Shakespeare's Best Bits

[abu nuwas]

I intend to try (again) to get my grand-children acquainted with Shakespeare. I would like to bribe them to learn by heart the major speeches. Being a Philistine, and a forgetful one, I should be obliged if anyone would let me know of any that come to mind. Off hand, I have been thinking of:

To-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow from The Scottish Play

You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things
Knew you not Pompey? (Julius Caesar - I was about 11 when we read that around the class, and all too often I still see how true he had it.)

I come to bury Caesar, not praise him
He was my friend, faithful and just to me (J C)

Now is the Winter of our discontent
made glorious Summer by this son of York (Richard III)

Full fathom five thy father lies
of his bones are coral made
Those are pearls that were his eyes
Nothing of him that doth fade (Tempest)

Cry England ,Harry and St George (Henry V)

Spit fire, spout rain (Lear)

To be or not to be

I must be more tired than I thought. I don't want to google. Let me have your favorites. I shall enjoy a re-read.

[Leanne]

From Henry VI:

DICK
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.

CADE
Nay, that I mean to do. Is not this a lamentable
thing, that of the skin of an innocent lamb should
be made parchment? that parchment, being scribbled
o'er, should undo a man? Some say the bee stings:
but I say, 'tis the bee's wax; for I did but seal
once to a thing, and I was never mine own man
since.



And from The Taming of the Shrew (I was Katherina in the high school rendition, could you guess?):

PETRUCHIO:
Thou hast hit it: come, sit on me.

KATHERINA:
Asses are made to bear, and so are you.

[billy]

the only one i know is from hamlet;

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite
jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath bore me on his back a
thousand times, and now how abhorr'd in my imagination it is!
My gorge rises at it.

i also remember; cry harry and let loose the dogs of war (though it could wrong and i don't know the rest..

hang on...Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them
The good is oft interred with their bones

and i can't believe i remembered those.

bugger me.

romeo romeo
we fore art thou......tailing off to nothingness

[Todd]

Here are a few that come to mind...they may be a bit long though

Henry V

WESTMORELAND. O that we now had here
But one ten thousand of those men in England
That do no work to-day!

KING. What's he that wishes so?
My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin;
If we are mark'd to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires.
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England.
God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more methinks would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call'd the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian.'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispian's day.'
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words-
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester-
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

Macbeth

Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling as to sight? or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
I see thee yet, in form as palpable
As this which now I draw.
Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going;
And such an instrument I was to use.
Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses,
Or else worth all the rest; I see thee still,
And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood,
Which was not so before. There's no such thing:
It is the bloody business which informs
Thus to mine eyes. Now o'er the one halfworld
Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
The curtain'd sleep; witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecate's offerings, and wither'd murder,
Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf,
Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace.
With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design
Moves like a ghost. Thou sure and firm-set earth,
Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
Thy very stones prate of my whereabout,
And take the present horror from the time,
Which now suits with it. Whiles I threat, he lives:
Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.

[abu nuwas]

Todd -- Thanks --- a couple of biggies, but --- at the pay-rate for 'O Rose Thou Art Sick', I should be bankrupt! Maybe pay to read only....

It reminded me I have skipped 'This sceptred isle'.

Leanne --- Killing all the lawyers will definitely give any growing child/teen an important perspective. I shall stick to that.

Billy -- Thanks also. Romeo is easy. And everyone should pick up on Yorick. Defo.

All I enjoyed reading, and sorry for hold-all reply, I daresn't use the 'quote' thing.

Now, before I get on with the serious act of bribing, any more? I suppose 'The Seven Ages of Man' might amuse them, but they could begin to look at me in even more pitying fashion than they do now.

[ICSoria]

How much more praise deserved thy beauty's use,
If thou couldst answer 'This fair child of mine
Shall sum my count and make my old excuse,'
Proving his beauty by succession thine!
This were to be new made when thou art old,
And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold.

Sonnet II

---

Polonius:
My liege, and madam, to expostulate
What majesty should be, what duty is,
What day is day, night night, and time is time,
Were nothing but to waste night, day, and time;
Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief. Your noble son is mad. . . .

Hamlet Act 2, scene 2, 86–92

[Leanne]

Just reminded me of this, in Hamlet (Act IV, Scene III):

King: Now Hamlet, where is Polonius?

Hamlet: At supper.

King: At supper? Where?

Hamlet: Not where he eats, but where he is eaten. A certain convocation of worms are e'en at him. Your worm is your only emperor for diet. We fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots. Your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service, two dishes, but to one table; that’s the end.