Today’s Totally Random Line(s)

           

My leisure serves me, pensive daughter, now.—

My lord, we must entreat the time alone.

 

-Friar Laurence

Romeo and Juliet                   Act IV, Scene i, Line 40

                     

Okay, this morning we have Friar Knucklehead. His first line is directed at Juliet who’s asked if he has time to talk. With the second line he turns to Paris, telling him to beat it so that he can talk to Juliet alone.

Now here’s something interesting: If you look at today’s two lines, they don’t necessarily make much sense if just read them. Without knowing that the friar is speaking the first line to Juliet and then turning to Paris, the lines are a bit confusing. Which leads to the appropriate conclusion that although these words can be appreciated when read, they are meant to be heard when performed. And there’s no getting around that fact. I bring this up because I was reading a discussion group thread recently and one of the questions was about how to best read Shakespeare. I guess the answer is to not read it, but rather see and hear it.

In any event, once Paris is gone Juliet tells the friar that she’ll kill herself if she can’t marry Romeo, and that’s when Friar Einstein comes up with his brilliant scheme for Juliet to fake her own death. I just had a thought of Harry Potter and Ron Weasley hiding nearby and eavesdropping on this conversation. Harry would hear the plan about the potion that makes Juliet appear dead, and then he would turn to Ron and say, “That’s brilliant Ron!”

Now that I’ve had that thought, it’s got me to wondering what it would be like to write a story combining Harry Potter with Romeo and Juliet. Hmmm, that might be interesting. That would be another way of introducing the stories of Will. Or just write anyone into the story who’s there as all the action of the story takes place, either in the story, or just as an observer. Like Harry and Ron. Or as an observer who sees the story take place and then relates it to someone else.

Sure, great idea Pete. 

Or this; something like this might be a good way to introduce someone to one of Will's works. 

Another of Pete's brilliant ideas.

 Today’s Totally Random Line(s)

           

Cleopatra,--

 

-Antony

Antony and Cleopatra            Act I, Scene iii, Line 26

                      

That's it. Just Cleopatra. Antony is trying to interrupt Cleopatra’s rant here and get a word in edgewise, but he’s not doing too well so far. He’ll get to speak, eventually. 

It seems to me that Will paints the picture of Cleopatra as quite the flighty woman. But is she really? That’s the thing: everything and everyone that Will gives us, just like all the things and people we deal with in the real world, are multi-faceted and anything but simple. Really, nothing is simple; people and things just fool us into thinking they are sometimes. And can’t that be problematic? That was a rhetorical question. Oh yes it can.
 

Ahh, what do we have here? I'll tell you. It's a pencil that Nina and Jeff brought me back from the Maldives. It has sand in the plastic jug attached to the top.

Now I'm pretty sure that this pencil wasn't made in the Maldives. However, I do wonder if the sand in the little jug at the top is real Maldivian sand or not. I must conclude that it appears to have Maldivian sand. After all, it says Maldives on the jug. 

What do you think?

 Today’s Totally Random Line(s)

           

Signior Baptist, my business asketh haste,

And every day I cannot come to woo.

You knew my father well; and in him me,

Left solely heir to all his lands and goods,

Which I have better’d rather than decreased:

Then tell me,— if I get your daughter’s love,

What dowry shall I have with her to wife?

  

-Petruchio

The Taming of the Shrew              Act II, Scene i, Line 120

                    

And Baptista assures Petruchio a satisfactory dowry, so it’s pretty much a done deal; all over but the crying. And the taming, of course. 

We’re at the beginning of Act II. It’s an odd little play, and I think it requires a bit of work to figure out. If you go into it looking for a play about nothing more than chauvinism and women being mistreated, then that’s probably what you’ll find. But if you go into it with an open mind, well there might be a little, or perhaps a lot, more for you to encounter. Perhaps.

But doesn’t that apply to so many things in life?

Well, I wanted to use a pic today that was representative of the question I ended today's post with. But I just couldn't come up with any ideas. 

So... no pic for today. 

Sorry.

 

Today’s Totally Random Line(s)

           

How goes the world, sir, now?

-Ross

Macbeth                         Act II, Scene iv, Line 20

                   

This is a scene on the morning after Duncan’s murder. Ross, a nobleman, is outside Macbeth’s castle talking about the murder to an old man. Macduff, another nobleman shows up and Ross greets him with today’s line. It seems, at first, a rather an odd line given that both men know that the king has just been found murdered in his bed. But the ‘now’ on the end of the question gives it that added meaning of knowing that things are messed up, but has anything new happened since the murder? Well, yes it has: the assumed murderers were killed by Macbeth, whilst Duncan’s two sons have fled. Meanwhile Macbeth has left for Scone where he will be crowned the new king. So actually, a lot has happened.

And what about Duncan’s body?

   Carried to the Colme-kill,
   The sacred storehouse of his predecessors,
   And guardian of their bones.

And it’s this last bit that is yet another bit of Will’s writings that makes me think of Tolkien’s work. In this case it brings to mind Theoden’s burial.

Yes, I am convinced that Will influenced the writing of JRR. Don’t get me going on that one. And yes, I know that JRR professed a general dislike for Will’s works, but that doesn’t mean that he wasn’t schooled in them at an early age, and that they could not have subconsciously affected him. I am absolutely convinced of it, as I suppose, I am absolutely convinced of many things; most assuredly some of them right and true, and some of them less so.
So, let’s just leave it at that.

This is a close-up of a pine tree branch in our backyard. Those little things that look like berries are actually very small pine cones. 

I looked all over for something related but came up empty. Anyway, I thought this was a nice pic, so there you go.

 

Today’s Totally Random Line(s)

           

Our love was new, and then but in the spring,

When I was wont to greet it with my lays;

As Philomel in summer’s front doth sing,

And stops her pipe in growth of riper days.

 

 

Sonnet 125                             

 

As usual I’ve given you one full quatrain of the sonnet. I found this sonnet to be quite easy to understand, though there’s probably more there than I’m choosing to see right now. One note: lays are songs. If you read Tolkien, or lots of Shakespeare, you’d know this, but otherwise you might not, and that’s why I’m pointing it out.

The whole sonnet seems simply to be saying that even though our love is no longer young, it is still just as strong, if not stronger. Yeah, simple as that. 

I could give you the whole sonnet, but I don’t really feel like typing it all out right now. I’m a bit hungry, among other things. So let’s call it a day on this matter, and I can start my day on most of my other matters.

Ta ta.

And here's where I get to spend most of that day. 

Hmmm, no wonder Walker's in no rush to get through college.

 

Today’s Totally Random Line(s)

           

‘Anon he finds him

Striking too short at Greeks; his antiquie sword,

Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls,

Repugnant to command: unequal matcht,

Pyrrhus at Priam drives; in rage strikes wide;

But with the whiff and wind of his fell sword

Th’unnerved father falls.

 

-First Player

Hamlet                            Act II, Scene ii, Line 479

                       

Yup, had to go with the full sentence. Don’t ask me why.

This is one of the actors that’s come to perform at Elsinore and, upon meeting him, Hamlet has asked him to perform a speech he remembers from a play. Hamlet gives the first part of it, ending with

        With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus

        Old grandsire Priam seeks,

Then the player picks up with Anon he finds him, and tells about Phyrrus coming to kill old Priam. 

We could probably spend the rest of the day (and it is a nice rainy Sunday morning, so it’s tempting) dissecting this line, and the ones before and after. But I rather think not. I did listen to the rest of this scene; it ends with the rogue and peasant slave soliloquy. And that was fun.

One of these days I’m going to have to sit down (perhaps over the course of a few days) and watch Branagh’s Hamlet from beginning to end; perhaps rent it from the library. But, in the immortal words of Aragorn, it is not this day! 

So, in the meantime, I'm going to let today’s line sit. I'll leave it up to you to do your own thing with it. 

Today's pic?

 Just a gentle reminder to myself not to fret about the length of my son's hair. 

Relevance to today's Random Line? 

I dunno; there must be something. I'll leave that up to you as well. 

 

Today’s Totally Random Line(s)

           

There is a tide in the affairs of men,

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;

Omitted, all the voyage of their life

Is bound in shallows and in miseries.

On such a full sea are we now afloat;

And we must take the current when it serves,

Or lose our ventures.

 

-Jean Luc Picard

Star Trek: Picard                          Final Scene

 

Leave it to Patrick Stewart to end the show, the series, the whole deal, with Shakespeare. I watched the finale of Star Trek: Picard last night and I was not disappointed. In the final scene, before they all sit down to a game of cards, Jean Luc offered a bit of Shakespeare, which I’ve given as Today’s Totally Random Lines, as his toast to the crew.

Was he talking about what they had gone through as the crew of the Enterprise? Or was he talking about what he, Patrick Stewart, and the other actors there had gone through portraying those roles over the past 35 or so years. Probably a bit of both. Either way, it’s a great, and wonderfully appropriate, quote. 

No pic today. Perhaps, just read the quote one more time. (It's Marcus Brutus from Julius Caesar, Act IV, Scene iii, in case you were wondering.)