That goldsmith there, were he not pack’d with her,

Could witness it, for he was with me then;

Who parted with me to go fetch a chain,

Promising to bring it to the Porpentine,

Where Balthazar and I did dine together.

-Antipholus of Ephesus

The Comedy Of Errors    Act V, scene i     Line 224

The MW online gives us the definition of porpentine as an obsolete version of porcupine. Fair enough. But whether you go with porpentine or porcupine, I think it’s a delightful name for an inn or restaurant which is what we have here.

I believe this is our first foray into The Comedy of Errors. Since my knowledge of this play is non-existent, I did a little reading on it, and a little listening of it. Certainly I didn’t cover the whole thing, but I’ve got a pretty good sense of the gist of it, and this one is pure comedy farce (unlike some of the other comedies – for instance, The Merchant Of Venice). Let me see if I can summarize.

There are two sets of twins separated shortly after birth. One set of twins are rich kids, and the other set of twins are poor kids who become the servants of each of these two rich kids. Somehow or other, the two rich brothers have the same name, Antipholus, and the two servants have the same name, Dromio. Throughout the play they are referred to as Antipholus of Ephisus or Antipholus of Syracuse (same for the Dromios) in the text so that we can keep them straight. The play takes place in Ephisus where the Syracusans are visiting. All the other people in the play can’t tell the twins apart and up until the final scene the twins don’t end up in the same place at the same time. And also, none of the twins know that their other twins are in this town. As you can imagine, the misunderstandings abound, and that’s what the play is built on; misunderstanding after misunderstanding. At this point in the play we are moments away from the two sets of twins appearing on the stage together as we’re in the final scene and only a few hundred lines are left.  

So there are all sorts of amazing coincidences built into this play that we’d have to overlook, but we can do that. We can just say ‘Well, that’s Hollywood,’ like we would do for a lot of movies. And  we assume that they used one guy to play both Antipholuses and one guy to play both Dromios, but I do wonder how they pulled off the very end of the play where the two Antipholuses and the two Dromios finally end up on stage together. Anyway, today's Totally Random line is part of just one of many, many misunderstandings that come about in the play. But I’d prefer to get back to the Porpentine.

For one thing, I think it’s a great word. And much better than porcupine which isn’t pronounced por-cue-pine, it’s pronounced por-kee-pine. Why not go with a word that we can pronounce as we see it? And for another thing, what a great name for an inn or restaurant. The Porpentine (or Porcupine). I googled it, and there is at least one Porcupine Inn, and one Porcupine Restaurant in the U.S. I didn’t spend any time on it, so I’m guessing there’s more than one. And why not? It’s a great name for a place. And he dined there with Balthazar. Balthazar! There’s gotta be few of those kicking around as well. Can you imagine? Someone asks you where you were and you would be able to say I was dining at the Porpentine with Balthazar? I just think it would be fabulous to be able to say that. ‘I dined with Balthazar at the Porpentine.’

Don’t you?

I tried to find an interestingly named restaurant that I'd been to. All I could come up with was the place where we had this stuff. I don't even remember what this stuff was. I think that might be reindeer meat on the top. The place was interesting because it was a really fancy place and it was in the middle of nowhere. Literally. But it was called Husset, which is not nearly as good as the Porpentine. I don't know what Husset means, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't mean Porcupine.

O heaven! O heavenly powers!

 

-Emilia

 

Othello                 Act V, scene ii    Line 218

All right then, just two days ago we had the ‘The handkerchief!’ line from Act III, scene iv of Othello. Now today we’ve zipped right to the very end of the play. We’re in the last scene, and there are just 154 lines left in the play.

Everything’s hitting the fan here as we’re way past asking about a hanky. Othello has already suffocated his wife Desdemona in their bedroom, and now Iago’s wife Emilia, along with Iago, Gratiano, and Montano are there, and Othello is explaining that his wife was unfaithful with Michael Cassio and that’s why he killed her. When he finishes his statement with the part about Cassio having the handkerchief Emilia can’t control herself any longer. That’s when she lets loose with today’s Random line crying O heaven! O heavenly powers! A few lines later she explains that she stole the hanky and gave it to Iago, not realizing what her rat of a husband was going to do with it. And if things weren’t unraveling before, well that really does it.

So you’ve got to wonder if that’s the first thing Will came up with for Emilia’s line. Consider that it’s an exclamation about the terrible doings of Iago, and she uses the word ‘heaven’ twice when in fact what’s taking place here is about as far away from heavenly as it can be. I’m thinking that Will went through a few ideas before coming up with this one.

 “Okay, let’s see, he’s just killed his wife, and he’s about to kill himself. And that rat Iago’s wife has just realized that she helped the rat by stealing the hanky. So what should I have her say? Hmmm. Have her scream? No, that can’t be right. Too predictable. There’s got to be something better than that. ‘Rat, you dirty rat!’ No, no, that’s not right either. Something else, there’s got to be something else. I’ve got it! ‘Heavens!’ Yes, ‘heavens!.’ Everything’s going straight to hell in a handbasket, so what should she say? ‘Heavens!’ Of course! Oh that’s hysterical!”

That old Will had himself one serious sense of humor.

Well, see to live; I will not touch thine eye

For all the treasure that thine uncle owes:

 

-Hubert De Burgh

 

King John            Act IV, scene i    Line 122

We talked about this scene (even though we didn’t actually have a line from it) back on August 21st. I said at the time that I found it to be a touching scene, and I still do. This is Hubert De Burgh, who young Arthur considers a friend, finally relenting and telling the lad that he’s not going to be burning his eyes out. Up to this point in the scene he had been determined to do it, because he’s been told that he has to, and here he finally says that he won’t. Arthurs’ reply is that now Hubert looks like Hubert, and that before he relented he appeared to be disguised.

That’s an interesting observation on the part of young Arthur, and one that we might be able to appreciate. Can you imagine someone you care about and trust all of a sudden threatening you. I don’t suppose you would recognize them as themselves either. And yet, they wouldn’t be wearing a disguise, or actually have a different appearance. But maybe it would be something in their eyes that told you that this person is not the person you think it is. That’s a scary thought, isn’t it? I can’t think of any instance in my life where this rings true. But I can imagine it, and I think it would scare the heck out of me. And it must have been a very good thing for Arthur in the end when he recognized that his good friend Hubert was back. I hope for Arthur’s sake that Hubert doesn’t go away again any time soon.

Hold on there now, this person really is disguised! Hey, wait a minute. That's my wife!

The handkerchief!

 

-Othello

Othello                 Act III, scene iv Line 91

Well this is a fabulous line! The handkerchief! It’s just unbelievable how we manage to get to these places in completely random fashion. Sort of reminds me of life in general. But anyway, the line.

So for the uninitiated, this play is about the rat Iago making a mess of everyone’s lives. There are some earlier posts on this play if you go to the Will's Works/Pete's Posts tab. But for now, one of the main things Iago's going to do is convince Othello that his wife is having an affair with Michael Cassio. Iago’s going to do this by getting his hands on Desdemona’s hanky that her husband Othello gave her. Then he’s going to plant the hanky on Cassio, but in the meantime he’s going to tell Othello that Cassio’s got the hanky and that Cassio’s been getting more than that from Desdemona. At this point in the play Iago has the hanky and has told Othello that he’s seen Cassio with it. Now Othello is alone with Desdemona and he wants to find out that Iago’s wrong so he’s asking her to show him the hanky. She keeps putting him off, not realizing that he suspects infidelity. She doesn’t have the hanky with her, but doesn’t even realize yet that it’s gone from her possession. The conversation has devolved to the point where Desdemona is trying to sort of change the subject and Othello just keeps pushing back to the darn hanky. This is his second ‘The handkerchief!’, and there will be one more ‘The handkerchief!’ before he storms out. And it’s just a silly little hanky! It’s amazing that so much in this play hinges on that little square piece of cloth! Can you think of any other prop in a play or movie that's so small and yet so pivotal?

This is a picture of my brother Dave and my daughter Nina from a few years back. We were all away together on vacation and Dave decided that it would be fun to try to act out this very scene from Othello. So he wrapped this stuff around his head to make himself look like the Othello the Moor (or so he thought) and he hung the hanky on his glasses (obviously a twist from the original script). He tells Nina that she’s Desdemona, and then he keeps saying “The handkerchief!” I guess he thought it would help Nina if the handkerchief was right in front of her. But without knowing the play very well, of course it didn’t, and she just kept staring at Uncle Dave thinking ‘What the heck are you talking about?’ I guess we’ve all got an Uncle Dave in our family, don’t we.

Affection faints not like a pale-faced coward,

But then woos best when most his choice is

froward.

 -Narrator

Venus and Adonis                           Line 570

If you recall, or even if you don’t, we started this Blog off with Venus and Adonis back in August. So this is our second visit to this poem. You can look at that first post here if you want.

Today’s line comes earlier in the poem though, right after Venus finally (this is line 570, after all) gets Adonis to allow her to have her way with him. And I think the line is saying that the difficulty in seducing him made the lovemaking that much better. There, simple as that. And by the way, that last word is not a typo. It’s not supposed to be forward. The word is froward and it means perverse, obstinate, willful, ungovernable. There, you learned something new. Or maybe you were already familiar with froward?

In any event, I guess this is a sentiment that you might hear often and about all sorts of things. And especially if you're young. "You know Dougie, you’ll appreciate that (fill in the blank here) so much more if you have to work and earn your own money to buy it." But will Dougie really appreciate it more? Will he?

This is a portion of the Snow Village stuff that we set up every Christmas Time. I like looking at it a lot, but it takes a lot of time and effort to set it up. Would I like looking at it as much if it didn't take all that time and effort to set up. Now that you mention it, I think I would. Oh well, so much for that theory.

Whether it be the fault and glimpse of newness,

Or whether that the body public be

A horse wherein the governor doth ride,

 

-Claudio

 

Measure For Measure   Act I, scene ii      Line 156

We'll keep today's post fairly short.

Claudio is talking about the duke’s new deputy who is enforcing an unused law about lecherous behavior to have him, Claudio, locked up. Claudio is saying that he’s not sure why the new deputy is enforcing this law. Whether it’s just because the guy is new at the job, or whether the guy is enjoying having power over the people. He speculates in the next lines that maybe the deputy is just trying to make a name for himself.

So we’ve been on this very same page just about a month ago. At that time we were talking about Claudio’s sister entering the cloister. And that has to do with tonight’s line as well. That line about his sister is that he wants his friend Lucio to go to his sister in the cloister and ask her to speak to the deputy on Claudio’s behalf.

They’re going to try everything they can to deal with this deputy. After all, the penalty for the law that the deputy is enforcing is for Claudio to lose his head. So that wouldn’t be real good for Claudio.

This is a picture of me while my mom was reading this play to me when I was little. I was excited that I got to act out the part of the governor riding the horse of the body public. But then mom explained to me that it was just a figure of speech and that there wasn’t actually a horse being ridden in the story. She got into the whole figurative vs literal language thing, and that was a bit of a buzzkill. But is was helpful that she explained it to me. And then she changed my pants for me. That was pretty helpful too.

With tearful eyes add water to the sea,

 

-Queen Margaret

King Henry The Sixth Part III       Act V, scene iv   Line 8

Dedicated to Spike and Noah

There’s really more to this line than what’s here. The sentence, and thought, begins before this line, and as you can see by the comma it continues after this line. But this line, all by itself, is particularly appropriate for today’s mood, and I say kudos to the die which once again appears to be anything but random. We're just going to go with the eight words of the line above. Let me explain.

My posts run about twelve days behind the day that I originally pick the line and write the posts. That is to say, I began this project of picking Random lines on August 1, but for the first ten days I did the writing just on a word document. I wanted to see if I would want to continue to do it before I actually took the time to start a blog. Well I did like doing it, so on August 10 I started posting. And I started with the August 1 Random line. Since then I’ve missed a few days of posting, but I never miss a day of picking a line. Long story short, I end up posting my blog posts about twelve days after I actually pick the line and write about it. It works out well, and it gives me a chance to clean up the writing a bit before I post it.

Why am I telling you this? Yes, there is a method to my madness. This random line is from November 17. Those of you who are diehard readers of this blog (yes, both of you) might recall that November 16 was the first date since I began on August 10 that I didn’t post. And on the following morning I pulled this line. Well the reason I didn’t post on November 16 was because I was pretty upset. On that day we said good-bye to two friends who had been with us for quite some time. They were both very old, and very sick, and their time had come. But it was a bad day for all of us here at the homestead. So with tearful eyes, we did add water to the sea, and I was as usual amazed at the appropriateness of the Random line.

I couldn't have done this post twelve days ago. But I can do it now, as now, our lives go on.

That's Spike on the left, and Noah on the right. They were only a few years old at the time, as this picture is quite old. That little guy in the middle was a neo-nate, and now he stands about 5' 8'', and  he's doing quite well thanks. But our friends Spike and Noah have left us, and we're sad about that.