Go, Biodello, bid your mistress come to me.

-Lucentio

The Taming of the Shrew              Act V, Scene ii, Line 77

 

Well, we have another interesting play here and one that could be one of the first to be singled out for book burning if we’re not careful. Do you want to hear about it? Well, I guess you’re going to whether you want it or not. Let’s see; where do we start?

I suppose the name tells a lot of the story. By the story, I mean the story of the play (a shrewish woman being tamed into a 'good' wife), and the story of why the book’s gonna get burned (because it's about a woman being tamed into a 'good' wife). So then, what’s to say? Well, let’s attack this burnability issue from a very general perspective, and that is this: 

WE NEED TO BE ABLE TO DISCUSS STUFF, PEOPLE!!

There, simple as that.

Okay, just in case it wasn't clear what I was talking about: this is a pic of my associate graduating from high school last year and posing with the superintendent of schools here in Cheshire (who by the way is the paragon of superintendents in my opinion). Now, what are we teaching in our schools, and in our universities? A lot. What are we not teaching? Apparently, anything that we might offend someone by talking about it. And that, my friend, is the problem. I can understand respecting peoples' feelings, but we gotta be able to find some middle ground here. Just throwing some stuff out is not the answer. Okay? Good. Thanks for letting me get that off my chest. 

 

But, Valentine being gone, I’ll quickly cross,

By some sly trick, blunt Thurio’s dull proceeding.

Love, lend me wings to make my purpose swift,

As thou has lent me wit to plot this drift!

-Proteus

The Two Gentelmen of Verona     Act II, Scene vi, Line 41

 

Today’s random line is the one with blunt Thurio in it. I added the line before it to make it an almost complete sentence. I added the two lines following it because they are the last lines of the scene and a rhyming couplet. And who doesn’t like a rhyming couplet.

As far as a bit of context: Proteus and Valentine are the titular gentlemen of Verona. Valentine’s got a new girl, Silvia, who Proteus just met. Thurio is another potential suitor of Silvia. Proteus decides that he wants Silvia and he spends this whole scene with a forty-three line soliloquy of why and how he’s going to get her.

Got it?

I didn't have a pic of Sylvia, so here is a pic of Lake Sylvia. It's pretty, isn't it?

 

As I with sudden and extemporal speech

Purpose to answer what thou canst object.

-Bishop of Winchester

King Henry the Sixth Part I          Act III, Scene i, Line 7

 

This is the very start of the scene and here’s the summary from my Shakespeare App (I think it’s just called the Shakespeare App) followed by three lines from the Biship.

At Parliament, Gloucester attempts to present a written list of complaints against Winchester, but the bishop grabs it and rips it up, telling Gloucester to speak it all directly…

        Do it without invention, suddenly;

                As I with sudden and extemporal speech

                Purpose to answer what thou canst object. 

There, that should give you context. I’m not exactly sure what we’re going to do with that context, but there it is nonetheless. 

Now, I’ve got to move on to some other things this morning, soooo, comments?

Shakespeare Pro on the App Store (apple.com)

I'll take the opportunity today to give a plug to the app I use pretty much on a daily basis. It's got a lot of features that anyone who does any amount of reading of Will's works will appreciate. According to this website it cost $10. I don't remember paying for it, but I've had it so long (years!) that I could have forgotten. Anyway, well worth $10 if that's what it is.

 

We still have known thee for a holy man.--

-Prince Escalus

Romeo and Juliet                   Act V, Scene iii, Line 269

 

We are only a few lines from the end of the play. We're in the tomb with the dead bodies, and Friar Laurence has just finished telling the assembled group the whole story of what’s taken place, pretty much a recap of the whole play. And today's line is the Prince’s response.

I would equate this to my own standard response when I’m presented with something that I don’t really know what to say. In those cases I usually say, “okay”, which is my way of saying that I’m not agreeing or disagreeing or even necessarily understanding. I’m just responding.

If I had just listened to the thirty-eight lines of Friar Laurence’s explanation of what’s taken place, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to come up with much more than “okay”. Apparently though, the Prince is a bit more versed than myself in how to respond to stuff, and still not really say anything. We still have known thee for a holy man. What the heck is that? He might just as well have said “okay”.

So you think I really owe you a picture because I didn't give you one yesterday? Okay.

 

 

Your worship’s friend, and Launcelot, sir.

-Old Gobbo

The Merchant of Venice                Act II, Scene ii, Line 55

This is a scene where Launcelot Gobo’s father shows up looking for his son. It’s interesting, but a little bit confusing. Young Gobo has a somewhat significant supporting role, whilst old Gobo shows up here and that’s it. At this point in the scene Launcelot is purposely trying to confuse the old man who does not yet realize he is talking to his son. With today’s line, Old Gobo is trying to clarify who he is looking for.

And that’s about it. That’s the context, but I really don’t have much else to give you on this one. I’d be happy to hear if anyone else has anything on it. Otherwise, I'll just put it out there and let you see if you can get something out of it.

        I'm trying to stick to my commitment to post as often as possible, with or without a pic. 

So guess what? No pic today.

 

 

In answer of which claim, the prince our master

Says that you savour too much of your youth,

And bids you be advised there’s naught in France

That can be with a nimble galliard won;

-First Ambassador

King Henry the Fifth             Act II, Scene i, Line 257

That can be with a nimble galliard won; that’s the line that we ended up with this morning. So, I gave you most of the sentence, but I’d like to give you the context and then a little more, and you’ll see why in a moment.

The ambassadors from France have shown up in King Henry’s court and he has asked them to tell him what’s on the mind of the Dauphin, the crown prince of France. Here is the ambassador’s reply in full.

Thus then in few.

Your highness, lately sending into France,

Did claim some certain dukedoms, in the right

Of your great predecessor, King Edward the Third.

In answer of which claim, the prince our master

Says that you savour too much of your youth,

And bids you be advised there’s naught in France

That can be with a nimble galliard won;

You cannot revel into dukedoms there.

He therefore sends you, meeter for your spirit,

This tun of treasure; and, in lieu of this,

Desires you let the dukedoms that you claim

Hear no more of you. This the Dauphin speaks.

 

For clarification, a galliard is a lively dance, and meeter means more suitable. So, in other words, stay the heck out of France and here’s something to spend your energy on instead. And when Henry asks what the treasure is that the Dauphin has sent him, Exeter replies,

                        Tennis-balls, my liege. 

That’s right; tennis-balls. The Dauphin sent the king of England tennis-balls to say, blow off your steam playing tennis instead of invading my country.

Tennis-balls, that’s the part I wanted to get to. I thought it was pretty interesting that Shakespeare had a reference to tennis-balls. I had no idea tennis had even been invented in Shakespeare’s time. Did you?

Of course, I would try to show you a pic of a tennis ball for today's post, wouldn't I. I'm not sure what good that would have done, but I don't have a pic of a tennis ball anyway. So here's a pic of a few baseballs. There are some interesting stories behind these balls, but I'm not going to go into that right now. Suffice it to say that I didn't receive any of these balls from an ambassador of a world leader. 

But now I'm thinking, in light of current events maybes I should send these balls to Moscow and tell Vlad to use them to blow off some steam instead of invading Ukraine? Ahh, that's useless. I don't think there's anything gonna stop Vlad any more than the tennis-balls stopped Henry (spoiler alert: they didn't).

Oyyy. So very little has changed in four hundred years; so very, very little.

 

These things, indeed, you have articulate,

Proclaim’d at market-crosses, read in churches,

To face the garment of rebellion

With some fine colour that may please the eye

Of fickle changelings and poor discontents,

Which gape and rub the elbow at the news

Of hurlyburly innovation.

-Henry

King Henry the Fourth Part I    Act V, Scene i, Line 75

The line I landed on this morning was With some fine colour that may please the eye, and I thought, ‘well that’s a nice line’. Then I decided to listen to the whole scene (and I’d like to once again put in my plug for listening to the scene whilst reading it whenever possible) and of course realized that this line was part of a much bigger thought. Henry is responding to Worcester who has just articulated the reasons for the rebellion. Those reasons are ‘these things’ that Henry is alluding to, and as you can see, fine colour that may please the eye is, in the context of Henry’s little speech, lipstick on a pig. Well, so much for the nice line.

There’s quite a bit to unpack in these seven lines, and a steamliner full of luggage to go through if we want to attack the whole scene, even though it’s only 141 lines. But I could spend the day on that, and there are other things I want to get to this morning. Perhaps one day I’ll be at the point where I can, and will, spend the hours needed on an excerpt like this; but I'm afraid it is not this day.

In the meantime, I think I’ll take the line a bit out of context and enjoy it for what I had initially seen in it. That's allowed, isn't it?

This is what Patrice was working on over the weekend. I like it a lot, and I think you can see why I thought of it when I read With some fine colour that may please the eye.