Your Favorite Shakespeare

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

HENRY 4TH

HOTSPUR: My liege, I did deny no prisoners. But I remember, when the fight was done, When I was dry with rage and extreme toil, Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword, Came there a certain lord, neat and trimly dressed, Fresh as a bridegroom, and his chin new reaped Showed like a stubble land at harvest home. He was perfumèd like a milliner, And twixt his finger and his thumb he held A pouncet box, which ever and anon He gave his nose, and took't away again; Who therewith angry, when it next came there, Took it in snuff; and still he smiled and talked; And as the soldiers bore dead bodies by, He called them untaught knaves, unmannerly, To bring a slovenly unhandsome corpse Betwixt the wind and his nobility. With many holiday and lady terms He questioned me, amongst the rest demanded My prisoners in your majesty's behalf. I then, all smarting with my wounds being cold, To be so pestered with a popingay, Out of my grief and my impatience Answered neglectingly, I know not what-- He should, or he should not; for he made me mad To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet, And talk so like a waiting gentlewoman Of guns and drums and wounds

 

[MSTarot]

"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.

I think it's the hour upon the stage part that sends the mortality chill into my soul. An hour upon the stage and is then heard no more.

 

[oggbashan]

Beatrice and Benedict in
Much Ado About Nothing

Shakespeare's Globe production.

Much longer scene

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

"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.

I think it's the hour upon the stage part that sends the mortality chill into my soul. An hour upon the stage and is then heard no more.

Yes. Life is brief and gone for eternity. Yet we spend life prancing and farting to no purpose.

 

[vgrey]

Measure for Measure II. i.
"What's open made to justice,
That justice seizes."

If you have ever had to be a referee or someone that has the job of enforcing rules this is a useful quote. People that are guilty of infractions always complain that others have gotten away with whatever it is that they are being busted for. Which fact doesn't alter their guilt one little bit.

 

[LaRascasse]

King Lear, Act 4, Scene 1.

"As flies to wanton boys are we to th' gods,
They kill us for their sport."

Self-explanatory.