Happy Birthday to The Bard!

"We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded with a sleep."

Today marks the birth and death date of the most celebrated weaver of the English language.
The body of work attributed to him is wide and varied; both brilliant and profane.

Shakespeare was the ultimate scribe for humanity. His exploration into love, death, jealousy, rivalry, wickedness, and purity allows an unrivaled glimpse into the human psyche. He recorded the human experience, and beautifully so.

Let's celebrate a singular life!

Sonnet 29: When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes
BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

Please share your favorite Shakespeare quotes, anecdotes, theories here

a reply to: zosimov

"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"

I had to memorize the entire speech in grade 7 and have never forgotten the beginning.

Happy Birthday, William Shakespeare!
We are still reading your words today...(if they are indeed your words, hehe...)

Classic literature and conspiracies! Oh my!
S&F zosimove,
jacy

a reply to: jacygirl

Hi Jacy! Isn't it delicious.. 401 years later and the intrigue continues..

The passage you quoted is beautiful. Thank you.

He who sheds his blood with me this day shall be my brother.
Gentlemen now abed in England will hold their manhoods cheap that they were not with us this St Crispin's day.
Once more into the breech dear friends or fill up the wall with our English dead.
Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war.
For England, for Harry, and St George.
(Not word for word accurate)

So fitting a day for England's bard to be born and die on.

Thank you so much for your kind tribute Zos. You have helped to make me feel a happy and proud Englishman on this Saint George's day.

Midsummer's Night:

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.

a reply to: CulturalResilience

Be proud, be happy, and celebrate an honorable and respectable tradition.
To our brothers!

originally posted by: zosimov
a reply to: CulturalResilience

Be proud, be happy, and celebrate a honorable and respectable tradition.
To our brothers!

Bless your heart.

To you lovely ladies; So you are to my thoughts as food to life, or as sweet seasoned showers to the ground.

a reply to: CulturalResilience

Shakespeare appreciated the ladies/love with the best of them! He'd be fun to have a pint with

116
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments, love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no, it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come,
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom:
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

I once visited Stratford Upon Avon as part of a Canal Boat Holiday. I would thoroughly recommend a visit by any form of transport, but tying up a canal boat right next to the theatre is a glorious experience and marvellous way to get a feel for the county.
a reply to: zosimov

a reply to: CulturalResilience

Thanks for the suggestion! Looks lovely.


I took a solo walk through London during my short stay there and passed the Globe, but that's as close as I've been to Shakespeare's world.

a reply to: zosimov

Roses are red
Violets are blue
This bag of Doritos
Is so.....

Wait a minute....

Hello and happy Sunday zosi

a reply to: knowledgehunter0986

Hi knowledge, Happy Sunday to you too!

Why did you leave us hanging about the Doritos? I am left wondering exactly how that bag is.. (brilliant marketing btw)

It wasn't all moony love either:

From As You Like It:

Jacques speaks:

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms;
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lin’d,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well sav’d, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything

I should add that it is one of the more expensive ways to arrive, but I think you will find it worth the price if you do get the chance.
a reply to: zosimov

Shakespeare was also a master of insults. Check out the linked articles to read some of the most hilarious, dirty, vile insults invented by (one)man.

www.bachelorsdegree.org...

These are really funny but the gifs are pretty annoying (imo)
www.telegraph.co.uk...

Zos, you have already picked my favorites, so I will just Happy Birthday to the legend!

Thank you for a great thread! Love this!!!