Posted on 04/23/2016 8:31:19 AM PDT by PJ-Comix
Exactly 400 years ago on this day, William Shakespeare passed this mortal coil. His effect on the English language was YUUUUUGE. Therefore I am asking for general observations on The Bard.
p.s. PLEASE DON'T post conspiracy theories about how the true author of the Shakespeare plays was really somebody else. That stuff is old AND annoying. It was SHAKESPEARE who wrote it.
I try to keep my eyes open, but no Shakespeare sitings so far.
Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end;
Each changing place with that which goes before,
In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
Nativity, once in the main of light,
Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown’d,
Crooked eclipses ‘gainst his glory fight,
And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth
And delves the parallels in beauty’s brow,
Feeds on the rarities of nature’s truth,
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow:
And yet to times in hope, my verse shall stand
Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.
~ Sonnet 60
Love’s not time’s fool
Revenge is a dish best served cold.
Shakespeare and the King James Bible.
Shakespeare deserves some of that credit, but also the King James Version of the Bible. Same time period. Excellent examples of well written English. People basically said “That’s the way to do it” and the language stabilized to a large degree.
All’s well that ends well.
Maybe S learned it all from the Bible. And used it to his own ends.
What fools these mortals be
Et tu Barack
If you prick me do I not bleed.
Alas poor Yorick....I knew him Horatio
Shakespeare’s works have also been adapted or spoofed countless times. My favorites are “The Forbidden Planet”, which was loosely based on “The Tempest”, and the “Moonlighting” spoof of “The Taming of the Shrew”.
“Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.”
Henry V. part 2.
By my troth, I care not. A man can die but once. We owe God
a death. I’ll ne’er bear a base mind. An ’t be my destiny, so;
an ’t be not, so. No man’s too good to serve ’s prince, and let
it go which way it will, he that dies this year is quit for the next.
And my tagline...
Actually Shakespeare knew the Geneva Bible well and that language made it into the plays. The Geneva language was an important influence on the work of the KJV translators.
Ah! Beat me to it!
I agree. I haven’t observed him yet, but I’ll keep an eye out for him.
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark
(Life).......it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing
Also “West Side Story” based on “Romeo & Juliet.”
“...these few precepts in thy memory
Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportioned thought his act.
Be thou familiar but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel,
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatched, unfledged comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,
Bear ’t that th’ opposèd may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear but few thy voice.
Take each man’s censure but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not expressed in fancy—rich, not gaudy,
For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are of a most select and generous chief in that.
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.”
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