Monday, November 15, 2021

 

Her part, poor soul! Seeming as burdened

With lesser weight but not with lesser woe,

Was carried with more speed before the wind;

And in our sight they three were taken up

By fishermen of Corinth, as we thought.


-Aegeon

The Comedy of Errors           Act I, Scene i, Line 107


We’re in the middle of Aegeon’s tale at the beginning of the play which gives us the backstory to the play. He’s describing how his wife, with two of the four boys, drifted away after the boat split in two and they were picked up by fishermen of Corinth. He’ll go on to explain that he and the other two boys, in the other half of the boat, were picked up by sailors from Epiduarus. And that is the premise for how two of the boys and the mother were separated from the other two boys and their father.

It's a pretty hokey story, but also pretty important as it gives an important part of the premise for the rest of the play. Good ol’ backstory, eh?  

This is a pic from the bridge of the ship. That water is the Drake Passage which can be a pretty rough sea at times. We crossed it to Antarctica and then back again. It was pretty calm, as this pic shows, on the way out, but it got a bit rougher on the way back. Luckily, it didn't get rough enough to break the ship in half, like it did to Aegeon's, but it did get rough enough to give me a real good case of mal de mer, poor soul! I don't think I'll be doing the Drake Passage again anytime soon.


Sunday, November 14, 2021

 

No, Master Brook; but the peaking cornuto her husband, Master Brook, dwelling in a continual ’larum of jealousy, comes me in the instant of our encounter, after we had embraced, kiss’d, protested, and, as it were, spoke the prologue of our comedy; and at his heels a rabble of his companions, thither provoked and instigated by his distemper, and, forsooth, to search his house for his wife’s love.


-Sir John Falstaff

The Merry Wives of Windsor        Act III, Scene v, Line 71


And what do you think of that? That's a bit of a long one, so assuming you’re willing to work your way through it, I’ll give you some context.

Falstaff is explaining to Master Brook (who is actually Master Ford in disguise) how he, Falstaff, was surprised by Master Brook whilst he, Falstaff, was in the process of seducing Master Brook’s wife. A peaking cornuto is a sneaking cuckold. Given that definition, and that bit of context, the passage should make some sense. I suggest you read it again armed with this information.

Now I went back and checked. This is the twenty-fourth time that John Falstaff has been the speaker of our Totally Random line. That’s quite a bit. Consider though, that he was in three plays: the two Henry IV’s and this one, The Merry Wives of Windsor. In fact, based on at least one source that I found, Falstaff has more total lines (again, over the course of three plays) than any other Shakespeare character. Yes, Hamlet has the most lines in one play, but he was only in one play, whilst Falstaff has more over the course of three plays.

To be sure, Falstaff is one of the favorites of many, many esteemed Shakespeareans, not the least of which was Harold Bloom. And here’s an interesting fact, I had two connections with Prof. Bloom. It seems his masseuse was my daughter’s good friend and roommate, and his dentist was my dentist of the past forty years (until he retired two months ago, darn it). Isn’t that interesting? Well, I thought it was.

And here is some of the handiwork of said dentist. I can't help but think that if Sir John Falstaff got a look at those gold crowns his first, and perhaps only, thought would be how to get them out of my mouth and into his pocket. 



Thursday, November 11, 2021

 

Say, I would die.

-Cleopatra

Antony and Cleopatra                Act V, Scene ii, Line 70

Well, we know that Cleo can be quite the drama queen (and I mean that in the figurative sense because literally she is a queen in a drama), but we also know that in the end she actually does kill herself. We also know that this is the last scene of the play. So I’m going to say that she’s not just being a figurative drama queen here.

No pic today, just a nice short line and a reasonably short post; too much work that I have to get to right now.

Wednesday, November 10, 2021

 

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.


Saturday, November 6, 2021

 

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.



Friday, November 5, 2021

 

            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?


Thursday, November 4, 2021

 

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.


  Today’s Totally Random Lines   Her voice is stopt, her joints forget to bow; Her eyes are mad that they have wept till now.   ...