And the creature run from the cur? There thou mightst behold the great image of authority: a dog’s obey’d in office.--

-King Lear

                                   

King Lear                                Act IV, Scene vi Line 159

Today’s line is prefaced by Lear asking Gloster if he’s ever seen a farmer’s dog bark at a beggar. Gloster answers yes, to which Lear replies with today’s Totally Random line. So that the ‘creature’ in the line is a beggar running from the farmer’s dog.

Now this is well into the play, somewhat towards the end, when the blind Gloster and his son Edgar meet up with the rambling, a little bit out of his mind, Lear. And the latter is going on about this, that, and everything. There’s a ton of analysis to be had in Lear’s ramblings because, of course, they’re not random ramblings; this is Shakespeare! Is Lear comparing himself to a dog that’s obeyed by a beggar? I suppose on the face of it that’s what we see here. But the analysis can be continued on to a much deeper level.

I notice in my compilation that we’ve been on this page before, so I looked into my archives to see if I’d done any previous analysis on this scene, or perhaps even a blog post, that might help with today’s line. Alack, no. The line I picked previously, just a few lines up from today’s line in the scene, was not blogged about at all. I do that a lot of days. Too busy to write, I’ll just pick a line, read it, spend a minute or two thinking about it, make a note of what line it was, and move on with my day. Busy, busy! Remember now, I started this here habit when I was out of work, and had a bit more time on my hands. But these days I work a lot. And yet, I’m still here, still plugging away at my Totally Random (semi) Daily Shakespeare. I’m kind of looking forward to the day when I’ll have more time to always be able to spend time writing about the line of the day. But wait, am I really? Am I really looking forward to not working and having the extra time? So that I will be able…

To shake all the cares and business from our age;

Conferring them on younger strengths, while we

Unburden’d crawl toward death.

Those are some of the very first lines of the play spoken by Lear when he tells his daughters that he’s dividing up the kingdom and giving it to them so that he can retire from being king. And look how well that worked out for Lear! Look where he is today; half out of his mind and rambling on about beggars running from farm dogs, that’s where he is.

No, I’ll keep my day job for now, thank you very much. And I’ll also keep working on these lines when I have time, and appreciating what I have. And when I’ve shaken most of these cares and business from my age and conferred them on younger strengths, I’ll do my best to appreciate the extra time I have for writing. And, importantly, I’ll do the best I can to learn from Lear’s experience and do a better job than he did of managing the shaking part.

Yeah, that’s what I’ll do. 

 

Here's Pete dealing with all the cares and business from our age.

What, doth she swoon? Use means for her recovery.



-King Edward

                                   

King Henry The Sixth Part III              Act V, Scene v Line 45



Well, first off, Happy Birthday Jessica! That little girl is 37 years old today. How about that. She’s not much of a swooner either. She’s always done a pretty good job of knowing what she wants and just making it happen. Leave the swooning to the weak hearted!



But now, getting back to Will. Who’s swooning? Well they’re talking about Queen Margaret, but I don’t think she’s actually swooning. Like Jessica, that woman didn’t swoon for anything. She was the real power behind Henry VI for most of his reign. You know that old saw, ‘Balls!’ said the Queen, ‘If I had ‘em I’d be King!’ Well I think they made that one up with regards to Margaret.

No, that's not a swoon! It's just the new headphones silly-face on the birthday girl. 

Happy Birthday Jessica!

Master lieutenant, now that God and friends

Have shaken Edward from the regal seat,

And turn’d my captive state to liberty,

My fear to hope, my sorrows unto joys,--

At our enlargement what are thy due fees?



-King Henry

                                   

King Henry The Sixth Part III        Act IV, Scene vi, Line 1



This is the opening of Act Three, and we are very near the end of the Henries IV, V, and VI plays. In this scene they are busting Henry out of imprisonment in the Tower of London ('enlargement' is 'release') and he’s going to take the kingship back from Edward. Recall that the kingship went from Henry VI (a Lancaster), to Edward IV (a York), then back to Henry (this scene), and will eventually go back to Edward IV. And this is all part of the War of the Roses, a conflict that will continue with Richard III. Yes, it’s a bit confusing, and with all the supporting characters (many of whom switch sides during the conflict), you really do need a scorecard to keep track. So I’m not going to go into that right now.



I would like to focus for a moment on the second word in today’s lines. I would expect it to be pronounced Lef-ten-ent in any respectable British production of this play. And I think that’s fabulous. I love the way those Brits talk. Patrice and Walker get tired of me trying to emulate them. My favorite is Shesh-U-All for the word ‘schedule’; drives those guys nuts. 

The picture you see above was taken on the street that runs behind Buckingham Palace in London. It  fits today's post for a few reasons. For one, it's very possible that one of these guys is a lef-ten-ent. We don't really know, but it's possible. For another, the only reason I got this pic is because I slept in and missed the trip to the Tower of London that day. So, needless to say, I don't have any pictures of the Tower of London, and this is as close as I can get.  And finally, since I felt bad about missing the Tower, I made darn sure to stick the Shesh-U-All for the rest of the trip. 

Ha, ha, ha!

-Cassio

                                   

Othello                         Act IV, Scene i, Line 118

That’s right, today’s line is Ha, ha, ha! For real. And since today is Mardi Gras, which is a day of pretty much do as you please, you can take any way you want, and do whatever you’d like with it. It’s just that simple. A totally great Totally Random line for today!

Ha, ha, ha!

Last night the very gods show’d me a vision,—

I fast and pray’d for their intelligence,—thus:

I saw Jove’s bird, the Roman eagle, wing’d

From the spongy south to this part of the west,

Then vanisht in the sunbeams: which portends—

Unless my sins abuse my divination—

Success to the Roman host.


 -Soothsayer

                                   

Cymbeline                                Act IV, Scene ii, Line 347





Well there are certainly a number of things we can talk about with today’s Totally Random line, aren’t there? Where to start?


Okay, for starters, the soothsayer is talking to the leader of the Roman forces who are in Britain. So let me see if I got this right. The soothsayer saw in his dream a Roman eagle flying up from the spongy (spongy?) south into the west, where the Romans are, and then vanishing into the light of the sun. And this portends victory for the Romans. Huh. Well that’s interesting. 

‘Rainy, damp, soggy, moisture filled.’ That’s what my Shakespeare’s Words glossary gives me on ‘spongy’. Well that applies to just about all of England, doesn’t it? I’ve only been to England once, and yes, it rained quite a bit and we saw very little sunshine. Apparently though, it wasn’t raining in the west of England at the time of this play because this soggy bird found some sunlight to fly off into. 

And that means the Romans are going to win. Indeed!

This is another one of those trips where we saw very little sunlight, though this was Nova Scotia, not England. We'd been driving for days in the rain and we finally saw some blue sky, so we stopped the VW microbus and got out to take a picture of it. That's me on the right with all the hair and Steve Pileski on the left. We're trying to point to the blue sky while George takes the picture, but by the time he snapped it the blue sky was gone. And this is all we ended up with. So instead of seeing the Roman eagle vanish into the sunbeams we just saw the blue sky vanish into the clouds. But there was indeed a vanishing that took place, and it was no dream.

Not honestly, my lord; but so covertly that no dishonesty shall appear in me.



-Borachio

                                   

Much Ado About Nothing             Act II, Scene ii, Line 9





The ring of Gyges. That’s where we’re going today.



So without getting into too much context, what we have with today’s line is Borachio’s answer to Don John. The Don has asked Borachio how he can prevent Count Claudio’s marriage, a marriage that Don John is not happy about. Without telling him how, Borachio is saying, in today’s Totally Random line, that he’ll have to use trickery, but that he won’t be caught. Don John’s replay to that?

                       Show me briefly how.

Don John does not appear to be bothered with the use of dishonesty.



Which leads us to today’s discussion (and Gyges fabled ring): are we all like Don John? Are we all much more concerned with not being caught than we are with doing the honest thing? The ring of Gyges was an ancient fable. The ring made the user invisible. Plato tied this to one of his observations which was couched in a question: Do we do the right thing because we really feel some altruistic need to do it, or are we just afraid to be caught doing the wrong thing? If we had a ring that made us invisible and we knew we wouldn’t get caught, would we do a lot of stuff (steal, cheat on tests, etc, etc) that we otherwise wouldn’t?



It’s pretty clear that Don John is not going to pass the Plato/Gyges ring test. Would you?

How about this? Any chance this could be Gyges ring? It's pretty old, kind of strange, and I don't remember where it came from. And I have no idea what that writing on it says. Maybe it says Gyges! That would be exciting, wouldn't it?

Thy letters have transported me beyond

This ignorant present, and I feel now

The future in the instant.

-Lady Macbeth

                                   

Macbeth                                       Act I, Scene v, Line 58

This is a pretty good line. Lady Macbeth just read a letter from her husband in which he talks about the witches predictions that he will be king. She reads the letter, spends a few minutes by herself getting all worked up about not letting her goodness get in the way of what she’s gonna have to do (some pretty good lines there about being ‘unsexed’ among other things). Then Macbeth shows up and she comes out with today’s line. I think it’s a bit of an understatement to say that she’s excited about the prospect of becoming queen. What do you think?

I was traveling with the girls a few years ago and we were talking about this line. I said 'okay, give me your best Lady Macbeth face in this instance where she's getting all worked up about killing Duncan so her husband can be king.' I'm not sure they quite understood the direction I was giving them.