The ditty does remember my drown’d father:-

This is no mortal business, nor no sound

That the earth owes:- I hear it now above me.

-Ferdinand

The Tempest               Act I, Scene i, Line 408

 

We've struck upon The Tempest today. These lines are where we first meet Ferdinand. Ariel is leading him onstage with music and a song, a ditty. Prospero and Miranda are watching Ferdinand from the side and will begin interacting with him momentarily. 

I kind of like that word 'ditty'. You still hear that being used now and then. Well, anyway, I use it.

Of course, when we end up in The Tempest we're bound to have a pic from our book. This is the same scene a few moments later when Ferdinand and Miranda are interacting. Ariel is there in the upper left hand corner of the pic, and Prospero in the upper right and lower left. Perhaps eventually we will default to our book illustrations for pics for The Merchant of Venice lines. But not yet. 

 

Hence from Verona art thou banished:

Be patient, for the world is broad and wide.

-Friar Laurence

Rome And Juliet                Act III, Scene iii, Line 15

 

So here we have that troublemaker Friar Laurence again. He’s a piece of work. He’s telling Romeo that he’s been banished from Verona for killing Tybalt, but then counseling him that there are other places, lots of other places, besides Verona. Of course, Romeo doesn’t see it this way. I think he just needs to get over it and realize how lucky he is to just get banished as opposed to imprisoned or executed. But that’s just me.

On a lighter note, here’s that ‘t’ versus ‘ed’ thing again. Will’s using banished as opposed to banish’t. And it appears that he’s using it for iambic pentameter’s sake. He needs the three syllable ban-ish-ed to complete the line. Otherwise it would be ban-isht and the line would only have nine syllables. Very clever. I don’t think Friar Laurence could have worked that out. Do you?

This here is a Lawrence that I knew when I was a kid. I called him Larry, but I believe he goes by Lawrence now. He was a piece of work too, but in a different way than Laurence was. He was my best friend back in the late 60's early 70's. Now he lives in Florida, and I haven't seen him in over thirty years. Time flies.

 It will make you melancholy, Monsieur Jaques.

 

-Amiens

As You Like It         Act II, Scene v, Line 10

 

What will make Jaques melancholy? More of Amiens’s singing will make Jaques more melancholy. Jaques has requested more singing, but Amiens doesn’t seem to think it’s a good idea. Amiens is a more or less anonymous henchman in this play, but today he’s singing a little ditty that Jaques wants to hear more of. Would you like to hear (or at least read) what Amiens has given us so far? Okay, if you insist.

                Under the greenwood tree

                Who loves to lie with me,

And turn his merry note

Unto the sweet bird’s throat,

Come hither, come hither, come hither:      

                Here shall he see

                No enemy

But winter and rough weather

So, what do you think. I think Amiens is right; any more of that will certainly raise my level of melancholia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFwpabp3h3w

Since we're talking about a ditty today, I'll give you a link to the song that's been stuck in my head this morning. I think it's pretty upbeat, but I'll let you be the judge. 

 

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.