Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

Did your letters pierce the queen to any demonstration of grief?

 

Earl of Kent                                                        

King Lear                      Act IV, Scene iii, Line 10

 

Kent is speaking to a messenger who had brought the former’s letter to Cordelia describing what has happened to Lear, her father, and how her sisters have mistreated him. Remember, after Lear rejected Cordelia she went and married the king of France. So, I guess that makes her a queen.

The messenger’s response, indeed this whole very short scene, is worth reading. Well, it’s Shakespeare; so what else is new. Anyway, here’s the first part of the messenger’s response to Kent. 

Ay, sir; she took them, read them in my presence;

And now and then an ample tear trill’d down

Her delicate cheek: it seem’d she was a queen

Over her passion; who, most rebel-like,

Sought to be king o’er her.

The tear was ample, it trill’d, and her cheek was delicate.

I wish I could write like that.

Your writing's pretty good, Mr. Blagys. 

Of course, it's not Shakespeare; but whose is?

Thanks Mojo.

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

Fear it not, sir: I would I were so sure

To win the king, as I am bold her honour

Will remain hers.

 

Posthumus Leonatus

Cymbeline                      Act II, Scene iv, Line 1

 

Posthumus is saying that he’s sure that his wife will be faithful to him. He’s right, but rat-fink Iachimo is going to show up in a minute and convince him otherwise.

I have to say, Will certainly uses infidelity, whether real or assumed, as a major part of the plot of so many of his plays! Off the top of my head, Othello, The Winter’s Tale, Much Ado About Nothing… well that’s all I can come up with right now. I bet, though, that if I went through the list of his plays I’d come up with a few more.

Well, if you think about it, jealousy is one of the strongest of human emotions. Interesting to think about, isn’t it? It should be love, or maybe grief, but I’m not so sure. Jealousy is very strong. I guess Will knew that. Yes sir, I would love to sit down to a dinner with this guy.

When, oh  when, is this guy going to realize that William Shakespeare died four hundred years ago, and dead people don't come to dinner. When?

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

She is young and apt:

Our own precedent passions do instruct us

What levity’s in youth.

 

Old Athenian

Timon of Athens                    Act I, Scene i, Line 136

 

I find this line easily understandable. Is that because I read a lot of Shakespeare, or is it indeed easily understandable? Either way, it’s a nice line.

Just to add some context: the Old Athenian is at Timon’s house. It so happens that one of Timon’s servants is in love with the Old Athenian’s daughter and the old man is trying to get Timon to forbid his servant from seeing the girl. Timon asks if the girl is in love with his servant, and this is the Old Athenian’s response: she’s young, and our own experience of being young tells us how irresponsible and impulsive young people are. Our own precedent passions. Such a nice phrase, precedent passions.

See, that’s what Will is all about: putting words like that together. It’s so simple, and yet, two words that say so much. Precedent passions describe the feelings we experienced when we were young that we now no longer feel, and yet still remember.

Will struck this very same note in The Tempest when Prospero was watching his daughter Miranda interacting and falling in love with Ferdinand. Prospero said,

So glad of this as they I cannot be,

Who are surprised withal; but my rejoicing

At nothing can be more.

Prospero’s saying that he can’t feel the emotions the young’ns are feeling, but he’s still happy.

So glad of this as they I cannot be is nowhere near as lovely as precedent passions, but it gets the point across.

It’s interesting to note that both Timon and Tempest were written towards the tail end of Will’s career when he himself was getting older and feeling much more like the Old Athenian, or Prospero than like a young lover.

I could go on here, about my own personal experience and the difference between youthful bliss that can only be experienced and felt by the young, and the different kind of love and happiness that comes with an older age. But I won’t.

Anyway, I really like precedent passions.

So, how can this picture possibly be relevant? Well, I'll tell you how. It's tree climbing.

Yes, tree climbing is a boy's activity, and one that an older fellow can look back on and only try to remember the joy of being up so high and looking down on everything; a joy an older guy like me can no longer experience.

Or can he?

Granted, tree climbing does not involve the same degree of passion as the precedent passion talked about in Today's Line, but I think the relevance is valid nonetheless. 

And just in case you're wondering 'Where's Mojo?', well, he's in that fenced in area below the Prius - the light brown area with the raised beds. I guess you can't actually see him, but he's there. You can't see Patrice or Walker yelling  'Get out of that tree before you fall and break your neck, you old fool!', but they're there too. 

Ahhh, tree climbing.

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

Peace, good pint-pot; peace, good tickle-brain.

 

Sir John Falstaff

King Henry the Fourth Part I       Act II, Scene iv, Line 407

 

Falstaff is telling the hostess to be quiet, as he is about to launch into yet one more of his lengthy, bombastic speeches. Whilst I can’t say that I’m familiar with these terms, pint-pot and tickle-brain, based on the context they appear to be mildly negative epithets; particularly when prefaced with good. Think of them as being sort of like Archie’s reference to Edith as a dingbat, if you’re old enough to know what I’m talking about.  

I called him a pint-pot and now he's sulking. 

I guess you've gotta be careful how you use this stuff.

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

To Eltham will I, where the young king is,

Being ordain’d his special governor;

And for his safety there I’ll best devise.

 

Duke of Exeter

King Henry the Sixth Part I          Act I, Scene i, Line 170

 

This first scene of King Henry VI Part I is set at the funeral of Henry V. However, Will wrote this play before he wrote Henry V. He wrote plays about all the kings from Edward III, who reigned in the middle of the 1300’s, covering everyone up to Henry VIII, who died in 1547. Will’s writing career began in the 1580’s, just to give you some context. Elizabeth, Henry VIII’s daughter, was queen then. 

Not all the kings of this two hundred year period have their own play; some are covered in the other plays. Edward IV, for instance is covered in Henry the Sixth Part III and also in Richard the Third. You can read the plays in order, which kind of makes sense, but Will didn’t write them in order; he wrote today’s play first. In fact, today’s play, Henry the Sixth Part I, is one of the first plays that Will wrote in his career. We’re not really sure exactly what order he wrote all his plays in, but this one is one of the first. This one, The Comedy of Errors, and a few others are the ones considered to be his first written plays. Most of this conjecture is based on dates of performances that we still have.

So there’s a little Shakespeare history for you. I had to look up Edward’s and Henry VIII’s dates. I was never great at dates. But, as noted, Will covered about two hundred years of British history in his history plays. And, of course, that was a pretty turbulent time as it included the Wars of the Roses which took up a large part of the 1400’s.

What else would you like to know about? Modern U.S. pop culture? Ehhh, not so well versed on that. I’ll let my associates handle those questions.

And here are the aforementioned associates now; no doubt doing some of that modern U.S. pop culture research. 

CrakerJack researchers they are, both of them. 

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

Think you not on him till to-morrow: I’ll devise thee brave punishment for him – Strike up, pipers!

[Dance. Exeunt.]

 

Benedick

Much Ado About Nothing             Act V, Scene iv, Line 128

 

It’s the last line of the play. Benedick is reacting to the messenger who’s said that they’ve caught the former’s brother, John, and they’re bringing him back to Messina. John is the villain of the play and without him there wouldn’t have been Much Ado, the play would have been mostly About Nothing. So, I guess they should have been talking about rewarding John instead of punishing him. Right?

Wait, what?

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

Counsel, Lucetta; gentle girl, assist me;

And, even in kind love, I do conjure thee,--

Who art the table wherein all my thoughts

Are visibly character’d and engraved,--

To lesson me; and tell me some good mean,

How, with my honour, I may undertake

A journey to my loving Proteus.

 

Julia

The Two Gentlemen of Verona     Act II, Scene vii, Line 1

 

I think we should look at this in detail so we can understand the lines and realize just how easy it is to read Shakespeare. I say that because I’ve been getting a lot of feedback lately on just how difficult it is, and with this I disagree.

First off, counsel is being used as a verb: Counsel me, Lucetta. Give me some advice. Julia continues, in the first two lines, to ask, to beg, Lucetta to help her. Lines three and four are a separate thought in the middle of these lines, set off by the dashes, and referring to Lucetta. These two lines are a lovely metaphor for how close these two women are, but they are not part of the main thought of the lines.

We get back to that main part of the thought after the second set of dashes. So, she’s begged, Lucetta to help her in the first two lines, explained why Lucetta is the one who can best help her in the next two lines, and now she’ll say what she wants help with. So, go ahead, read the last three lines again, and you tell me what Julia wants help with. That’s right, I’m not going to tell you. Go ahead, re-read the last three lines of Today’s Lines.

In the meantime, I’m going back to the metaphor of lines three and four, because I think that’s the best part of Today's Lines. I think that this is a very sweet thing to say to someone:

You,

Who art the table wherein all my thoughts

Are visibly character’d and engraved.

Goodness, that belongs in a love sonnet. I wonder if Lucetta got the compliment. To be clear, Lucetta is a servant, a waiting woman, to Julia. None the less, Shakespeare’s works are full of relationships between servants and their superiors, many of them very close relationships. Apparently Lucetta either didn't get the compliment or decides to pass over it because her response is short and simple.

Alas, the way is wearisome and long.

She cuts to the chase. Clearly, Lucetta read Strunk and White and adheres to the no unnecessary words credo (as just as clearly Julia does not).

But think about it: You are the table, the whiteboard, where all my thoughts are easily read. That is a description of a person who’s very close to you; a person who knows you perhaps better than you know yourself. It’s a very nice thing to say to someone, and it just gets passed over here.

I think there’s a whole lot of stuff in Shakespeare, that’s really, really good stuff, that gets overlooked. Perhaps that’s a metaphor for life, eh?

A metaphor for life, ugghh.

You're a metaphor for life.