shakespeare

luka

Well-known member
Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves,
And ye that on the sand with printless foot
Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him
When he comes back; you demi-puppets that
By moonshine do the green, sour ringlets make,
Whereof the ewe not bites; and you whose pastime
Is to make midnight mushrumps, that rejoice
To hear the solemn curfew, by whose aid-
Weak masters though ye be - I have bedimmed
The noontide sun, called forth the mutinous winds,
And 'twixt the green sea and the azured vault
Set roaring war; to the dread rattling thunder
Have I given fire, and rifted Jove's stout oak
With his own bolt; the strong-based promontory
Have I made shake, and by the spurs plucked up
The pine and cedar; graves at my command
Have waked their sleepers, oped and let 'em forth
By my so potent art. But this rough magic
I here abjure, and when I have required
Some heavenly music - which even now I do -
To work mine end upon their senses that
This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff,
Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,
And deeper that did ever plummet sound
I'll drown my book.
 

luka

Well-known member
You do look, my son, in a moved sort,
As if you were dismayed. Be cheerful, sir.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air;
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep. Sir, I am vexed.
Bear with my weakness. My brain is troubled.
Be not disturbed with my infirmity.
If you be pleased, retire into my cell
And there repose. A turn or two I'll walk
To still my beating mind.
 

Lichen

Well-known member
Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drenched our steeples, drowned the cocks!
You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,
Strike flat the thick rotundity o' the world!
Crack nature's molds, all germens spill at once
That make ingrateful man!
 

luka

Well-known member
More strange than true. I never may believe
These antique fables nor these fairy toys.
Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.
The lunatic, the lover, and the poet
Are of imagination all compact.
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold—
That is the madman. The lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt.
The poet’s eye, in fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to Earth, from Earth to heaven.
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
Such tricks hath strong imagination,
That if it would but apprehend some joy,
It comprehends some bringer of that joy.
Or in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush supposed a bear!
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
: Sweet are the uses of adversity,
: Which like the toad, ugly and venomous,
: Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;
: And this our life exempt from public haunt,
: Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
: Sermons in stones, and good in every thing.
: I would not change it.

Really need to get round to reading some Shakespeare one day, instead of warily, guiltily eying the complete works like its a big pile of maths homework.
 
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baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
I know you all, and will awhile uphold
The unyoked humour of your idleness:
Yet herein will I imitate the sun,
Who doth permit the base contagious clouds
To smother up his beauty from the world,
That, when he please again to be himself,
Being wanted, he may be more wonder'd at,
By breaking through the foul and ugly mists
Of vapours that did seem to strangle him.
If all the year were playing holidays,
To sport would be as tedious as to work;
But when they seldom come, they wish'd for come,
And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.
So, when this loose behavior I throw off
And pay the debt I never promised,
By how much better than my word I am,
By so much shall I falsify men's hopes;
And like bright metal on a sullen ground,
My reformation, glittering o'er my fault,
Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes
Than that which hath no foil to set it off.
I'll so offend, to make offence a skill;
Redeeming time when men think least I will.


maybe Carlos Tevez would profit from a quick read?
 

STN

sou'wester
Banquo: It will be rain to-night
First Murderer: Let it come down

[They attack Banquo]
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
What did the bartender say to shakespeare when shakespeare misbehaved in his bar?
 
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Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
If I want to show off/sound like a dick, I can do the 'Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow' soliloquy. That's all, though. I like Hamlet's lines about fishmongers and nunneries.
 

jenks

thread death
One of the perks of my job is to get to work with these texts day after day.

An even bigger perk has been working with the RSC for the last three years on a project and watching them make these words come alive.

For my contribution Enobarbus just before he does of a broken heart in Antony and Cleopatra:

I am alone the villain of the earth,
And feel I am so most. O Antony,
Thou mine of bounty, how wouldst thou have paid
My better service, when my turpitude
Thou dost so crown with gold! This blows my heart:
If swift thought break it not, a swifter mean
Shall outstrike thought: but thought will do't, I feel.
I fight against thee! No: I will go seek
Some ditch wherein to die; the foul'st best fits
My latter part of life.
 

jenks

thread death
For to the king God hath his office lent
Of dread, of justice, power and command,
Hath bid him rule, and willed you to obey;
And, to add ampler majesty to this,
He hath not only lent the king his figure,
His throne and sword, but given him his own name,
Calls him a god on earth. What do you, then,
Rising gainst him that God himself installs,
But rise against God? what do you to your souls
In doing this? O, desperate as you are,
Wash your foul minds with tears, and those same hands,
That you like rebels lift against the peace,
Lift up for peace, and your unreverent knees,
Make them your feet to kneel to be forgiven!
Tell me but this: what rebel captain,
As mutinies are incident, by his name
Can still the rout? who will obey a traitor?
Or how can well that proclamation sound,
When there is no addition but a rebel
To qualify a rebel? You'll put down strangers,
Kill them, cut their throats, possess their houses,
And lead the majesty of law in line,
To slip him like a hound. Say now the king
(As he is clement, if th' offender mourn)
Should so much come to short of your great trespass
As but to banish you, whether would you go?
What country, by the nature of your error,
Should give you harbor? go you to France or Flanders,
To any German province, to Spain or Portugal,
Nay, any where that not adheres to England,--
Why, you must needs be strangers: would you be pleased
To find a nation of such barbarous temper,
That, breaking out in hideous violence,
Would not afford you an abode on earth,
Whet their detested knives against your throats,
Spurn you like dogs, and like as if that God
Owed not nor made not you, nor that the claimants
Were not all appropriate to your comforts,
But chartered unto them, what would you think
To be thus used? this is the strangers case;
And this your mountanish inhumanity.
 

jenks

thread death
I'm off to see the RSC Taming of the Shrew at Stratford tomorrow - really looking forward to it.
Wife actually said she'd like to see Coriolanus which surprised me as she usually never wants to go the flicks.

I always loved this from Othello:

Soft you, a word or two before you go.
I have done the state some service, and they know't.
No more of that. I pray you, in your letters,
When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,
Speak of me as I am. Nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice. Then must you speak
Of one that loved not wisely, but too well;
Of one not easily jealous, but, being wrought,
Perplexed in the extreme; of one whose hand,
Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away
Richer than all his tribe; of one whose subdued eyes,
Albeit unused to the melting mood,
Drops tears as fast as the Arabian trees
Their med'cinable gum. Set you down this.
And say besides that in Aleppo once,
Where a malignant and a turbaned Turk
Beat a Venetian and traduced the state,
I took by th' throat the circumcised dog
And smote him--thus. [He stabs himself.]
 

luka

Well-known member
ive fallen asleep last couple of times ive seen shakespeare performed. i dont think theres such a thing as a good shakespeare performance. just read them.
 

Benny B

Well-known member
saw an outdoor performance of midsummer nights dream on a lovely summers day in the lake district, on the grounds of a stately home when i as at school. I was a bit too young to fully appreciate it but i remember being pretty good. Not sure I could be arsed now though.

I associate shakespeare with being at school and especially 6th form. Othello, Romeo and Juliet, Henry V...once more unto the breach...dog eared arden editions. takes me back. I should really start reading him again, he was the best.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I saw a performance of Much Ado About Nothing in the quad at my old college years ago - it was a gorgeous summer day, it was a sort-of date with probably the most beautiful woman I've ever met - nothing (appropriately) ever came of it, but it was still wonderful. Just a student am-dram thing, but it was quite a good production. Also there's a scene where one of the characters is meant to be drunk, and the guy playing it did a really good job of it. It's funny how difficult it is to act drunk convincingly when you're not.

High school trips to London or Stratford for Shakey performances were always enjoyable. The play (usually) and the trip itself. Good times.
 

Benny B

Well-known member
thing is, if you haven't read it first, its bloody hard to follow the plot if you go and see a shakespeare play and you will miss out on so many little details. Was tempted to go and see king lear once but i think i'd need to read it first or it'd go over my head
 

Leo

Well-known member
king lear at BAM last summer staring derek jacobi was absolutely phenomenal...which doesn't mean i still didn't get a little dozzy after three hours, thank goodness for intermission.
 
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