Bear with him, Brutus; ‘tis his fashion.

-Cassius

Julius Caesar          Act IV, Scene iii, Line 134

 

Cassius and Brutus are in Brutus’s tent, and they have been fighting. A Poet barges in and tells them to settle down, and Brutus tells him to get lost. Cassius’s response to this is today’s line. Brutus doesn’t want to bear with him and says

        I’ll know his humor, when he knows his time:

        What should the wars do with these jigging fools?

        Companion, hence.

Cassius seconds that and the Poet leaves. So much for the Poet. 

I’m not quite sure what purpose the Poet serves in this scene, but I’m sure if you ask Marjorie, or Stephen, or one of those other Shakespeare super-nerds they could tell you. Unfortunately, they don’t read this blog. Hey, there’s an idea…maybe I should send them a link? Couldn’t hurt. Could it? Well, could it? Famous last words, eh?

 

 

I thought if I plugged one of his books that might help. I particularly liked the chapter The Limits of Hatred.

 

 

O, that we now had here

But one ten thousand of these men in England

That do no work to-day!

 

-Westmoreland

King Henry the Fifth               Act IV, Scene iii, Line 16

 

This is the set-up line to Henry’s speech about how glorious it’s going to be to fight in this battle. It’s the speech that includes the line

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;

So here’s something to think about, and not just in relation to Will’s work: what about all those set-up lines? I’m talking about lines, like today’s, that no one remembers. Today’s is a really good example. Henry needed someone to complain about how great the odds against them were in order for him to go into his speech of how famous they’re all going to be for fighting against those odds. And he goes on about it quite a bit.

I guess some set-up lines are famous in themselves, though I can’t think of any right now. And a lot of famous lines and speeches don’t really require any set-up line. Like I think we need a bigger boat. Remember when Chief Brody says that in Jaws? There’s nobody else there right then. But he sees the shark surface, and how big it is, and he gives that line in response to that, not to anyone’s comment. Or maybe we can consider that the shark gave a sort of silent set-up line? Anyway, in Henry’s case he kind of needed the set-up line. Either way, the set-up line is underrated. At least in my opinion it is.

 

Here you go. This is the crumbling wall of a medieval town in France. Okay, it's not Agincourt where Henry gave his famous speech after that brilliant set-up line by Westmoreland, but it's the best I could do.

 

 

O Harry’s wife, triumph not in my woes!

God witness with me, I have wept for thine.

 

-Duchess of York

King Richard the Third             Act IV, Scene iv, Line 59

 

Here’s a scene where three women sit and talk about all of the men and boys they’ve lost, mostly at the hands of Richard. It’s the Duchess of York who is the mother of Richard, Edward, and Clarence, Queen Elizabeth, the wife of Edward IV and the mother of the two princes killed in the tower, and Margaret (Harry’s wife above), the wife of Henry VI and mother of a different Edward. Yes, lots of dead kings and princes to be mourned, and yes, Richard had a part in a lot of that; but not all. Margaret’s husband Henry was a Lancaster and the other two women are Yorks, but right at this minute none of the women is really caring about sides. They’re just doing what women through the ages have done, mourning the loss of their men and boys to the machinations of war. Though to be fair, Margaret has been actively involved in the fighting, not just an innocent bystander. C’est la vie. Et la mort. N’est pas?

Since we're talking about people dying, and because I threw a little French at you, here's a pic of the girls in the Pantheon in Paris. It's full of a bunch of famous dead people, though I can't for the life of me remember whose body is in the background of this picture. I do know two things: One is that whoever it is, they're dead; and two is that Richard III didn't kill them. 

 

He went hence but now,

And certainly in strange unquietness.

 

-Emilia

Othello              Act III, Scene iv, Line 131

 

And we’re back at the darned handkerchief scene. Remember? It’s the one where we had the picture of Nina and her Uncle Dave acting it out? Anyway, this is the same scene, but at this point Othello has stormed out because Desdemona can’t come up with the stupid hanky. And Emilia, Iago’s wife is referring to his storming off as ‘in strange unquietness.’ Yes, unquietness. That’s an interesting way to put it. Othello is so unquiet that he’s going to end up smothering Desdemona in his unquietness. Perhaps just a little bit of understatement? Oyyy!

There's something about this pic that I find a little bit unquieting (though I prefer the word disquieting). It's Christophe on a video call, but he looks more like a disembodied spirit from a seance. Don't you agree?
 

 

Thou dost lie in’t, to be in’t and say it is thine. ‘Tis for the dead, not for the quick. Therefore thou liest.

 

-Hamlet

Hamlet               Act V, Scene i, Line 123

 

So it’s the graveyard scene in Hamlet. First the two gravediggers are going at it, trading puns and barbs, and then one of the gravediggers leaves and Hamlet starts sparring with the one that’s still there. Hamlet has asked whose grave the fellow is digging, he replies that it’s his own, and now they’re going back and forth about lying in or on the grave. They playing with the meaning of ‘lying’ going to and fro between lying- telling an untruth, and lying- laying down.

In any event, the grave is being dug for Ophelia, but Hamlet doesn’t realize that yet. In just a few moments, still ignorant to the death of Ophelia, Hamlet’s going to go into his ‘Alas, poor Yorick’ speech. If the first part of the scene is centered on puns and bad jokes, the Yorick speech changes the pace to talk about life and things lost. Then shortly the king and others come in with the body of Ophelia to bury her, and Hamlet and Laertes almost come to blows, jumping in the grave together. Yeah, it really is a great scene and it’s got everything in it. I guess if I was going to pick just one scene to recommend to someone to get a taste of Shakespeare, this might be it.

This here is Gunther Gebel-Williams. I saw him in the New Haven Coliseum in the early 80's. If I had to pick one circus act, or circus person, to give you a taste of what the circus was about, this is the guy.