I think it lacks of twelve.

-Horatio

Hamlet                                              Act I, Scene iv, Line 3

Horatio’s talking about the time of day. He’s saying ‘I think it’s a little before midnight.’ This is the scene where the ghost of Hamlet’s father appears and has a chat with his son. But this is the very beginning of the scene and neither the ghost nor the son is here yet. So I guess Horatio is just doing the job of helping to set the scene for the audience. Now they know it’s around midnight. And so do you. Will that help you in your appreciation of the scene that you’re about to see or to read? Well I guess you’d have to see or read the scene to find out. Here it is. Well, did it help?

I think that it is not lacking of twelve. In fact, I know without looking at my watch that it's not lacking of twelve because my lunch is long gone.

 Thus ever did rebellion find rebuke.

-King Henry IV

King Henry The Fourth Part I              Act V, Scene v, Line 1

Translation: We kicked their butts!

This is a close-up of a Viking ship. Now there were some guys who kicked a lot of butt!

If thou deny'st it twenty times, thou liest;
And I will turn thy falsehood to thy heart,
Where it was forged, with my rapier's point.

-Lord Fitzwater

King Richard The Second                 Act IV, Scene i, Line 40

First of all, I’ve got to say that I love the name Lord Fitzwater. It almost sounds like seltzer water. Or fizz water. It’s just got a great sound. Don’t you agree? And ‘Lord’. It’s just fabulous. And of course anyone with the name of Fitzwater has got to be going by the name ‘Fitz’ to his friends, right? One of my cardiologist’s (yes, two cardiologists, an electrician and a plumber) is named Blitzer, but of course I call him Blitz. Well, not actually, I refer to him as Blitz, but when I talk to him I call him Doc. But his friends must call him Blitz, no? And second, how about the word ‘forged’. That’s a word near and dear to us Tolkieners’ hearts. The forging of the one ring. The sword that was re-forged.

Having said that about some of the words, you should note that we covered this scene, if not this specific line, back in November. It’s the scene where everyone starts throwing their gloves down, to the point where somebody runs out of gloves. So I’m not going to get into this scene too much.

But hey, here’s something interesting. If you read yesterday’s line (which is Claudius talking to Laertes in Hamlet), and directly afterwards read today’s line (which is Fitz talking to someone in King Richard The Second), it seems to fit. The two lines seem to go together as if they were in the same conversation, either a continuation of yesterday’s line, or a reply to yesterday’s line.

Now must your conscience my acquaintance seal,
And you must put me in your heart for friend,
Sith you have heard, and with a knowing ear,
That he which hath your noble father slain
Pursued my life.

If thou deny'st it twenty times, thou liest;
And I will turn thy falsehood to thy heart,
Where it was forged, with my rapier's point.

Isn’t that funny! Maybe we should take a look at that on an ongoing basis to see how completely unrelated lines go, or don’t go, together. Hmm. Or maybe not.

This is my view from my hospital bed looking down at the foot of the bed. It's from back in December. And yes, today's pic is perfectly relevant. Why was I in the hospital? Because Blitz put me there for some tests.  If you zoom in on that white chart you can see 'EP Study'. Don't ask me what EP stands for. But whatever it is, Blitz decided I just had to have one. That wacky Blitz!

 Now must your conscience my acquaintance seal,
And you must put me in your heart for friend,
Sith you have heard, and with a knowing ear,
That he which hath your noble father slain
Pursued my life.

-Claudius

Hamlet                                    Act IV, Scene vii, Line 3

‘So get on my side, buddy, ‘cause you know that this guy Hamlet who killed your dad is also after me.’ I’m pretty sure that’s what King Claudius is telling Laertes here right now, or something like that. There’s only two scenes left in this play after this, the graveyard scene which we covered back in February, and the final scene where just about everyone dies. And in this scene Laertes and Claudius are plotting what they’re gonna do in that final scene to kill Hamlet.

I’d forgotten, but Laertes is the father of Odysseus in The Odyssey. Is that significant? Yeah, probably. We’d have to ask one of those Shakespeare experts, Bloom, or Garber, or whatever what that significance is, but I’m sure there’s something. After all, would Will just pick a name at random? No, Pete would pick a name at random; perhaps on a daily basis, but not Will. Or would he? It’s a good question.

Speaking of random, take a look at this kooky blog. This guy is picking a completely random line on a daily basis from all of Shakespeare’s works. And then he’s trying to write something  about that line, on a daily basis (though lately it looks like lately it’s a bit less than daily). What a kook!

Why, as men do a-land; the great ones eat up the little ones: I can compare our rich misers to
nothing so fitly as to a whale; a' plays and
tumbles, driving the poor fry before him, and at last devours them all at a mouthful: such whales have I heard on o' the land, who never leave gaping till they've swallowed the whole parish, church, steeple, bells, and all.

-First Fisherman

Pericles, Prince Of Tyre                      Act II, Scene i, Line 34

Hoo boy, that’s not even a bunch of lines. It’s just a big old paragraph! But it’s a good one. What do we call the lines (or a paragraph) that are trying to say something meaningful about life in general, and can be taken fully on their own and apart from the story of the play. This is as opposed to lines that are just dialogue of what’s going on in the play? Well there must be a word for it, and certainly most of our Totally Random lines are the latter. I guess I’ll have to pass on what that word is for now and just tell you that we’ve got one of those lines (or paragraphs) today.

So what's it trying to say? Well, the first fisherman is comparing the way that whales eat up everything in their path to the way that some of the mighty and powerful men devour everything, and I suppose everyone, in their paths. And I believe this speaks to income disparity and the one per centers. The fisherman is probably talking about the rich guys or maybe the royalty. Or is he talking about the clergy. I don’t know. We’d have to do a lot more work with this particular play to figure out more specifics on this.

But no matter, because we can see the relevance of the line to today’s world. At least I can. Isn’t it funny how we tend to look at today’s problems and somehow think that they are unique to our times. The fact is that usually they’re not. And certainly this issue is not. Here’s an idea: why don’t we go back to Will’s time, or for that matter any past time, and find some of our current day problems to see how it turned out. Maybe that way we'd get some ideas about some smart things to do. But we won’t do that. Why? Because that’s how history manages to repeat itself. It’s the old maxim (hey, is maxim the word I was looking for earlier?): History repeats itself because nobody listens the first time. Or the second, or the third…

Bob pulled up outside my window at work today and I thought it was a funny picture. I wonder is Bob is a one per center? What do you think?

 There let his head and lifeless body lie,

Until the queen his mistress bury it.

-Walter Whitmore

King Henry The Sixth Part III             Act IV, Scene i, Line 143

Well we took a few days off, didn't we? And now that we're back we're at a scene that we’ve been to before. But it was way back in September. At that time I commented on what a bad-ass Suffolk was based on what he was saying then. But now, well that head and lifeless body being referred to, that's Suffolk. And based on the fact that Whitmore is referring  separately to his head and lifeless body, I believe we’re looking at yet another in Will’s long list of severed heads. Remember, was it last August or September, when we were getting a severed head every other day. Well, it’s been a while.

So I suppose we should give ol’ Walt the bad-ass title now. Not only has he killed and decapitated Suffolk, but he’s calling out the queen (that’s Henry the Sixth’s wife) as Suffolk’s mistress. And this from a guy named Walter Whitmore. Not Sir Walter, or Duke of Whitmore, or King Walter. Just plain Walter. Now don’t get me wrong all you Walters out there. I’m not dissing the name. I’m simply saying that it doesn’t really  have the cache of a lot of the other titles we’ve run into have. Then again, what's in a name? Mr. Whitmore is still standing, and what did the name Duke of Suffolk get this other fellow? It got him his head lopped off, that's what it got him.

  

Now here's a fairly blasé name, nothing special about it at all. But we can dress it up a bit with a fancy name plaque. But at the end of the day, it's just a name.

Tell Bolingbroke--for yond methinks he stands--
That every stride he makes upon my land
Is dangerous treason: he is come to open
The purple testament of bleeding war;
But ere the crown he looks for live in peace,
Ten thousand bloody crowns of mothers' sons
Shall ill become the flower of England's face,
Change the complexion of her maid-pale peace
To scarlet indignation and bedew
Her pastures' grass with faithful English blood.

-Richard

King Richard The Second                   Act III, Scene iii, Line 96

Be patient, princes; you do know, these fits
Are with his highness very ordinary.
Stand from him. Give him air; he'll straight be well.

-Warwick

King Henry The Fourth Part II           Act IV, Scene iv, Line 115

And since, on two successive days we have skipped, from the end of Richard’s reign to the end of his successor Henry’s reign, I’ve decided to bless you with two Totally Random lines today.

The first selection is King Richard talking about Bolingbroke (Henry IV) and the trouble that’s going to come of Bolingbroke’s actions to take Richard’s crown. And of course, Richard is right. Then, skipping forward, 'his highness' being referred to in today’s line is Bolingbroke again, but better known in today’s play as King Henry the Fourth. Do you suppose that tomorrow’s Totally Random line will be from the end of Henry the Fifth’s reign, and then Henry the Sixth? Given that there are 1,320 pages in the book that I’m picking from randomly, I’d have to say the odds are no.

Which leads me to another discussion: should we be changing the format so as to add some sort of continuity to Totally Random (almost) Daily Shakespeare? Don’t think that I haven’t considered it, because I have. Oh there’s several ways I could go. One that I’ve thought of is to take one play and stick to it for a month. Pick a random line from each successive page, or pick the pages randomly? There is a strong argument for maintaining some element or other of randomness. Hmmm. Well we’ll let that one go for now and perhaps we’ll get back to it at a later date.

Back to today's lines; now sometimes I have to agree with the teacher who said that it’s worth teaching kids Shakespeare just so that they get to hear his words, irrespective of whether they understand or appreciate them. Certainly, I’d like to see them understand and appreciate, but Will’s language is just so incomparable that it’s worthwhile just having these words heard.

…and bedew her pastures’ grass with faithful English blood.

And yet, there are so many people, most of us in fact, who just have no idea…

Then again, what of today’s line, about the ordinary fits of his highness. Well, in my humble opinion it does not stand with many other more notable lines. In fact, I don’t think it quite stands with yesterday’s line. But that’s okay, isn’t it? And if you want another one as striking as the Richard II line? Well…

Be patient, princes (and princesses).

Here's one of my favorite pastures. I've seen it bedewed in dew (redundant?), but I pray it never gets bedewed in blood, English, American, Lithuanian, or otherwise.