Today’s Totally Random Lines

                                        

Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot

That it do singe yourself: we may outrun

By violent swiftness, that which we run at,

And lose by over-running.

 

Duke of Norfolk      

King Henry the Eighth     Act I, Scene i, Line 142

 

We’re at the very beginning of the play. The Duke of Buckingham has been railing to the Duke of Norfolk about Cardinal Wolsey, going on and on about what a lowlife the cardinal is and that he, Buckingham, is going to go to the king and take down the cardinal. In Today’s Lines Norfolk is warning Buckingham to be careful, because the cardinal is devious and powerful.

It turns out that Norfolk’s warning is prescient. By the end of the scene the king, based on Wolsey’s doing, is having Buckingham sent to the Tower. Nobody wants to be sent to the Tower.

Apparently Wolsey has paid off one of Buckingham’s people to bear false witness against Buckingham and his goose is cooked. Here’s Buckingham with the last words of the scene.

My surveyor is false; the o’er-great cardinal

Hath show’d him gold; my life is spanned already:

I am the shadow of poor Buckingham,

Whose figure even this instant cloud puts on,

By darkening my clear sun. – My lord, farewell.

It sucks to be Buckingham. 

 

Yes, Mojo, that’s politics. It was politics back in 1630 and it’s politics in 2025. Some things never change.

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

                                       

England hath long been mad and scarr’d herself;

The brother blindly shed the brother’s blood,

The father rashly slaughter’d his own son,

The son, compell’d, been butcher to the sire:

All this divided York and Lancaster,

Divided in their dire division,

O, now let Richmond and Elizabeth,

The true succeeders of each royal house,

By God’s fair ordinance conjoin together!

 

Earl of Richmond (later Henry VII)

       

King Richard the Third        Act V, Scene v, Line 27

 

This is the last speech of the play, which is the last play in the series that covered the Wars of the Roses. The Earl of Richmond has just won the battle of Bosworth Field in which Richard the Third was killed. So the wars, which started with the overthrow of Richard II, end with the Death of Richard III. In between the two Richards, a bunch of other Henry’s and a few Edwards get to oversee the turmoil that the Earl is talking about in Today’s Lines: fathers slaughtering sons and sons butchering sires.

Boy, I can’t help it but this stuff, like so much else of Will’s material, keeps reminding me of today’s world: more specifically our divided country. And don’t try to tell me it’s not divided. Where is our Earl of Richmond. I’m not really seeing him/her anywhere. 

Do you want to know where we can find him/her? We can find them in someone who’s willing to embrace a member of the other party as their running mate. Mitt Romney and Pete Buttigieg. Gavin Newsom and Liz Cheney. It’s going to take something bold like that to make it work. Otherwise it’s going to continue to be more of the same.

What’s that? It’s time to pull up? Okay, you’re right. I’ll pull up.

 

Ahhh, to be as carefree as my little friend here. 

‘Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. 

Wait, that’s Hamlet, not Richard the Third. Sorry.

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines 

                                       

Your spirits shine through you. Within this hour at most,

I will advise you where to plant yourselves;

Acquaint you with the perfect spy o’th’time,

The moment on’t; for’t must be done to-night,

And something from the palace; always thought 

That I require a clearness: and with him-

To leave no rubs or botches in the work-

Fleance his son, that keeps him company,

Whose absence is no less material to me

Than is his father’s, must embrace the fate

Of that dark hour.

 

Macbeth    

Macbeth                           Act III, Scene i, Line 129                                   

This is Macbeth giving instructions to the two murderers that he is sending to kill Banquo and Banquo’s son Fleance.

I listened to this scene this morning. Today’s Lines come at the end of the scene. Before this Macbeth spends some time getting the murderers pumped up with a desire to kill Banquo. He does this with lie after lie about Banquo. I’m sorry (and no, I’m not going to immediately pull up) but the comparison to 2025 is screaming at me. I just finished reading the email I get from Kareem regarding his substack post and today a lot of it was about freedom of speech and the abuse of that freedom taking place today. It all brings to mind the words of Toni Morrison from her Nobel acceptance speech,

The systematic looting of language can be recognized by the tendency of its users to forgo its nuanced, complex, mid-wifery properties for menace and subjugation. Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence; does more than represent the limits of knowledge; it limits knowledge. Whether it is obscuring state language or the faux-language of mindless media; whether it is the proud but calcified language of the academy or the commodity driven language of science; whether it is the malign language of law-without-ethics, or language designed for the estrangement of minorities, hiding its racist plunder in its literary cheek – it must be rejected, altered and exposed. It is the language that drinks blood, laps vulnerabilities, tucks its fascist boots under crinolines of respectability and patriotism as it moves relentlessly toward the bottom line and the bottomed-out mind. Sexist language, racist language, theistic language – all are typical of the policing languages of mastery, and cannot, do not permit new knowledge or encourage the mutual exchange of ideas.

Yeah, what she said. And Macbeth’s language in this scene, and yes, Trump’s language every day (there, I said it), is doing what Ms. Morrison talked about.

Is there an answer to this?

Pull up? That's it?

Yes, Mojo, you're right: that bell pepper that your mother grew is almost as big as you. And yes, you're also right: I should be concentrating on you and bell peppers, not on he-who-shall-not-be-named. Sometimes I just can't help it.

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

                                       

I would they were, that I might die at once;

For now they kill me with a living death.

Those eyes of thine from mine have drawn salt tears,

Shamed their aspects with store of childish drops:

These eyes, which never shed remorseful tear,

No, when my father York and Edward wept

To hear the piteous moan that Rutland made

When black-faced Clifford shook his sword at him;

Nor when thy warlike father, like a child,

Told the sad story of my father’s death,

And twenty times made pause to sob and weep,

That all the standers-by had wet their cheeks,

Like trees bedasht with rain; in that sad time

My manly eyes did scorn an humble tear;

And what these sorrows could not thence exhale,

The beauty hath, and made them blind with weeping.

 

Duke of Gloster (later to become Richard III)      

King Richard the Third      Act I, Scene ii, Line 151

 

I should probably have first given you the set up, and then had you read Today’s Lines; but you are certainly free to go back and re-read them after I give it to you, so here goes. 

Henry VI has died and Lady Anne (who is the widow of Henry VI’s son, Edward) is mourning over his body. Gloster (soon to become Richard III) shows up and begins wooing Lady Anne. The catch: Richard killed both Henry VI and his son Edward, and Lady Anne knows this.

As you can imagine, it’s a bit of a testy exchange, at least at the start. Then the subject turns to eyes and Richard complements Anne on her beautiful eyes, whereupon Anne says,

Would they were basilisks, to strike thee dead!

And that gets us to Today’s Lines.

So you can see that the subject of these lines, they in the first two lines and them in the last line, and much in between, is eyes. It’s all about the eyes.

So, now knowing the context, and armed with the knowledge of the eyes, you should give Today’s Lines another look. There is some really marvelous stuff in there; some of Will’s finest work, so take another look. Yes, you heard me, lay your eyes on them again: your eyes. You won’t regret it.

Eyes.

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines 

                                

I do not entreat your Grace to pardon me.

I know not by what power I am made bold,

Nor how it may concern my modesty,

In such a presence here to plead my thoughts;

But I beseech your Grace that I may know

The worst that may befall me in this case,

If I refuse to wed Demetrius.

 

Hermia      

A Midsummer Night’s Dream   Act I, Scene i, Line 62

                            

I had determined before I sat down here this morning to write about an experience I’ve recently had. Not surprisingly, since these Random Lines so often seem quite Un-Random, what I was going to write about was a wedding. And not just a wedding but, as in Hermia’s situation, a wedding that goes against what was being dictated as the right and proper thing to do. Let me explain.

As a way of celebrating twenty-five years of marriage, my wife and I decided to do a vow renewal ceremony this past spring. And since our marriage took place without any real wedding ceremony (we got married in town hall by a justice of the peace), we decided to make our vow renewal ceremony into the wedding that we never had. On that day twenty-five years ago, we had our five children from our respective first marriages, aged eleven to twenty, as our only five witnesses. Accordingly, we decided they should be the only attendees at our wedding ceremony; they and their now spouses, our three grandchildren, and of course our twenty-two-year-old son who was merely a twinkle in my eye twenty-five years ago. 

So, it was a group of sixteen having a wedding celebration in June of 2025 for two senior citizens who actually got married on February 17, 2000. It sort of goes against what one would consider the expected thing to do, doesn’t it? Except that it was the right thing to do. It was the most joyous experience of our married lives and one that Patrice and I are so very happy that we did not miss out on. 

The moral of the story? Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do, even when it may not seem like the expectedly right and proper thing to do. It's as simple as that.

Like Hermia, who is refusing to marry the guy her father wants her to marry. It's the same for all of us, whether we're talking about relationships, or careers, or whatever. Don’t ever settle for marrying a Demetrius! 

Do what's right for you!  

Mojo agreed with today's message and acquiesced to not being in today's picture. 

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines 

                              

You, Polydore, have proved best woodsman, and

Are master of the feast: Caldwell and I

Will play the cook and servant; ‘tis our match:

The sweat of industry would dry and die,

But for the end it works to.

 

Belarius       

Cymbeline                 Act III, Scene vi, Line 28                                   

 

And there you have Will’s opinion, and apparent endorsement, of capitalism.

The sweat of industry would dry and die,

But for the end it works to.

Do you agree with this assessment?

Those lines have the words ‘sweat’ and ‘work’ in them, and you're asking me if I agree with them? 

What do you think?

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

                                        First, methought

I stood not in the smile of heaven; who had

Commanded nature, that my lady’s womb,

If it conceived a male child by me, should

Do no more offices of life to’t than

The grave does to the dead; for her male issue

Or died where they were made, or shortly after

This world had air’d them: hence I took a thought,

This was a judgement on me; that my kingdom,

Well worthy the best heir o’the world, should not

Be gladded in’t by me: then follows, that

I weigh’d the danger which my realms stood in

By this my issues fail; and that gave to me

Many a groaning throe.

 

King Henry

King Henry the Eighth      Act II, Scene iv, Line 189                          

 

I thought it was God’s plan that all my male sons born of this queen should not survive infancy, and realizing what a bad thing for the kingdom this was, and that gave to me many a groaning throe.

There, that’s Pete’s very abbreviated version of Today’s Lines. You’ll notice that I left the end in Will’s words, assuming that you could figure out many a groaning throe.

So, what do you think? Yes, it’s a bit long. But if you read it once or twice I think you’ll agree that it’s pretty understandable.

Henry it talking to the council that’s been convened to oversee the divorce of his wife, Katherine, and he’s explaining why he’s come to this decision. Basically he’s saying that he needs to divorce Katherine because God has decreed that she is not to give him a male heir, and that would be very bad for the kingdom. Is this what he really believes, or is he just hot to trot for Anne Bolyn? Or is it a little of both. Well, of course we don’t really know that answer to that do we?

More to the point, I suppose you're asking, why did I give you thirteen lines of Totally Random Lines? Well, I can answer that question. For one thing, I didn’t want to break up the sentence, and for another thing, I thought these lines were really good. Well of course they’re good: they’re written by William Shakespeare! But not all of his stuff strikes me, as these lines did. The wordplay is wonderful.

I stood not in the smile of heaven: beautiful!

Should do no more office of life to’t than the grave does to the dead: what can I say about that?

Shortly after this world had air’d them. Really?  air’d them? Ahhh.

That my kingdom…should not be gladded in’t by me. That’s right, gladded in’t.

And of course, finally, many a groaning throe.

 

I suppose all I can say is you’re welcome, as I’m sure that you can now appreciate what a wonderful thirteen lines this is, and how you’ve gotten to have your day brightened by Will’s words.

Yes indeed: you’re welcome!

My goodness, can't you just see the appreciation written all over Mojo's face!