Leo warmed to the task, asking, “Would you like me to create one on a specific Shakespearean theme or play?”
Try a tough one — his play, Timon of Athens.
Here’s a limerick about Timon of Athens:
Rich Timon threw gold all around,
Till his fortune could no longer be found,
His friends proved all fake,
So for misanthropy’s sake,
He cursed mankind from underground.
Or perhaps this version, focusing on his bitter transformation:
A generous lord became poor,
When false friends showed him the door,
He fled to a cave,
Found gold he won’t save,
And hated all mankind encore.
Timon’s tragic arc from lavish philanthropist to bitter hermit is quite the challenge to compress into five lines! The play’s themes of false friendship and the corrupting nature of wealth are pretty dark, even for Shakespeare.
It’s a major reason why Timon of Athens is one of Billy Shakes’ more obscure plays - the transition from Lord Bountiful to miserable crab is too sudden; Apemantus the Cynic says so in the play:
“The middle of humanity thou never knewest, but the
extremity of both ends: when thou wast in thy gilt
and thy perfume, they mocked thee for too much
curiosity; in thy rags thou knowest none, but art
despised for the contrary.”
“Troilus and Cressida”, there was a pair
They were in love and she had an affair
It’s not a great play, so we don’t really care.
Hey nonni nonni na, fa la la la!
-That’s the Story as Told by the Bard