Bedabbled with the dew, and torn with

briers;

-Hermia

A Midsummer Night’s Dream           Act III, scene ii, line 443

Okay, here’s the four rhyming lines

Never so weary, never so in woe;

            Bedabbled with the dew, and torn with briers;

I can no further crawl, no further go;

            My legs can keep no pace with my desires.

Forget about context today. I like the word ‘bedabbled’. How about you? I’ll see if I can’t find a picture of something bedabbled. It just means that it is wet from being dabbled. But of course, you knew that.

Now go out today and see if you can use the word bedabbled in your life. It's a legit word. Like me, it's archaic, but legit. 

Here you go, bedabbled. I believe this is a repeat picture, but too bad. Not only are these tomato cages bedabbled, they are bedabbled by the dew (or perhaps it was rain, I'm not sure; but bedabbled nonetheless).

The French, my lord; men’s mouths are full of it:

-Bastard

King John                                    Act IV, scene ii, line 61

This is Bastard’s response to King John’s question, Hear’st thou the news abroad, who are arrived? That’s right, the Frenchies have landed in England and are on the warpath.

There’s just a ton of stuff going on here in this scene, way more than I really want to get into on a Friday morning. So, what should we talk about? Men’s mouths? Hear’st thou? Nothing? Well, nothing will come of nothing. And that, of course, shoots us right into Lear, which is not where we are. 

Oh boy.

 

Now at first glance, this may look pretty much like a picture of nothing, or at the very least, not much. But if you zoom in on the grass you'll  see something/someone. No, it's not the Frenchies, but it's not nothing either. 

If it please the eye of one, it is with me as the very true sonnet is, ‘Please one, and please all.’

-Malvolio

 Twelfth Night                    Act III, scene iv, line 24

Please one, and please all? That’s from a sonnet?

Well, I don’t know about that, but I do know that Malvolio is acting goofy in this scene, with the thought that this is going to impress and win the heart of Olivia. Of course, it’s not going to do any such thing, and she just thinks he’s gone a little bit mad. Poor Malvolio.

This Please one, and please all line made me think of Mom's philosophy on pleasing people. I paraphrase: Ya can't please everybody so don't bother trying. She was not a Bardophile, but she was certainly a pragmatist.

O, yet, for God’s sake, go not to these wars!

-Lady Percy

  

King Henry The Fourth Part II            Act II, scene iii, line 9

How many zillions of times do you suppose those words, or variations of them, have been spoken over the millennia? I guess that’s the first thought that crossed my mind, but rather, let’s take a look at what’s going on here.

Ironically enough, Lady Percy is speaking to Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland. Sound familiar? It should. Just scoot back a few days to Tuesday’s post. Yup, that’s right; this is the guy who called in sick to that battle. So today’s action is taking place at a later date, and just so you know, Northumberland’s son Hotspur got killed in that battle where Pop pulled a no-show. Well right now he’s planning on heading off to fight a new battle and his wife and daughter-in-law (Hotspur’s widow) are trying to talk him out of it. Spoiler alert: they succeed. I don’t know about you, but it seems to me that this Northumberland guy really just doesn’t want to do any fighting. Who can blame him? I don’t want to go to war either.

Here is a father and four sons. This father went to war before any of the other guys in this picture were born. None of the sons went to war, and it’s my thought, though I never asked him, that he was glad that none of us did. I’ve always believed that he, and most of those Greatest Generation guys, felt that they had done the fighting so that we wouldn’t have to. Thanks Dad.  

Do they still fly to the Roman?

-Coriolanus

  

Tullus Afidius                      Act IV, scene vii, line 1

Tullus is the leader of the Volscians, and the ‘they’ that he speaks of are the men of his army. The Roman he refers to is Coriolanus, whom Tullus has co-opted into the Volscian army. The answer to the question is ‘Ya, you betcha.’ Well, that’s not exactly what his lieutenant says, he wasn’t a Minnesotan, but that’s the gist of it. He says

            Your soldiers use him as the grace ‘fore meat,

            Their talk at table, and their thanks at end.

If that’s not a ‘Ya, you betcha’ I don’t know what is.

I know I’ve said it before, but I can’t help but repeat myself. This is a really, really interesting, and in many ways currently relevant, play. Upon consideration, though, I think I’d rather not get into it as that would lead to a discussion of the current geo-political situation and climate. And I’ve no desire to go there right now. It’s too early in the morning, and I’m feeling pretty good about life right now; no need to spoil it.

Let’s just end with a second consideration of Will’s lines about how the men feel about Coriolanus.

            Your soldiers use him as the grace ‘fore meat,

            Their talk at table, and their thanks at end.

How would you like to be the grace ‘fore meat, the talk at table, and the thanks at end? Kind of the be all and end all, but it’s a pretty good two-lined way of putting it. Just a bit more poetic than ‘Ya, you betcha.’

Here's a Minnesotan. If you said, 'Hey Jon, did you catch that all by yourself?' he might say 'Ya, you betcha!'

I do not think so; since he went into France, I have been in continual practice; I shall win at the odds. But thou wouldst not think how ill all’s here about my heart: but it is no matter.

-Hamlet

 Hamlet                                         Act V, scene ii, line 208

Horatio has just warned Hamlet that he’s going to lose if he goes up against Laertes in a fencing match and this is Hamlet’s reply.

I sat in the chair looking out at the birdfeeder a few minutes ago, and I was thinking about what bird I would encounter in today’s reading. As you see, there is none in today’s line. But just a few lines down…

Horatio asks Hamlet if he wants him to delay the fencing match to another time. Hamlet replies,

Not a whit, we defy augury. There’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ‘tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all: since no man knows aught of what he leaves, what is’t to leave betimes? Let be.

So the answer is sparrow. And while that just seems to be Hamlet’s longwinded way of saying ‘whatever will be, will be’, it reminds me of a funny story: I had a job when I was younger at a place where my brother Phil also worked. It was a place where we would go out and clean smoke damaged houses. We would usually pack a lunch for the day. Well one day we were sitting outside eating our lunches, I think it was me, Phil, and a guy named Jeff. Phil had found a dead sparrow on the ground and unbeknownst to Jeff or me he had replaced the meat on his sandwich with the sparrow. So we’re sitting there opening our lunches and Phil opens his, and then looks inside the bread to see what he’s got, and says, ‘Oh, not sparrow again!’ Perhaps you had to be there, but it was pretty funny.

Here is a selection from my Audubon Society Baby Elephant Folio. It would seem to be an appropriate picture for the day. 

These letters come from your father.

-Messenger

King Henry The Fourth Part I          Act IV, scene i, line 14

Interesting; the letters come from his father. I guess I should read a little more. It should be pretty easy to get context here since it’s only line fourteen of the scene. Please hold.

Okay, here’s the deal. The messenger is talking to Hotspur, so that the letters are from Hotspur’s father, Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland. This father-son duo are the main guys involved in the uprising against Henry IV, and a battle is imminent. The letters tell Hotspur that his father is ill and won’t be showing up for the battle. That’s right, Dad’s calling in sick to the battle. Ain’t that a boot in the shorts! 

 

Ooof, hard to get happy after that, eh?