4/12/17

I know that you can do very little alone;

-Menenius

Coriolanus                                    Act II, Scene i, Line 35

I know you can do very little alone; for your helps
are many, or else your actions would grow wondrous
single: your abilities are too infant-like for
doing much alone. You talk of pride: O that you
could turn your eyes toward the napes of your necks,
and make but an interior survey of your good selves!
O that you could!

That’s the full quote there, those seven lines. I gave you a nice short piece of it for today’s Totally Random line, but I thought you could use the seven lines to give it better context. This is Menenius talking to two of the tribunes (representatives) of the people, Sicinius and Junius. It’s pretty obvious that Menenius has a low opinion of these two guys he’s talking to. And he’s right, because they are pretty sleazy. They are politicians and Will has embodied in them all the things that we don’t like in politicians. Not that all politicians are bad. But these guys are.

You know what is a little curious though, is this thing about turning their eyes toward the napes of your necks. What’s up with that? An interior survey of your good selves, I get that. But eyes toward the napes of your necks?

And this leads me to a little bit of an epistle. Get comfortable.

One of the things I remember from my MAT program (that’s masters of teaching program) was the idea that one of the best ways to go about teaching is to make the subject matter the center of the classroom. In a sense, to take the subject matter, whether it’s Shakespeare, or the area of a triangle, or the atomic weight of wheat (okay, not sure if that last one makes sense), and literally or figuratively put it in the middle of the class and gather round it. And then take turns talking about it, questioning it, or just poking at it. As a teacher you should be doing some poking too. And yes, helping out a bit if you know a little more about the subject matter than the rest. This is in stark opposition to making it a teacher centered classroom where you’re just lecturing and the students are supposed to be paying attention to you.

With that in mind, my point is that Menenius’s seven lines today are a perfect example of how poke-able Shakespeare is. Why would you turn your eyes toward the napes of your neck? Why does Menenius have such a low opinion of politicians. These lines, and the questions I’m raising about these two lines,  are the kind of things that you can toss out into the middle of the circle and start poking. If you stop and look at these little things in the play, in the text, you can find some really interesting stuff. Shakespeare is so incredibly full of interesting stuff. Some of it’s very obscure, like the nape of the neck thing. And some is incredibly relevant and relatable to our world, like the politician thing.  

So that’s my epistle. It’s too bad I don’t have any teachers reading this blog, huh?

Here's my guys going at it again. They are just crazy about this play. That's Jerry, on the left, playing Sicinius and staring at Junius's neck. I coached him a bit on this one because I told him I wanted to put extra emphasis on the neck staring thing. He just took it and ran with it. Beautiful!

Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark?

-Ophelia

Hamlet                                         Act IV, Scene iv, Line 21

I think it’s pretty interesting that I was talking about TWLOHA in my last post and today we’re dealing with Ophelia, another in Will’s long list of tragic characters. Do you ever wonder if Will wasn’t perhaps a manic depressive?

In today’s scene Ophelia is losing her grip on reality. And no wonder! So far in the play her boyfriend (sort of) Hamlet has killed her father Polonius (by accident, sort of). And now Hamlet has been sent away to be killed himself, though Ophelia doesn’t yet know that. I’m not sure, but I think Ophelia’s referring to Hamlet as the ‘beauteous majesty of Denmark.’

Anyway, and more to the point, Ophelia, who dies or kills herself depending on who you ask, has become synonymous in our contemporary world with a name for troubled adolescent girls and particularly girls like the ones that TWLOHA tries to help. There is, in fact, a well known book on the subject of adolescent girls titled Reviving Ophelia: Saving The Selves Of Adolescent Girls.

So last post we talked about TWLOHA and today we run into Ophelia. And it’s all so Perfectly Random.

Yeah, I thought I'd throw TWLOHA another plug. I really don't know much about them, but I think they're legit, and I know this cause is legit.

How love is wise in folly, foolish-witty:

-Narrator

Venus and Adonis                                           Stanza 141

We have arrived, today, at the very page that we started on way back last August. This is, nonetheless , a tough line. At the very least you need the whole stanza. Here it is.

She marking them begins a wailing note
And sings extemporally a woeful ditty;
How love makes young men thrall and old men dote;
How love is wise in folly, foolish-witty:
Her heavy anthem still concludes in woe,
And still the choir of echoes answer so.

 So, for the sake of a little clarity, let me give you a little more. Adonis has just left to go home for the night and Venus is lying alone in the woods. She’s moaning that Adonis left her, and her moans are being echoed by neighboring caves (neighboring caves?). And these echoes are what she ‘marks’ in the first line of this stanza. Then she begins to sing a little song about ‘How love makes young men thrall and old men dote; how love is wise in folly, foolish-witty:’

And that’s about it. Love makes young men slaves (to their passion?) and old men act foolishly. Love is wise in folly and foolish-witty. It sounds like she’s just repeating how foolish love is, especially in the line we’ve picked for today.

How love is wise in folly, foolish-witty.

And this leads me to something completely different. I was going to comment on sort of agreeing with Venus and her view of love, and then I thought of something that I came across yesterday. It was a car with a sticker on the back. The sticker was the letters TWLOHA. I didn’t know what that was. Do you? Well I’ll tell you. It’s a non-profit organization called To Write Love On Her Arms. It’s a group based in Florida whose purpose is to help victims of depression and addiction. What’s it mean? It comes from the story of one young woman that the founder of the group was trying to help. This girl was suffering in silence and her suffering was taking the form of her cutting the word ‘fuck-up’ into her arms. And when the founder spoke about trying to help this girl he said that he was hoping that he would be able to get her to write love on her arms instead. To Write Love On Her Arms. That’s it. So in that case, I don’t think love is foolish at all. In that case love is pretty powerful, and it’s the best thing there is.

The moral of today's story? There's a lot of different kinds of love, and a lot (most?) of them are really good and really important. And yes, some of them can be a bit foolish-witty.

TO

WRITE

LOVE

ON HER

ARMS

twloha

This one's pretty important (consider it a public service announcement).

Keep, then, fair league and truce with thy true bed;

Adriana             

The Comedy Of Errors                    Act II, Scene ii    Line 144

Okay, back to The Comedy Of Errors. Remember, this is a story about twins separated at birth and living apart, not knowing where the other one is. To make it more interesting, each twin has as his personal servant one of another set of twins. And of course to make it supremely interesting, each of these two pairs of brothers has the same name as the other brother. The play takes place over the course of one day when one of the twins, with his servant, wanders into the town where the other lives. During the course of the play none of the twins are ever in the same scene as their twin, and they don’t even know that the other exists in the town. It’s not till the last scene of the play that they all end up on the stage together and realize what’s been going on. Only Will and the Three’s Company writers could have come up with this one. 

Anyway, today’s line is the wife of resident twin talking to the visiting twin (of course thinking he’s the resident twin, that is to say, her husband).  His response will be something along the lines of ‘who are you?’ And her line above is just a small part of what she’s going on and on about. So do we want to talk about this line? I mean, what do we do with it. To wrangle much meaning out of it we’d have to do at least a little context work with it. And honestly, I just don’t know if I’m up for that tonight. I think I’d rather just find some sort of mildly related picture and move on. 

Okay, what's this? It's a rose on a bed. So it seems like this would be a bed that you'd want to keep a truce with. Right?

…younger sons to younger brothers…

-Falstaff

King Henry The Fourth Part I                       Act IV, Scene ii, Line 29

This is two days in a row of Henry IV plays, today part one and yesterday part two, and two days in a row of Falstaff. Yesterday we had a line in reply to Sir John’s question ‘what money is in my purse?’ and today we have Sir John giving a bit of a soliloquy. He’s talking about the troop of soldiers he’s in charge of and in this particular part of the speech he’s talking about how unfit a group of men he has. Here’s the larger piece that I carved today’s Totally Random line out of

and now my whole charge consists of

ancients, corporals, lieutenants, gentlemen of

companies, slaves as ragged as Lazarus in the

painted cloth, where the glutton's dogs licked his

sores; and such as indeed were never soldiers, but

discarded unjust serving-men, younger sons to

younger brothers, revolted tapsters and ostlers

trade-fallen, the cankers of a calm world and a

long peace, ten times more dishonourable ragged than an old faced ancient:

It reminds me of a line from The Two Towers movie when they’re getting ready for the battle of Helm’s Deep and Legolas, looking at the group of men (and boys) getting ready to man the walls says ‘Most of them have seen too many winters’ and I think Aragorn replies, ‘or too few’. ‘younger sons to younger brothers’ is just Will's way of accentuating the youth of Falstaff's soldiers. 

I can't remember whether or not I've already used this pic of me and my younger brother Will in his stylin' plaid pants. But no matter, it's a good pic for today. And Will has two sons, so they'd be younger sons to the younger brother. Luckily, Will and I grew up in a time of no war for our country. God willing the same will hold true for his sons. And mine. And yours.

Seven groats and two pence.

Page

Henry The Fourth Part II                 Act I, Scene ii     Line 242

Thirty cents. That’s what seven groats and two pence is. This is the Page answering Falstaff when he asks how much money he has in his purse. It seems that Falstaff is always short on cash. How much was thirty cents worth in the year 1400 (when Henry IV was alive) or the 1590’s (when Will wrote this play)? I have no idea, but I’m pretty sure it was worth a lot more than thirty cents is today. After all, what can you buy for thirty cents today? Not much.

Well, I googled the value of money back then, and here’s a site you can look at to see how far thirty cents would go when Will was alive. https://abagond.wordpress.com/2007/05/02/money-in-shakespeares-time/ Take a look, it’s pretty interesting. There’ll be a quiz tomorrow.

Quiz!? No, not really, I can’t back that up.

Two small books. That's one thing that seven groats and two pence (thirty cents) would get you in Will's day.

Neighbours and friends, though bride and bridegroom wants

For to supply the places at the table,

You know there wants no junkets at the feast.

-Bapsista

The Taming Of The Shrew            Act III, Scene ii, Line 244

Baptista was the name of my second grade teacher; Sister Baptista. I remember her as being a bit gruff, but that was a long time ago so perhaps that memory has been colored by the years. I don’t know. In any case, the speaker of today’s line is not my second grade teacher, but rather the father of the bride. And I believe the bride in this case is Katharina AKA the Shrew. And Baptista is talking about the wedding feast that’s about to take place. The wedding has just taken place and it seems that Petruchio, the bridegroom, has just carried off Katharina so now Baptista has all these guests for the feast which he still plans on holding even though the bride and groom have left. And that’s what he’s talking about. I believe he’s saying to everyone that though we’re lacking a bride and groom we won’t be lacking of delicacies to eat (junkets). So what do you think of that?

Well it’s an age old scenario. If you’re the host you’d better have food and drink for your guests. And if they’re like most guests that I’ve seen (and sometimes been), while the main purpose, or people, of the gathering are important, they're not quite as important as the food and drink.

This reminds me of a story (don’t worry, I’ll keep it short). When I was in high school my girlfriend threw a surprise birthday party for me, a kegger (let’s say it was the year after graduation, just to keep this on the up and up). Well I found out about it and it turns out had a fairly important previous commitment for that night and I let her know that. So they had the kegger without me. Simple as that. So just like 400 years ago, the purpose of the gathering wasn’t as important for the gathering itself as the food and drink was (in this case a keg). As I recall I didn’t feel very good that they had the party without me, but looking back I should have understood it the way I do now. Or maybe I should have been familiar with this scene of The Taming Of The Shrew back then. Then I would have understood. 

If I looked hard enough in my archives I might be able to find a picture of that girlfriend from 1975 (her name was Dyane, and she was a pretty good girlfriend), but it was a lot easier to take a picture of the Wilton Armetal mug that's sitting on my shelf. This is the kind of thing I was drinking out of at keggers back then. I prefer glass these days.