Sonnet 086 - LXXXVI
Was it the proud full sail of his great verse,
Bound for the prize of all too precious you,
That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse,
Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew?
Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write
Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead?
No, neither he, nor his compeers by night
Giving him aid, my verse astonished.
He, nor that affable familiar ghost
Which nightly gulls him with intelligence,
As victors of my silence cannot boast;
I was not sick of any fear from thence:
But when your countenance filled up his line,
Then lacked I matter; that enfeebled mine.

bot by @davidaugust

Sonnet 011 - XI
As fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou grow'st
In one of thine, from that which thou departest;
And that fresh blood which youngly thou bestow'st,
Thou mayst call thine when thou from youth convertest.
Herein lives wisdom, beauty, and increase;
Without this folly, age, and cold decay:
If all were minded so, the times should cease
And threescore year would make the world away.
Let those whom nature hath not made for store,
Harsh, featureless, and rude, barrenly perish:
Look whom she best endow'd, she gave the more;
Which bounteous gift thou shouldst in bounty cherish:
She carv'd thee for her seal, and meant thereby,
Thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die.

bot by @davidaugust

Warning: Mixing Montague and Capulet - dramatic euphoria followed by impulsive behaviour, potential strong feeling of self-harm for adolescents.

#RXLikeWarningsForRelationships
#HashTagGames #Shakespeare #RomeoAndJuliet
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1777

Sonnet 025 - XXV
Let those who are in favour with their stars
Of public honour and proud titles boast,
Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars
Unlook'd for joy in that I honour most.
Great princes' favourites their fair leaves spread
But as the marigold at the sun's eye,
And in themselves their pride lies buried,
For at a frown they in their glory die.
The painful warrior famoused for fight,
After a thousand victories once foiled,
Is from the book of honour razed quite,
And all the rest forgot for which he toiled:
Then happy I, that love and am beloved,
Where I may not remove nor be removed.

bot by @davidaugust

Sonnet 014 - XIV
Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck;
And yet methinks I have Astronomy,
But not to tell of good or evil luck,
Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons' quality;
Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell,
Pointing to each his thunder, rain and wind,
Or say with princes if it shall go well
By oft predict that I in heaven find:
But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,
And, constant stars, in them I read such art
As truth and beauty shall together thrive,
If from thyself, to store thou wouldst convert;
Or else of thee this I prognosticate:
Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date.

bot by @davidaugust

Sonnet 058 - LVIII
That god forbid, that made me first your slave,
I should in thought control your times of pleasure,
Or at your hand the account of hours to crave,
Being your vassal, bound to stay your leisure!
O! let me suffer, being at your beck,
The imprison'd absence of your liberty;
And patience, tame to sufferance, bide each check,
Without accusing you of injury.
Be where you list, your charter is so strong
That you yourself may privilege your time
To what you will; to you it doth belong
Yourself to pardon of self-doing crime.
I am to wait, though waiting so be hell,
Not blame your pleasure be it ill or well.

bot by @davidaugust

Francis Bacon, who died OTD in 1626, has been thought by some to have written some or all of the works of #Shakespeare https://toilet-guru.com/shakespeare.html?s=mb #history

Renverse.co Conférence d'Hourya Benthouami : « La langue de l'opprimé : Césaire à Shakespeare »: Le Jeudi 10 avril à 18h au Théâtre de Carouge Hourya Benthouami : « La langue de l'opprimé : Césaire à Shakespeare » #Conférence #HouryaBenthouami #LangueDeLOppressé #Césaire #Shakespeare

Conférence d'Hourya Benthouami...

Renverse.co Conférence d'Hourya Benthouami : « La langue de l'opprimé : Césaire à Shakespeare »: Le Jeudi 10 avril à 18h au Théâtre de Carouge

Hourya Benthouami : « La langue de l'opprimé : Césaire à Shakespeare » https://renverse.co/infos-locales/article/conference-d-hourya-benthouami-la-langue-de-l-opprime-cesaire-a-shakespeare-6664?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon #Conférence #HouryaBenthouami #LangueDeLOppressé #Césaire #Shakespeare

Sonnet 105 - CV
Let not my love be called idolatry,
Nor my beloved as an idol show,
Since all alike my songs and praises be
To one, of one, still such, and ever so.
Kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind,
Still constant in a wondrous excellence;
Therefore my verse to constancy confined,
One thing expressing, leaves out difference.
Fair, kind, and true, is all my argument,
Fair, kind, and true, varying to other words;
And in this change is my invention spent,
Three themes in one, which wondrous scope affords.
Fair, kind, and true, have often lived alone,
Which three till now, never kept seat in one.

bot by @davidaugust

Still fond of this: my #music inspired by #Shakespeare A Midsummer Night’s Dream, in a lovely performance by Markus Stenz and Sydney Symphony Orchestra from 1999.
#classicalmusic
https://soundcloud.com/gordon-kerry/such-sweet-thunder

Sonnet 104 - CIV
To me, fair friend, you never can be old,
For as you were when first your eye I ey'd,
Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold,
Have from the forests shook three summers' pride,
Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn'd,
In process of the seasons have I seen,
Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn'd,
Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.
Ah! yet doth beauty like a dial-hand,
Steal from his figure, and no pace perceiv'd;
So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,
Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceiv'd:
For fear of which, hear this thou age unbred:
Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead.

bot by @davidaugust

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death.

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.

Macbeth.

Sonnet 010 - X
For shame deny that thou bear'st love to any,
Who for thy self art so unprovident.
Grant, if thou wilt, thou art beloved of many,
But that thou none lov'st is most evident:
For thou art so possessed with murderous hate,
That 'gainst thy self thou stick'st not to conspire,
Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate
Which to repair should be thy chief desire.
O! change thy thought, that I may change my mind:
Shall hate be fairer lodged than gentle love?
Be, as thy presence is, gracious and kind,
Or to thyself at least kind-hearted prove:
Make thee another self for love of me,
That beauty still may live in thine or thee.

bot by @davidaugust

Ophelia.
John Hayter, from "The Heroines of Shakespeare," Boston: [1850?] #illustration #art #Shakespeare https://www.oldbookillustrations.com/illustrations/ophelia/

To the Folger Library tonight for a play, A ROOM IN THE CASTLE by Lauren Gunderson. It fits into the spaces in HAMLET: Queen Gertrude, Ophelia, and Ophelia's nurse Anna talk about the events of the original play, try to figure out what's wrong with Hamlet, and then how to keep themselves -- especially Ophelia -- safe as matters get increasingly worse.

It's a great play, and I think it'll have a long stage life because it's a wonderful showpiece for three actresses. Like Anne-Marie MacDonald's similar play about Desdemona and Juliet, it tries to rewrite the ending but there's still tragedy as the climax approaches.

(I probably would have gotten a few more references if I'd reviewed the scenes featuring Gertrude and Ophelia from the original play. I remembered the broad strokes of the nunnery scene and the mad scene, the Queen's closet and the drowning scene, but not the specific language.)

Katherine.
John William Wright, from "The Heroines of Shakespeare," Boston: [1850?] #illustration #art #Shakespeare https://www.oldbookillustrations.com/illustrations/katherine/

Imogen.
John William Wright, from "The Heroines of Shakespeare," Boston: [1850?] #illustration #art #Shakespeare https://www.oldbookillustrations.com/illustrations/imogen/

Kathryn Hunter!

Her performance as #TheThreeWitches in #JoelCoen's #TheTragedyofMacbeth (2021) is perhaps the single most mesmerizing screen performance I have ever seen!

Born Aikaterini Hadjipateras to Greek parents in NYC + raised in England the British-American actress has also appeared as Arabella Figg in the Harry Potter films + as Swiney in Poor Things.