Then, Joan, discover thine infirmity,

That warranteth by law to be thy privilege.--

 -Joan La Pucelle

Setting – Camp of the Duke of York in Anjou

Present – York, Warwick, La Pucelle, a shepherd, and others

King Henry The Sixth Part I          Act V, scene iv   Line 61

And the next words out of Joan's mouth (who is speaking of herself in the third person here) is that she is pregnant. That’s her privilege and her infirmity, and something that she hopes will keep the English from killing her. I’m pretty sure that she’s not really pregnant, just saying that to try to save her own skin. In any event, it doesn’t work as they haul her off to be burned at the stake.

So it’s a little interesting that her pregnancy is her ‘privilege’. I’m not sure what law she’s referring to. I guess some fifteenth century code that says you can’t kill pregnant women? We’d have to defer to James or Stephen or one of those experts on that one. In any event, this scene paints a pretty unflattering picture of Joan. First she denies her father (an old shepherd who comes up to claim her as his daughter), then she claims to be a virgin with immaculate properties, then she claims to be pregnant (changing three times the name of the father), and finally exits cursing the English. I’ve got to do some research (because I don’t see James or Stephen chiming in to help me out) but I’m thinking that Joan of Arc is not really a highly regarded figure in England, at least not at the time that Will was writing these tales.

Now, what of this ‘infirmity’ and ‘privilege thing? In one breath she declares pregnancy to be nearly an illness, and at the same time something that gives her entitlement? I think that’s a little bit interesting. I’m not sure that present day sensibilities would allow us to refer to pregnancy as either of these things.

In the meantime, some programming notes here.

First, we missed posting a new post last night for the first time since we started in August. And I was so excited that 100 straight days was coming up. Oh well. I'll get into the reason for the lapse next week, can't do that now.

Second, this is five days in a row of Henrys. Of course, there are six Henry plays, so that’s not entirely amazing. However, this is the third Totally Random line spoken by Joan, and the second in the past three days. So that’s a little bit interesting. And again, who knew that Joan was even a part of Will’s works? Well, I’m sure a bunch of people knew it, but I know I didn’t. 

This is a pic of me at Grant's tomb. Another random pic? No sir! In my research on Joan of Arc I found, to my great surprise, that there is a Joan of Arc Park, complete with a statue of Joan on horseback, on Riverside Drive on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It just so happens that I was exploring that area this time last year. Unfortunately I did not get to the Joan of Arc Park (I did not know at the time that it existed), but I did get to Grant's Tomb and since it is only about a mile away I decided that a pic from there would be appropriate. I hope you agree.

What’s he?

-Duke of Orleans

Setting – The French camp near Agincourt

Present – The Constable of France, the Lord Rambures, Orleans, and others.

King Henry The Fifth      Act III, scene vii Line 101

Tonight, a short line and a short post. Clearly, it isn’t much of a line to work with. I do think it’s interesting that we’re on our fourth day in a row of Henry plays, but today’s line is a bit a bit, well, there’s just not much to it. What’s he? I think the Duke is simply saying ‘who?’ The ‘who’ he’s referring to is the Dauphin. No, not the dolphin, the Dauphin. The Dauphin is the title of whoever is next in line for the throne of France. I don’t know if it has any relation from a semantics standpoint to the word dolphin, but I doubt it.

We knew going in to it there’d be days like this, so we’ll just take the day, and the line and be done.

No, no! I said Dauphin, not dolphin.

There goes the Talbot, with his colours spread,

And all the troops of English after him.

 

-Joan La Pucelle

Setting – The plains near Rouen

Present – Charles, the Bastard of Orleans, Alencon, Joan, and forces

King Henry The Sixth Part I          Act III, scene iii  Line 32

I’m not quite sure why he’s the Talbot. I always did like the ‘u’ in colours… and favourite, and all those other ‘ou’ spellings that get you the red underline in Word. It’s just so British.

In any event, here again is Joan La Pucelle, AKA Joan of Arc. It seems that the Talbot is one of the big English guys and he’s marching up and down France causing all sorts of problems for the Frenchies. Joan is about to get her hands on the Duke of Burgundy and have a bit of a chat with him. It seems that Burgundy, a Frenchman, with his followers has sided with the Talbot. I’m not at all clear why. But once Joan has a talk with Burgundy he promises to come back to the French side. And so things seem to turn in the French direction again.

Joan refers to Talbot here ‘with his colours spread’ and a little earlier ‘like a peacock sweep along his tail’. So apparently this Talbot fellow has a bit of showiness about him, and causes just a little bit of fascination on Joan’s part. Can it be that she has a begrudging crush on him? Well, if Sir Richard can have a man crush on Hal, why not Joan on the Talbot?

Is that the Talbot? No wait, that's Gaston!

Ay, but she’s come to beg; Warwick to give:

She, on his left side, craving aid for Henry;

He, on his right, asking a wife for Edward.

She weeps, and says her Henry is deposed;

He smiles, and says his Edward is install’d;

 

-King Henry

 

Setting - A chase (woods) in the north of England

Present - Two keepers with cross-bows, and Henry

King Henry The Sixth Part III       Act III, scene i    Line 45

From Henry IV Part I we skip all the way to the end of the Henry plays, Henry VI Part III. Remember now that the succession of Kings goes Richard II, Henrys IV, V, and VI, Edwards IV and V, Richard III. Remember also that Will did not do a play on either of those Edwards (apparently he did one on Edward III who preceded Richard II, but that’s another story). Anyway, the reason I bring this up is because Will covered a bit of both of the Edwards in his other plays. Edward IV is on the throne by the end of Will’s Henry VI Part III. And the play Richard III starts with one of the Edwards on the throne, I’m not clear which. Now, how exactly these transitions take place is complicated and I still don’t have all the facts straight. But what I do know is that the king of France gets involved. That’s who the ‘his’ is above. Warwick is working on the king of France on Edward V’s behalf, and Margaret (Heny VI’s wife) is the ‘she’ who is working on Henry VI’s son’s behalf (Coincidentally also named Edward. Could this be any more confusing?). And today’s lines is Henry talking to himself about all of what’s going on. He’s probably as confused as we are and going over all of these facts to try to straighten it out in his own head. Of course the final bit of confusion to sprinkle in here is that Will did not stick completely to the historical facts so that when I go to the history books to figure out what’s going on with whom I sometimes just manage to get a little bit more confused.

Anyway, now that I’ve completely lost you, where do we go from here? I guess, in a sense, since you don’t know where you are anymore, any direction taken is just as good as any other. Okay then, let’s talk Henrys. These three Henrys (IV, V, and VI) are the only father, son, grandson succession in this whole section of British history that Will’s trying to cover. But even though that seems as though it should be pretty clean and straight-forward, it’s not. Unfortunately Henry IV took the throne from Richard II, his first cousin. And Henry VI is going to lose it, re-gain it and lose it again to another cousin, who’ll then lose it to another cousin. All cousins here. And we find out through these plays that even though Henry IV was strong enough to take the throne from his cousin Richard II, he still wasn’t a very good king. And Will gives us the next Henry, number V, as the guy who is really the strong king and spends his time winning battles in France. Henry VI (the guy talking today) is the third Henry and apparently he’s not a very strong ruler either. Remember, way back in September we had the first line of today’s play, Henry the Sixth Part III, and at that time they were running around looking for Henry, so we knew he was in trouble from the get go.

All right then, perhaps I’ll leave you there. Henry VI is wandering through the woods talking to himself about the fact that his wife is in France begging the French king for help in holding on to his throne. That’s the long story short of it.

No, this isn’t Henry wandering in the woods, it’s my friend Ronny wandering in the woods. He looks a little confused too, but I’m pretty sure he’s not worrying about any succession business.

He gave you all the duties of a man;

Trimm’d up your praises with a princely tongue,

Spoke your deservings like a chronicle,

Making you ever better than his praise

By still dispraising praise valued with you;

 

-Sir Richard Vernon

 King Henry The Fourth Part I      Act V, scene ii    Line 57

Today we’re back to the history plays. Yes, we got away from these guys for a while, but since they make up about a quarter of my compilation we were bound to get back to them sooner or later. Our Totally Random line(s) is Sir Richard Vernon describing to Hotspur (Harry Percy), the manner in which Prince Hal issued his challenge. Hotspur assumed it was with contempt, but Sir Richard is explaining that Hal issued it very modestly. Sir Richard goes on for several more lines after this to the point that Hotspur finally asks Richard if he’s got a crush on Prince Hal. Well, not exactly, but he sort of says that. And it’s a fair question considering the way Richard is going on and on about Prince Hal.

Now this is a pretty common practice of Will to take something and really run and run and run with it. Richard’s reply goes on and on and on about how nice Prince Hal is being in offering this challenge to Hotspur. It’s eighteen lines (of which we have five for today’s Totally Random lines) of an answer to Hotspur’s question. The question is ‘When Hal issued the challenge did he do it with contempt?’ It’s literally a yes or no question to which Richard gives a ‘Tony, long-story-short’ answer. Tony was a guy that I worked with (really nice guy) who would tell stories that went on forever with a level of detail that no one needed, and all throughout the story Tony would be saying ‘long story short…’. And we would all be thinking (sometimes saying) ‘Tony, there’s nothing short about this story!’ So I can just imagine Hotspur breaking in around line five or six of Richard’s replay with ‘Okay Tony, I get it! Hal’s a nice guy, fine!’ But of course he doesn’t do that. He does give a pretty good response to Richard though. ‘Cousin, I think thou are enamoured on his follies.’  i.e. ‘Dude, are you in love with this guy, or what?’

Long story short, these houses have lawns for roofs. Don't ask me how that works, or whether they have to mow their roofs, or what that has to do with today's post. I just thought it was an interesting picture.

He’s flung in rage from this ingrateful seat

Of monstrous friends; nor has he with him to

Supply his life, or that which can command it.

 

-Flavius

 

Timon Of Athens                            Act IV, scene ii    Line 24

Timon has flown the coop, and he left without his backpack or anything else and headed up into the hills away from everyone. That’s what this boils down to. Now I don’t know too much of Timon Of Athens, but I do know that it’s a story of a kind hearted soul who gave all his friends the shirt off his back. And later on, when his money was all gone, he found that he had no real friends, and no one would help him out. And at that he lost his kind heart and walked away from it all.

Now If you don’t mind, I’m going to continue one more day on the theme of the week’s events. But rest assured that I’m keeping it pertinent to today’s line.

I can’t help but feel that this week’s loser in the general election has got to feel a little like Timon at this point. Can you imagine spending your life in service to people only to be refuted in the end by the people? And not only refuted, but to have a paragon of sloth and ignorance chosen over you? It would not surprise me at all to learn that she had headed up into the hills never to be heard from again. I know that I would be tempted to do that. I’m guessing, though, that even if she did that she would certainly not go without her backpack. And her contingent of secret service (former first lady; remember?). And no, in reality I don’t believe we’ve heard the last of her. And hopefully her end does not mirror Timons.

All right, that’s all I have to say about that, and hopefully by tomorrow I’ll have my head back on my shoulders and back into Will’s game. It got knocked off a bit by the results of Tuesday, but I’m slowly recuperating. I’ll do my best, and I don’t think I’ll be flung in rage. After all, I have much still with me to supply my life and to stay in command of myself. Yes, I most certainly do.

This is me heading up into the hills about twenty years ago. We hiked up from down below on the bottom right hand corner of the picture. Up in the upper left hand corner, sort of out of the picture, is Farewell Gap. If you go through that gap you're in the High Sierra back country. We didn't go that way. We hiked up to Lower Franklin Lake, camped out for one night, and headed back the next day. And there was no rage involved at all.

O God! That one might read the book of fate,

And see the revolution of the times

Make mountains level, and the continent,

Weary of solid firmness, melt itself,

Into the sea!

 -King Henry

 King Henry the Fourth Part II      Act III, scene i    Line 45

Well this is a pretty pertinent quote for today’s state of affairs. It sounds like Henry wants to see the future, but that he wants to see all things come to an end. It sounds quite fatalistic and pessimistic.

I would say that there are more than just a few people in our country today who are feeling this way. Probably about sixty millions of them. And that’s not surprising considering that we have now decided to put a misogynistic, bigot, imbecile in charge. However, my own personal feelings are more optimistic. Don’t get me wrong, I can understand if you want to see the mountains level and the continent melt into the sea. I get it. And this fellow, clearly proven to be a morally corrupt idiot with the maturity of high schooler, might just make you want this to happen. So how can I be optimistic?

I’m optimistic because our country’s government has not been working for quite a while, and definitely needs something to reboot it. Perhaps this, as unpleasant as it is, will help the reboot.

I’m optimistic because I don’t believe the imbecile is too far-right (or far-left) regardless of his party affiliation, but rather more centrist (though I’m not sure he even realizes this, or knows what the word ‘centrist’ means). So that is better than having an extremist in charge.

I’m optimistic because I believe that this ego-driven imbecile will want to be considered a great leader and because of this will try to actually do some good things. I also believe the office of the president in and of itself tends to elevate the occupant’s way of thinking.

I’m optimistic because I believe the election of the moron will be a wake-up call to all of us regarding what can happen if we don’t care more about what’s going on.

I’m optimistic because I believe there are many, many good men and women faithfully serving our country and I believe they will continue to do so, keeping us safe, in spite of the imbecile.

And finally, I’m optimistic because I have to be. I want this grand experiment of democracy to continue. I have children who need it to continue, and I believe it will continue. I believe this is a great country, much greater than any one imbecile.

So it’s absolutely amazing that we managed to come up with this Totally Random line today. And I apologize for going a little more off course than I usually do. But isn’t it once again fantastic to see how timeless Will’s words are. Timeless or not, though, don’t take the line too seriously, and please don’t be Henry. Be optimistic.

Of course, being a little prayerful wouldn’t hurt either.

God bless us all! I know that he will.