How now, noble Pompey! What, at the wheels of Caesar? art thou led in triumph? What, is none of Pygmalion’s images, newly made woman, to be had now, for putting the hand in the pocket and extracting it clutch’d? What reply, ha? What say’st thou to this tune, matter, and method? Is’t not drown’d i’the last rain, ha? What say’st thou, Trot? Is the world as it was, man? Which is the way? Is it sad, and few words? or how? The trick of it?

-Lucio

                                   

Measure For Measure                   Act III, Scene ii, Line 50

I decided to give you the whole paragraph that Lucio speaks when he comes on the scene and sees Pompey being led away to get whipped. Pompey has been arrested for being a pimp. When he sees his friend Lucio approaching he calls out to him thinking that Lucio will help him and bail him out. And these are Lucio’s first words when seeing Pompey (supposedly his friend, but I’m not so sure of that).

At first read it can seem a bit confusing. Okay, on second and third read too. There’s a few words that will be unfamiliar, and there’s lots of references in here, which makes it a little difficult. Will was constantly referencing stuff from all over. Some stuff old (to him that is, it’s all old to us!). I imagine he had a lot of references to current things that maybe none of us will ever get. But this one’s really not that tough. 

How now, noble Pompey! What, at the wheels of Caesar? art thou led in triumph?

Pompey, you look like the vanquished captive being led by the victorious roman emperors into Rome.

What, is none of Pygmalion’s images, newly made woman, to be had now, for putting the hand in the pocket and extracting it clutch’d?

Where are your girls, Pompey, (remember, he’s a pimp) so that you could get some of their hard earned money.

What reply, ha? What say’st thou to this tune, matter, and method? Is’t not drown’d i’the last rain, ha?

So, what do you have to say about what’s going on now? (I can’t figure out what this bit about ‘drowned in the last rain’ is)

What say’st thou, Trot? Is the world as it was, man? Which is the way? Is it sad, and few words? or how? The trick of it? 

What do you say, you old hag. Do things look different now? How do you feel, sad? Cat got your tongue.

There, that’s your Pete take on today’s lines. It doesn’t paint a very good picture of the speaker, Lucio, does it. He’s just taunting Pompey, who is supposedly his friend.

What say’st thou to that?

I don't have any pictures of Caesar's wheel, but I have a pic of this one that's just as old. Maybe older?

Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,

Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels,

Leash’d in like hounds, should famine, sword and fire

Crouch for employment.

-Chorus

                                   

King Henry The Fifth                          Act I, Prologue, Line 7

I guess it’s best to read the whole prologue here. It’s only thirty-four lines. No, I’m not going to type out the whole thing, but I will give you the link. http://shakespeare.mit.edu/henryv/henryv.1.0.html

Okay, I read it. How about you? Well, I guess that doesn’t matter. In any event the chorus is just trying to set the stage for the audience, describing a few things that the play will try to represent to them. They’re just saying that if they had the real thing to show them, Then should the warlike… But of course they don’t have the real thing, so the audience is going to have to use a little imagination.

Now, a couple of quick things before I get to my main point. First, Assume the port of Mars? No, I don’t think so. I looked at my First Folio and it’s definitely ‘port’, but I’m thinking that this is a typo in the Folio that’s been carried forth to all subsequent copies and that this should be ‘part’, as in Assume the part of Mars. At least that’s what I’m thinking. And second, the next sentence (not included above) refers to ‘gentles all’ which I believe is being used as the inclusive form of gentlemen. So that’s super, isn’t it? Gentles all. I used to work for a guy who used the term gentle people to be inclusive. But this is even better. Gentles all.

So, one other thing I really like in this line is the fact that famine, sword, and fire are ‘crouching for employment’. They’re waiting in the wings for their part in the play to come up. This would be a good one for brother Bill to illustrate. Since Will has given famine, sword, and fire life (otherwise how can they crouch for employment?), Bill would have to give them life too. He could do a good job with that. But I’m not sure we’ll ever get to doing the re-write of this play. Hmm, an illustrated re-write of a history play. That would be interesting, wouldn’t it? That would be a way to get all the visuals that the chorus is talking about, visuals that they couldn’t get on the stage. Hey Bill…..

It's Mr. Sword! He's making a repeat appearance. He's not exactly crouching for employment, but it looks like he's ready to appear in the play!

                            Call’d Marina

For I was born at sea.

-Marina

                                   

Pericles                                     Act V, Scene i, Line 154

Pretty easy line this morning. Marina is explaining to Pericles where she got her name. Anybody need any help with this one? I didn’t think so. Did we want to get into an explanation of what else is going on here to give us some context. Nah. 

Here's a pic of WP swimming in the Mediterranean Sea, which I think is the same sea that Marina is referring to above. And I'm not sure who that guy snorkeling by is, but I think he adds a bit of je ne sais quoi to the picture. Don't you think so?

Ha!

-Thersites

                                   

Troilus And Cressida                     Act III, Scene iii, Line 289

Well lines don’t get much shorter than this. So, Ha!

Now, to be clear, Thersites has quite a bit to say in this scene as he interacts with Patroclus, but in this part of that dialogue he responds to the different things that Patroclus says to him with

Hum!

Ha!

Hum!

Agamemnon!

Ha!

Yes, all with exclamation points. And for the record, we’ve picked up that second Ha! for today’s Totally Random line. 

Now, do you want to get into what this conversation, and this scene, is/are about? Or can we just enjoy the shortest of all Totally Random lines ever?

Ha! I thought so.

 

Since we're on the topic of shortest, this is the shortest Mirado Black Warrior pencil that I have here at work. And I've got quite a few Mirados. But short or not, I'd stack it up against any of those other pencils any day! 

Ha!

Why, there, there, there, there!

-Shylock

                                   

The Merchant Of Venice                  Act III, scene i, line 49

This is an odd line, don’t you think? At first blush it looks like Shylock may be consoling someone. ‘There, there, everything will be okay.’ But that’s not it. Tubal has just entered and Shylock asks him if he’s seen his daughter Jessica. Tubal answers ‘I often came where I did hear of her, but cannot find her.’ To which Shylock replies ‘Why, there, there, there, there! a diamond gone, cost me two thousand ducats in Frankfort!’  And he goes on to moan about the jewels that his daughter stole from him when she left. And that’s it. I guess the repeated ‘there’ is just a sort of exclamation? It could almost be any innocuous word. I think it would really help to hear this spoken in the play if you want to understand it better. It certainly looks odd just sitting there on the page. But I think it’s meant to represent the words of someone who’s very out of sorts with himself, which Shylock certainly is. I’m going to go home this evening and listen to it. I don’t have the plays with me here at work. They’re on my home pc. To be continued…

There are many times when I struggle with the Totally Random line of the day only to have it become crystal clear later in the day. This ain’t one of those times. I've now listened to it but even so, having heard it, and the more I think about this line the more puzzling it becomes. I keep saying it over and over in my head and it just seems like it’s the ‘There, there; everything’s going to be okay’, but I know that’s not it. I can only imagine that Will had to explain this one to whatever actor it was who played Shylock the first time. Or who knows, maybe it was Will himself? Yes, he did act in some of these plays; probably not Shylock though. I guess? It’d be great if we could get Harold or somebody like that to follow this blog, then we could get some really good comments! Okay, I’ll see what I can do about that. No promises.

This is Harold's pic from that back of his book Shakespeare The Invention Of The Human. How about that Harold, I just gave you a free plug for your book. Not that Harold needs it. He's a pretty big deal in the Shakespeare world. He works right here in New Haven at Yale. In fact, Science Park, the complex that we have our space in, is a part of Yale (or at least affiliated with Yale). So I guess you could say that Harold and I work in the same place! How about that?

                      That were hard to compass;

Because she will admit no kind of suit,

No, not the duke’s.

-Captain

                                   

Twelfth Night; Or, What You Will         Act I, Scene ii, Line 29

Twelfth Night, eh? Well I’ve been plucking random lines for two years, and I’ve certainly picked a few from this play, but I still really don’t have much of an idea what this play is all about. Now you might think that this would be hard to compass, but really it was pretty easy. You see, lots of times when I decide to post about a line from a play that I know little to nothing about, I’ll just pick something else from the line to chat about. For instance, in this case what about that word ‘compass’? Right here it’s a verb and it means ‘to achieve’. It’s a bit archaic to be using it as a verb in 2018; keep in mind that this line was written four hundred years ago. But in fact, if you look it up on MerriamWebster.com you will see that definition #3 under the transitive verb usage of the word ‘compass’ is ‘to achieve’. So there you go. And you thought that Will's works weren't written in modern English? Wrong.

You might have known that I'd throw a picture of a compass at you today. Yup, that's a compass sitting in the middle of my box o' memories to the right of my Darryl Strawberry/Vince Coleman ball. Funny thing: the top of this box, the end with the cassette tape on how to meditate (I don't use that much these days, regrettably) is facing north. That means the compass is pointing southwest. I guess this compass is getting old and losing it's sense of direction. I kind of feel that way myself sometimes.

Noble patricians, patrons of my right,

Defend the justice of my cause with arms;

And, countrymen, my loving followers,

Plead my successive title with your swords:

I am his first-born son, that was the last

That wore the imperial diadem of Rome;

Then let my father’s honours live in me,

Nor wrong mine age with this indignity.

-Saturninus

                                   

Titus Andronicus                           Act I, Scene i, Line 1

We’ve hit upon the first lines of the play Titus Andronicus. Now this play is mostly about the murder and mayhem that takes place between the Titus Andronicus family and the Tamora Queen of the Goths family. Saturninus, the guy here with the opening line does not play into this murder and mayhem in any major way. In this first scene he is vying for the throne with his brother Bassianus. Titus and Tamora will be entering the picture shortly and then all the fun will start. But of course, we’ve got to start the story somewhere, and this is it. This then, is the beginning. Saturninus speaks of nobility, justice, loving followers, imperial diadems, and father’s honours, and he ends with ‘indignity’. This last word is probably the only word in this opening speech that presages the activity to come.

Well here's an interesting picture. It's Saturnius, played by my brother Dave, and Bassianus, played by me. We were acting out this scene when we were young. Dave has just given the opening line, and I'm about to respond with the bit about Bassianus being 'gracious in the eyes of royal Rome.' I think Dave's doing a little bit of hamming it up, and he's clearly trying to use his size to intimidate me. But that's just my opinion.