Marcus, unknit that sorrow-wreathen knot:

Thy niece and I, poor creatures, want our hands,

And cannot passionate our tenfold grief

With folded arms. This poor right hand of mine

Is left to tyrannize upon my breast;

Who, when my heart, all mad with misery,

Beats in this hollow prison of my flesh,

Then thus I thump it down.

-Titus

Titus Andronicus                             Act III, Scene ii, Line 11

Man, I remember why I found Titus so upsetting. When they’re not hacking people to death, they’re laying this language on me. Just read that out loud to yourself. The language is alive.

Sorrow wreathen knot

Cannot passionate our tenfold grief

Tyrannize upon my breast

Hollow prison of my flesh

Thus I thump it down

Oyy! Read the whole passage again.

And again.

Can you hear the genius of the writer? Please tell me you can. Or maybe you’re just not listening.

No pic today; just words.

 

I cannot tell; but I had as lief take her dowry with this condition,-- to be whipt at the high-cross every morning.

 

-Gremio

The Taming of the Shrew                Act I, Scene i, Line 131

So now, this is the first scene (not including the induction) of the play. Baptista has presented his two daughters and declared that the young one, Bianca, will not be given away in marriage until the older one, Katharina, has been married. Now, Gremio and Hortensio are alone and discussing this. They both want Bianca and both consider Katharina to be a shrew (she is, of course, the titular shrew). However, they have also concluded that if they want to have any chance at Bianca, they’ve got to find a husband for Katharina. This is what Gremio is talking about in today’s line. The her he speaks of is Katharina, and this is how he feels about marrying her. It’s a good line, but I like the first line of Hortensio’s response to this even more: 

    Faith, as you say, there’s small choice in rotten apples.

Honestly, don’t you think you could find a use for that line? It’s akin to the less of two evils when you’re confronted with a situation that has no good alternative. Try it next time you're forced to accept something that you'd rather not.

Dad: Listen buddy, you're not getting the car; you can walk or take the bus. Got it?

Buddy: Well, there's small choice in rotten apples, isn't there Dad?

Oh, yeah. Dad will love you for that response.

 

Okay, I can hear you. You're saying, what the heck is that a picture of, and what could it possibly have to do with today's line. Well, nothing actually. This is a pic of me about thirty years ago playing the campsite game of picking up a paper bag with your teeth and having only one foot touching the ground. Again, no relevance whatsoever to the line. However (oh no, here we go) I was doing a balancing test at a new gym for seniors that I've signed up for, and the best I could do was about fifteen seconds of standing on one foot; that's right, just standing. Forget about bending over, and double-forget about picking up a paper bag with your teeth. So, I was telling the young fellow who was giving me the test (his name is Hunter) about how we used to play this game. I don't think, looking at me do fifteen seconds, that he believed me. Then, by chance, I ran into this photo this morning. 

So, I really had no choice about posting it. Did I? 

 

You do not?

 

-Julia

Two Gentlemen of Verona              Act I, Scene ii, Line 91

Yes, that’s today’s line, you do not? I must assume that you’re asking the question you do not what? So I’ll tell you. She, Julia’s waiting-woman, does not like the tune Light ‘O Love. She feels it is too sharp.

Today’s scene has Julia, the woman that Proteus (one of the two titular gents) wants to woo, speaking with Lucetta, her servant. In the line previous, and the one subsequent, Julia addresses Lucetta as minion. So forget about everything else here, we’re just going to focus on minion.

One week ago we ran into the word minion, and at that time we decided it meant darling or favorite since it was referring to someone’s husband. But today it is referring to a waiting-woman, a servant. So now it appears that the word is being used the way we would expect it to be, and you know what that means.

 

That's right: It's Patrice and her minions again. 

I know I just used this pic last week, but I couldn't resist using it again. 

Minions!

 

 

Then, I am sure, you know how much the gross sum of deuce-ace amounts to.

 

-Moth

Love’s Labour’s Lost              Act I, Scene ii, Line 44

Wordplay. Well, I suppose you could argue that Will’s works in their entirety are all wordplay? No, let’s not go down that road. But today’s selection, and indeed most of this scene is a bunch of wordplay. Anyway, the answer is It doth amount to one more than two.

This is Armado talking to his page named Moth. Armado is listed as a fantastical Spaniard and in this scene he and his page are talking a lot about nothing and using a lot of puns and other nonsense to create what should amount to, when presented on the stage, comedy. These two don’t have much to do with the main plot of this play; they’re just there to be funny. And they are. I listened to this scene this morning, and it’s pretty funny when you hear it (more so, I imagine when you see it). I’m not sure you would get that from reading this script, but it is. I guess you’ll have to take my word for it.

I think if I had to say which of my siblings seemed to be playing the comedy part in the script of my early life, it would be the guy here in the baggy checkered pants. And he played the part quite well.

 

Truly, I would not hang a dog by my will, much more a man who hath any honesty in him.

 

-Dogberry

Much Ado About Nothing               Act III, Scene iii, Line 64

I quite literally don’t know what to say about this line. Context? Forget about it; I got nothing. The speaker? I like the name, but that’s about all I’ve got on that subject. Perhaps we just take the line as it is and look at the words, forgetting about the play.

Oh wait, Dogberry is talking about dogs. I like that. How about we just end with that and keep it short and sweet for today.

Speaking of sweet; I decided to go down to the vending machine for a snickers bar. I loaded up the change I had in my desk drawer and when I got down there I realized that one of the coins that I thought was a dime was actually an Australian five something or other. Luckily I had a little more than I needed because I'm pretty sure the machine wouldn't have taken this. Now, how I ended up with an Australian coin is beyond me. I've traveled a bit, but never down under. Anyway, now that you know where the coin is from, you should be able to figure out what the picture is of on the coin. Hint: it's not a dog (or a dingo). 

 

            Alas, she has no speech.

 -Desdemona

Othello                            Act II, Scene i, Line 103

Sometimes when I read Will’s stuff I feel like his writing is so far beyond my ability to understand all that’s packed in there. If you haven’t spent some time with his works, you probably can’t fully appreciate what it is that I’m talking about. On the other hand, if you have spent some time with it, you’d probably be nodding your head right now in understanding of what I’m saying. Anyway…

Today’s line is part of a conversation that’s going on between Cassio, Emilia, Desdemona, and Iago. I read part of it this morning so far, and the truth is that I don’t have the time this morning to spend with it that I would like to. Ahhh, how can that be. What could be more important that this? And it’s only one page. The problem is that there’s so much packed into that one page, and I feel like I’d need to see everything that he put there, if that’s even humanly possible. 

You know, it’s becoming more and more obvious to me what a genius, if that’s even the right word, Will was. Again, there are people out there who know what I’m talking about, and there are those who don’t. 

I think that most would say that I’m obsessed,

But some, who know, would know that I am blessed.

Oi, now I'm ending my blogpost with a rhyming couplet? Have I been doing this blog too long? Is it starting to affect me? 

Nah, that can't be.

 

 

O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies

In herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities:

For not so vile that on the earth doth live,

But to the earth some special good doth give;

Nor aught so good, but, strain’d from that fair use,

Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse:

Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied;

And vice sometime’s by action dignified.

 

-Friar Laurence

Romeo and Juliet            Act II, Scene ii, Line 19

Well that’s eight long lines that I gave you there, isn’t it. Too much? Oh, I don’t think so. Mickle, by the way, whether you look up the current or old usage, means great, much, or large.

There’s just so much to talk about, and what a great scene! It’s less than a hundred lines, but it’s packed with good stuff. Today’s lines come from the opening of the scene where Friar Laurence is alone in the garden, gathering plants and reflecting on life. It’s thirty lines of reflection that we’ve looked at before, but is most assuredly worth looking at again.  

The eight lines we have today speak about the powers and qualities of plants (and stones?), but it’s for certain that these observations are meant to be applicable to men and women as well: Goodness itself can be a bad thing, and badness at times good.

This takes some thinking about, don’t it?

Here's a pretty good example, something to consider: Frodo and Gollum. 

Give it some thought.