I created this to discuss audio files. Three more files have just been added and all have backward speech. will decipher and post this evening. hopefully this will give us some clues in how best to moveforward since the devoted apparently wont be much help.
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Hope you donāt mind, but I went ahead and started.
- The first one says, " I will wear my heart upon my sleeve, for daws to peck at. I am not what I am." Shakespeare, āOthelloā, act 1, scene 1, spoken by Iago.
basically saying āIf my outward appearance started reflecting what I really felt, soon enough Iād be wearing my heart on my sleeve for birds to peck at. No, itās better to hide it. Iām not who I appear to be.ā
Dropbox - Heart on my sleeve.mp3 - Simplify your life
Did I mention that itās not Brandon speaking these words in the audio? Iām liking the āDevotedā less and less.
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The second simply says āTis neither here, nor thereā.
Dropbox - Neither here nor there.mp3 - Simplify your life -
The third is also from Othello, spoken by Othello, to Desdemona (his wife, whom heās just murdered)
" I kissed thee, ere I killed thee. No way but this, killing myself to die upon a kiss."
Dropbox - Kiss before dying.mp3 - Simplify your life
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Also from Othello
EMILIA
'Tis neither here nor there.
DESDEMONA
I have heard it said so. O, these men, these men!
Dost thou in conscience think,ātell me, Emilia,ā
That there be women do abuse their husbands
In such gross kind?
EMILIA
There be some such, no question. (4.3.55-60)
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I know, I just didnāt include the reference because neither here nor there is a common idiom nowadays (because of Shakespeare, of course). The other two kind of needed to be read in context of the play to understand what they meant. Btw, Iago is thought to be the worst of all Shakespeareās villains (for good reason) and thatās saying something. Senselessly cruel, he genuinely enjoys causing suffering. He is a manipulative liar, and yet everyone in the play trusts him.
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Great job, @Leigha! Iām only now able to really dive in and youāve already done the heavy lifting!
So, each new audio file has a line from Othello. Uhā¦why? I mean, I love me some Shakespeare, but what does that have to do with any of this? And why Othello? I can see the Emilia line being relevant since itās what KR used to title is pantheon-forsaken videos. But the othersā¦Iām just not sure. Are the Acts/Scenes/Line numbers important?
āIf my outward appearanceā¦ā I.i.64-65
āTis neitherā¦ā IV.iii.58
āI kissed theeā¦ā V.ii.357-359
Now, those are the placements in my trusty Riverside Shakespeare that I keep at my desk (doesnāt everyone keep RS at their desks?). But if I look online, the lines are different:
I.i.67-68
IV.iii.44
V.ii.376-377
Theses differences or more than a line or two so Iām wondering if there is more than one version of Othello. I think they were called folios (first folio, second, etc.) or maybe quartos but I could be misusing those term. Donāt know, Iām just desperately grasping at straws here.
So here are the line numbers where the phrase begins:
1164
4358
52357
Do these give us anything? God, now that Iām looking at those numbers it seems ridiculous. So if that isnāt important about Othello than what is?
Oh wait, Iām an idiot. Let me look at the stupid RS sitting in my lapā¦
Ughā¦ I donāt think this helps us but Iāll type it here anyway in case anyone else can see importance in it. Apparently there is some confusion about when the version of Othello we know today was originally published. A quarto edition was published in 1622 and then again in the First Folio in 1623. A second quarto was published in 1630 but had some changes to the script. Incidentally, Shakespeare died in 1616.
Of course, all that said, the play could not have been written after 1604 since there is a record of the play being performed at court on November 1, 1604 (though, strangely, that record was once thought to be a forgery and has since been authenticatedācanāt we trust anything written down any more?). But then there are āverbal echoes of Othelloā found in the ābadā quarto of Hamlet in 1603.
So the only thing that I can see that ties Othello to Brandon is November 1, 1604. But he went missing on October 29th so Iām not sure if thatās what we should be looking at.
Iām not sure whatās important here. The lines? The words? The dates? What do you all think?
Wouldnāt it be funny if Othello was part of a once ālost collection.ā Maybe thatās why its origins are so cloudy.
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How about we all work together on this: Othello - Wikipedia
See if this brings us anything that relates to all this and how it might link to our other threads - polaroids, statues, beards, symbolsā¦
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Giuseppe Verdi and librettist Arrigo Boito adapted Shakespeareās play to Otello, an Italian grand opera in four acts that was first performed at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan on 5 February 1887.
February 5th, 1887.
20587!
Iām googling now to see if the other dates relate to other Shakespeare characters. Somebody help me! I feel like weāre close to something!
This is something!
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Great find @AlisonB! Iāll get to work on it in a couple minutes, unless you finish it before then ^^;
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Go team! Wow you guys are fast. Love it! On my phone so was expecting to get into this after work, but this is awesome.
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A quick take on why these three passages from Othello. (am listening to Verdiās Otello as I write this)
The first passage is form the beginning of the story, spoken by the villain, the antagonist, the man pulling all the strings through the story.
The second passage is between the two biggest victims of the piece, the wives of Iago and Othello, both murdered by their husbands
The third is from the end of the story, spoken by Othello himself after having just murdered Desdemona, as he kills himself.
So we have an extremely simplified recap of the story, The villain in the beginning, saying he is deceptive and feels no remorse for his actions. The wives, one of whom basically saying itās irrelevant what happens or what they do, their fates are sealed, and Othelloās last words, the deed is done, Kiss goodbye.
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Of course! Scimitar and dagger! Damn my Friday afternoon meetings I donāt have time to look at the other symbols and dates.
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Note this is not the date of the play being performed, but the date the opera Giuseppe Verdi based it on was first performed.
I found two others.
Falstaff, opera by Giuseppe Verdi first performed on Feb, 09 1893. 20993
Il Trovatore, opera by Giuseppe Verdir first performed on Jan, 19 1853 11953
edit: I canāt find one matching 20872 yet though
Edit 2: The first performance of Aida, by Verdi was December 24, 1871 ā¦ I got nothing but thatās really close to 2/08/1972 so Iām going to allow it. Aida is also one of the 4 statues flanking him.
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This makes me wonder, is there some kind of connection to Verdi? If all the dates correspond to something they did, there has to be more to him, right?
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Yes there is a connection. The statue to him must be the first beacon.
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therefore considered the Italian (and European) premiere, held at La Scala, Milan on 8 February 1872, and a performance in which he was heavily involved at every stage, to be its real premiere.
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Wow wow wow! You guys are unbelievably amazing. Great work everyone! This now makes sense why the Othello lines were hidden inside music. So if the statue of Verdi is the first Beacon, weāll need to email that info to The Petulantā¦her, uh, The Devoted. It might be a good idea to have a single Mountaineer act as liason much the way with CR Sumner.
Or we could ALL email them just to put a twist in their knickers.
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I transcribed what I think Brandonās latest audio message says:
"October 19th 1986
This is working. I knew it would. I can feel it. I knew if I found the right things, the right order, I could make it work. Itās just like Forest of Darkening Glass. I found the path in the book and it unlocked something in my head. I wish I knew who left it there. Now Iām gonna make my own lock. My own door. The game, the story, the riddle and then the questions. Three trials that unlock the last door.
It has to be complicated. It has to have moving parts. Thatās how you do it. Thatās how you make magic. Itās words. And ideas. Itās all around us. What we think is everyday stuff holds power. You just have to decide how it works, then believe it. You have to put ideas in the space between things, and then those ideas connect everything. Thatās what magic is. There is no empty space.
Itās time to move on to the second trial. The story. The one I remember like it was real. Itās just a maze, but you canāt trust your eyes. You have to listen. Thatās the key.
Iāll worry about the final riddle later. Maybe something scary. I donāt knowā¦
I know I sound crazy. I canāt tell anyone. Not now. But Iām gonna leave this all behind so other people can follow me. Leave a trail to the truth. Itās not fair to keep it all to myself. But right now, I have to do it on my own.
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