Good den, good den.

-Don Pedro

Measure For Measure                            Act V scene i, line 46

Apparently this is ‘good evening’. Don’t ask me what or where it comes from, because I don’t know.

This is a nice evening picture. 

Good den, good den.

Come, go we, then, together. [Exeunt]

-Troilus

Troilus And Cressida                        Act I scene i, line 117

There are only five words in this line, and there are four punctuation marks; three commas and a period. How is that even possible?

Come

Go we

Then

Together

I think it’s the ‘then’ being set apart that really throws me. But, well, I’m not sure. And don’t get wrong; I’m a big fan of the comma. A comma can go an awful long way in terms of adding clarity to a sentence, and I personally use a lot of commas. But three commas with five words?

 

This is the famous cat and the rat, caught and mummified in the Christ Church Cathedral organ in Dublin, Ireland. I doubt that either one of these two said 'Come, go we, then, together' before getting stuck in the organ. Nonetheless, they certainly went together.

Hortensio, peace! Thou knowest not gold’s effect:



-Petruchio



The Taming Of The Shrew                 Act I scene ii, line 92



They are talking about Kathatina Minola and her availability and Hortensio says I would not wed  her for a mine of gold. To which Petruchio replies with today’s Totally Random line.



At issue is Katharina and her suitability, of lack thereof, to be a wife. Petruchio seems to think that she’ll be worth a look. I thought this line was a little confusing until I looked back at Petruchio’s lines previous to Hortensio’s. He makes it pretty clear that he’s come to Padua to marry rich and that he’s not the least concerned with the looks or temperament of the woman as long as she’s got money. Today’s line would be slightly clearer if it was ‘Thou knowest not gold’s effect on me.’ As far as Petruchio is concerned, it’s all about the Benjamins. Or in this case ducats, or something like that.

We ran into a little restaurant in Merida, Spain where everything on the menu was 1 Euro. It was kind of like the dollar store of restaurants. WP held up the menu and exclaimed 'Dad, peace: I knew not gold's effect on thee.' It was a pretty good use of the quote until I realized that he was calling me a cheapskate. 

And let us swear our resolution.

-Cassius

Julius Caesar                          Act II scene i, line 113

This is the guys talking about killing Julius because they’re afraid he’s going to proclaim himself king and ruin the republic. Do I have the right word? Republic? I’m not sure. Feel free to correct me if you’d like.

Anyway, Cassius says ‘let us swear’ and Brutus replies with a big old ‘Swear!? Schmotz to that!’  Why Schmotz? Here’s why:

No, not an oath: if not the face of men,
The sufferance of our souls, the time's abuse,--
If these be motives weak, break off betimes,
And every man hence to his idle bed;
So let high-sighted tyranny range on,
Till each man drop by lottery. But if these,
As I am sure they do, bear fire enough
To kindle cowards and to steel with valour
The melting spirits of women, then, countrymen,
What need we any spur but our own cause,
To prick us to redress? what other bond
Than secret Romans, that have spoke the word,
And will not palter? and what other oath
Than honesty to honesty engaged,
That this shall be, or we will fall for it?
Swear priests and cowards and men cautelous,
Old feeble carrions and such suffering souls
That welcome wrongs; unto bad causes swear
Such creatures as men doubt; but do not stain
The even virtue of our enterprise,
Nor the insuppressive mettle of our spirits,
To think that or our cause or our performance
Did need an oath; when every drop of blood
That every Roman bears, and nobly bears,
Is guilty of a several bastardy,
If he do break the smallest particle
Of any promise that hath pass'd from him.

Yes, that’s why. Who needs an oath when we are righteous people doing a righteous thing? We would be bastards if we don’t do this; so to hell with your stinking oath.

It’s a pretty cool speech, and it’s got a lot of interesting stuff in it. Well of course it is and does; Will wrote it! And we found it today through Total Randomness. (By the way, is this a famous speech?)

There's a lot of different things I could focus on from that speech, but I'm gonna talk about the following line.

                                                So let high-sighted tyranny range on,
                                                Till each man drop by lottery.

Here's a pic of a bunch of men and women from the greatest generation. They were not about to let tyranny range on, nor were they about to watch each man drop by lottery. No they were not. And I don't think they all got together to take an oath. They just up and did what was right. 

BTW, that's my dad standing all the way on the left with the light shirt and big ears.

Happy Fourth everybody.

The poisonous simple sometimes is compacted

In a pure compound; being so applied,

His venom in effect is purified.



-Tarquin



Lucrece                                                                        line 530



WARNING: Long Blog Post!



Today's Totally Random line is Tarquin trying to talk Lucrece into going along with his rape of her. But instead of talking about these   particular lines I'm going to skip forward a little and talk about the ‘rough beast’ that is Tarquin. Let me explain.



Today’s totally random line is taken from Lucrece, also known as The Rape Of Lucrece. As I said, the three lines above are part of Tarquin the rapist’s lines where he’s trying to talk Lucrece into not fighting him. So I was reading some of the stanzas before and after these lines to get some more context, and that’s when I ran into the following stanza, which is a bit further along, where he’s stopped talking and he’s about to get down to the business of rape.



Here with a cockatrice’s (snake’s) dead-killing eye

He rouseth up himself and makes a pause;

While she, the picture of pure piety,

Like a white hind (female deer) under the gripe’s (falcon’s) sharp claws,

Pleads, in a wilderness where are no laws,

To the rough beast that knows no gentle right,

Nor aught obeys but his foul appetite.



And of course, rough beast just jumped up and tackled my attention. In fact, it might just as well have been in bold-faced italics with the yellow, though of course wasn’t.



I've run into this beast before, and so have you if you studied The Second Coming by W. B. Yeats, which you probably did in high school. But is this Yeats’s rough best? Or more aptly, is Yeats’s rough beast from 1900 this same beast of Will’s from 1600? That is today’s question.



Will’s next stanza continues this scene of cosmic disharmony that is present in Yeats’s poem.



But when a black-faced cloud the world doth threat,

In his dim mist the aspiring mountains hiding,

From earth’s dark womb some gentle gust doth get,

Which blows these pitchy vapours from their biding,

Hindering their present fall by this dividing;

So his unhallow’d haste her words delays,

And moody Pluto winks while Orpheus plays.



Of course you may need some refreshing of The Second Coming in order to consider what I’m saying. So I’m going to have to do it to you. That’s right; here is the whole The Second Coming by W.B. Yeats. Don’t worry, it’s not too long. 



Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.



Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming! Hardly are these words out

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?



That’s it. That’s Yeats. Now tell me: did he borrow Will’s beast? That is the question.



Now, just to add a little icing on the cake, I’m going to throw one more beast at you. This one is in Sam Baker’s song from a few years ago, called The Feast. In it he sings repeatedly What rough beast? Close thine eyes on that rough beast. I ran into Baker’s beast a few years ago and quickly realized that it was Yeats’s beast. And to be clear, there are pieces of Yeats's Second Coming sprinkled all over the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. No question about that. Even so, I found Baker's use of the beast interesting (almost exciting). So that may help explain my fascination upon running into Will’s rough beast today.



Now you can certainly argue that two words do not necessarily constitute reference or relationship. It could be coincidence. But given the entirety of Will’s stanzas above, I believe that Yeats’s rough beast, which inspired Baker’s rough beast, is indeed Will’s rough beast. What do you think?

See that guy over my right shoulder, my cellar office-mate? Well he was nice enough to take a break from his screen and listen to my question. He read the relevant Lucrece lines and The Second Coming. His conclusion? Yeats used Will's beast; no doubt about it. I agree.