it’s right up there with What need the bridge much wider than the flood. In fact, it might even be better. Can’t seem to get past it. In any event, at least I got you back to a manageable line today. One line, seven words, as opposed to yesterday’s epistle. So let’s just let it go at that. You decide if today’s line is worth anything. In the meantime, I’m moving on.

O world, thy slippery turns! Friends now fast sworn,

Whose double bosoms seems to wear one heart,

Whose hours, whose bed, whose meal, and exercise,

Are still together, who twin, as ‘twere, in love

Unseparable, shall within this hour,

On a dissension of a doit, break out

To bitterest enmity: so, fellest foes,

Whose passions and whose plots have broke their sleep

To take the one the other, by some chance,

Some trick not worth an egg, shall grow dear friends

And interjoin their issues. So with me:

My birth-place hate I, and my love’s upon

This enemy town. –I’ll enter: if he slay me,

He does fair justice; if he give me way,

I’ll do his country service.

 

 -Caius Marcius Coriolanus

Coriolanus                          Act IV, scene iv Line 12-26

Okay kids, I really did it to you today. I know, you’re saying ‘wait a minute, this is supposed to be a line of Shakespeare. A line!’ Well you’re right. But on the other hand it’s called Totally Random Daily Shakespeare, so there’s nowhere in the title that says ‘a line’. Nonetheless, I’ll explain.

Today’s Random line landed me right in the middle of a pretty long sentence, the one where he’s talking about his friends becoming enemies. So I couldn’t give you the line without the whole sentence. And that sentence was really almost inseparable (or as Caius would say, ‘unseparable’) from the next sentence where he talked about his enemies, fellest foes, becoming his friends, interjoin their issues. And those since those two long sentences made up ninety percent of this brief soliloquy, well I decided to give you the whole thing. I knew you’d understand.

Now, what’s it all about? Well, it seems that Caius Marcius Coriolanus (that’s a hell of a name, isn’t it? And the best part is that it ends in ‘anus’ so you know if you teach this in a high school class one of the guys is gonna pick up on that and use it somehow to have some fun with it. I’ll let you see what you can do with that on your own) has been banished from his country and so has decided to effectively defect to the enemy and see if they want him to fight for them. You can look at the posts from 8/13, 9/4, and 9/28 (just go to Coriolanus in the Will's Works tab) for some more details on the play. But anyway, today’s Totally Random lines are from Marcius as he is standing alone outside the house of his enemy, in his enemy’s country. He’s about to go inside and see if they want him to fight for them, or if they’ll just want to kill him. I particularly like the very beginning of the speech where he’s commenting on the capriciousness of fate: Oh world, thy slippery turns! That is just absolutely fabulous language, isn’t it? I worked with a high school teacher once and she was talking about teaching Shakespeare to high school kids. She said that a lot of Shakespeare was pretty tough to teach, and she’s not sure how much they understood or appreciated it. But she was sure it was worth it just to expose them to the beauty of Shakespeare’s language. I wasn’t quite sure I understood or agreed with her then, but I most certainly do agree with her now.

Okay, I’m still stuck on that line. Oh world, thy slippery turns! I can’t go any further today. I’m just going to take those five words, consider myself blessed, and move on with my day. No pic today. You don't need one with a line this great.

I will be satisfied: deny me this,

And an eternal curse fall on you!

 -Macbeth

Macbeth                              Act IV, scene i    Line 105

Once again, good ol’ Macbeth. Our protagonist is making one of his visits (I believe his last?) to the prophesizing sisters/witches. Now these are the ladies that got the whole mess started in this story by telling Macbeth that he would be king. Neither he, nor his wife, was entertaining any thoughts of kingship or murder before he ran into these trouble makers in the first act. Now they’re giving him three infamous predictions:  Beware Macduff, and …none of woman born/ Shall harm Macbeth, and Macbeth shall never vanquisht be, until/ Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill/ Shall come against him. But of course he wants to know more, and hence the threat of today’s Totally Random Shakespeare. I mean really, can you blame him?

So this gives me a perfect segue to talk about one of my favourite topics; Shakespeare’s influence on JRR Tolkien. Consider yourself warned, because that’s we’re we’ll be going for the rest of this post. Bail out now if you want.

Okay, first of all let’s make clear that Tolkien clearly disavowed any affinity for Shakespeare. In fact, it would appear that he had little use for much of any literature written much later than Beowulf. And that’s fine; we’ll give him that. However, given that he was raised and educated in England in the early part of the twentieth century, I think it’s a pretty good bet that like it or not he had a pretty healthy dose of exposure to Shakespeare early on. And the stuff in today’s Macbeth selection is pretty good evidence that he ended up using some of these ideas in his own writing.

First take the none of woman born/ Shall harm Macbeth line. We all know that it turns out that the person who ends up killing Macbeth was born via a C-section and thus, at least in the view of Shakespeare’s time, was not ‘woman born’. I know, it seems a bit of a stretch, but that’s what they went with. Compare that to the King of the Nazgul in Tolkien’s epic. “No living man may hinder me!” he claims in the battle on the Pelennor Fields, not realizing he’s speaking to a woman. Eowyn laughs at him saying “But no living man am I! You look upon a woman” before driving her sword through his head.

Next take the until/ Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill/ Shall come against him. Which Macbeth took to mean when the Great Birnam wood moved, which seemed pretty unlikely. And what happened? The opposing army camouflaged themselves with branches from the Great Birnam wood, as they moved against high Dunsinane hill. So the woods moved. Now, what did the men of Rohan see when they looked out from helms deep the morning after the battle? There was a great woods there that wasn’t there the day before. The woods had moved.

Now I’ll grant you two things. One is that I didn’t come up with these two examples. I came across them in my reading several years ago, I can’t remember where, but I am not taking credit for them. Two is that even though I think they’re pretty good examples, I’ll admit that by themselves they’re a little bit sketchy to base a claim that Shakespeare significantly influenced Tolkien’s writing. HOWEVER, I’ve come up with other stuff, on my own, that bulwarks this claim. Now I’m not going to go on here, because this post is already too long,  but when we get to the Tempest next time I’ll bore you with some more. Meantime I’ll start a tab where we can begin to accumulate this stuff and perhaps I’ll get you to see what I’m talking about. I hope.

In the meantime, how about savoring a little Tolkien?

“You look upon a woman. Eowyn I am, Eomund’s daughter. You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone, if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you, if you touch him.”

It’s practically iambic pentameter for goodness sake!

I see a strange confession in thine eye:

-Northumberland

King Henry the Fourth Part II      Act I, scene i       Line 94

This is Northumberland looking for news about his son’s fate. Lord Bardolph has just told him an out and out lie that his son is fine, but Morton has now begun to tell the truth, that Northumberland’s son, nicknamed Hotspur, is indeed now Coldspur (no, really, they use the Hotspur/Coldspur play on words which I think is pretty funny because it sounds exactly like something that I would come up with). And Northumberland sees the news coming and gives us today’s Totally Random line. And it’s a good line. Perfectly usable. In fact, I highly recommend it. If you’re trying to get someone to tell you the truth, and you feel they’re holding out a bit. That’s the time to try it out. For instance, you’re asking your son if he’s got any more homework, and you sense that he’s trying to not lie to you, and yet he’s not telling the whole truth… Let loose with “I see a strange confession in thine eye.” Yeah, actually, maybe that’s not a really good example. Well, it depends on how old the kid is. Maybe find an instance to use it husband to wife. The thing is, it will be a much better way to try to tell him/her that you don’t believe him/her. Compare “Listen, I know you’re lying to me you sorry sack of (insert your choice of expletive), now tell me the truth!” to “I see a strange confession in thine eye.” You can even swap out ‘your’ for ‘thine’ if you want to make a little more twenty-first century. But either way, it’s got a much better chance of getting to the truth without getting to fisticuffs.

Civility, that’s what I’m talking about.

                  

Okay, just a couple of program notes here:

First, today’s post is post #50 on the fiftieth day of posting. So that’s 50 in a row without missing a day. Can I get a ‘Woot, woot!’

Second, I found a great book I’m reading that I want to tell all you Will geeks about. It’s called Shakespeare’s Kings by John Julius Norwich. It’s the real (and relatively readable) history of the kings that Shakespeare wrote his plays about. It starts with Edward III (a play that is not in my compilation or in the First Folio but that has apparently been garnering recent acceptance by the experts as one of Will’s babies) and goes through Richard III. Granted there are some guys in that span who are not covered by Will’s plays, but by understanding all the history, and what all these guys did, it gives a whole new meaning to the plays. And Mr. Norwich does a pretty good job of pointing out just what, and what is not the truth in Will's version of history.

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.