But that her tender shame

Will not proclaim against her maiden loss,

How might she tongue me! Yet reason dares her no;

-Angelo

Measure For Measure                   Act IV, Scene iv, Line 26

Okay, I’ll give you some context today. Angelo was left in charge of the town whilst the Duke left for parts unknown. During that time Angelo has used his position to force Isabella to have sex with him. Now the Duke is returning, and Angelo is worrying that Isabella will rat on him. He concludes that she won’t, that reason dares her no. Is he right? I guess you’ll have to read the rest of the play to find out.

Well, what do you think, would we allow Angelo to sit on this bench? I rather think not. I think, at best, we might allow him to sit on the Group W bench. That's about it.

 

Not from  his mouth.

Had it th’ability of life to thank you:

He never gave commandment for their death. But since, so jump upon this bloody question,

You from the Polack wars, and you from England,

Are here arrived, give order that these bodies

High on a stage be placed to the view;

And let me speak to th’yet unknowing world

How these things came about: so shall you  hear

Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts;

Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters;

Of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause;

And, in this upshot, purposes mistook

Fain on the inventors’ heads: All this can I

Truly deliver.

-Horatio

Hamlet                            Act V, Scene ii, Line 372

Well there’s a long one for you, but I really didn’t have the heart to break it up. This is the end of the play. Claudius, Gertrude, Laertes, and Hamlet lay dead. Fortinbras has just entered, as have ambassadors from England. The latter report that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead, and they ask from whom they should be receiving their thanks for that act. Horatio kneels by the dead body of his friend Hamlet, and this is his reply to them, and his summation of the play, in a manner of speaking.

What do you think?

   Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts:

            Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters;

                 Of deaths put on by cunning, and forced cause;

Well, I don't suppose I could possibly give you a pic of this, so I won't try.

 

            Didst perceive it?--

-Leontes

The Winter’s Tale                          Act I, Scene ii, Line 215

And here’s where Leontes’s sanity train leaves the tracks, very early on in the play. What he’s asking Camillo, one of the lords of Sicilia, is whether or not he’s perceived what Leontes has perceived. What has Leontes perceived? He has perceived, much incorrectly, that his wife and Polixenes, the king of Bohemia, are getting way too friendly, and that there’s something more than friendship going on between the two. There is not. But that’s what Leontes is perceiving and he’s determined that others must perceive it as well. Others do not. But that won’t stop Leontes from acting disastrously on his jealousy, and the remainder of the action in the play rests on Leontes jealous reactions to what he believes he perceives.

I guess we could get into a really long philosophical discussion about perceptions. But we won’t. Even though I consider myself a bit of a philosopher (and my son-in-law who is himself a professor of philosophy has informed me that I am allowed to call myself a philosopher), I don’t feel qualified to lead such a discussion. So suffice it to say that perceptions can be tricky. Very, very tricky.

This is a piece of modern art of which I am quite fond. I believe there is much to see in it. One of the things I see is a hint of the interstellar. Didst perceive it?

 

Hail heaven!

-Guiderius

Cymbeline                                  Act III, Scene iii, Line 9

I’m not certain whether Guiderius is making a reference to the religious heaven, or a reference to the skies above, that is to say, nature. I guess, based on the context, it’s the latter, but it could also be one of Will’s double entendres.

Okay, looks like I’ve been misusing double entendre. According to MW online it means a word or expression capable of two interpretations with one usually risqué. I wasn’t aware of that second, risqué part. I guess I’ll have to revisit my use of that phrase? Or can I just go with the fact that the second meaning is usually risqué, but not always risqué? Yeah, let’s just do that.

The heavens.

 

Do we all holy rites:

Let there be sung Non nobis and Te Deum.

The dead with charity enclosed in clay,

We’ll then to Calais; and to England then;

Where ne’er from France arrived more happy men.                                           [Exeunt]

-Henry

King Henry the Fifth             Act IV, Scene viii, Line 123

Non nobis and Te Deum are hymns of thanksgiving and glory to God. This is the scene after the Battle of Agincourt and they’ve just listed off how great the French casualties were and how few the English were. This then is the end of the Act IV.

I suppose that Non nobis and Te Deum are not all that well known in today’s world. Though perhaps there’s an anglicized version of one of them that we might recognize? I don't really know.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow,

Praise him all creatures here below.

Praise him above ye heav’nly host,

Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

There, that’s a hymn of praise I remember from my youthful church-going days. I can remember singing it umpteen thousand times. As far as I know, it’s not Non nobis or Te Deum; but who knows?

Doxology: Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow (with lyrics) - Bing video

 Here you go. The link above is to a really nice video of the hymn. The first four lines are exactly as I remember them. There was a second verse that we sang in church, not the way it's being sung here. But it's a really nice, and peaceful video. Maybe save it and watch it next time you're feeling bad about something. 

 

 

I pray you, jest, sir, as you sit at dinner:

I from my mistress come to you in post;

If I return, I shall be post indeed,

For she will score your fault upon my pate.

Methinks your maw, like mine, should be your clock,

And strike you home without a messenger.

-Dromio of Ephesus

The Comedy of Errors           Act I, Scene II, Line 62

First things first. In case you hadn’t figured it out simply by context, maw is belly or throat; in this case more like belly. In modern parlance it’s mouth/throat, but not that far off from the sixteenth century meaning. I could get into a lengthy discussion of reading and understanding Shakespeare, but I think I’ll save that for another day. I believe I can hear that collective sigh of relief.

The part I really like about this passage is Dromio’s comment about one’s stomach being the meal clock. I know mine is, and everyone who knows me well knows that mine is. My daughters have told me that when they travel with me they make sure to carry a granola bar or something like that just in case I start to Hulk out on them. I guess my stomach clock doesn’t strike me home, it’s just rigged to an explosive device that’s ready to go off on the spot.

 

Here I am with the girls visiting San Francisco a few years ago (I'm the one taking the picture). So, which one has the granola bar? I'm guessing Jess. She could have a three course meal in the pockets of that jacket she's holding. 

 

 

 

Illo, ho, ho, my lord!

-Horatio

Hamlet                                    Act I, Scene v, Line 114

Illo, ho, ho is the falconer’s cry to recall the hawk. In this case, Horatio is the falconer and Hamlet is the hawk. What do you think of that?

Believe it or not, just as soon as I finished writing this short blog, I went upstairs and looked out the window and what did I see but a hawk perched atop the pine tree. I know, you can hardly see him, but he's there. This is on full pic-taking magnification on my iPhone. If you take a look at the next pic....

....this is the same pic without magnification. The two trees are the smaller ones in the middle of this picture. You can see that the hawk is pretty far away. I guess I could've opened the window and yelled Illo, ho, ho, but it just didn't seem like a very viable option. Anyway, the back yard looks good, doesn't it?