Favorite Shakespeare Lines
Favorite Shakespeare Lines
#0Favorite Shakespeare Lines
Posted: 6/16/05 at 12:48am
What are some of your favorite, perhaps less popular, Shakespeare lines? I love the lines of Fear No More from The Frogs which I believe are from Cymbeline. They are so comforting that I put them in a plastic bag (for lack of a laminator) and stapled it and then I keep it in my wallet.
Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,
Nor the furious winter’s rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages:
Golden lads and girls all must.
As chimney-sweeper, come to dust.
Fear no more the frowns o’ the great;
Thou art past the tyrant’s stroke;
Care no more to clothe and eat;
To thee the reed is as the oak:
The scepter, learning, physic, must
All follow this, and come to dust.
Fear no more the lighting-flash,
Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone;
Fear not slander, censure rash;
Thou hast finished joy and moan:
All lovers young, all loves must
Consign to thee, and come to dust.
No exorciser harm thee!
Nor witchcraft charm thee!
Ghost unlaid forbear thee!
Nothing ill come near thee!
Quiet consummation have;
And renowned be thy grave!
BSoBW2: I punched Sondheim in the face after I saw Wicked and said, "Why couldn't you write like that!?"
apdarcey
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/10/04
#1re: Favorite Shakespeare Lines
Posted: 6/16/05 at 12:49ammine have always been othello's "put out the light and then put out the light."
Broadway_freak
Broadway Star Joined: 11/4/04
#2re: Favorite Shakespeare Lines
Posted: 6/16/05 at 1:00am"Thou cuttest my head off with a golden axe, and smilst upon the stroke that murders me"! Oh what sweet revenge!
Tirso de Molina
Featured Actor Joined: 1/1/05
#3re: Favorite Shakespeare Lines
Posted: 6/16/05 at 1:05am
2 spring to mind:
"She loved me for the dangers I had passed, and I loved her that she did pity them." (Othello)
"When we have laugh'd to see the sails conceive
And grow big-bellied with the wanton wind" (Dream)
"Sweet summer evenings, hot wine and bread /
Sharing your supper, sharing your bed /
Simple joys have a simple voice:
It says why not go ahead?"
Broadway_freak
Broadway Star Joined: 11/4/04
phantom_tenor
Leading Actor Joined: 1/11/05
#5re: Favorite Shakespeare Lines
Posted: 6/16/05 at 2:36am
Benedict: Lord keep thy ladyship in that mind, lest some gentleman or other escape a predestinate scratched face
Beatrice: Scratching could not make it worse, and 'twere such a face as yours were
Gold
#6re: Favorite Shakespeare Lines
Posted: 6/16/05 at 2:44amIDK the actually lines but in Romeo and juliet i think its funny how after Juliet dies they just go on and on and on and on about what a woeful day it is. I def dont think R&J shold be a tragity, I'd like to see it as a comedy, that be funny. especially after juliet is found dead. Sorry, just a little dark humor.
#7re: Favorite Shakespeare Lines
Posted: 6/16/05 at 2:56am
"Oh woe is me t' have seen what I've seen, see what I see!"
-Ophelia (Hamlet)
-Anyone want to turn anarchist with me?"Bless you and all who know you, oh wise and penguined one." ~YouWantItWhen????
#8re: Favorite Shakespeare Lines
Posted: 6/16/05 at 3:03am
Jimmyojimmy - The thing is, the idea of dark comedy as a genre (not as having individual moments within a show, which Shakespeare did all the time) didn't enter the equation until way later. Romeo and Juliet is a romantic tragedy. This isn't to say that there aren't funny moments in it, there are comic moments in basically every tragedy of Shakespeares. I think R&J loses a lot of meaning and impact if it's made funny. Yes, it's gotten to be almost hackneyed at this point if only becuase the story is so done, but I think that's a testimony to how universal the theme is, and that it does still have meaning, meaning that you lose if you end it with "Hot damn. They're dead. Let's joke about it." Just my opinion.
Now... to stop thread-jacking, I've always loved the entire to be or not to be speech from Hamlet. And most of the rest of the play, come to think about it.
#9re: Favorite Shakespeare Lines
Posted: 6/16/05 at 3:07amyeah, but i think it be funny as a comedy like, today. I hadan english class had this debate, and we all agreed.
#10re: Favorite Shakespeare Lines
Posted: 6/16/05 at 3:08am
One of the exciting things about Romeo and Juliet is that its structure in the beginning of the play lends itself to be a romantic comedy but then the play transforms into this incredibly deep tragedy.
But I think some of his plays could be considered dark tragedies, like Measure for Measure certainly :0)
But in any case, I'll also add to my last one:
"The fresh streams ran by her/and murmered her moans/sing willow willow willow/her salt tears fell from her and softened the stones"
~Willow song, sung by Desi (Othello)
-Anyone want to turn anarchist with me?"Bless you and all who know you, oh wise and penguined one." ~YouWantItWhen????
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/31/69
#11re: Favorite Shakespeare Lines
Posted: 6/16/05 at 3:26am
Few spring to mind extemporaneously:
"wisely and slow, they stumble that run fast"
--Friar Lawrence, Romeo and Juliet
"Out, out brief candle, life is but a poor player, strutting and fretting his hour upon the stage, then is heard no more"
--Macbeth
"ignorance is the night of the mind, a night without moon or star"
-- I don't know where its from but I use it a lot
MargoChanning
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/5/04
#12re: Favorite Shakespeare Lines
Posted: 6/16/05 at 3:39am[Exit, pursued by a bear] -- Winter's Tale
"What a story........ everything but the bloodhounds snappin' at her rear end." -- Birdie
[http://margochanning.broadwayworld.com/]
"The Devil Be Hittin' Me" -- Whitney
#13re: Favorite Shakespeare Lines
Posted: 6/16/05 at 5:54am
oh, this is the devil of all my misery! My wife can speak no english, and I no Welsh! -Henry IV
~And let us try, before we die, to make some sense of life~
#14re: Favorite Shakespeare Lines
Posted: 6/16/05 at 7:13amMargo - is that the direction at the end of Antigonus' speech to the babe? I love that monologue its my favorite.
"I don't really get the ending,all i can go with is when after several months,Judith saw Pat sang,and later she kissed him on the toilet,after that the story back to where Pat went down from the stage after he'd sung,and he went to the italian lady.I just don't get it,what Judith exatcly meant when he kissed Pat that she had seen,and did Pat end up together with The Italian Lady?Please help me,thank u very much!"
Quote from someone on IMDB in reference to a movie he/she didn't understand. Such grammar!
#15re: Favorite Shakespeare Lines
Posted: 6/16/05 at 8:01am"If we spirits have offended, think but this and all is mended. That you have but slumbered here, wilst these visions hath appeared."
"Y'all have a GRAND day now"
nmartin
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/3/05
#16re: Favorite Shakespeare Lines
Posted: 6/16/05 at 8:16am
"Sharper than a serpent's tooth is an ungrateful child."
I teach in the public school system;this has a special meaning for me.
#17re: Favorite Shakespeare Lines
Posted: 6/16/05 at 10:44am"Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. "
"Smart! And into all those exotic mystiques -- The Kama Sutra and Chinese techniques. I hear she knows more than seventy-five. Call me tomorrow if you're still alive!"
mikewood
Broadway Star Joined: 4/7/05
#18re: Favorite Shakespeare Lines
Posted: 6/16/05 at 10:48am
"Sweet Moon, I thank thee for thy SUNNY beams"
At the end of every show, after strike, when the brooms come out, I always break into Puck's "If we shadows have offended..." speech.
EDIT: Interesting, I'm going to check out First Folio, it said shadows when I did Midsummer's, but someone had spirits instead of shadows for that quote. According to the online text it's "Shadows"... but spirits makes more sense to me for some reason. Interesting.
BLAH BLAH BLAH
Updated On: 6/16/05 at 10:48 AM
Elizabeth_DeBris
Broadway Star Joined: 1/29/05
#19re: Favorite Shakespeare Lines
Posted: 6/16/05 at 10:51am
"False face must hide what the false heart doth know."
"Whence is that knocking?—
How is’t with me, when every noise appals me?
What hands are here! Ha, they pluck out mine eyes.
Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green one red."
Both from (EDIT:) The Scottish Play (just in case it's opening night, for anyone)...
Updated On: 6/16/05 at 10:51 AM
nmartin
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/3/05
#20re: Favorite Shakespeare Lines
Posted: 6/16/05 at 10:56amY'all better quit quoting from the Scottish play.
SorryGrateful
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/10/05
#21re: Favorite Shakespeare Lines
Posted: 6/16/05 at 10:56am
"I am not what I am." --Iago in Othello
I'm actually going to get this as a tattoo. I love that line!!!
You promised me poems. ~Tricky
#22re: Favorite Shakespeare Lines
Posted: 6/16/05 at 10:57am
Here are bunches !!!
MIDSUMMER QUOTES:
Helena: Call you me fair? that fair again unsay.
Demetrius loves your fair: O happy fair!
*Everytime I said this line I thought of a circus merry-go
round...*
Demetrius: Do I entice you? do I speak you fair?
Helena: And even for that do I love you the more.
I am your spaniel; and, Demetrius,
The more you beat me, I will fawn on you:
Use me but as your spaniel, spurn me, strike me,
Neglect me, lose me; only give me leave,
Unworthy as I am, to follow you.
What worser place can I beg in your love,--
And yet a place of high respect with me,--
Than to be used as you use your dog?
Puck: When in that moment, so it came to pass,
Titania waked and straightway loved an ass.
Puck: Captain of our fairy band,
Helena is here at hand;
And the youth, mistook by me,
Pleading for a lover's fee.
Shall we their fond pageant see?
Lord, what fools these mortals be!
Helena: O spite! O Hell!
Lysander: Get you gone, you dwarf;
You minimus, of hindering knot-grass made;
You bead, you acorn.
Life is like a patio door, you never know which side is open... and then you run into the glass.... ~Connie and Carla
#23re: Favorite Shakespeare Lines
Posted: 6/16/05 at 11:01am
But how, if that fly had a father and mother?
Poor harmless fly,
That, with his pretty buzzing melody,
Came here to make us merry! and thou hast
kill'd him.
Titus, TITUS ANDRONICUS
Speaking of, I'm playing Titus this summer in Durham, NC!
If you're in the area, PM me for production info 
whatever and ever amen - ben folds five
#24re: Favorite Shakespeare Lines
Posted: 6/16/05 at 11:04am"If music be the food of love, play on." Orsino, opening Twelfth Night
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