Not honestly, my lord; but so covertly that no dishonesty shall appear in me.



-Borachio

                                   

Much Ado About Nothing             Act II, Scene ii, Line 9





The ring of Gyges. That’s where we’re going today.



So without getting into too much context, what we have with today’s line is Borachio’s answer to Don John. The Don has asked Borachio how he can prevent Count Claudio’s marriage, a marriage that Don John is not happy about. Without telling him how, Borachio is saying, in today’s Totally Random line, that he’ll have to use trickery, but that he won’t be caught. Don John’s replay to that?

                       Show me briefly how.

Don John does not appear to be bothered with the use of dishonesty.



Which leads us to today’s discussion (and Gyges fabled ring): are we all like Don John? Are we all much more concerned with not being caught than we are with doing the honest thing? The ring of Gyges was an ancient fable. The ring made the user invisible. Plato tied this to one of his observations which was couched in a question: Do we do the right thing because we really feel some altruistic need to do it, or are we just afraid to be caught doing the wrong thing? If we had a ring that made us invisible and we knew we wouldn’t get caught, would we do a lot of stuff (steal, cheat on tests, etc, etc) that we otherwise wouldn’t?



It’s pretty clear that Don John is not going to pass the Plato/Gyges ring test. Would you?

How about this? Any chance this could be Gyges ring? It's pretty old, kind of strange, and I don't remember where it came from. And I have no idea what that writing on it says. Maybe it says Gyges! That would be exciting, wouldn't it?

Thy letters have transported me beyond

This ignorant present, and I feel now

The future in the instant.

-Lady Macbeth

                                   

Macbeth                                       Act I, Scene v, Line 58

This is a pretty good line. Lady Macbeth just read a letter from her husband in which he talks about the witches predictions that he will be king. She reads the letter, spends a few minutes by herself getting all worked up about not letting her goodness get in the way of what she’s gonna have to do (some pretty good lines there about being ‘unsexed’ among other things). Then Macbeth shows up and she comes out with today’s line. I think it’s a bit of an understatement to say that she’s excited about the prospect of becoming queen. What do you think?

I was traveling with the girls a few years ago and we were talking about this line. I said 'okay, give me your best Lady Macbeth face in this instance where she's getting all worked up about killing Duncan so her husband can be king.' I'm not sure they quite understood the direction I was giving them.

 Compare our faces, and be judge yourself.                 

 -Bastard

                                   

King John                                                      Act I, Scene i, Line 79

An interesting name for today’s speaker: Bastard. He’s a fairly main character in this play and throughout his speaking parts are simply attributed to Bastard. 

If you’re interested in context, this is the beginning of the play and Bastard and his brother have come before the King to ask him to mediate a dispute. The one brother is claiming that the other brother, Bastard, is only a half brother and therefore illegitimate, and therefore not due for any inheritance. And Bastard isn’t really arguing. He’s saying that his half brother resembles his father, both of them pretty puny, and further that he, Bastard, resembles his true father, Richard the Lion Hearted who was King John’s brother. King John and the Queen Mother who both obviously knew what Richard looked like are going to agree with Bastard. 

Okay, here's two closeups taken at about the same age. One is me, one is my dad. 

Compare our faces, and be judge yourself. 

See the resemblance? No, me neither.

                   Alas, alas!

-Iago

                                   

Othello                                 Act IV, Scene i, Line 275

Not much to today’s line, is there? Just for the heck of it, I looked up ‘alas’. It’s not in the Shakespeare glossary at all. I guess we’re supposed to know what it means. In the online MW it’s listed as an expression of grief, pity, or concern. So it’s pretty much a catch all response to something that’s kind of bad.

            ‘My dog died.’

            ‘Alas!’

            ‘I lost my job.’

            ‘Alas.’

So basically it’s got thousands of uses. And if you tend to talk about what’s going on in the country these days you can pretty much use this word non-stop.

Alas.

Alas? Yeah, I'm not sure if this is really an 'alas' moment. More like, 'Oh crap!'

My tongue is weary; when my legs are too, I will bid you good night; and so kneel down before you;--but, indeed, to pray for the queen.

-Dancer

                                   

King Henry The Fourth Part II                          Epilogue

Here are the very last words of the play. In fact, one could argue that they’re beyond that since it’s an epilogue. By a dancer. Who’s not really part of the play.

A little odd, wouldn’t you say?

This looks like a leaf, but it's actually an insect. It's a little odd too, wouldn't you say?

I will return again into the house, and desire some conduct of the lady. I am no fighter. I have heard of some kind of men that put quarrels purposefully on others, to taste their valour; belike this is a man of that quirk.

-Viola

                                   

Twelfth Night                                         Act III, Scene iv, Line 241

Okay, no idea what’s going on here. But when did that ever stop me? Lets just take a crack at the paragraph, and context be damned for today.

First off – long scene! It keeps going and is almost 400 lines before it’s done. Again, this is not a play that I know. I only know bits and bobs from doing this screwy random line thing. another observation is that this scene flips back and forth between prose and verse. We’re in prose right here. 

Secondly – For those of you who are always complaining about how hard Shakespeare is to read, and that's it's written in middle English or something (it's not), this is pretty understandable. The only particularly odd word is ‘belike’. But given the context within this paragraph, I think we can assume it just mean’s ‘it looks like’ (I looked it up on Google and on my Shakespeare lexicon and it’s in both as ‘perhaps’). We may not be quite sure what conduct she’s referring to in ‘some conduct’, but that’s okay.

And finally, it’s got the word ‘quirk’. Now I’m a big fan of the adjective form of that word, ‘quirky’. I’ve been referred to as quirky, and generally I take that as a compliment. I’m not sure why. But I guess just the fact that I take being described as quirky as a compliment is self-evident of the truth of the statement. N’est pas? Just to be clear though, I do not find myself to be a person of the quirk described above; that is, to pick a fight with someone just to see if I can get them to fight. In fact, I’m much more like the speaker today’s lines: I am no fighter.

And just to prove that I'm no fighter, here's the last guy I got in a fight with. Well, almost. That's Kevin Collins on the left and me on the right. This is fifth grade, Sister Mary Paul's class (that's her in blue).  The truth is that I ended up walking away from this fight, but at least I almost got in a fight with him. So, yeah, I am no fighter. Quirky, but no fighter.

Your wondrous rare description, noble earl,

Of beauteous Margaret hath astonisht me:

-King Henry

                                   

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

These are the first two lines of the final short scene of this play. In this scene the Earl of Suffolk has talked King Henry into taking Margaret for his bride. Two of the other guys in the scene are questioning this idea since Henry has already been set up to marry someone else. But apparently Suffolk is quite the salesman because Henry is all worked up about Margaret, sight unseen. This Suffolk fellow has got to be quite the silver-tongued smoothie to pull this off. And we find out in the final lines of this scene, and the play, what’s on his mind.

Margaret shall now be queen, and rule the king;

But I will rule both her, the king, and the realm.

Well that makes you just ache for the start of King Henry The Sixth Part II, doesn’t it? What's this Suffolk guy got planned? 

Just so you know, there's three King Henry the Sixth plays; part I, part II, and part III.

Last scene in The Fellowship of the Ring

No pic today. Instead a clip. This is a twentieth century example of leaving you wanting to see the next installment. Get the idea? Do you think that the sixteenth century theater goers of King Henry The Sixth Part I felt like you might feel after watching this clip?