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We ransomed our dignity to the clouds
Apr. 18th, 2020 04:17 pmHaving finished our two-person reading of Hamlet, the healing angel and I decided to read Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. We're in the middle of Act II right now, and it's as good as the only other Tom Stoppard play I know, which is In Arcadia.** I really loved that. I love this too.
Here are some lines that stuck out for me in our today's reading:
GUIL: We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke and a presumption that once our eyes watered.
...
PLAYER: You don't understand the humiliation of it--to be tricked out of a single assumption, which makes our existence viable--that somebody is watching.
...
PLAYER: We ransomed our dignity to the clouds, and the uncomprehending birds listened.
...
GUIL: We only know what we're told, and that's little enough. And for all we know it isn't even true.
PLAYER: For all anyone knows, nothing is. Everything has to be taken on trust; truth is only that which is taken to be true. It's the currency of living. There may be nothing behind it, but it doesn't make any difference so long as it is honoured. One acts on assumptions. What do you assume?
**ETA Somehow I got into my head that the first and only other Stoppard play I've encountered was called IN Arcadia, but it's just Arcadia--as everyone else has tacitly been pointing out. I have no idea where that misidentification came from...
Here are some lines that stuck out for me in our today's reading:
GUIL: We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke and a presumption that once our eyes watered.
...
PLAYER: You don't understand the humiliation of it--to be tricked out of a single assumption, which makes our existence viable--that somebody is watching.
...
PLAYER: We ransomed our dignity to the clouds, and the uncomprehending birds listened.
...
GUIL: We only know what we're told, and that's little enough. And for all we know it isn't even true.
PLAYER: For all anyone knows, nothing is. Everything has to be taken on trust; truth is only that which is taken to be true. It's the currency of living. There may be nothing behind it, but it doesn't make any difference so long as it is honoured. One acts on assumptions. What do you assume?
**ETA Somehow I got into my head that the first and only other Stoppard play I've encountered was called IN Arcadia, but it's just Arcadia--as everyone else has tacitly been pointing out. I have no idea where that misidentification came from...
