5/15/17

[Beneath] Swear.

-Ghost

Hamlet                        Act I, Scene v, Line 161

Hamlet is a pretty serious play, but I find this part a little bit comical. This is the scene where Hamlet has the conversation with the ghost of his father. At this point the ghost has finished talking and has exited, and Hamlet’s friends have rejoined him, Hamlet is swearing them to secrecy about what they saw. While he’s trying to get them to swear, the ghost, who’s no longer on stage but apparently is yelling from beneath the stage (that 'beneath' above is a stage direction), keeps reiterating ‘Swear’. He says it three or four times. Maybe I’m a little kooky, but I think it’s funny. And it’s made more funny by some of Hamlet’s comments about the ghost while this is happening.

I think it’s good to be able to find humor in odd places.

 

 

Now here's a perfect example of finding humor in an odd place. This is Jess in the bathroom of a fancy hotel in Pittsburgh, with Nina taking the picture. Now I have no idea what she's doing, or why it's funny, but they obviously found something funny about it. I guess the fruit didn't fall too far from the tree.

 

Monster, come, put some lime on your fingers, and away with the rest.

-Trinculo

The Tempest                Act IV, Scene i, Line 265

I’m not sure what ‘put some lime on your fingers’ refers to. I would guess that it’s something that was done by thieves and murderers to throw the hound dogs off their trail. But I do know that this is the scene where Prospero and Ariel put some fancy clothes out on the clothesline to trap Stephano, Trinculo, and Caliban. While Prospero and Ariel hide out of sight the three knuckleheads come on stage, see the clothes and decide to steal them. Caliban however is more interested in killing Prospero, and he knows the clothes are a trap. With today’s line Trinculo is trying to get Caliban (Monster) to join them in trying on the clothes. But Caliban will have none of it. And momentarily Prospero and Ariel will jump out at them with a bunch of hunting dogs and chase the three would be thieves/murderers off. Ah, I just realized: the lime and the hunting dogs! It goes together.

Now here’s the thing, I know this play almost by heart because I wrote a retelling, that is to say, a modernized version of it. In fact, this blog (not today’s post, the blog as a whole) is an offshoot of that retelling. You see, once we (I say ‘we’ because my brother Will worked on it with me as the illustrator) were pretty much done with the book I found out that if we wanted to publish and market a book we needed a platform, preferably in social media. And so I started this blog. And that’s the short version of why I know The Tempest so well.

Anyway, I’ve finally decided to move forward with that book so I’m hoping to have that out sometime in the latter part of this year. And so this blog may be turning toward our retelling of The Tempest sometime soon. And there’s something for you to look forward to!

 

  Now this is a fancy little piece of clothing that I almost purchased. And to be clear, I had no lime on my fingers at the time. Nor did I get chased by any dogs.

 Well gentlemen,

I am thus resolved: on Sunday next you know

My daughter Katharina is to be married:

Now, on the Sunday following, shall Bianca

Be bride to you, if you this assurance;

If not, Signior Gromio:

And so, I take my leave, and thank you both.

Adieu, good neighbor.

 -Baptista

The Taming Of The Shrew                  Act II, Scene i, Line 406

 

Well, we have a perfectly appropriate line for the day. This is Baptista talking about the marriages of his two daughters. And I am in Tennessee for the weekend with my two married daughters and we will be celebrating the recent marriage of the younger one tomorrow. Now, how random is that?

Now my situation is certainly different than Signior Baptista’s. He is dealing with figuring out how to get his two daughters married. My two took care of their own marriages. He has got one daughter who is a bit of a handful and has to get her married first and I…um,…

Well the one who used to be a bit of a handful one did get married first, but she took care of it on her own. And she’s not a handful anymore. Come to think of it, Katharina didn’t end up being a handful in the end either, did she? And I also wasn’t wheeling and dealing on the second younger one. She took care of it on her own too.

But I think the random thing still is pretty uncanny. Don’t you?

 This is the house where both my daughters live. But as I've told you before, neither one is a Katharina or a Bianca. They're both Cordelias.