A Personal Tribute to William...

In honour of the Bard I thought I would share my favourite snippets from some of his plays.  Some of these words I have actually spoken myself when playing that particular role.  I'll leave you to guess which ones!

Fairy : Either I mistake your shape and making quite,

In the rehearsal room.

Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite

Called Robin Godfellow.  Are not you he…

Puck : Thou speak’st aright;

I am that merry wanderer of the night.

I jest to Oberon and make him smile

When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,

Neighing in likenes of a filly foal;

And sometimes lurk I in a gossip’s bowl,

In very likeness of a roasted crab,

And, when she drinks, against her lips I bob,

And on her withered dewlap pour the ale.

The wisest aunt telling the saddest tale,

Sometime for a three-foot stool mistaketh me:

Then slip I from her and down topples she,

And ‘tailor’ cries, and falls into a cough:

And then the choir hold their hips and laugh,

And waxen in their mirth, and neeze and swear

A merrier hour was never wasted there.

                        A Midsummer Night’s Dream Act 2 Sc 1

On Stage

Portia : The quality of mercy is not strained.

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath.  It is twice blest :

It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes...

It is enthroned in the hearts of kings;

It is an attribute to God himself,

And earthly power doth then show likest God’s

When mercy seasons justice.

                        The Merchant of Venice Act 4 Sc 1 

Polonius : Neither a borrower nor a lender be,

For loan oft loses both itself and friend,

And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.

This above all – to thine own self be true,

And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man.

                        Hamlet Act 1 Sc 3

Dunsinane perhaps?

Son :  If he were dead, you’ld weep for him : if you would not it were a good sign that I should quickly have a new father.

Lady MacDuff : Poor prattler, how thou talk’st!...
…Wither should I fly?

I have done no harm.  But I remember now

I am in this earthly world : where to do harm

Is often laudable, to do good sometime

Accounted dangerous folly.  Why then, alas,

Do I put up that womanly defence,

To say I have done no harm?

                        Macbeth Act 4 Sc 2