Today’s Totally Random Line(s)

  

Ay, but the feet were lame, and could not bear themselves without the verse, and therefore stood lamely in the verse.

 -Rosalind

 As You Like It                         Act III, Scene ii, Line 172

 

This section of the scene began with Celia coming in reading from a piece of paper that she found on a tree. The poem she's reading is twenty-eight lines long; more lines than I feel like typing or than you feel like reading. It appears, though, that they’re talking here about feet in a line of poetry. Take a look at the lines preceding.

         Cel-        Didst thou hear these verses?

Ros-         O, yes, I heard them all, and more too; for some of them had in them more feet than the verses would bear.

Cel-         That’s no matter: the feet might bear the verses.

Ros-         Ay, but the feet were lame, and could not bear themselves without the verse, and therefore stood lamely in the verse.

Got any thoughts on the discussion of the feet in the verse?

Now I’m not quite sure that you can weigh in on what they’re saying without looking at the verses that they’re talking about. Did you want me to type out the twenty-eight lines?

I didn’t think so.

Not sure you can see it., but I'm wearing the cyber-boot here because I had a lame foot. Well, it was actually the ankle. But you get the idea.

 

Today’s Totally Random Line(s)

  

I had rather walk here, I thank you. I bruised my shin th’ other day with playing at sword and dagger with a master of fence; three veneys for a dish of stewed prunes, and , by my troth, I cannot abide the smell of hot meat since. Why do your dogs bark so? Be there bears i’ the town?

 

-Master Slender

 

The Merry Wives of Windsor                  Act I, Scene i, Line 273

 

Act I, scene i. I was able to take my time and listen to the whole scene this morning, since it is Sunday. So that's nice.

Justice Shallow, his cousin Master Slender, and Sir Hugh Evans have been discussing the viability of Anne Page as a wife for Master Slender. Now, a bit later in the scene, Slender finds himself alone with Anne outside her father’s house. She’s trying to get Slender to come in and join them all for dinner. Slender is nervous about trying to impress Anne and basically talks nonsense in his nervousness.

 Anne says, I pray you sir, walk in, trying to get Slender to come in to the house. Today’s Totally Random Line is his reply. For clarification, a master of fence is a master swordsman, and a veney is a bout. Basically, he’s telling Anne that he hurt himself fencing with a master swordsman, and that he bested the master swordsman winning a dish of stewed prunes. Now, apparently after eating the prunes, he doesn’t like the smell of meat. Then he quickly changes the topic to barking dogs and bears.

Quite the Don Juan, this fellow. Eh?

And here's a pic of me in my prime. You can tell just by looking how smooth this guy must have been. No talk of stewed prunes for him. No siree, it was pure creamed onions banter all the way.

 

I cannot help it now,

Unless, by using means, I lame the foot

Of our design.

-Tullus Aufidius

Coriolanus                      Act IV, Scene vii, Line 6

This is the short scene where Tullus Aufidius and one of his lieutenants are discussing the fact that Coriolanus is doing a really good job of leading the Volscians in battle; maybe a little too good. The lieutenant has remarked that

  Your soldiers use him as the grace ‘fore meat,

  Their talk at table, and their thanks at end.

And that’s what Tullus is referencing in Today’s Totally Random Line.

BTW, I’ve blogged on the Your soldiers use him lines earlier. If you want, you can see that post here

Totally Random Daily Shakespeare

Meantime, let’s just say that lame the foot of our design is a good phrase. And, as I’ve noted regarding previous lines, one that we can easily adopt. 

        Well sure Hank, I could easily trash my opponent in tomorrow night’s debate, but if we’re trying to run on a platform of a kinder, gentler campaign, wouldn’t that just lame the foot of our design?

There, how about that?

And, here's a pic of...wait a minute, that's not a foot! Well, there are some feet of the legs of the table. Maybe? 

Anyway, earlier this morning I was noticing the way the early sun was highlighting some of the wood in the kitchen table and chairs, and I thought it was somewhat striking, so I took a picture of it. Then, just now I took a picture of my foot for this post. Trust me, this is a much nicer picture. And if my goal is to get readers for this blog, posting that pic of my foot would just lame the foot of my design.

Oooh, good one!

 

I’ll bear him no more sticks, I’ll follow thee,

Thou wondrous man.

 

-Caliban

The Tempest                            Act II, Scene ii, Line 169

Caliban has just met Trinculo and Stefano. He’s feeling the effects of some liquor that he’s just drank, the first that he has ever tasted, and he’s decided that he'll bear no more sticks for Prospero. He has chosen the wondrous man Stefano as his new master.

This, of course, is a page from The Rarer Action, our retelling of the The Tempest. Every time I pull this book out and look at it I'm greatly pleased with how well it came out, and quite displeased with how poorly we worked at selling it. Perhaps I need to follow a new master if I want to get anywhere with the second book? On the other hand, how well did following a new master work out for Caliban? No, really: how well did it work out? It's a fair question. Think about it. 

 

Proportionable to the enemy

-Bushy

King Richard II                       Act II, Scene ii, Line 124

Proportionable gets the red underline from Word, but if you look it up, it’s there. It’s the archaic term for proportional, which doesn’t get the red underline.

Now, today’s line is part of a longer sentence, but I thought it an odd little line, so I wanted to present it alone. And note, it’s perfect iambic pentameter:

pro POR, tion A, ble TO, the EN, e MY.

Perfect.

Anyway, here’s the full thought from Bushy.

        The wind rains fair for news to go to Ireland,

But none returns. For us to levy power

Proportionable to the enemy

Is all unpossible.

Bushy, Bagot, and Green are Richard’s boys. He left them in London whilst he went to Ireland to quell the rebellion. Now Bolingbroke – the future Henry IV – has returned from exile and it looks like mostly everyone is going over to his side. Consequently, these three fellows are trying to decide what to do. Bushy’s observations are quite accurate: they have no news from Richard in Ireland, and there’s no way they’re going to be able to raise a power to hold back Bolingbroke.

What to do? What to do?   

Bushy, Bagot, and Green: sounds like names you'd find being used by another English writer, eh? 

Perhaps one who claimed to not care much for Shakespeare.

 

 

                                                     At this time
We sweat and bleed: the friend hath lost his

 friend;

And the best quarrels, in the heat, are cursed

By those that feel their sharpness:--

 

-Edmund

King Lear                        Act V, Scene iii, Line 56

 

Edmund is talking about the situation that exists after a battle is done, and a battle has indeed just been fought. It really is a very fine couple of lines, and it is an apt description, except for the fact that Edmund has no friends and is probably not experiencing any of this sharpness that he speaks of. He’s just saying this to put off Albany when the latter tells Edmund to present the prisoners, Lear and Cordelia. Edmund doesn’t want to present them, because he’s just sent them off to be surreptitiously murdered. 

 

Look you now, he’s out of his guard already; unless you laugh and minister occasion to him, he is gagged.

 

-Malvolio

Twelfth Night                  Act I, Scene v, Line 85

 

Okay, this is a hard one, I’ll give you that. Here’s Malvolio’s whole reply: three sentences. Wait – ‘reply to what’, you ask? Well, Olivia and Feste the fool are talking. Then the fool says to Malvolio that whilst Sir Toby (a character in the play who’s not present in this scene) knows that he, the fool, is no genius, neither would Sir Toby bet that you, Malvolio, are not a fool. Olivia asks Malvolio what he thinks about that, and that is what Malvolio is replying to. 

Now, here’s his full reply.

 

I marvel your ladyship takes delight in such a barren rascal: I saw him put down the other day with an ordinary fool that has no more brain than a stone.

Look you now, he’s out of his guard already; unless you laugh and minister occasion to him, he is gagged.

I protest, I take these wise men, that crow so at these set kind of fools, no better than the fools’ zanies.

 

Well the first sentence is easy. Malvolio is just saying that he’s surprised that Oliva gets so much enjoyment out of the fool, a fellow who’s not as bright as a real fool.

The second sentence, today’s Totally Random Line, is a little tougher. Malvolio is saying ‘Look at him, he’s caught off his guard already; if you don’t pay attention to him and laugh at him, he’ll have nothing at all to say.’

Malvolio concludes with the thought that those people who enjoy and speak highly of fools are no better than fools themselves. This would seem to be a bit insulting to Olivia, who is Malvolio’s boss. But who am I to say.

No more brain than a stone.

Well, this stone is obviously quite smart; it's reading Shakespeare.