I was as virtuously given as a gentleman need to be; virtuous enough; swore little; diced not above seven times a week; went to a bawdy-house not above once in a quarter -- of an hour; paid money that I borrowed -- three or four times; lived well, and in good compass: and now I live out of all order, out of all compass.

 

-Sir John Falstaff

King Henry the Fourth Part I      Act III Scene iii, Line 20

 

Good old Falstaff. This is classic Falstaff, rambling on and on, and talking mostly about himself. I guess you can take it for what it’s worth, and context is almost irrelevant here. I will tell you that the word compass is taken to mean moderation or limits, and also that I don’t think Sir John ever lived in good compass. And that’s about all I feel I need to tell you about these lines.

I just realized who Falstaff reminds me of in my own life: Johnny Stevens. I wish I had a picture of Johnny, but alas I don’t.

Wrong again! I do have a picture of him.

That's Johnny on the far left. To the right of Johnny, making a funny face, is Steve Mikune, and to the right of Steve is yours truly. And you thought we were reaching back into the archives with the ND patch yesterday. This photo goes back even further!

 

I saw Othello’s visage in my mind:

 

-Desdemona

Othello                         Act I Scene iii, Line 252

Desdemona is talking about her husband Othello and asking to be allowed to go with him to the wars in Cyprus. It sounds like everyone agrees to let her go, but then Othello ends up leaving her in the care of Iago. So I find this scene a little confusing.

I was going to listen to the whole scene in the hopes of getting a little clarity, but it’s almost 8:30, I’ve got to get to work, and this scene is twenty minutes long. So that’s that.

Just in case you’re not familiar with the word visage, it means face. As in the poem Great Casey’s visage shone, He stilled the rising tumult, And he bade the game go on. That’s from Casey At The Bat. I memorized it for Father Diaz’s English class, freshman year of Notre Dame High School. Now we’re dipping into the archives, aren’t we?

Yup, it's my letters from high school. This is either for track or JV football; I'm not sure which. We've really deviated from the Totally Random line today, haven't we!

 

 

Yet will I favour thee in what I can.

 

-Duke of Ephesus

The Comedy of Errors      Act I Scene i, Line 150

The Duke is talking to Aegeon and he’s going to favour Aegeon by allowing him one extra day to live before he executes him. The crime? Aegeon is a stranger in Ephesus, and he’s from Syracuse. Wow! Forget about building a wall, they’ve come up with a significantly more comprehensive solution to deal with people coming in from other places: kill ‘em. One would think that this would be a fairly good deterrent. One would think.

 

A pebble.

 

-William Page

The Merry Wives of Windsor      Act IV Scene i, Line 29

Yes, a pebble. That's today's Totally Random line: A pebble. This is obviously said in answer to a question. What was the question? And what is a stone, William? Well that seems like a reasonably good answer. Nope. The answer is lapis. Yah, I didn’t really get much out of this scene either.

I believe this is a stone as opposed to a pebble, the latter being something a bit smaller. I found it in the front yard last week and thought it was worth keeping. 

Lapis is Latin for stone. William's teacher was looking for the Latin word, not another English word that was similar to pebble.

 

First, he commends him to your noble self.

 

-Messenger

King Richard the Third     Act III Scene ii, Line 8

The messenger from Lord Stanley is at Lord Hasting’s door at four in the morning. I was up briefly today at four in the morning. Luckily there were no messengers from Lord Stanley, or anyone else, banging at my door. I went back to sleep.

 

Most honour’d Cleon, I must needs be gone;

 

-Pericles

Pericles, Prince of Tyre    Act III Scene iii, Line 1

I'm not sure where he needs be gone to, but Pericles is heading out somewhere or the other, and he leaves his baby girl Marina in the care of Cleon, the governor of Tarsus. A scene or two from now we will find Marina fully grown and living in a house of prostitution. So that should give you an idea of how good a job Cleon does taking care of Marina. Well, to be fair, it’s Cleon’s wife Dionyza who ends up being the baddy in this respect, and it’s jealousy that’s the driver.

That’s a pretty interesting name, Dionyza. I used the google and found a young lady with that name who sings. I wonder if her parents were Shakespeareans. If not, how did they come up with that name? Interesting.  

Anyway, here is Dionyza’s song I Told Myself. I thought it was pretty good.

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=dionyza&docid=608010414151574667&mid=B18E83AF26D0F8512E2FB18E83AF26D0F8512E2F&view=detail&FORM=VIRE

 

 

Let us to the great supper: their cheer is the greater that I am subdued.

 

-Don John

Much Ado About Nothing          Act I Scene iii, Line 69

A thought occurred to me reading this: Don John seems to have been taking delight in the planning of misfortune for someone. We’ve seen this in many places with Will: Iago, Edmund, the list goes on. But I must say, this is a notion quite foreign to myself. I guess there are people that are very annoying to me (a certain neighbor comes to mind), and I may have wishes that they’d just go away and get out of my life, but I don’t think I’ve ever taken joy in planning ill fortune for them. And yet, I can think of other people in my life who may do just this.

Hmm, interesting.

 

Do you see these three arborvitae trees? We recently had them planted to increase the buffer between us and the guy on the other side of that white fence. Yes, he's annoying, but I don't sit around plotting his demise. I'd just prefer that he moved away. In the meantime - trees.