Today’s Totally Random Line(s)

 

 It shall be done.

  

-All

 King Henry the Sixth Part II         Act IV, Scene vii, Line 112

 

 Well that’s fairly declarative. It shall be done. No ifs, ands, or buts. It shall be done. Wow. Context aside, that’s a pretty good Totally Random Line. Don’t you agree?

Simple as that.

It shall be done.

And this will be called the Baobab Tree. 

It shall be done.

 

Today’s Totally Random Line(s)

 

 What! Shall we have incision? Shall we imbrue?

[Snatching up his sword]

Then death rock me asleep, abridge my doleful days!

Why, then, let grievous, ghastly, gaping wounds

Untwine the Sisters Three! Come, Atropos, I say!

 

-Pistol

 King Henry the Fourth Part II      Act II, Scene iv, Line 195

 

Pistol is a bit of a loose cannon here. He’s drunk in a scene at the Inn with Pistol, Bardolph, and Falstaff, among others. But enough of that.

To think, I started this blog in August 2016, and today is December 29, 2022. That’s over six years. I’m thinking that this blog has become my Watts Tower. That’s funny, I never thought of that before. My Watts Tower. LOL.

Oh world, thy slippery turns. I wonder if anyone will come to see my Tower. It doesn’t stick out like the ones in Watts, so it could easily go undiscovered. But did Mr Watts make his tower for anyone other than himself? I don’t know. Why should I care? Rounded with a sleep.

So, why am I building this tower? Well, it’s just that some of Will’s stuff is just, um, effable. He’s managed to make the ineffable effable. More people should see that, among other things.

Mr Rodia saw things that no one else saw in pieces of trash, and he used it to create Towers. If I were to say that I saw in Will’s stuff something that no one else sees, that would certainly not be true. I do see what many see, and have seen, but it is something that the vast majority of humanity has not seen; is not even fully aware that it exists. 

Hmmmmm. 

Watts Towers?

The Official Watts Towers Arts Center Campus

In case you don't know what I'm talking about

 

 

Today’s Totally Random Line(s)

 

 Why, what a wasp-stung and impatient fool

Art thou to break into this woman’s mood,

Tying thine ear to no tongue but thiue own.

  

-Northumberland

 King Henry the Fourth Part I       Act I, Scene iii, Line 235

 

So Hotspur is on a rant against King Henry. Worcester keeps trying to interrupt to get his two cents in, but finally he gives up and says,

Farewell, kinsman: I’ll talk to you

When you are better temper’d to attend.

And that’s when Northumberland pipes up with Today’s Totally Random Line, which is basically saying to Worcester

Stop being an impatient old lady, and listen to someone besides yourself.

And Worcester does. He doesn’t leave and he waits until Hotspur is done, and then he lays out his plan for their plot against the King. Everyone likes the plan, and away we go.

I'm using this pic because it has the word Scottish in it, in homage to the Scottish prisoners that are the focal point of today's scene. Exactly what this thing in the picture is - the DEAS, the CATH, and all that - well, that's anybody's guess. 

 

Today’s Totally Random Line(s)

 

Prospero-
    Dost thou hear?

Miranda-
                       Your tale, sir, would cure deafness.

The Tempest                   Act I, Scene ii, Line 105

 

So that is today’s line(s).

Now, I think that you’re probably not going to be having anyone say to you ‘Dost thou hear?’ But you might have someone say, ‘Do you hear what I’m saying to you?’ Or something of that ilk. And if they do, here’s your perfect reply.
‘Your tale, sir, would cure deafness.’

Perfect! Now don’t forget it, because that reply will really frost ‘em.

Speaking of frost --- I can't get these guys out of my sauna. I figured they would either get tired of it or melt. But no, they just love it. Guess I better turn up the heat. That'll de-frost 'em. 

 

 

Today’s Totally Random Line(s)

 

By this she hears the hounds are at bay,

Whereat she starts like one that spies an adder

Wreath’d up in fatal folds just in his way,

The fear whereof doth make him shake and shudder;

Even so the timorous yelping of the hounds

Appalls her senses, and her spirit confounds.  

 

-Narrator

Venus And Adonis                 Line 877

 

Here’s an interesting little fact: the first line of this stanza, as noted, is line 877 in this poem. The very first Totally Random Daily Line posted, on August 11, 2016, was line 889 (that’s two stanzas down), The dismal cry rings sadly in her ear. Rather than repeat the paragraph of explanation on this poem, I will refer you to that previous post, and take the rest of the day off.

Snowmen in a Sauna. Well, they look happy so far...

 Today’s Totally Random Line(s)

 

Mad world! Mad kings! Mad composition!

John, to stop Arthur’s title in the whole,

Hath willingly departed with a part;

And France - whose armour conscience buckled on, 

Whom zeal and charity brought to the field

As God’s own soldier, - rounded in the ear 

With that same purpose-changer, that sly devil, 

That broker, that still breaks the pate of faith,

That daily break-vow, he that wins of all,

Of kings, of beggars, old men, young men, maids,

Who having no external thing to lose

But the word “maid”, cheats the poor maid of that,

That smooth-fac’d gentleman, tickling commodity,

Commodity, the bias of the world -

 

-Bastard

King John                       Act II, Scene i, Line 567

 

And then he goes on (and on) about Commodity. Let me give you a few things up front:

A composition in this case (Mad Composition!) is an agreement, truce or settlement.

Rounded (rounded in the ear) is whispered.

And finally, That broker, that daily break-vow, that smooth-fac’d gentleman are all references to commodity, and commodity in this reference pretty much means self-interest.

Here’s my Shakespeare App’s summary of what Bastard is talking about here -

The Bastard expostulates on how quickly self-interest makes people forget their oaths, and he decides that he might as well do the same himself.

There, that’s your head start.

 So, Today’s Totally Random Lines are fourteen lines of a thirty-eight line scene-ending soliloquy by Bastard (You gotta love that the guy’s name throughout the play is simply Bastard). The random line picked is in the middle of the fourteen lines, and I couldn’t find any kind of a complete thought without keeping these lines intact. Even with this, the thought is not completely done. Bastard goes on about how commodity, or self-interest runs the world and he’s going to let it run him.

King John is that odd, sort of out of place, history play about the twelfth century king who was halfway between William the Conqueror and Edward III, the progenitor of the War of the Roses. All the other history plays are contiguous, from Richard II to Richard III (oh sure, there’s Henry VIII, but that’s almost contemporary), but this one is a loner. And it’s a little bit odd. Will supposedly wrote it in the middle of his history play writing period. It’s almost as if he needed a break from the War of the Roses saga that he was writing with the other eight history plays.  

Anyway, what to say about this line, this soliloquy, this scene, this play, this mad world? I'm not sure I've anything of substance to add. I think perhaps I’ve said enough. 

Okay, two justifications for this pic: Today's lines begin and end 'with world' - from Mad world to bias of the world. This pic is from near the end of the world, Ushuaia, Argentina and it's got a prison convict escaping down the side of the building, which is a little bit crazy, or mad. And the second justification - Argentina. Since they won the world cup two days ago, and since this one of the very few pics I have taken in/of Argentina...well, there you go. 

 

Today’s Totally Random Line(s)

 

 

From the besieged Ardea, all in post

Borne by the trustless wings of false desire,

Lust-breathed Tarquin leaves the Roman host,

And to Collatium bears the lightless fire

Which, in pale embers hid, lurks to aspire

    And girdle with embracing flames the waist

    Of Collantines fair love, Lucrece the chaste. 

 

-Narrator

Lucrece                                   First Stanza

 

Prepare yourself: a bit of a lecture today.

Okay, that’s the opening of the 1,855 line Lucrece, sometimes published as The Rape Of Lucrece. My book uses the former, and I prefer to use that title even though, as foretold quite clearly in that first stanza, this poem is going to center on the rape of Lucrece.

It’s a wonderfully written seven lines. Trustless wings of false desire and the lightless fire of lust. It also gives a very good idea to the reader of what the next 1,800 plus lines are going to be about.

This long poem can almost be compared to a short story written in verse, and it makes me wonder what kind of novelist Will would have been. There is much of the dialogue in his works that’s written in prose, and I guess, regarding my question, we can look at the introduction to Lucrece. This poem begins with The Argument which is a fairly long (historically accurate?) tale of the events upon which the poem is based. Spoiler alert: don’t read The Argument unless you want to know exactly what’s going to happen in the poem.

Regarding the art form of the long narrative, if I’m not mistaken, Miguel de Cervantes, the author of Don Quixote was a contemporary of Will, and he is, by some, credited with the first novel. Yeah, pretty much all long narratives previous to that (and there’s a lot, going all the way back to Gilgamesh) had been written in some verse or another. Cervantes went and wrote a whole story strictly in prose (and Spanish) and in the process pioneered what became to be known as the novel. Since he was doing it in Spain, I don’t know that Will was ever exposed to it. As it was, the golden age of drama that Will was a huge part of had started just in time for him. Had he been born fifty years earlier the medium that he worked in may not have been there for him, and we would be left with only the sonnets and a handful of long poems, Lucrece among them.

But he wasn’t (luckily) born early, and he didn’t (regrettably?) discover that art of the long narrative. And that’s that.

Again, at 1,855 lines it’s a long poem. But it’s worth the read. Of course it is; it’s written by Will, isn't it?

Today's (actually, every day's) lecturer - Professor Blagys