Today’s Totally Random Line(s)

           

A terrible childbed hast thou had, my dear;

No light, no fire: th’unfriendly elements

Forgot thee utterly; nor have I time

To give thee hallow’d to thy grave, but straight

Must cast thee, scarcely coffin’d, in the ooze;

Where, for a monument upon thy bones,

And r'er-remaining lamps, the belching whale

And humming water must o’erwhelm thy corpse,

Lying with simple shells. — O, Lychorida,

Bid Nestor bring me spices, ink, and paper,

My casket and my jewels; and bid Nicander

Bring me the satin coffer: lay the babe

Upon the pillow: hie thee, whiles I say

A priestly farewell to her: suddenly, woman. 

 

Pericles

Pericles                           Act III, Scene i, Line 56

I constantly associate one and two digit numbers that I come across with athletes. So this is act three, scene one, line Lawrence Taylor. And no, I don’t have an athlete for every number from one to one hundred. Talk about random, eh?

Anyway, I gave you Pericles’s whole speech here, instead of cutting out a little piece of it. And wow, there’s a lot going on here. Long story short: he’s on a boat at sea, in a storm. His wife, moments ago, died in childbirth. One of the sailors has told Pericles that his wife’s body must be thrown overboard to appease the gods and ease the storm. And that’s where we are. Pericles is speaking to his dead wife.  I’ll give you my summary of what he’s saying in the lines above, line by line.

Remember, he starts out here talking to his dead wife (he finishes up talking to the nurse-servant). 

You had a rotten birthing, dear,

No light, no fire; the unfriendly elements

Forgot thee completely: nor have I time

To put thee in a hallowed grave. 

I must cast thee, barely in thy coffin, into the sea,

Where for a gravestone upon your bones and ever-remaining eyes,

The belching whale and humming water will overwhelm your body

As it lies with simple shells. 

And then he finishes by telling the nurse-servant to go tell some other servants to bring him a bunch of specific stuff from below, and to lay the newborn on a pillow there whilst he, Pericles, says a few words over the dead body. 

There. What do you think of that?

I was at the seashore on Monday, and it made me think of a song. And it seems somehow appropriate for today's lines. So here you go. 

(9) maggie and milly and molly and may - YouTube

 

Today’s Totally Random Line(s)

 

The service and the loyalty I owe,

In doing it, pays itself. Your Highness’ part

Is to receive our duties; and our duties

Are to your throne and state children and servants;

Which do but what they should by doing everything

Safe toward your love and honour.

 

Macbeth

Macbeth                        Act I, Scene iv, Line 24

 

And oh, by the way, I’ll be stabbing you to death whilst you sleep tonight. Yah.

So this is Macbeth talking to King Duncan about how loyal he is to the guy. I mean, given that we know that Macbeth has already decided to murder the king, what an absolutely schmuck thing to say to him. And along this line, here’s Macbeth’s aside, a little further down, right after King Duncan talks about his own eldest son, Malcom, becoming the Prince of Cumberland and next in line to the throne.

 

        The Prince of Cumberland! That is a step

        On which I must fall down, or else o’erleap,

        For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires,

        Let not light see my black and deep desires;

        The eye wink at the hand; yet let that be

        Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see.

 

Again, yah.

Nuthin. I got nuthin else for you today. However, and as unrelated from today's line as is possible, 

Happy Birthday John!

 

Today’s Totally Random Line(s)

           

Good Grandam, tell us, is our father dead?

Son

King Richard the Third     Act II, Scene ii, Line 1

 

And Grandam answers, ‘No, boy.’ Which, of course is a bald-faced lie. She knows darn well her son Clarence, the boy's father, is dead as a doornail, and she admits as such a few lines down. Or perhaps you could say she wasn’t lying, because perhaps she was saying, ‘No, boy. I’m not going to tell you if your father is dead.’ After all, who would want to tell a kid that?

But here’s something even more interesting. A few lines further, the Queen shows up with her hair about her ears. That’s the stage direction: Enter the Queen, with her hair about her ears. And I thought, well, where else is your hair going to be? I mean, my hair, albeit a little long, is always about my ears. Isn’t that where it belongs? I don’t want it about my nose or chin, or something else.

Just then Patrice breezes in, all dressed and ready to go (she’s usually in her pj’s at this point in the morning). So I asked her what she thought that stage direction meant, and she said it probably means the queen didn’t have time to put her hair up, so it means she’s a bit disheveled. 

And since her first lines (the queen’s first lines, not Patrice’s) are
O, who shall hinder me to wail and weep,
To chide my fortune, and torment myself?
the fact that she might be disheveled seems to make pretty good sense.

Now this is fairly momentous on two counts (I’m talking about Patrice’s comment, not on the queen’s dishevelment): one, it’s momentous that Patrice did such a good job interpreting Will’s writing, and two, it’s even more momentous that she did ANY job of interpreting Will’s writing, rather than just mumbling ‘stupid Shakespeare’ under her breath, as she walked away.

So, kudos to Patrice this morning. 

And here's my indefatigable Shakespeare expert being an intrepid explorer on safari in Botswana. We felt like the royal family at this point, but for some reason she decided to do her Winston Churchill impression instead. I guess she felt she didn't have a good Queen Elizabeth ready to go. 

You will notice, though, that she does not have her hair about her ears. So, be it Winston or Elizabeth (we're not sure), you can call her what you will; but just don't call her disheveled. 

 

Today’s Totally Random Line(s)

           

I will debate this matter at more leisure,

And teach your ears to list me with more heed.

Antipholus of Ephesus

The Comedy of Errors             Act IV, Scene i, Line 102

I believe that list in today’s line, is just a shortening of listen to, thereby making today’s lines quite easily understandable, n’est pas? He’s going to teach the ears of whomever he’s talking to, that’s what he’s going to do. Teach his ears.

What else is there to say this morning? Do you want to know what Antipholus is going to debate and/or teach to the ears? Do you want to know whose ears he’s going to teach? I’ve no idea who or what Antipholus is talking about. I’m afraid you’ll have to read Act IV, Scene i, or at least part of it, if you want to know. As you can see, today we have line 102, so the most that you’d have to read to get context is 101 lines. I’m sure you could do it if you set your mind to it. Don’t have the book? Simple: here’s a link to the scene.

Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors - Antipholus of Ephesus is arrested for to pay for the chain (shakespeare-online.com)

Isn’t modern technology wonderful! Now you’ve no excuse at all. And whilst you’re at it, you might as well read the whole scene since it’s just 11 lines more, ending on line 113.

No need to thank me. 

I'm not going to waste your time with a pic today since you're going to be busy reading.

 Today’s Totally Random Line(s)

           

Sweet health and fair desires consort your Grace!

 

-Princess

Love’s Labour’s Lost             Act II, Scene i, Line 178

                       

Well that’s a nice thing to say to someone. That would be a nice thing to say to someone at any time. I’m not sure people today would understand it completely. Actually, why wouldn’t they? I guess consort and Grace might through them off. How about if we switch it to Sweet health and fair desires be with you, or maybe be yours. For sure it doesn’t have the cachet of your Grace. I think you should really try the original line. If they just look completely baffled, then you could repeat it with the substitution of be yours. Yeah, that should work.

Okay, my Patrice just texted me. I responded to her question, and then I added And may sweet health and fair desires consort your Grace.
It doesn’t look like I’m getting any response. How disappointing is that!

To be fair, she sent me the Walmart message from bed when she was barely awake. 

So we'll give her a pass on the non-response. 

This time.

 

Today’s Totally Random Line(s)

           

To prove you a cipher.

  

-Moth

Love’s Labour’s Lost             Act I, Scene ii, Line 53

                       

A cipher, in this context is a zero, a nonentity, a nothing. Moth says today’s random line as an aside, presumably to get a laugh.

An aside is a dramatic device in which a character speaks to the audience. By convention, the audience is to realize that the character’s speech is unheard by the other characters on stage. There, that’s Wikipedia’s words, not mine.

Will makes great use of the aside. To my knowledge he didn’t invent the aside, but he certainly used it to great effect. His works are peppered with them, especially the comedies. The aside is sort of a verbalization of what a character is thinking since it’s assumed that no one else on stage hears it. It’s really a rather clever device, actually. Without it the audience would have to rely on facial expressions to get an idea of what a character is thinking. In movies and tv shows this is exactly what we do. And of course, with close-ups and great actors, we usually have a pretty good idea, or at least can make some pretty good guesses, as to what the character is thinking.

A lot of Will’s asides, particularly in the comedies, are lines expected to get a laugh. So, they do more than just give the audience a clue as to what a character on stage is thinking.

Whilst you don’t often see the aside used in TV or movies, there is a sit-com currently, Call Me Kat, where the lead character uses asides quite frequently; always to comic effect. She turns to the camera, which zooms in on her face, and she makes her comment. Any other characters on stage at that point act oblivious to her comment. Come to think of it, if you might be wondering whether or not they realize that this is a Shakespearean (or at the very least, an Elizabethan) convention, consider this: they also do something else that hails from Shakespeare’s time. In Will’s day, the performance would end with all the actors coming on stage and doing a bit of jig (supposedly they did this with all shows, even the tragedies. Can you imagine that?). Every episode of Call Me Kat ends with the entire ensemble coming out on stage and waving to the audience whilst they do a bit of improvised dancing. I never thought of Call Me Kat as Shakespearean, but maybe…

No, no, no. That's not the Kat I'm talking about. In fact, that's a hyena and I'm not sure if that's in the cat family or dog family, or something in between. 

However, whatever it is, it's giving us a prime example of working without an aside. Of course, in this case it's not using an aside because Hyenas can't talk. But, in the same way that most modern actors count on us to get an idea of what they're thinking without saying anything, so too is this Hyena doing that. 

Care to guess what he's thinking. Here, let me show you what he was looking at.

He was looking at this pride of lions chowing down on a water buffalo. 

Now I don't know for sure, but my guess is that he was thinking something along the lines of "When are those guys going to be through eating so that I can get in there for some leftovers?"

 That's my guess. What's yours?

 

Today’s Totally Random Line(s)

           

The one, to save the money that he spends in tiring; the other that at dinner they should not drop in his porridge.

  

-Dromio of Syracuse

 The Comedy of Errors           Act II, Scene ii, Line 97

                 

Okay, I’m going to confess that I’m having a hard time understanding what Antipholus and Dromio are talking about here. Today's Totally Random Line is Dromio's answer to the question of what are the reasons that the plainer- dealer, the sooner lost; yet he loseth it in a kind of jollity. 

I believe his statement about the plainer-dealer is that the more honest the man, the sooner he loses his hair, and he’s happy about losing it and in not getting wig. And the two reasons he’s happy about this is what Today's Totally Random Lines are talking about. He's happy because he he saves the money he would spend on haircuts or wigs, and he also doesn’t have to worry about his wig or hair falling in his porridge. 

Or something like that. 

Yeah, I admit it: Wills stuff can be hard to understand at times; and in particular his comedies because it’s there that he gets into the wordplay of puns and double-entendres.

Oh well.. Or should I say Oh Will!  

 Hey, that's not porridge; that's peppers and eggs (or eggs and peppers, depending on how you look at it). But that's arguably better than porridge, and as far as I can tell, it's got no hair in it.