Today’s Totally Random Lines

  

The senators of Rome are this good belly,

And you the mutinous members: for examine

Their counsels and their cares; digest things rightly

Touching the weal o’the common; you shall find,

No public benefit which you receive

But it proceeds or comes from them to you,

And no way from yourselves. – What do you think,-

You, the great toe of this assembly?

 

Menenius Agrippa

Coriolanus      Act I, Scene i, Line 147

 

Another long, you might say run-on, sentence. Well, what’s happening here? 

The peasants are revolting because they say that the government is sitting on a storehouse of wheat whilst they, the peasants, starve. Menenius, a friend of Coriolanus and a part of the ruling class, comes out to calm them down. He talks about the body’s parts rebelling against the belly, accusing it of getting all the food. But, of course, the belly answered that, yes, he was the storehouse and processor of the food, but that it was then his job to distribute the proteins to all the parts of the body. And that’s where Menenius segues into today’s lines. When he mentions the weal o’the common, he is, more or less, talking about the welfare of the state. And he finishes by addressing the citizen who he’s talking to as the great toe, because he is out in front of the body of the crowd. 

A lot of body references.  

Well, I took a picture of my belly, and I was gonna post it. 

But it's too discouraging,

too embarrassing, 

TOO BIG!

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

Have I not tarried?

 

Troilus

Troilus and Cressida      Act I, Scene i, Line 17

 

Yes, the very beginning of the play, seventeen lines in. Troilus is taking off his armor and telling Pandarus that he doesn’t have the heart for fighting. Pandarus knows that Troilus’s distraction is his unrequited love for Cressida and tells him,

He that will have a cake out of the wheat must needs tarry the grinding.

Tarry, if you didn’t know, means to wait for.

Have I not tarried? he replies.

Has he waited? And if so what has he done whilst waiting? I suppose if I wanted to know that, I’d have to read or listen to the whole play. But it’s Monday morning and I’m not retired yet, so I have to get to work, and I don’t have time for that right now.

And you could reply, 'yes, you can’t do that right now. He that will have a cake out of the wheat (or the time to listen to the whole play on a Monday morning) must needs tarry the grinding.'

I’ve been working for most of the last forty-five years.
Have I not tarried?

Here's a guy who looks like he's waiting, or tarrying, for something. 

What's he waiting for? I think he's waiting to see where I'm gonna stick him.

(Great sticker book, eh?)

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

         But in short space

It rained down fortune on your head;

And such a flood of greatness fell on you,-

What with our help, what with the absent king,

What with the injuries of a wanton time,

The seeming sufferances that you had borne,

And the contrarious winds that held the king

So long in his unlucky Irish wars

That all in England did repute him dead,-

And from this swarm of fair advantages

You took occasion to be quickly woo’d

To gripe the general sway into your hand;

Forgot your oath to us at Doncaster;

And being fed by us, you used us so

As that ungentle gull, the cuckoo bird,

Useth the sparrow,- did oppress our nest;

Grew by our feeding to so great a bulk,

That even our love durst not come near your sight

For fear of swallowing: but with nimble wing

We were enforced, for safety sake, to fly

Out of your sight, and raise this present head:

Whereby we stand opposed by such means

As you yourself have forged against yourself,

By unkind usage, dangerous countenance,

And violation of all faith and troth

Sworn to us in your younger enterprise.

 

Earl of Worcester

King Henry the Fourth Part I       Act V, Scene i, Line 50

 

Well that sentence just goes on forever! I decided to type the whole sentence that Today’s Totally Random Line was in, but I didn’t look closely enough to realize just how long that sentence was! Oooof!

Anyway, this is Worcester explaining to Henry why they are rebelling. In short, he says, they agreed to help Henry to get his father’s lands and title back, and Henry swore an oath to them at Doncaster that was all he wanted. But in short space….

I went back to the play King Richard the Second to see if I could find the oath that Henry IV made at Doncaster, mentioned by Worcester above. I couldn’t find it. I do remember from somewhere that Bolingbroke (the future Henry IV) did say that he (Bolingbroke) was only out to regain his father’s (John of Lancaster) legacy, not planning to go after the crown as he ultimately did. So that’s the cause of all this ruckus.

But again, long sentence! Could you just give us long-story-short, Worcester?

This is what I'm thinking Worcester looks like with this song and dance that he's giving us today. 

Flood of greatness...contrarious...ungentle gull...forged against yourself...

Blah, blah-blah, blah-blah. 

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

  

At this request, with noble disposition

Each present lord began to promise aid,

As bound in knighthood to her imposition,

Longing to hear the hateful foe bewray’d.

But she, that yet her sad task hath not said,

The protestation stops. ‘O, speak,’ quoth she,

‘How may this forced stain be wiped from me?

 

 

Narrator/Lucrece

The Rape of Lucrece                     Line 1696

 

Lucrece’s husband has arrived home, and he’s got a bunch of his guys with him. The request mentioned in the first line is Lucrece’s request to all of them to revenge the wrong done her. The word bewray, in the fourth line above, means revealed. She has not yet told them the name of the person who raped her.

I’m not sure how well this tale does here in the twenty-first century. Lucrece is taking most of the blame for this rape upon herself. And as we saw on Tuesday, a few lines down from here she takes her own life because of it. Of course, nothing has changed from 1600 to 2023, the rapist was as guilty then as he is now; the woman as innocent. Public perception (are those even the right words?) on the other hand is vastly different, and even that is still (always?) evolving: exhibit one - the recent ‘me too’ movement.

So, what to say about all of this? Honestly, I just don’t know.

Perhaps we can think of this as a picture of Lucrece in happier times. 

Perhaps. 

 

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

  

O, pardon me, my liege! But for my tears,

[kneeling]

The moist impediments unto my speech,

I had forestall’d this dear and deep rebuke,

Ere you with grief had spoke, and I had heard

The course of it so far. 

 

Prince Henry

King Henry the Fourth Part II        Act IV, Scene iv, Line 269

 

Well we’ve been in this scene before. This is where Harry is sitting by his father’s deathbed. Thinking that the king was dead, Harry picks up the crown laying there, puts it on his own head, and walks out of the room. The king, obviously not dead yet, wakes up and thinks that his son wished him dead because he’s in a rush to get the crown for his own. He gives a long speech to this affect and today’s lines are the beginning of Harry’s explanation to his father.

Pete’s version - Pardon me father. If I hadn’t been crying I would have stopped you sooner, before you’d spoken with grief, and before I’d heard all that you’ve said.

So what did the king say that Harry would’ve stopped him? What didn’t he say!

King Henry went on a rant about how Harry was rushing him into the grave to get his crown, and how the country was going to go down the crapper with Harry in charge. Speaking of England, he ends his rant with

O, thou wilt be a wilderness again,

Peopled with wolves, thy old inhabitants. 

Not showing a whole lot of confidence in his son, is he?

The Crown

(sticker #2)

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

It is a life that I have desired: I will thrive.

 

Bardolf

The Merry Wives of Windsor      Act I, Scene iii, Line 18

 

What a great line! Imagine if we all had the opportunity to say that! I suppose in theory, most of us should? Yes, I put a question mark on that one.

By the way, the life that Bardolf is referring to is the life of a bartender. Yes, a bartender. I think there was a time when I thought that a bartender would be a good job, but as I grew older, I realized that being a bartender would mean helping some people drink themselves to death, and that’s not a good thought. Also, I know one bartender who’s now homeless. So I don’t think that I would have Bardolf’s enthusiasm for that particular job. But, to each his own, eh?

So, to end on a more upbeat note - the host of the tavern in today’s scene tells Falstaff that he will hire Bardolf, and Falstaff’s line to Bardolf, that precedes Today’s Totally Random Line, is

Bardolf, follow him. A tapster is a good trade: an old cloak makes a new jerkin; a wither’d serving-man a fresh tapster. Go; adieu.

FYI

Tapster = bartender
Jerkin = jacket

A day without a Falstaff line just isn’t a proper day, is it?

What about this withered serving man;

Would he make a fresh tapster?

Yeah, I don't think so. 

 Today’s Totally Random Line

  

I will, my lord. 

 

First Huntsman

The Taming of the Shrew      Induction, Line 29

Ahh, the induction of The Taming of the Shrew. Induction is sort of the introduction, except that it’s not a proper introduction, so I guess we’d better stick with calling it the induction. It’s a little one scene play that’s got nothing to do with the story of The Taming of the Shrew except that it’s a similar, but unrelated, story. A bit odd.

Anyway, the first Huntsman is answering the lord who’s told him to take care of the hunting dogs. They’ve just returned from the hunt. They briefly mention the different dogs. There’s Echo, Belmont, Brach Merriman (I’m not kidding, I think one of them is named Brach Merriman), and there’s Silver. It’s Silver that caught my eye because I recognized that name from The Tempest when Prospero summons up the dogs to chase Caliban, Stephano, and Trinculo. I checked to see if any of the other hounds had the same name, but no. There was Silver, Tyrant, Mountain, and Fury in The Tempest.

But Silver was repeated. So that leads me to believe that one of two things applies. Either Silver was a very common dog name back then, or Silver was a dog that the author knew personally, or perhaps owned.

So that’s today’s takeaway. Silver the dog. Not Silver the horse, as in Hi-Ho Silver, away! I don’t suppose any of you recognize that Hi-Ho Silver thing? That’s okay. I’m old. And I’ve never had, or known, of a dog named Silver in my life (that I can remember). Have you?

This is a picture of Jean Louise Finch, but we called her Scout; not Silver but Scout (she was a rescue dog and never lost that worried look).

Now, if you realize that Hi-Ho Silver was the Lone Ranger's call and Silver was his horse, you might also know that the Lone Ranger's sidekick was named Tonto, and Tonto's horse was named... you guessed it - Scout. 

A perfectly relevant picture.