The painful warrior famoused for fight,

After a thousand victories once foil’d,

Is from the book of houour razed quite,

And all the rest forgot for which he toil’d:

 

Sonnet 25                                        Third Quatrain

 

It’s been a while since we looked at a sonnet. Let’s see the whole thing.

        Let those who are in favour with their stars

        Of public houour and proud titles boast,

        Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars,

        Unlookt for joy in that I honour most.

        Great princes’ favourites their great leaves spread

        But as the marigold at the sun’s eye;

        And in themselves their pride lies buried,

        For at a frown they in their glory die.

        The painful warrior famoused for fight,

After a thousand victories once foil’d,

Is from the book of houour razed quite,

And all the rest forgot for which he toil’d:

        The happy I, that love and am beloved 

        Where I may not remove or be removed.

Oi, this is a tough one. Wait, no it’s not. As soon as I read it again and took a closer look it became very clear.

 

Q1.  Let the lucky ones have fame, not me.

Q2.  Fame is fleeting, and their glory will fade.

Q3.  The warrior who wins a thousand fights is remembered for the last one that he lost, and then he’s forgotten.

I’m happy because I love and am loved, and I have no fame to lose.

 

Pretty simple, eh? And I like it. C’est moi!

Since the sonnet is about me - unfamous, lover, and loved - I guess I had no choice. I had to give you pic of me. Simple as that.

C'est moi!

 

 

 

A virtuous maid, the daughter of a count

That died some twelvemonth since; the leaving her

In the protection of his son, her brother,

Who shortly also died: for whose dear loss,

They say, she hath abjured the company

And sight of men.

 

-Captain

Twelfth Night          Act I, Scene ii, Line 36

It’s a long answer to Viola’s short question of What’s she? This is, of course, a bit of a setup scene where we, the audience, are given some basic information about some of the players that we are about to see.

Wouldn’t it be nice to occasionally have the opportunity to watch a setup scene for the play that is our own lives? I suppose we do? I mean, we do run into people like the captain here who give us info about someone we are going to be meeting. Yeah, never mind. Skip that comment. I don’t know what I was thinking. I'm afraid that my  mind is a little bit scattered this morning. 

But speaking of scattered minds, and going back for a moment to the book I've been reading: I was learning yesterday that it was said that Will wrote in such a fashion that he never had to rewrite; that what came out on the paper on the first shot is what we have today. That's almost inconceivable to me. Ben Jonson, another writer in Will's time and someone who knew Will, apparently found this upsetting, perhaps partly out of jealousy? I dunno. I find myself jealous of anyone who could do that. Is that ability an indication of a laser focused mind (as opposed to my scattered one)? Or is there something else going on there? I don't know, but it's interesting to think about.

Now here's a perfect example. We're talking about writing, and I'm giving you a picture out of my Audubon Society Baby Elephant Folio of hummingbirds. What's up with that? Well, I'll tell you. I looked out the window as I was writing this and I saw, naturally, a hummingbird. It's September 19 and I hadn't seen one in several days so I thought they had migrated, but apparently not. See? no focus at all, let alone laser focus. Oh well. 

 

Pray ye, sir?

 -Menas

Antony and Cleopatra            Act II, Scene vi, Line 111

Is that right? is probably what we would say today instead of Pray ye, sir?

In this scene Antony, Octavius and Lepidus have just concluded a treaty with Pompey. These four have all gone off to feast, and we are left with Menas and Enobarbus talking to each other. These are two old veteran soldiers from rival sides; Menas serves Pompey, and Enobarbus serves Antony. Since they are part of this truce meeting they are happy to just talk to each other. Enobarus just told Menas that Antony married Octavius’s sister, to which the latter replied Pray ye, sir?, and Enobarbus says ‘Tis true.

They spend a few minutes talking about the leaders and what’s really going on in general, and then they head off to the feast.

And that's about it.

I wanted to find a pic of someone saying Is that right? So here's my grandmother with my brother Dave. Now, truth be known, Gram was just proper enough, the descendant of Brits, that she would actually have been capable of saying Pray ye, sir? But whether she was saying, Is that right, or Pray ye sir, Dave has obviously become distracted with something else and is oblivious to her completely. Dave always did have a pretty limited attention span, God love him.

 

 

O, Warwick, Warwick! I foresee with grief

The utter loss of all the realm of France.

 

-Duke of York

King Henry the Sixth Part I            Act V, Scene iv, Line 111

Well, we’re near the end of Henry VI, Part I. York is correct in that the Brits will lose most of what they have in France, but not in this play. That will take place in Henry VI, parts II and III. The French agree to a truce, later in this scene whereby the Brits maintain control of most of France, for now. But it’s clear to us, whilst not so much to the Brits, that the French have no intention of honoring this truce. In the meantime, there’s only one more scene in this play and that’s the act where we’re back in London and Suffolk is telling King Henry about the wonderful French bride he’s found for him. 

Ooh la, la.

I'm afraid I'm going to have to rail on for one more day about this book I'm reading. This map is on the back of the inside cover. It's a pretty good indication of what the book is going to cover, which is what was going on with the theater scene in London and how Will fit into it. 

It's really interesting. At least, I think it is.

 

‘But if thou needs wilt hunt, be ruled by me;

Uncouple at the timorous flying hare,

Or at the fox which lives by subtlety,

Or at the roe which no encounter dare:

Pursue these fearful creatures o’er the downs,

And on thy well-breathed horse keep with thy hounds.

 

-Venus

Venus and Adonis                           Lines 673 - 678

 

There are all sorts of things to talk about here, but I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to give you a little bit of context. 

Venus is talking to Adonis. She’s been trying unsuccessfully to seduce him throughout this poem, and now he’s told her that he’s going to go boar hunting tomorrow. Venus is fearful that he’s going to get himself killed by a boar, so she’s trying to talk him out of it. In this stanza she’s suggesting that he hunt rabbits, or foxes, or roes (fish eggs?) instead, and to stay on his horse with his dogs around him. It turns out that her fears are well based since Adonis does indeed manage to get himself killed in the boar hunt. Bummer. 

Anyway, I’ve been reading a book lately titled Shakespeare Of London. I don’t know, I just like reading about Will and about the world he lived in. This particular book’s got a 1949 copyright, so it’s not a recently written biography (the oldest Shakespeare biography that I’ve read so far is by J.Q. Adams with a 1923 copyright). I picked it up last weekend in a little used book shop in Stroudsburg PA called Carroll and Carroll Booksellers. A wonderful little shop, if you like books ( I don’t think they have a website, so you’re just going to have to make a trip to Stroudsburg if you want to check them out). I was doing a little reading of the book this morning whilst having my first cup of coffee, and I was on a section about the London playhouses being closed in 1593 due to the plague (and by the way, the steps that London took in response to the plague had a lot in common with the steps taken in 2020-21; go figure). So, since he couldn’t write plays, what do you think Will wrote in 1593-4? Yup, you guessed it: Venus and Adonis. And then I come down here to my office and what line do I randomly come up with? Venus and Adonis. Amazing.

Well, now that I’ve given you that little spiel, what else should we talk about? The fact that for two days in a row our random line ends with hound(s)? Yesterday’s hound was an insult (calling a man a dog) and today’s hounds are literal (talking about the hunting dogs). That’s a little bit random. Should we talk about the salacious language of the poem? Nah. In fact, I think I may have used up my ten minutes of fame for this morning, so we’ll just leave you to your own devices from here on in. 

But please, no boar hunting today. Or tomorrow. 

The aforementioned book.

 

Stain all your edges on me.—Boy! False hound!

 

-Caius Marcius Coriolanus

Coriolanus                      Act V Scene vi, Line 112

 

This is the last scene of the play and Coriolanus is seconds away from being slain by Tulles Aufidius and a group of his soldiers. When he says stain all your edges on me he’s talking about his red blood on the edges of their swords. He spits the word Boy at Aufidius and calls him a false hound. Aufidius had called Coriolanus a boy of tears a few lines earlier. I guess that not too many men like to be called boy. Here’s Caius Marcius’s full response.

        Cut me to pieces, Volsces; men and lads, 

        Stain all your edges on me.—Boy! False hound!

        If you have writ your annals true, ‘tis there,

        That, like an eagle in a dove-cote, I

        Flutter’d your Volscians in Corioli:

        Alone I did it.—Boy!

 Twice he calls Aufidius Boy. Earlier, when Aufidius had called Coriolanus a boy of tears he had called him Cauis Marcius, telling him that Coriolanus was a name that he stole.

         Ay, Marcius, Caius Marcius: dost thou think

Ill grace thee with that robbery, thy stol’n name

Coriolanus, in Corioli?

 Well they’re in Corioli now, and that’s the Volscian city that Coriolanus got his honorary name from. Early on in the play he had helped the Romans defeat the Volscians in Corioli. That’s what Coriolanus is referring to when he talks about being an eagle in a dove-cote.

So, yah, that should be a pretty satisfactory explanation of everything here. This really is one of my favourites of Will’s plays. I’m sure I’ve said that before, but, whatevs.

Sorry, no pic today. 

 

Give me thy hand. I do begin to have bloody thoughts.

 

-Stephano

The Tempest                    Act IV Scene i, Line 219

 

This is right before they see the clothes hanging on the line that Propsero has left out as bait, and it is also right before Prospero springs the trap and chases Stephano, Trinculo, and Caliban off with dogs.

Previous to today’s Totally Random Line is Caliban talking about killing Prospero so that Stephano could be king of the island. That’s why Stephano is having bloody thoughts, but these thoughts are interrupted by Trinculo, who sees the clothes, 

O King Stephano! O peer! O worthy Stephano! Look what a wardrobe is here for thee!

And then the two of them start fighting over the clothes. Note that the two humans are easily distracted. The sub-human Caliban is not fooled at all. What does that tell you?

I'm keying in on wardrobe, as opposed to bloody thoughts for today's pic. So, here's your favorite blogger with a new look. Actually, not a new wardrobe, but a new haircut, which is not the same thing, but at least it's sort of related. Isn't it?