and forget

Your laboursome and dainty trims, wherein

You made great Juno angry.

 

-Pisanio

 Cymbeline                               Act III, Scene iv, Line 166

 

And here we go again with the cross-dressing. I forget the exact context, but I know that Pisanio is telling Imogen she must pretend to be a man, and how to do that. He tells her she must

           Forget that rarest treasure of your cheek,

           Exposing it—but, O, the harder heart!

           Alack, no remedy!—to the greedy touch

           Of common-kissing Titan; and forget

           Your laboursome and dainty trims, wherein

   You made great Juno angry.

In other words, well I’m not sure what the other words would be. But he’s telling her to forget how to be a woman, since she’s going to have to pretend to be a man. I’m not sure what it means to expose her cheek to common-kissing Titan (is Titan bi-sexual?), but I think that her dainty trims are the feminine qualities she has that made even Juno, the queen of the gods, jealous. So, yah, act like a man, damn it!

It’s not the first time that Will has a woman pretending to be a man in his plays. Since this is one of his later plays, it might be the last.

So this is me, using the camera angle to try to look like I'm a Giant about to stomp on this building. What's this got to do with today's Totally Random line? Well, other than the fact that it's Totally Random, nothing. Hey wait, it just occurred to me: I'm pretending to be a giant. Okay, it's not the same as pretending to be a woman, or a woman pretending to be a man, but at least it's pretending. So let's conclude that it is a relevant picture. Okay?

 

I blame you not for praising Caesar so;

 -Cassius

 Julius Caesar                          Act III, Scene i, Line 214

 

Marcus Antonius has come to talk with the conspirators, and he’s going to get permission to speak at Caesar’s funeral the next day. And that will be the undoing of the conspirators. Marc Antony is a bit of a weasel. He’s not a total bad guy, but he’s pretty conniving. I’m not sure what you’d call him, or who you would compare him to in our modern times. He’s a bit of an enigma as you’ll find if you go forward and study Antony And Cleopatra. For now, though, you can rest assured that Cassius is aware of his weasel-ness. He follows up his I don’t blame you for praising Caesar with but what are you up to? Whose side are you gonna be on? Cassius is already suspicious of Antony’s intentions and he tries, in vain, to convince Brutus to be careful of Antony. Unfortunately, Brutus takes things at face value and doesn’t recognize that Antony has an agenda. And ultimately that’s not going to work out well for any of the conspirators. No it's not. 

 

This is the dashboard of my Prius and it appears to be telling me to take a break and have a cup of coffee. Now if you take that at face value you might say 'what a nice car!'. But in fact, my Prius has a bit of a hidden agenda in that it's been monitoring my driving, and I must have been going out of my lane. Therefore it's telling me to take a break because it doesn't want me smashing up the car. You could call it self-preservation. Either way, I like my Prius.

 

 

I, that am curtail’d of this fair proportion,

Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,

Deform’d, unfinisht, sent before my time

Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,

And that so lamely and unfashionable

That dogs bark at me as I halt by them;-

 

-Richard

 King Richard The Third                                 Act I, Scene i, Line 20

 

This is from the middle of Richard’s soliloquy that opens the play; the soliloquy that begins with the famous line Now is the winter of our discontent/Made glorious summer by this sun of York;  You’ve probably heard that part at one time or another. But as with a lot of things, that may be all that you’re familiar with. He goes on to talk about the war being over (it’s not) and that he, because of his misshapen body, is not suited to peace time pursuits which include wining and dining and pursuing the ladies. He is rudely stampt and not made to court an amorous looking-glass. He’s so ugly that dogs bark at him. Will gives us a pretty good picture of Richard’s physical appearance. And it’s fairly important because he’s going to make Richard out to be quite the villain in this play. Many historians will tell you that the real Richard the Third was not the villain that Will portrayed him as in this play. But that’s how dramatists create drama, isn’t it? 

 

 

This pic was taken at the 100 year house party that Phil threw at 258 Balmforth. He'd asked me to pick out a little bit of Shakespeare to insert into his speech. He was talking about the house and how he had grown up there, and then he got into the soliloquy (which he wasn't familiar with). This is the part where he's saying dogs bark at me as I halt by them. Well I think Phil was starting to catch on to the fact that I had played a little trick on him, and he's looking at me in this shot. I can't remember if he finished the soliloquy or not, but I do remember that he threw that mic at me as soon as he finished talking. Luckily he doesn't really have much of an arm.

 

 

I do not find that thou deal’st justly with me.

-Roderigo

 Othello                                                Act IV, Scene ii, Line 173

 

No kidding! Iago deal’st justly with no one! And yet, even though Roderigo seems to be on to him, by the end of this conversation, fifty or so lines further down, Iago is talking Roderigo into yet more skullduggery. Iago is incorrigible and everyone around him is malleable in his capable hands. What can I say? Oh honest Iago!

So we were at the Grand Canyon, and the discussion turned to today's line from Othello. I said to Ev, "pretend that squirrel is Rodrigo, and he's just said to you, 'I do not find that thou deal'st justly with me.' and now give me your best Iago look before you go into convincing that squirrel that you're really on his side." 

And this is the look Ev gave me. I think he nailed the essence of Iago perfectly. What do you think?

 

What mean these masterless and gory swords

To lie discolour’d by this place of peace?

-Friar Laurence

Romeo And Juliet                Act V, Scene iii, Line 142

 

The swords mean that Paris and Romeo have been fighting, that Paris got killed in the fight, and that Romeo subsequently poisoned himself and is also dead. That’s what they mean. And, to be clear, the good friar is exactly correct by calling the swords masterless; and gory too, I suppose. Quel dommage!

And here's Pete strolling down a similar place of peace: a necropolis. There won't be any Amazon deliveries to these doors. And what's that? Pete's on his phone? Oh, quel dommage!

 

If thou wert the wolf, thy greediness would afflict thee, and oft thou shouldst hazard thy life for thy dinner: wert thou the unicorn, pride and wrath would confound thee, and make thine own self the conquest of thy fury:

 

-Timon

Timon Of Athens                   Act IV, Scene iii, Line 335

 

And he goes on. If thou wert the bear, the horse, the leopard, and so on. Timon is talking to Apemantus. The latter has come to Timon’s cave, mostly to harass him, and the two are trading insults. When Timon asks him what he would do with the world if he had the power, Apemantus says that he would give it back to the beasts. Timon replies that then Apemantus would have to be one of the beasts and he goes through a list of beasts that Apemantus might be. Timon ends the litany with a question:

 

What beast couldst thou be, that were not subject to a beast? And what a beast art thou already, that seest not thy loss in transformation?

 

There’s a lot to unpack there, and we could spend the day talking about just those two lines alone. But as enjoyable, and perhaps enlightening, as that would be, alas we won’t. Suffice it to say that these are a couple of really bitter old men. I guess there’s a lot of old people who are bitter like this. And that’s a pity. Not that I’m bitter like this, because I’m not, but I wonder if the beasts of this world will get to live without man again. In truth, looking at what mankind has done to the world, I think they might just be a little better off. Ahh, good ol’ Timon.

I bet that these guys wouldn't miss us.

 

And his gasht stabs lookt like a breach in nature

For ruin’s wasteful entrance: there, the murderers,

Steept in the colours of their trade, their daggers

Unmannerly breecht with gore:

 

-Macbeth

 Macbeth                                              Act II, Scene iii, Line 116

 This is a portion of what Macbeth is saying when asked why he was so quick in killing the murderers of Duncan. Of course, the real answer is that Macbeth is the murderer of Duncan and he wanted to make sure that these alleged murderers had no way of telling anyone anything. But he’s certainly not going to tell everyone that. Here’s the entirety of his answer when Mcduff asked why did he kill Duncan’s murderers.

 

Who can be wise, amazed, temperate and furious,

Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man:

The expedition of my violent love

Outrun the pauser, reason. Here lay Duncan,

His silver skin laced with his golden blood;

And his gasht stabs lookt like a breach in nature

For ruin’s wasteful entrance: there, the murderers,

Steept in the colours of their trade, their daggers

Unmannerly breecht with gore: who could refrain,

That had a heart to love, and in that heart

Courage to make’s love known?

I find the imagery of Duncan beyond interesting. His silver skin laced with his golden blood;/And his gasht stabs lookt like a breach in nature/For ruin’s wasteful entrance: Wow. What do you make of that? Read those three lines again. That’s um, that’s pure Will. I love that use of language. I guess some might say it’s over the top, but I don’t think so. I think it’s absolutely extraordinary.

Mr. Strongbow here is, I believe, a dead king. I found him in Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin. So he's not a Scottish king like Duncan, he's an Irish king. That's the best I could do.