Today’s Totally Random Lines

  

If we live thus tamely,

To be thus jaded by a piece of scarlet,

Farewell nobility; let his Grace go forward,

And dare us with his cap like larks.

 

 Earl of Surrey

King Henry the Eighth          Act III, Scene ii, Line 281

 

Well, we were just in this scene, when was it? Let me check. Jeez, it was August 20th. It seems like yesterday. Do you remember? It was the line with the sacring bell, where we learned that the sacring bell is the little bell they ring on the altar at mass. 

That line was also the Earl of Surrey and it’s just a few lines further down from today’s. In today’s line, like that one, the Earl is berating the Cardinal, referring to him as a piece of scarlet. I get the feeling that he really doesn’t care much for Cardinal Wolsey, don’t you?

There's a scarlet stain on this old pocket knife. I'm pretty sure it's just paint, not the Cardinal's blood. Unless of course this knife once belonged to the Earl of Surrey. 

But I'm pretty sure it didn't. 

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

The conclusion is victory: on whose side? The kings. The captive is enricht: on whose side? The beggars.

Boyet
Love’s Labour’s Lost             Act IV, Scene i, Line 75

Boyet is reading Don Armando’s love letter to Jaquinita. The letter is almost thirty lines long and it doesn’t make much sense. I think it’s supposed to be funny, but I have to admit that the humour is lost on me.

Yes, that’s right, Mr. Shakespeare-Lover here is admitting that the humour is lost on him. Nobody’s perfect: not Will, not Boyet or Don Armando, and certainly not Mr. Shakespeare-Lover me.

Well, these pics got nothin to do with nothin, but that never stopped me before.

This plant sat on top of my bookcase completely ignored for a few years. 

 The other day I decided to water it. 

The conclusion? Couldn't kill the darn thing if I tried.

 

Such as she says my lord did say I was.

 

Desdemona
Othello                            Act IV, Scene ii, Line 130

 

I have to admit that this line looks confusing. But it’s not. And you don’t need Pete’s Version; you just need a little context. So here you go.

Othello is now completely convinced that Desdemona is cheating on him with Cassio. He’s just had it out with Desdemona, called her a whore, and stormed out on her. Emilia overheard the whole thing, and now Iago has come in and he and Emilia are trying to console Desdemona. Emilia tells Iago what Othello said, and Desdemona asks Iago, Am I that name, Iago? He answers with, What name, fair Lady? She replies, Such as she says my lord did say I was. In other words, The name that Emilia says Othello called me. Oops, I ended up giving you Pete’s Version.

Well I hope you realize, with the context and the Pete’s Version, that it’s a pretty simple line after all. N’est pas? And perfect iambic pentameter: ten one syllable words. And look how each pair of words, each foot of the pentameter, is a set, a pair, by itself.

Such as

She says

My lord

Did say

I was

It’s pretty neat, if you think about it; perhaps e’en if to think ‘bout it you don’t.

Perhaps

E’en if

To think

‘Bout it

You don’t. 

Oh no, not again!

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

He professes to have received no sinister measure from his judge, but most willingly humbles himself to the determination of justice: yet had he framed to himself, by the instruction of his frailty, many deceiving promises of life; which I, by my good leisure, have discredited to him, and now is he resolved to die.

Duke/Friar
Measure For Measure                   Act III, Scene ii, Line 251

The duke, disguised as a friar, is talking to Escalus and Provost about Claudio. The latter is a prisoner of the state and has been sentenced to death. I’ll give you the straight up Pete’s Version of today’s paragraph.

He (Claudio) believes he got a fair judgment and wants only what is just. However, being the weak man that he his, he’s convinced himself that there must be a way out. I (duke/friar), in my good time, have convinced him otherwise, and now he is ready to accept his fate.

Pretty straightforward, eh?

Now, since we’ve landed, today, only a dozen or so lines up from one of my favorite lines, I’ll end with it. It’s the Duke, now alone, speaking indirectly about Angelo, the guy he left in charge and the guy who sentenced Claudio to death.

How may likeness wade in crimes,

Making practice on the times,

To draw with idle spiders' strings

Most ponderous and substantial things.

To draw with idle spiders' strings

Most ponderous and substantial things.

 

Hear me speak:--

As I do know the counsel’s worthiness,

So can I name his faults,-

 

Menenius Agrippa

Coriolanus                      Act III, Scene i, Line 276

But Menenius doesn’t get to finish his sentence, as he gets interrupted by one of the congressmen (I think it might be Matt Goetz) yelling,

Consul!- what consul?

Menenius wants to try to mediate, but they don’t even want to recognize the fact that Coriolanus was properly appointed as consul/leader even though he was (sound familiar?)

Again, this is a great play, but it’s a complicated one. The congressmen (the tribunes) are painted by Will as pretty weaselly (yes, that’s a word, and it means suggestive of a weasel – not the animal, the person). On the other hand, Coriolanus, albeit a great warrior, is not necessarily cut out for politics.

Shall I say it for the umpteenth time? Why don’t they teach this play in school? It’s fabulous, and relevant, and it’s got the fairly recent Ralph Fiennes version to watch. It’s a shame. Then again, I suppose the twenty-first century tribunes would have none of it.  

No pic needed today.

 

Why looks your grace so heavily to-day?

 

Sir Robert Brakenbury

Richard the Third          Act I, Scene iv, Line 1

 

Well, let’s see, his grace is imprisoned in the Tower of London, and he’s going to be dead by the end of the scene: not a lot to be happy about, is there?

 

 

I am near to the place where they should meet; if Pisanio have mapt it truly.

  

Colten

Cymbeline              Act IV, Scene i, Line 1

This is the first line of a twenty-seven line paragraph that is the totality of this scene. It is Colten talking to himself about how he’s going to kill Posthumus and get Imogen. Though this first line, Today’s Totally Random Line, is pretty easily understood, the rest of the paragraph…eh, not so much. This is the kind of stuff that people who don’t know or care about Will’s works would look at and say “What the heck is this!?” Myself, on the other hand, looks at this and says, “Hmmm, this looks interesting. Let’s see what I can do with it.”

So there’s a few ways I go about understanding a challenging piece of Will's text. First, of course, I read it over a few times. That’s what I would do with any text, Shakespeare or otherwise; and read it out loud. Second, I use the Shakespeare online glossary or M-W to get the meaning of any words I don’t know. Some of those words are archaic, and some of them mean something different in 1600 than they do now. Some of them, though, are simply words I don't know the proper meaning of. It's surprising how many words I run into that I can find the proper contextual meaning of in the Merrian Webster online dictionary. Next, if I’m down at the pc in my home office (I’m not right now) and have the time, I might listen to the Arkangel recording of the scene. That’s usually really helpful. And lastly (sometimes firstly) I’ll read the scene summary in my online Shakespeare app. Oh, and one other option that I might go to is to look at the footnotes that some of my other compilations might have. The compilation that I use on a daily basis to pick my lines has no footnotes. That’s about it, I think.

So if that sounds like a lot, well, the thing is – I want to figure it out. I guess it would be safe to say that most people wouldn’t. And that makes all the difference, doesn’t it.

Here's the whole paragraph/scene, if you want to take a crack at it. A couple of other things that I didn't mention above: It helps to have a decent understanding of what's going on in the play, and in some cases (especially the history plays) it helps to have an understanding of what was going on in England at the time. But you can't really pick that knowledge up too easily in just a few minutes. Finally, it helps to see the play performed, as opposed to just hearing it, but you can't do that in a few minutes either.

Good luck!