Shakespeare meme!

[fahye]

I am inventing an enormously geeky meme, stemming from my current Bard kick. You can stick it in your own journal or just tell me in comments, I'm easy.

What's your favourite bit of Shakespeare?

I am crazy about the Prologue from Henry V, but I have a two-way tie for my favourite lines. (Don't even pretend to be surprised.)

Here's much to to with hate, but more with love.
Why then, O brawling love! O loving hate!
O anything, of nothing first create!

(Romeo and Juliet)

&

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

(The Tempest)


And...you?

Comments

[schiarire.livejournal.com]

The only Shakespeare I have memorized is a 35+ stretch from Hamlet, but it's totally not my favorite, so whatever.

. . . They flattered
me like a dog; and told me I had white hairs in my
beard ere the black ones were there. To say 'ay'
and 'no' to every thing that I said!--'Ay' and 'no'
too was no good divinity. When the rain came to
wet me once, and the wind to make me chatter; when
the thunder would not peace at my bidding; there I
found 'em, there I smelt 'em out. Go to, they are
not men o' their words: they told me I was every
thing; 'tis a lie, I am not ague-proof.

-- King Lear

Of course, actually, it's more like, I will marry that whole play.

[fahye.livejournal.com]

Marriage. Hmm. R+J wins. I have worked out that this is because it has no comic relief! If I married any of the other plays I would be like: look, randomass comic characters about whom I care not, go and sit in the kitchen whilst I have sex with this monologue. And then the play and I would have tearful arguments about the comic relief and how I should love everything about the play but I DON'T and they shouldn't have to change for me.

And then: messy divorce.

Nobody wants that.

[schiarire.livejournal.com]

R+J does TOO have stupid comic relief! See also: nurse, apothecary, etc.

King Lear has "HAHAHA YOU HAVE NO EYES" jokes, but that's about it.

[stars-like-dust.livejournal.com]

I just bought myself a camera with the money my mother sent me for my birthday yesterday!

I AM SO EXCITED!

This has no bearing on this post. Sorry.

I will come back with Shakespeare later.

[fahye.livejournal.com]

Irrelevant comments from Clairza = ftw. Send me an email, hobag! I want to heeeear what you have been doooooooing. And I would come chat except I have to go and takes notes on lactic acid bacteria. Yeah. IF IT WERE UP TO ME, YOU > BACTERIA. Alas.

*has transient but devastating attack of PILOTS*

GndsjdysdasIneedpilotfic.

[genarti]

Oh, I have lots. As I'm sure everyone around these parts does.

A perennial favorite, though, is:

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
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.

(The Tempest)

I do love The Tempest. (Now I want to reread it. Darn you!)

[fahye.livejournal.com]

Bell Shakespeare (Australia's national company) is coming to Canberra with Tempest and I'm seeing them in a week. I am so excited. I know all of Miranda's lines and a fair chunk of certain scenes, but I think I need to reread it. For great mouthing along in the theatre, like I was doing tonight at Ros + Guil.

[genarti]

Oooh. That sounds awesome.

[liminalliz.livejournal.com]

LOVE SOUGHT IS GOOD BUT GIVEN UNSOUGHT BETTER.

[brynnmck.livejournal.com]

Hmm, well. The majority of Much Ado, but this is a particular favorite:

Princes and counties! Surely, a princely testimony,
a goodly count, Count Comfect; a sweet gallant,
surely! O that I were a man for his sake! or that I
had any friend would be a man for my sake! But
manhood is melted into courtesies, valour into
compliment, and men are only turned into tongue, and
trim ones too: he is now as valiant as Hercules
that only tells a lie and swears it. I cannot be a
man with wishing, therefore I will die a woman with grieving.

So much fun to say, all those consonants.

And wow, I am trying to pick something from the Henry IVs and finding it really difficult. Have I ever told you I'm completely in love with Hal? I really am.

God witness with me, when I here came in,
And found no course of breath within your majesty,
How cold it struck my heart! If I do feign,
O, let me in my present wildness die
And never live to show the incredulous world
The noble change that I have purposed!
Coming to look on you, thinking you dead,
And dead almost, my liege, to think you were,
I spake unto this crown as having sense,
And thus upbraided it . . . .

And also: "The earth that bears thee dead / bears not alive so stout a gentleman." Sniffle.

voleuse linked to some Shakespeare text icons today, speaking of.

[williwawz.livejournal.com]

'Tis but a prick, but twill suffice. Ask for me tomarrow and you will find me a grave man."
-Romeo and Juliet

Why I love that line...well...I guess I love men that can look their impending death in the eye and still mock it.