is somebody a very special boy?
GUESS WHOSE BIRTHDAY IT IS TODAY (PROBABLY)!
I think quoting fiestas are always the best way to commemorate brilliance -- but instead of running over Sonnet 29 and "Man delights not me", I'd like an Obscure Shakespeare Quotation Party. What turns of phrase in "Two Gentlemen of Verona" make you bite your fist? What's your favorite monologue from "Coriolanus"? How about those Clarence kids in "Richard III" who never seem to make it to the stage? It can be a big moment from an underproduced play, an often-cut exchange from a play everybody's seen, or the one line you haven't been able to get out of your head since you read the play for school -- but which nobody else remembers.
I'll start with a throwaway line from Gadshill in 1 Henry IV:
GADSHILL
She will, she will; justice hath liquored her. We steal as in a castle, cocksure; we have the receipe of fern-seed, we walk invisible.
Julia's reclamation of identity at the climax of "Two Gents":
PROTEUS
But how camest thou by this ring? At my depart
I gave this unto Julia.
JULIA
And Julia herself did give it me;
And Julia herself hath brought it hither.
PROTEUS
How! Julia!
JULIA
Behold her that gave aim to all thy oaths,
And entertained them deeply in her heart:
How oft hast thou with perjury cleft the root:
O Proteus, let this habit make thee blush!
Be thou ashamed that I have took upon me
Such an immodest raiment, if shame live
In a disguise of love:
It is the lesser blot, modesty finds,
Women to change their shapes than men their minds.
And the delicious Bastard of Faulconbridge in "King John", who has too many good ones to do fully, but whose best soliloquy is below:
BASTARD
A foot of honour better than I was;
But many a many foot of land the worse.
Well, now can I make any Joan a lady.
'Good den, sir Richard!'-'God-a-mercy, fellow!'--
And if his name be George, I'll call him Peter;
For new-made honour doth forget men's names;
'Tis too respective and too sociable
For your conversion. Now your traveller,
He and his toothpick at my worship's mess,
And when my knightly stomach is sufficed,
Why then I suck my teeth and catechise
My picked man of countries: 'My dear sir,'
Thus, leaning on mine elbow, I begin,
'I shall beseech you'-that is question now;
And then comes answer like an Absey book:
'O sir,' says answer, 'at your best command;
At your employment; at your service, sir;'
'No, sir,' says question, 'I, sweet sir, at yours:'
And so, ere answer knows what question would,
Saving in dialogue of compliment,
And talking of the Alps and Apennines,
The Pyrenean and the river Po,
It draws toward supper in conclusion so.
But this is worshipful society
And fits the mounting spirit like myself,
For he is but a bastard to the time
That doth not smack of observation;
And so am I, whether I smack or no;
And not alone in habit and device,
Exterior form, outward accoutrement,
But from the inward motion to deliver
Sweet, sweet, sweet poison for the age's tooth:
Which, though I will not practise to deceive,
Yet, to avoid deceit, I mean to learn;
For it shall strew the footsteps of my rising.
POETRY. IT'S VERY SEXY, GUYS.
I think quoting fiestas are always the best way to commemorate brilliance -- but instead of running over Sonnet 29 and "Man delights not me", I'd like an Obscure Shakespeare Quotation Party. What turns of phrase in "Two Gentlemen of Verona" make you bite your fist? What's your favorite monologue from "Coriolanus"? How about those Clarence kids in "Richard III" who never seem to make it to the stage? It can be a big moment from an underproduced play, an often-cut exchange from a play everybody's seen, or the one line you haven't been able to get out of your head since you read the play for school -- but which nobody else remembers.
I'll start with a throwaway line from Gadshill in 1 Henry IV:
GADSHILL
She will, she will; justice hath liquored her. We steal as in a castle, cocksure; we have the receipe of fern-seed, we walk invisible.
Julia's reclamation of identity at the climax of "Two Gents":
PROTEUS
But how camest thou by this ring? At my depart
I gave this unto Julia.
JULIA
And Julia herself did give it me;
And Julia herself hath brought it hither.
PROTEUS
How! Julia!
JULIA
Behold her that gave aim to all thy oaths,
And entertained them deeply in her heart:
How oft hast thou with perjury cleft the root:
O Proteus, let this habit make thee blush!
Be thou ashamed that I have took upon me
Such an immodest raiment, if shame live
In a disguise of love:
It is the lesser blot, modesty finds,
Women to change their shapes than men their minds.
And the delicious Bastard of Faulconbridge in "King John", who has too many good ones to do fully, but whose best soliloquy is below:
BASTARD
A foot of honour better than I was;
But many a many foot of land the worse.
Well, now can I make any Joan a lady.
'Good den, sir Richard!'-'God-a-mercy, fellow!'--
And if his name be George, I'll call him Peter;
For new-made honour doth forget men's names;
'Tis too respective and too sociable
For your conversion. Now your traveller,
He and his toothpick at my worship's mess,
And when my knightly stomach is sufficed,
Why then I suck my teeth and catechise
My picked man of countries: 'My dear sir,'
Thus, leaning on mine elbow, I begin,
'I shall beseech you'-that is question now;
And then comes answer like an Absey book:
'O sir,' says answer, 'at your best command;
At your employment; at your service, sir;'
'No, sir,' says question, 'I, sweet sir, at yours:'
And so, ere answer knows what question would,
Saving in dialogue of compliment,
And talking of the Alps and Apennines,
The Pyrenean and the river Po,
It draws toward supper in conclusion so.
But this is worshipful society
And fits the mounting spirit like myself,
For he is but a bastard to the time
That doth not smack of observation;
And so am I, whether I smack or no;
And not alone in habit and device,
Exterior form, outward accoutrement,
But from the inward motion to deliver
Sweet, sweet, sweet poison for the age's tooth:
Which, though I will not practise to deceive,
Yet, to avoid deceit, I mean to learn;
For it shall strew the footsteps of my rising.
POETRY. IT'S VERY SEXY, GUYS.