As near as I could sift him on the argument,-

On some apparent danger seen in him

Aim’d at your highness,- no inveterate malice.

 

-John of Gaunt

King Richard the Second                Act I Scene i, Line 12

 

Here we are at the beginning of Richard II, and the also the beginning of the series of Will’s plays that covers the Wars of the Roses; starting with Richard II, continuing with the Henrys IV, V, and VI, and ending with Richard III. And Will wastes no time getting into it.

John of Gaunt’s son, Henry Hereford (also referred to as Bolingbroke and later to become Henry IV) has challenged the Duke of Norfolk (also referred to as Thomas Mowbray – seems like everybody’s got at least two names) to mortal combat. King Richard wants to know if John of Gaunt has found out if Henry just hates Norfolk or if the latter is up to some treachery.  Today’s Totally Random lines are John’s response to that: Henry has no inveterate malice for the Duke (he’s not doing it out of hatred), Henry sees that the Duke is plotting against the throne.

So here’s the funny thing: Henry has challenged The Duke of Norfolk to mortal combat because he believes the Duke is plotting against the king. Yet, it is Henry who will overthrow the king by the end of the play.

Anyway, I’d like to point out the word that jumped out at me this morning. It’s sift. As near as I could sift him. Even though you’ve probably never seen this word used that way before (or maybe you have?), it’s easy to figure out its meaning. He’s sifting him. It makes me envision a flour sifter. In the same way that you pass flour through the sifter, John has gone through Henry’s words to come up with what he believes is the pure truth of the matter. He’s sifted him. What a great use of the word. This could be particularly useful when talking about people who you might have a hard time getting a straight answer out of. 

“Is Evan going to be here this weekend?”

“As near as I could sift him, I believe the answer is yes.”

Evan’s a great guy, but he can be hard to sift sometimes.

And here is the great un-siftable One. It occurs to me that those two little guys, his nephews, are busy right here sifting Uncle Evan, trying to figure out what this guy is all about. Good luck guys.

 

Your steward puts me off, my lord; and I am sent expressly to your lordship.

 

-Isidore’s Servant

Timon of Athens              Act II Scene ii, Line 35

 

And so it begins. Timon owes money to Isidore and he, Timon, is about to find out that he does not have the means to repay it. It goes downhill for Timon from here.

When Flavius, Timon’s head of household, starts explaining to Timon how broke he, Timon, actually is, Timon wonders idly whether or not Flavius is responsible. Flavius replies,

         If you suspect my husbandry or falsehood,

        Call me before the exactest auditors,

        And set me on proof.

Ahh, he’s threatening to call in the auditors! CohnReznick? Deloitte and Touche? Or how about Haskins and Sells!

Hey, I was just excited to find a reference in Will's works to auditors. 

 

O Lord, they fight! I will go call the watch.

-Page

Romeo and Juliet            Act V Scene iii, Line 71

Well, this is a pretty mundane line. Put there, I suppose, just to let the audience know that someone’s going to tell the others what’s going on, so as to explain how/why they all end up showing up at the mausoleum; because pretty much everyone shows up by the end of this scene, to end the play.

Pretty much everyone showed up for the 100 year anniversary of the Blagys household too. But I don't think that was the Page's doing. I think it was because Phil sent out invitations.

 

But her eyes,--

How could he see to do them? Having made one,

Methinks it should have power to steal both his,

And leave itself unfurnisht.

 

-Bassanio

The Merchant of Venice         Act III Scene ii, Line 125

 

Here we have Bassanio talking about a painting of Portia. The he and his being referred to is the artist who painted the picture. Once he had painted one of Portia’s eyes how is it possible that the beauty of it did not distract the artist so much that he would not have been able to finish the painting.

Bassanio also talks about Portia’s lips and her sweet breath (that’s how good the artist was: he was able to paint her breath) as well as her hair, where

The painter plays the spider; and hath woven

A golden mesh t’entrap the hearts of men,

Faster than gnats in cobwebs: 

Apparently Bassanio is fairly enraptured with the appearance of Portia, and the job that the artist did on her portrait. I suppose that’s good since he just won her. Yeah, let's not get into that part of it.

I think I might have used this pic before, but it seemed pretty appropriate for today's line. This is the crowd at the Louvre (that's Jess front and center in the pic) staring at the Mona Lisa. Mona is off to the left, behind that curved wooden railing (every time I look at this pic I am amazed by all of the other paintings in this room being ignored). So it begs the question: did Leonardo DaVinci do as good a job as the painter of Portia? Or are all of these people staring at the picture because it's famous? Being the cynic that I am, I have to go with the latter. How about you? 

 

Now, good Sir John, how do you like Windsor wives?—

-Mistress Page

The Merry Wives of Windsor         Act V Scene v, Line 109

 

And there you have it. Falstaff has spent a good portion of this play working on having his way with the wives, and in this final scene the wives, their husbands, and just about everyone else in the play turn the tables on him and make an ass of Falstaff. In fact, Sir John's reply to Mistress Page is I do begin to perceive that I am made an ass.

N’uff said about that. I suppose we could go on and talk about the character of Falstaff, but rather then go into a bunch of analysis I’ll simply leave you with a little fun fact. Falstaff has more lines than any other of Shakespeare’s characters. How is that possible, you ask. It’s possible because Falstaff is in three different plays; Henry IV Parts I and II, and The Merry Wives of Windsor. Hamlet has more lines in one play than any other character in one play. But overall, Falstaff has more. There you go, that’s your Shakespeare trivia for the day. As usual, no need to thank me.

This character reminds me a little of Sir John Falstaff. They both have a lot to say, and they both do their best to get others to do all the work. In this picture our modern day Falstaff is sitting in a chair with  his daughter on his lap and he's got his wife holding the bottle. 

Yup, very Falstaffian.

 

His noble cousin is right welcome hither;

And all the number of his fair demands

Shall be accomplisht without contradiction:

 

-Richard

King Richard the Second        Act III Scene iii, Line 122

 

This is Richard’s answer to Bolingbroke’s demand that all his rights and properties be restored. Bolingbroke has said that this is all he wants, and that he has no designs on Richard’s crown. But everyone, including Richard, knows that is not true and that by giving in to Bolingbroke’s demands it will be the beginning of the end of Richard’s reign.

When Richard says His noble cousin, he’s using the royal third person. What he means is My noble cousin. Remember, Bolingbroke and Richard are first cousins, their fathers were brothers. But both the fathers, Bolingbroke’s dad, John of Gaunt, and Richard’s dad, the Black Prince, are long gone, leaving this next generation of cousins to sort it out.

Spoiler alert: they’re not going to do a very good job of sorting it out.

 

He supt at my house; but I therefore shake not.

-Bianca

Othello                   Act V Scene i, Line 118

 

Bianca is the mistress to Cassio, and Cassio is the fellow that Iago is using to fuel Othello’s jealousy. However, I’m not sure exactly what Iago is trying to do here, other than to know that it’s all part of the game he is playing. Literally no one in this play except Iago is doing anything improper, but Iago is managing to make trouble for just about everyone.

Good ‘ol Iago.

I supped at my house tonight too: leftover cheese and crackers and kielbasa from Easter.

And look - no shaking either. It's the hand of a surgeon. Well, not exactly.