I knew you must be edified by the margent ere you had done.



-Horatio [aside to Hamlet]



Hamlet                              Act V, scene ii, line 154





This is the last scene of Hamlet, so you probably know that the rest of the main characters will be dead shortly. But right now Hamlet is having some fun with Osric the messenger. He’s giving him a hard time, pretending not to understand what Osric is talking about. Apparently margent refers to the margins of the book where extra notes and information can be written. I believe Horatio is using the term figuratively as he refers to the extra information that Hamlet is dragging out of Osric through their back and forth. 

I gave a couple of the Snow Village folks a shot at today's line. We got Biff to play some guy reading a book (so in this case the margent actually refers to the margin) and Franklin the Good Humor guy and Percy the cop both gave it their best shot. Biff did okay with both of them (of course, he didn't have any lines to screw up), but I think Franklin handled Horatio's line better than Percy. Being a cop seemed to keep Percy from really immersing himself in the part, but Franklin was a natural. I guess you had to be there.

Go to, go to; peace, peace; we must deal gently with him: let me alone.

-Sir Toby Belch

Twelfth Night; Or, What You Will        Act III, scene iv, line 96

I’m pretty sure that I’ve said this before, but Sir Toby reminds me a lot of Sir John Falstaff. He's a conniving character who's usually up to finding ways to get by on someone else's dime. Having said that, right here he's talking with his friends about Malvolio whom they’ve been given leave to deal with as they see fit. Well, sort of. It seems that they’ve been playing a joke on Malvolio and now they’ve got him to the point where he’s a bit confused and they’re getting ready to throw him into a dark room. If that sounds like it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, well, I guess it doesn't. 

On the other hand, the name of this play is Twelfth Night, which is a Christmas themed title and this play's got nothing whatsoever to do with Christmas or Christmas time. So what do you say to that?

 

Since Will didn't give us anything in the play that's Christmas themed, and since it's called Twelfth Night, and since today is December 13, I thought we needed some Christmas in today's pic. So here you go.

But old folks, many feign as they were dead;

Unwieldy, slow, heavy and pale as lead.--



-Juliet



Romeo And Juliet                            Act II, scene iv, line 16




I’m sixty-two years old. So what’s this old folks crap?



Well apparently Juliet’s nurse is no spring chicken. This is the beginning of the scene and Juliet is talking to herself in the Capulet orchard. She’s sent her nurse with a message to Romeo, and now she’s waiting for the nurse's return and the expected reply from Romeo. The nurse promised to be back in a half hour and now three hours have passed. Juliet is growing understandably very impatient and remarking that if the nurse were young she’d be moving a lot faster. But the nurse is not young. She’s unwieldy, slow, heavy and pale as lead. 

Then right after this line Nurse does show up and Juliet spends a half a page trying to drag Romeo’s message out of her while Nurse spends the same half page trying to catch her breath. 
Well, okay, I guess the nurse does remind me a little bit of myself. But just a little bit.

Unwieldy?

Slow?

Heavy and pale as lead?

Or maybe just a little bit discombobulated. 

The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,

And you are stay’d for.

-Polonius

Hamlet                                              Act I, scene iii, line 55

Believe it or not, this is the second line of Polonius’s speech where he’s sending his son, Laertes, off to college, and in it he gives him all sorts of advice, some of which you will be very familiar with, and probably a little surprised to realize that these little pearls are from Will. Amongst the most familiar there’s Neither a borrower or a lender be, and of course that great one This above all,-- to thine own self be true.

I’m sure you’ve heard these before, but were you aware that these are Will’s lines? Yeah, actually I was.

 

He's got his hotdog, fries, and lemonade and the best seat on the ship. I think it's safe to say The wind sits in the shoulder of his sail.

Thou shalt not back till I have borne this corse

Into the market-place: there shall I try,

In my oration, how the people take

The cruel issue of these bloody men;

-Marcus Antonius

Julius Caesar                      Act III, scene i, line 292

First off, corse is corpse. Secondly, the corpse herein is Julius Caesar. Mark Antony is not one of the conspirators who killed Caesar; far from it. Cassius, Brutus, and company have just killed Caesar, and Mark Antony is going to go eulogize the fallen leader and turn Rome against Cassius, Brutus and company. Antony’s eulogy is one of the more famous of Will’s speeches. It’s that Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears speech.

In this scene Mark Antony is talking to a servant of Octavius Caesar and asking him for help with the corpse before the servant goes back to Octavius.