Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

Good dawning to thee friend: art of this house?

 

Oswald

King Lear               Act II, Scene ii, Line 1

Oswald has pulled up to Gloster’s castle in the early morning hours and is greeted by Kent. This scene goes downhill pretty quickly, ending with Kent locked up in the stocks lamenting,

Fortune, good night: smile once more; turn thy wheel!

Good dawning and good night. The scene is only about 170 lines long, and we went from daybreak to nightfall?

I dunno; I guess that’s dramatic license?

Perhaps the bard is trying to make a statement about how time flies; and man’s, as well as dog’s, inability to grasp even the barest concept of the true essence of time.

That’s pretty good Mojo; where’ you come up with that idea?

 It was in that philosophy book of yours that I chewed up yesterday.  

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

I had as lief have heard the night-raven, come what plague could have come after it.

Benedick

Much Ado About Nothing     Act II, Scene iii, Line 131

Had as lief means just as soon as, and a night-raven is an ill omen. He’s saying he’d just as soon as listen to a raven sing as listen to Balthazar. The latter just sang a little ditty for everyone.

I wonder if had as lief is an idiom still used in England. They do have a lot of different ways of saying things and spelling things and doing things over there. Those crazy Brits.

I'm always a little nervous when this guy gets behind the wheel.

No Mojo, let's NOT pretend we're in England. I'd as lief we just stay on the right side of the road, okay?

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

Go hang yourself, you naughty, mocking uncle!

 

Cressida

Troilus and Cressida              Act IV, Scene ii, Line 25

I wouldn’t think we need a lot of explanation regarding what Cressida is saying. I suppose a little context might be nice. Well, it’s a short scene, so perhaps I’ll listen to it.

Okay, I read the short summary and listened to the scene. This is the scene where Cressida finds out that they’ve traded her to the Trojans as part of a deal to end the war. But that’s not what she’s reacting to here. The beginning of this scene is her waking up with Troilus. Her uncle Pandarus has entered and is teasing her for having had Troilus in her bed all night. 

Her reaction to Pandarus later in the scene when he tells her she’s been traded to the Trojans is much different. First she says she won’t go. Then, when Pandarus says she must, she replies

I will not, uncle: I have forgot my father;

I know no touch of consanguinity;

No kin, no love, no blood, no soul so near me

As the sweet Troilus.—O you gods divine,

Make Cressid’s name the very crown of falsehood,

If ever she leave Troilus! Time, force, and death,

Do to this body what extremes you can;

But the strong base and building of my love

Is as the very centre of the earth,

Drawing all things to it.—I’ll go in and weep,--

 

She has a little more to say, but I think you get the gist of it.

I think I lost him on consanguinity.

Heck, I think I lost myself on consanguinity.

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

But yet methinks it is very sultry and hot for my complexion.

 

Hamlet

Hamlet                    Act V, Scene ii, Line 97

What an interesting line. Hamlet is concerned that the heat will ruin his complexion? It seems a rather odd comment, doesn’t it?

It’s actually part of a back and forth between Hamlet and a nearly anonymous henchman named Osric. I guess you’d call it a bit of comic relief; the calmedy (I just made that word up) before the storm of deaths that comes next and makes up the finale of the play.

Fittingly, Robin Williams played Osric in Branagh’s 1996 production of this play. And a fine Osric he was! Whereas Jack Lemon tried, and failed, to pull off the part of a nearly anonymous soldier at the beginning of this production, Williams does America proud near the end of this mostly Brit dominated production with his Osric portrayal. In fact, there's no actor that I can think of, British or American, who could have done better. 

I could've pulled that off. I could've played Osric. Yeah, definitely. 

 Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:

Sonnet 18                Third Quatrain

Well how about that. I’ll bet you have no idea what Sonnet 18 is. Let me give you the first few lines of it.

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate;
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimm’d;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:

So long as men can breathe, or eyes to see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.


Okay, I couldn’t help myself and I gave you all fourteen lines of it. Surely you’ve heard this one before. It’s probably the most famous of Will’s 154 sonnets.

I can’t help but wonder where Will came up with the idea of saying that words would give eternal life to someone, anyone. It’s an interesting concept. I wonder if it’s his, or one that he picked up somewhere. I would guess the latter, but who knows.

Yes, Will is definitely number one on my list of people, living or dead, that I’d like to have dinner with. Though I’m not sure I’d remember to ask him that question. I guess I’d better start making a list of questions so that I don’t forget.

You're going to start making a list of questions to ask William Shakespeare when you have dinner with him? 

Shall I compare thee to a nut job?

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

Do, then, dear heart; for heaven shall hear our prayers

Or with our sighs we’ll breathe the welkin dim,

And stain the sun with fog, as sometime clouds

When they do hug him in their melting bosoms.

 

Titus

Titus Andronicus           Act III, Scene i, Line 112

Absolutely beautiful lines. The welkin is the sky, or the heavens. I think that other than that one word you should need no help understanding what Titus is saying. Remember, he’s just had his hand cut off, and with today’s line he’s talking to his daughter who’s been raped and had her tongue cut out. The two of them have good reason to be sighing.

Shakespeare seems to have a fondness for writing about the father-daughter relationship. He had two girls of his own. It’s at the heart of King Lear and The Tempest, and he dwells on it a bit here. I was tempted to compare these lines to Lear’s We two alone will sing like birds in a cage speech that he speaks to Cordelia, but I took a look, and those lines are from a very different situation. Even though it is father and daughter suffering together, the birds in a cage line is the only part of it that has any relevance to Titus’s line.

So let’s just end by taking another look at today’s line. No, I’m not going to write it out again. I mean that you should go back up to the top and read today’s line one more time.

Go ahead.

A cage, birds in cage! That's brilliant! Why didn't I think of that? 

I can catch 'em and put 'em in a cage!

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

-Here’s flowers for you;

Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram;

The marigold, that goes to bed wi’the sun,

And with him rises weeping: these are flowers

Of middle summer, and , I think, they are given

To men of middle age.

 

Perdita

The Winter’s Tale          Act IV, Scene iii, Line 103

Today’s line is all about flowers and herbs, isn’t it?

Gardener Mojo tending to his basil.