Hail to thee, worthy Timon, and to all

That of his bounties taste!

 

-Cupid

Timon of Athens                      Act I Scene ii, Line 123

 

This is Cupid talking, but it’s Cupid in a masque, which is not to be confused with Cupid in a mask. Although, it is possible that he has a mask on. Confused? Let me explain. A masque is a show, sort of a pageant. It usually involves a bunch of people dressed up in elaborate costumes performing some choreographed display, often including music. Apparently, they performed masques in Shakespeare’s time. In this case, we are seeing a show within the play. Timon is having a masque performed at his home for his guests, and Cupid is one of the players in the masque. Capiche?

This is Walker the kudu. Now it may not seem like this picture has any relevance, but on the way driving in today I was listening to some music and George Benson's Ode to a Kudu came up. So in that sense, this is a highly relevant picture. In terms of relevance to today's Totally Random Line, well not so much.

 

O, behold,

The riches of the ship is come on shore!

Ye men of Cyprus, let her have your knees.

Hail to thee, lady! And the grace of heaven,

Before, behind thee, and on every hand,

Enwheel thee round!

 

-Michael Cassio

Othello                    Act II Scene i, Line 86

 

Well, I couldn’t give you just the one line I picked, which was Before, behind thee, and on every hand; that, at the very least needed the line before and after it to make it complete. And then I thought that since I was giving you three lines, I might as well give you the three lines previous to that which really make it fully complete. Then I started going back further and actually considered giving you even more, because in the paragraphs previous Cassio goes even further in his praise of Desdemona. He talks about a maid that paragons description and wild fame; One that extols the quirks of blazoning pens. He also talks about how the tempests themselves…do omit their mortal natures, letting go safely by the divine Desdemona. I never realized before how far Cassio goes in his praise of Desdemona. It becomes a little more obvious as to why Iago picked Cassio to make Othello jealous. The way he talks about Othello’s wife makes it already seem like he might have designs on her.

But hold on; there’s some interesting language in here that we should look at. First, the riches of the ship is come on shore! Sounds like a grammatical error: singular verb for a plural noun. However, it turns out that the ship’s riches is singular: Desdemona is come on shore.

How about the grace of heaven, before, behind thee and on every hand, enwheel thee round. It sounds pretty good, but what exactly does that mean?

And finally, how about being a maid that extols the quirks of blazoning pens? Got any idea what that means? Let’s think: a blazoning pen is a pen that’s writing something big or important. To extol is to praise. Uh, forget it.

 

In troth, I think she would.—Fare you well, then.

-Valeria

Coriolanus                      Act I, scene iii, line 109

 

This is Valeria talking to Volumnia about Virgilia. That’s a lot of V’s. Valeria has been trying to talk Vigilia, her friend, into coming out with her to go do something. Vigilia insists that she won’t leave the house until her husband Coriolanus is home from the battles. Volumnia, Coriolanus’s mother, has just said to Valeria, Let her alone, lady: as she is now, she will but disease our better mirth. That is what Valeria is responding to with Today’s Totally Random Line. In troth, is In truth. 

I find it interesting that these three women, the only women in the play other than a few unnamed extras, all have V names. And further, can you imagine any woman embracing the name Volumnia? It makes me think Voluminus and, ergo, Fatso. 

Volumnia will end up playing a small, but very pivotal, role in the play later on when she talks Coriolanus out of sacking Rome. But for today, she’s just the mother-in-law to Virgilia.

Finally, disease our better mirth. That's a very cool little turn of phrase. I like that, and perhaps I'll use that one, if I can manage to remember it. My wife is always calling me a party pooper. I'll respond with, What, are you afraid I'm going to disease your better mirth?

Yeah, she likes to enjoy life. I do my best not to disease her better mirth.

 

His speech was like a tangled chain; nothing impaired, but all disordered. Who is next?

-Theseus

A Midsummer Night’s Dream       Act V, scene i, line 125

 

Prologue

If we offend, it is with our good will.

That you should think, we come not to offend,

But with good will. To show our simple skill

That is the true beginning of our end.

Consider, then, we come but in despite.

We do not come as minding to content you,

Our true intent is. All for your delight,

We are not here. That you should here repent you,

The actors are at hand; and, by their show,

You shall know all that you are like to know.

 

This is the prologue to the play within the play, and it is what Theseus is referring to as like a tangled chain. I don’t know which of the players is speaking the Prologue, but I like to think it’s Peter Quince, the carpenter. 

I have to agree with Theseus, though, the line breaks and the punctuation, and the words are a little bit out of whack. The question is whether or not Prologue/Peter is purposefully doing it this way. Probably not. As far as Theseus's question of who’s next? Well, it's more of the Prologue, continuing to tell Theseus and the other viewers what’s happening next in the play. 

The play within a play takes up a major part of Act Five, Scene One, and since this is the last scene of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the play within a play and the play itself end almost concurrently. So that's kind of interesting.

Tangled Chains

 

Come,-- what’s Agamemnon?

-Achilles

Troilus and Cressida              Act II, scene iii, line 43

 

Achilles, his buddy Patroclus, and Thersites are talking. I’m not familiar with Thersites (I’ve never read this play completely through), but he’s listed in the cast of characters as a deform’d and scurrilous Grecian. In fact, he appears to be another one of Will’s characters best described as Fool. Anyway, in this part of this scene the three of them are talking, going back and forth with questions about each other. Thersites’s answer to Achilles’s question about Agamemnon is Thy commander, Achilles. Then they go back and forth with then what’s this one, and what’s that one, before Thersites sums it up,

Agamemnon is a fool to offer to command Achilles; Achilles is a fool to be commanded of Agamemnon; Thersites is a fool to serve such a fool; and Patroclus is a fool positive.

In other words, Patroclus is just a plain fool, period. Fools, all of them. And all of us, I suppose.

This is the sort of Random Line that gets me waxing philosophical. As I may have told you, I’ve been certified as a philosopher by Dr. Andrew Davis who is an actual Doctor of Philosophy. In fact, Dr. Davis told me that there really is no qualification needed to be considered a philosopher. One merely needs to philosophize to be considered a philosopher, and pretty much anyone is capable of philosophizing. I spend way too much time philosophizing. But that's a story for another day.

I thought this was a pretty good philosophizing pic. This is the Vigeland Sculpture Park in Oslo, Norway. It's full of statues of naked people. This particular statue, and the young lady in front of it, look like they're doing a bit of philosophizing, don't they?

 

What beast was’t, then,

That made you break this enterprise to me?

-Lady Macbeth

Macbeth                  Act I, scene vii, line 47

 

I think that if you were going to read, or hear, just one scene of this play, this would be the one you’d want. The whole play sort of pivots on this one scene, and it’s got some really good stuff in it. And, it’s relatively short.

Macbeth begins this scene with a soliloquy where he’s thinking about the murder of King Duncan that he and his wife have planned: If it were done when ‘tis done, then ‘twere well/It were done quickly; However, by the end of thirty lines of talking to himself, he’s talked himself out of it; I have no spur/To prick the sides of my intent, but only/Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself/And falls on th’other.

Then his wife shows up, and he tells her that they’re not going to do it. Lady Macbeth will have none of that, and she starts in on him,

                            Lady Macbeth

        Was the hope drunk

        Where in you dress’d yourself? Hath it slept since?

        And wakes it now, to look so green and pale

        At what it did so freely? From this time

        Such I account thy love. Art thou afeard

        To be the same in thine own act and valour  

        As thou are in desire? Wouldst thou have that

        Which thou esteem’st the ornament of life,

        And live a coward in thine own esteem,

        Letting ‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would,’

        Like the poor cat in the adage?

 

                                Macbeth

        Prithee, peace:

        I dare do all that may become a man;

        Who dare do more is none

       

                                Lady Macbeth

                                        What beast was’t, then,

That made you break this enterprise to me?

When you durst do it, then you were a man;

And, to be more than what you were, you would

Be so much more the man. Nor time nor place

Did then adhere, and yet you would make both:

They have made themselves, and that their fitness now

Does unmake you. I have given suck, and know

How tender ‘tis to love the babe that milks me:

I would, while it was smiling in my face,

Have pluckt my nipple from his boneless gums,

And dasht the brains out, Had I so sworn as you

Have done to this.

Oh my. This woman is, um…well.. I’m not sure what the words are. Suffice it to say that without her this play ends here with Macbeth deciding that it’s not a good idea to kill the king. And, of course, he’s right, it’s not. But after listening to his wife, he nonetheless ends the scene deciding otherwise,

         I am settled, and bend up

        Each corporal agent to this terrible feat.

        Away, and mock the time with fairest show:

        False face must hide what the false heart doth know. 

So we end up getting a rhyming couplet, and four more acts.

I'm afraid I've come up empty today in terms of a pic. That line about dashing the baby's brains out, well that sort of made me feel that we don't want a pic for today's lines. Hopefully we'll have one tomorrow.

 

It is a damned and a bloody work;

The graceless action of a heavy hand,--

If that it be the work of any hand.

-Bastard

King John                       Act IV, scene iii, line 57

Well you certainly must be interested in knowing what this bloody work is, so I’ll tell you. Bastard, Bigot, Salisbury, and Pembroke (that sounds like an interesting group, doesn't it?) have just come upon the dead body of Arthur. This is the son of King John’s older brother. Arthur, therefore, had a right to the throne, and Bastard and the rest of these guys believe that John has had the boy killed because of that. In fact, though, this scene begins with the boy falling from the wall trying to escape. So, whilst John did have him imprisoned, and probably intended to have him killed, no one actually killed the boy, and it was, in fact, not the work of any hand. So, what do you think of that?

This is the type of wall I picture Arthur falling to his death from. Though in the play he appears to have fallen on rocks, not a nice, soft lawn like you see here. Perhaps he would have survived a fall from this wall. Then again, this wall is in France, not England. I suppose England's walls don't have nice lawns around them?