Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

                        Behold this  man;

Commend unto his lips thy favoring hand:

Kiss it, my warrior: he hath fought to-day

As if a god, in hate of mankind, had

Destroy’d in such a shape.

 

Antony

Antony and Cleopatra                    Act IV, Scene viii, Line 25

 

It’s one of those odd days where, in totally random fashion, we have managed to move forward just a few scenes in the same play. Antony has won the battle that he thought he was going to lose in yesterday’s scene (don’t worry – he still loses the war). Now he’s reunited with Cleopatra. Here’s the first part of the little speech he’s giving to her.

My nightingale,

We have beat them to their beds. What, girl! Though gray
Do something mingle with our younger brown, yet ha’we
A brain that nourishes our nerves, and can
Get goal for goal of youth. Behold this man…

I would have given you that in order, but I didn’t want to scare you away with too long of a Totally Random Daily Line.

Anyway, I like the beginning of his speech (the second part here) with the bit about gray mingling with the younger brown, a brain that nourishes our nerves and getting goal for goal of youth. In other words, (Pete’s version), ‘yeah, I’ve got a lot of gray hairs in there mixed with the brown, but I’m older and wiser too, I can keep myself steady and beat these young whippersnappers at their own game.’

Now, as far as the next section, the part that is Today’s Totally Random Lines: it sounds like Antony is asking Cleopatra to give him her hand so she can kiss it. But I can’t understand how the words ‘Kiss it, my warrior:’ can possibly be Antony’s. That’s got to be Cleopatra talking, n’est pas? The rest of those four and a half lines can be Antony talking in the third person, but not ‘Kiss it, my warrior:’

I looked at four different online versions of the text and none of them vary. I’ll have to look at my First Folio tonight. But even if that is the same, I’m going to posit that it’s a mistake made when printing the First Folio.

That’s my thought and I’m sticking with it.

Well, I was going to go into another little tidbit I found in this short scene, but I’ve gone on long enough, so I’ll save it for another day.

Another exhibit from my sticker book: 

a printing press, the likes of which would have been used to print the First Folio. 

Amazing Sticker Book.

 

 

 Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

                                 Tend me to-night;

May be it is the period of your duty:

Haply you shall not see me more; or if,

A mangled shadow: perchance to-morrow

You'll serve another master. I look on you

As one that takes his leave.

 

Antony

Antony and Cleopatra                    Act IV, Scene ii, Line 28

 

Two vocabulary notes:

Period = End

Haply = Perhaps (NOT Happily)

Antony is convinced that he’s going to be defeated tomorrow in battle, so he’s saying goodbye to his servants.

If you’re as old as me, or if you have a good sense of American 1970’s history, this scene might make you think of Richard Nixon saying goodbye to the White House staff. This latter scene was immortalized in song.

Both Antony’s and Nixon’s scene are pretty sad. It’s a rainy day today, haply reflecting the mood of today’s line.

Line 'Em Up - Bing video

The aforementioned song

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

Pray you, sir, how much carnation ribbon may a man buy for a remuneration?

 

Costard

Love’s Labour’s Lost   Act III, Scene i, Line 143

 

It’s a comedy, isn’t it. 

Costard here is a bit of a buffoon. So it’s a rather silly part of the scene where he doesn’t know what remuneration actually means. Armado says he’ll give him remuneration for delivering a letter, and so gives him three farthings. Now Costard, unfamiliar with the word remuneration, thinks it means three farthings, and he’s asking Berowne how much carnation ribbon he can buy with a remuneration, meaning how much can he buy with three farthings. It makes sense to Costard of course, but not to Berowne.

Again, it’s comedy.  

Three farthings? Eh, probably not. 

Three Farthing Stone? Yes indeed!

See, I told you Will's works and JRR's works were related. 

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

If the great gods be just, they shall assist

The deeds of justest men.

 

Pompey

Antony and Cleopatra    Act II, Scene i, Line 1

 

Well that’s a big if, isn’t it. This also kind of flies right in the face of life’s not fair, kid (one of my favorite, non-Will lines).

 And, justest? C’mon now, that’s not even a word. I know that Will likes to make up words, but justest. He couldn’t just go with most just? Arguably that works even a little better with the iambic pentameter flow than justest.

Well now there I go again, trying to improve on Will. Silly me. Silly me.

 

Silly me.

 

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.