He shows his reason for that;--to have a dispatch of complaints, and to deliver us from devices hereafter, which shall then have no power to stand against us.

-Escalus

Measure For Measure                                     Act IV, Scene iv, Line 11

Ladies and Gentlemen, today we’re doing something different. Today, and for the next few days, we’re going to be less random than usual as we try something that I’ve been considering for a while. We’re going to restrict our randomness to one play. Why? Simply because there are plays that I don’t know and want to get to know better. And I don’t have enough time in one day to get this blog written, let alone figure out whole plays. So I’m going to stick with one play for a week, maybe more, until I’ve actually read/heard the whole thing. The line from within that play, like todays, will continue to be random. It can/will be any line in the entire play. This way we’re all going to learn a little more about Measure For Measure. And remember, we have visited this play before, so if you want to get a little bit familiar with it (since we’ll be on this one for a while) you can find all the Measure For Measure posts by going to the Will’s Works/Pete’s Post tab of this blog.  Here we go.

First off, I’m going to give you a pretty heavy duty lead in here. This play is about Vincentio, the Duke, leaving town for a while and putting Angelo in charge of the town. In today’s scene, late in the play, Angelo and his right hand man Escalus are reading a letter from the Duke telling them that he’ll be returning and he wants them to meet him at the gates to the town to turn their powers back over to him. The letter also states that an hour before he returns they are to proclaim that if anyone wants to be heard about any injustice they’ve received, they should make their case in the streets. Angelo is wondering why the Duke wants this done. One other thing, the Duke has remained, disguised, in town throughout the play and he knows what’s been going on in town. Of course, Angelo and Escalus don't know this. And that gets you to Escalus’s line above.

Whew! After all that I don’t feel like we need to do much more with today’s line. How about you? Tell you what; why don’t you go ahead and read Act IV, Scene iv. Here it is. It’s only about 40 lines long, most of it has been explained above, and the last lines are a soliloquy by Angelo. And one more bit of intro before you read. Angelo was left in charge and it turns out that he’s not the best guy in the world. He’s enforcing laws that he himself has not been abiding by. In particular, Angelo had one fellow sentenced to death for engaging in pre-marital sex, whilst at the same time Angelo participated in the same activity himself. Oh what a tangled web….

And this is what pushed me over the edge. I was reading the chapter in this book this morning on Measure For Measure, the play we looked at with yesterday's Totally Random line, and I decided I wanted to learn more about this play. And by the way, do you recognize the picture on this book? You should.

Then, Angelo, thy fault thus manifested,--

Which, though thou wouldst deny, denies thee vantage,--

We do condemn thee to the very block

Where Claudio stoop’d to death, and with the like haste.—

Away with him!

-Duke

Measure For Measure                         Act V, Scene i, Line 413

And since this is a comedy we can assume that Angelo’s not going to get his head chopped off, and that Claudio’s not really dead. That Will is a pistol, isn’t he!

I'm not quite sure why I'm standing on the rock mantelpiece of this humungous stone fireplace holding a broom upside down with Phil below me, but I'm not quite sure what today's Totally Random line is all about either. So I guess it works.

But now I am cabin’d, cribb’d, confined, bound in

To saucy doubts and fears.

 

-Macbeth

Macbeth                      Act III, Scene iv, Line 25

Oh poor Macbeth. What do you suppose he’s talking about? What is so troubling him that he is confined to doubts and fears? In the lines previous to this he says that he would have been perfect, whole as the marble, founded as the rock, as broad and general as the casing air. What brought him from being whole to being penned in by fears? I’ll tell you what happened. The murderers that Macbeth sent out to kill Banquo and his son Fleance have come back to report that Banquo is dead, but Fleance got away. For sure, Banquo’s throat is cut and now safe in a ditch he bides, with twenty trenched gashes in his head. But Fleance got away and that’s what’s upsetting Macbeth.

Yes, Poor Macbeth. 

 

This is a pic taken from the bell tower of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Normally, being up this high up, with my fear of heights, would  make me quite cabin'd, cribb'd, confined, bound in to saucy doubts and fears. But for some reason that day I was founded as a rock. How about you? What makes you cabin'd, cribb'd, confined, bound in to saucy doubts and fears?

 

5/15/17

[Beneath] Swear.

-Ghost

Hamlet                        Act I, Scene v, Line 161

Hamlet is a pretty serious play, but I find this part a little bit comical. This is the scene where Hamlet has the conversation with the ghost of his father. At this point the ghost has finished talking and has exited, and Hamlet’s friends have rejoined him, Hamlet is swearing them to secrecy about what they saw. While he’s trying to get them to swear, the ghost, who’s no longer on stage but apparently is yelling from beneath the stage (that 'beneath' above is a stage direction), keeps reiterating ‘Swear’. He says it three or four times. Maybe I’m a little kooky, but I think it’s funny. And it’s made more funny by some of Hamlet’s comments about the ghost while this is happening.

I think it’s good to be able to find humor in odd places.

 

 

Now here's a perfect example of finding humor in an odd place. This is Jess in the bathroom of a fancy hotel in Pittsburgh, with Nina taking the picture. Now I have no idea what she's doing, or why it's funny, but they obviously found something funny about it. I guess the fruit didn't fall too far from the tree.