The Lord Mortimer of Scotland hath sent word 
That Douglas and the English rebels met
The eleventh of this month at Shrewsbury.

-Sir Walter Blunt

 

King Henry IV Part I                            Act III, scene ii, Line 164

So this bit has to do with fighting within Britain. But don't ask me to get into details as to who's who, because I can never keep track. For one thing, there's too many names to remember, and for another thing, these guys keep changing sides. And if that weren't enough and just to make it a little more confusing, the names of singular guys change. Today's speaker, Henry IV, was initially Bolingbroke. Yesterday's speaker was Gloster, but he would eventually be Richard III.

I've got a library book that I'm reading called Shakespeare's Kings. It gives you the story behind Shakespeare's history plays, giving the detail of who did what and then pointing out where Shakespeare kept his stories in line with actual history and where he took poetic license. But to tell you the truth, that book is hard to follow too, and now that I'm three quarters of the way through with it I'm still not sure who did what. 

Maybe it's just me. I am getting a little old.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQxM5rJ-uiY 

No pic today, just a link to a song about getting old.

...any strange beast there makes a man: when they will not give a doit to relieve a lame beggar, they will lay out ten to se a dead Indian. 

-Trinculo

The Tempest                            Act II, scene ii, Line 32

This is Trinculo and he's talking about Caliban. As you know, The Tempest is one play that I'm pretty familiar with. Trinculo is about to crawl beneath the strange, playing-dead figure of Caliban for protection from the approaching storm. But before he does, he's standing there trying to figure out exactly what is Caliban. Is he a man, or a fish? Whatever he is, he's strange looking enough so that if Trinculo could bring him back to England he could make money charging admission for people just to see the beast. That's what he's talking about in the lines above. I'm not sure what a 'doit' is, but I believe it's some form of currency. Probably slang for a penny? 

                                    https://www.pursuingwillbooks.com/

Today's picture is not really a picture, it's a link, a link to our website where you can purchase of copy of our retelling of The Tempest. Yes, that's right, we finally got it published. And on page 22 there's actually a great picture of the action described above where Trinculo crawls underneath Caliban for protection. It'll cost you a few doits, but I hope you'll agree that it's worth it.

The weeds that his broad-spreading leaves did shelter,
That seemed in eating him to hold him up,
Are pluckt up root and all by Bolingbroke,-
I mean the Earl of Wiltshire, Bushy, Green.

-Gardener

                                    King Richard II                            Act II, scene iv, Line 50

Okay, so this is the royal gardener talking. He started, a few lines previous to this, telling one of his helpers what to do next in the garden, but he has segued from talking about weeds literally to talking about weeds figuratively. He's talking about how some of the guys in King Richard's circle are nothing better than weeds, and that Bolingbroke (the future King Henry IV) has now taken care of (eliminated) these guys. And the best part of this is that the guys' names really are Wiltshire, Bushy, and Green. Do you see the botanical connection of the name to the imagery being used. Ah, that Will is just too clever.

Now this may look like a jumble, that is to say weedy, but it's not. It only looks that way because the picture was taken close up at ground level. In fact, I can attest to the fact that there are very few weeds because I did the weeding myself. And I can assure you that I did not see the Earl of Wiltshire, or Bushy, or Green while I was in there. But if I did I certainly would have gotten rid of them.

                                           I must to  him too,
Before he go to bed. I'll take my leave.

-Sir Thomas Lovell

                                    

King Henry the Eighth                            Act V, scene i, Line 9

Sir Thomas Lovell. Do you suppose that he was an ancestor of James Lovell the astronaut? I suppose I'll never know. 
In any event, it's a fairly innocuous little line. Thomas has just found out that King Henry is still up so he's going to go see him before going to bed. I don't know what he needs to see him about. Whilst I'm familiar, to some extent, with the life of Henry VIII, I've not much familiarity with this play. It's the last play in my compilation, and certainly one of the last plays he wrote, if not the last. So this writing is at the end of the career of Will. Remember that Henry VIII is the father of Elizabeth I and that she was the queen when Will started  his writing career. By now she has passed on and James I is on the throne. Nonetheless, Will has to be a little more careful writing about Henry VIII than he did when writing about all those other monarchs who were a little bit more historic than current. 

This is page 242 of volume 16 of my Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia. Now this is a 1980's edition (not sure of the exact year). So Jim Lovell should be here, but instead we skip from Loveland to Seth Low. No Jim Lovell, a guy who travelled to the moon twice (albeit never landing on it), and yet Seth Low? Who the heck is Seth Low?

For God's sake, take away this captive scold.

-Richard

                                   

King Henry the Sixth Part III                                Act V, scene v, Line 29

A 'scold', according to the glossary I'm using is an abusive woman, but I think in this situation it's a bit more acerbic than that. In fact, Richard is pretty much calling Margaret, the queen, a hag. 

However, consider the source. The Richard that's speaking is soon to be King Richard III. And while that may be the title of one of Shakespeare's better works, it's not the name of one of England's better kings. He's the guy who's responsible for two of his nephews disappearing, among other things.

So in this time four centuries prior to the #METOO era, you can pretty much bet that Richard is going to get away with calling Margaret whatever he wants to call her. Just the same, considering his behavior, and that his name is Richard, I guess it will be okay if we just refer to him as #DICK. 

Here you go. The indomitable Laurence Olivier showing just how Richardish the Third he can be. 

You shall, Marc Antony.

 

-Brutus

                                   

Julius Caesar                                      Act III, scene i, Line 231

This is Brutus telling Antony that he, Antony, can speak at Caesar's funeral. Big mistake. Brutus and his crew have just killed Caesar, presumably because they felt that Caesar was getting too big for his britches and was about to become a threat to the republic of Rome. And they want the people to know this and to accept this. However, Marc Antony is going to have something slightly different to say at the funeral and it's all going to turn very bad for Brutus and his buddies. But Brutus doesn't realize this at the time. If he did he would take a page from that great current statesman and go back to Antony and say, 
"Okay, hold up, I made a slight misstatement. I said 'shall' and I should have said 'shan't'. That's what I meant to say, 'shan't'. So the sentence that I misspoke should have been 'You shan't, Mark Antony'. So, there, that's good, right? We've got that settled?" 

But of course Brutus didn't do this and well, you know what happened. Too bad.

And might I note (this is the part where you say, "You shall, Pete."), as I've noted many times before, just how relevant Shakespeare's stuff is to our modern times. I can't help but marvel at this, and it just never ceases to amaze me.

A goodly city is this Antium. City,
'Tis I that made thy widows: many an heir
Of these fair edifices 'fore my wars
Have I heard groan and drop: then know me not,
Lest that thy wives with spits and boys with stones
In puny battle slay me.

-Coriolanus

                                   

 Coriolanus                                               Act IV, Scene iv, Line 1 - 6

And a goodly six lines is this. It's Coriolanus about to enter the city of his enemies and talking about how he's killed a lot of guys from this city. He hopes they don't recognize him or else the woman and kids will go after him. 
I'm not sure what I find so captivating about these few lines, but for whatever reason, I thought them to be pretty good. I mean, basically all he's saying is "Here's Antium. I killed a bunch of guys from here in the wars. I hope no one recognizes me." But of course Will does it with a lot more flair than that and with meaningful flair. 
He didn't just kill guys, he 'made thy widows'. And they weren't just guys, they were 'heirs of these fair edifices'. And if the wives and kids find him out they won't just go after him, they will 'In puny battle slay me'. Honestly, who's better than Will?

This is the edifice I see from my office window. I don't know who the heir of this edifice is, or if there is one at all. And I'm not sure you would consider this edifice fair. It is, nonetheless, an edifice.