Whoreson dog! I give him satisfaction? Would 

he had been one of my rank!

 

-Cloten

Cymbeline              Act II, Scene i, Line 15

Cloten is one of the bad guys in this play. I don’t know Cymbeline well, but I do know that. And the first part of this scene requires very little context. It’s just showing what an ass Cloten is. He’s the son of the queen, the stepson of the king. He thinks he’s better than most anyone else, and he doesn’t mind using his position of power (or proximity to power) to his advantage. One of the other people in the scene is giving a lot of asides (that’s a comment that the audience hears, but the other people on the stage don’t) telling us what he really thinks of Cloten. His aside/reply to Cloten’s line above is To have smelt like a fool. So obviously he believes Cloten to be a fool.

I suppose it’s a good scene to read for two things. One is that we can see Cloten for the ass that he is and realize that the ass that you had to deal with yesterday, or the day before, or last week in the store, or at the gym, or at work, is just one of those folks who’ve been there forever and always will be there; nothing you can do about it. You just gotta deal with ‘em. The other thing to think about after reading this is to look at yourself and try to make sure that you’re not ever being a Cloten.  

 

Well, I thought about putting in a pic of someone who I thought had been a Cloten, but then I thought maybe that wasn’t such a good idea. So I’m focusing on the second thing I mentioned. I think we can all be a little Clotenish from time to time, and could probably all use a little reminder about it occasionally. So here’s a little reminder to self:  

Don’t be a Cloten, Pete!

 

Hark! The land bids me tread no more upon’t,- 

 

-Mark Antony

Antony And Cleopatra                    Act III, Scene xi, Line 1

 

I’m not exactly sure what’s up here. It’s only act three and it looks like Antony giving up the ship. And I’m not sure if he’s talking about having to leave Egypt, or the ‘land’ refers to earth, as in he’s gotta end his life. It doesn't seem like it can be that, because there’s a lot more to go in this play.

Well, here’s the thing. I’ve read all of Antony and Cleopatra, but it’s been a while. Actually, I’m not sure there’s any one of theses plays that I can recount the whole sequence of events on, not even Merchant and I’m working on the re-write of that one right now. So it can take a while to get context and it always seems like I don’t have a while to spend on this stuff. Heck, even on the weekends I don’t seem to have the time, and today is Tuesday. Ooof. I guess that’s all I’ve got for today. Sorry.

  

 

I guess we could call this my bag 'o work. And there's another pile of this stuff on the table to my right. Lots of work to get done. Oh well, gotta pay the bills. Perhaps we could say, in reference to my blogging, that the bag 'o work bids me tread no more upon't. 

 I love when I can take an irrelevant picture and give it relevance. Don't you?

 

But, alack, my hand is sworn

Ne’er to pluck thee from thy thorn;-

-Dumaine

Love’s Labours’ Lost                    Act IV, Scene iii, Line 110

 

This is from a twenty line ode that Dumaine has written to his unrequited love. Should I put the whole ode here? Would anyone read it? I doubt. And since I need to get the front door painted, I’m going to pass on the other eighteen lines for today. Perhaps someday when I’m retired I will have a little more time.

Well, I got the front door painted. And whilst my hand is not sworn, my right shoulder is a bit worn. I gotta get that shoulder looked at.

 

No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change;

Thy pyramids, built up with newer might,

To me are nothing novel, nothing strange;

They are but dressings of a former sight:

Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire

What thou dost foist upon us that is old,

And rather make them born to our desire

Than think that we before have heard them told:

Thy registers and thee I both defy,

Not wond’ring at the present, nor the past,

For thy records, and what we see doth lie,

Made more or less by thy continual haste:

This I do vow, and this shall ever be,

I will be true despite thy scythe and thee.

Sonnet 123

Well, what do you think? I like it. It’s always good to read a sonnet now and then; just ask Sir Patrick Stewart. And admittedly, many of them are pretty hard to understand. As well, this one here probably has a lot more in it than what we initially see. But if we don’t dig too deep, it’s not too hard to understand what’s being said here. To summarize in one sentence: I believe the speaker is telling time that time doesn’t scare him, and that he’s going to be true in spite of time.

Again, what do you think?

Yup, you guessed it. They're standing on the pyramid. And they seem pretty casual about it. That is to say, the pyramid appears to be to them nothing novel, nothing strange.

 

How many times shall Caesar bleed in sport,

That now on Pompey’s basis lies along

No worthier than the dust!

-Brutus

Julius Caesar                     Act III, Scene i, Line 115

 

Let’s put this in context, and then take a look at it. Caesar had risen to power after a bloody civil war. The main leader of the other side in that war had been Pompey, and Pompey was killed in Caesar’s rise to power. Now they’ve just killed Caesar in what they believe is Rome’s best interest, believing that Caesar was going to become an authoritarian dictator; and I do believe their motives were mostly pure. Brutus speaks of bathing their hands in Caesar’s blood and walking forth crying ‘Peace, freedom, and liberty.’ Cassius responds,

Stoop then, and wash.—How many ages hence

Shall this our lofty scene be acted over

In states unborn and accents yet unknown!

To which Brutus responds with today’s Totally Random line.

 Never, never, never does this stuff cease to amaze me. Never. And to be perfectly clear, today’s line was chosen, as always, based on the roll of the die.

So, Cassius’s line is pretty straightforward, and chilling given the events of yesterday at the nation’s capital. States unborn, and accents yet unknown. And Brutus’s line even more so. Cassius is saying that this scene will be acted out in the future again and again as people fight against bad leaders. He refers to these actions as a lofty scene. Brutus is much more cynical, knowing that this scene will certainly be acted out again, but, knowing that the motives will not always be just, and referring to it not as lofty, but rather as sport. He points out that the end result is death, plain and simple death.

It’s pretty clear that what we saw yesterday was no lofty scene. It was simply sport; very bad and very ill-conceived sport. 

 

A lofty scene.