Ah yes – and here’s where knowing other plays comes in a bit handy. Because Sir Toby Belch calls for a stoup of wine – and this makes me see the clown/gravedigger in relationship to Sir Toby. Perhaps they might have been played by the same actor.

Stoup isn’t used much in the plays – it is here, with a “drunken lout” in 12th Night and two villains in the plays, Iago and, later in this play, Claudius.

I wonder if there’s some association to be made between these characters who share a common word usage. Certainly Hamlet sees Claudius as a bit of a drunken relative when he observes the drinking revel ritual early in the play.

I made the mistake of trying to be helpful on the Feldenkrais practitioners Facebook page and was instantly confronted with someone’s hate. I think she literally used the word “hate.” And, you know, everyone’s entitled to their opinion – but when talking with strangers on the internet, it might be nice to hold back your hate. If all you’ve got to say is that you hate something, you can just get thee in. We don’t need you out here hating.

The first clown thinks he’s so smart – like this is the most brilliant riddle but…gravemakers don’t really “build” do they? I think there are a lot of fallacies in this riddle. The second clown’s answer is actually better. Because a gallows is built. A grave is dug. It is more an act of destruction than construction.

I’ve always heard this as the first clown calling the second a dull ass. But I think now that this dull ass is a metaphorical ass – an analogy – not specifically the dull ass belonging to the second clown – but your dull ass as a generic kind of ass.
This is supported by his use of “thy brains” but the dull ass is “your dull ass” and the generic your is a speech pattern of the clown as in “your water” and “your whoreson dead body” – neither the water nor the dead body belong specifically to the man he’s talking to – but are a kind of colloquial way to describe a thing.

I mean, yes, he is likely comparing the second clown’s brains to a dull ass – but I think it might have less to do with how stupid he perceives the Second Clown to be and more to do with ceasing the efforts of trying to think. He has, after all, already liked his wits so he’s not entirely disrespectful of his fellow gravedigger’s intelligence. Anyways – this may be a dull ass that I’m cudgeling but I think this line is often why the Second gravedigger is played as the dumb one. It’s a facile choice based on the appearance of “dull ass” in a sentence.

The day this line appears is known as Indictment Day. All day on Twitter – folks have been wishing each other Merry Indictment Day. Last night they recommended leaving cookies for Mueller and looking for him in the sky as he sailed.

Today many are saying this process is proceeding the same way prosecutors normally tackle mafia cases. That it starts with the little fish and the net gets bigger and bigger until they catch the whale.
To’t, y’all. To’t.
This is the first moment I have felt even cautiously optimistic in a year.
To’t.
*
Ah, the sweet sweet hope of this moment. The indictments have come and gone and while we watched many dominos fall – none of them saved us. None of them.

A life in Shakespeare can sometimes yield some funny crossovers. I learned Titania’s “forgeries of jealousy” speech to perform for my friend’s students. So a week later, I see “unyoke” in this line and I’m instantly with the ox who has stretched his yoke in vain. So the ox and the second clown become sort of merged in my mind, just because of the commonality of yoking. Which – I’ll be honest – I don’t have much other experience of, or have much occasion to talk about.

I was crushingly sad yesterday. I’m still a little hung over from that sad. I wondered at one point if this was perhaps a modified post-show blues. I performed a speech a few days before and I had a visceral jolt in returning to performing – the high, the pleasure of having Shakespeare’s words in my head and in my body. When I was so sad yesterday, I thought maybe it was just my body’s way of saying, “I missed that. When will we do that again? To’t again, come.”