When shall we three meet again
In thunder, lightning, or in foma?
Which work of Shakespeare was the original quote from?
This little Shakespeare Quote Widget was stolen from Malnurtured Snay. On the first hit I got that quote from Macbeth, my favorite Shakespeare play. My fascination with the Scottish play goes back to sixth grade when I played the title role for the English class production. It was then that I had to memorize his most famous soliloquy.
To test how well my memory has held up, I wrote out the speech and then checked it against the Complete Works of Shakespeare textbook I keep next to my engineering manuals (You never know when a good quote from The Bard will be relevant to a technical study). I didn't do too well. Below is my corrected version. I forgot one entire line and missed a few other things.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
creeps in thisitspetty pace from day to day
tountilthe 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 a shadow, a poor player
who 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.
In grade school, I used to be real good at memorizing things. When we had to recite poems for class, I would always pick the longest poem I could fine. At one time I had the entire "Midnight Ride of Paul Revere" available. Now, the brain isn't what it used to be. My wife only kind of jokes that she will never know the Alzheimer's kicks in. I joke back that it already has.
BlatantCommentWhoring™: What can you recite from memory?
12 comments:
"The night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind and another, his mother called him 'Wild Thing'..."
fb,
You would pass the George Will Custody Test.
It doesn't surprise me that you had forgotten the line "told by an idiot." Who wants to be associated with that?
My big moment came in 3rd grade when I memorized Lewis Carroll's The Lobster Quadrille poem from Alice in Wonderland. I'm pretty sure my teacher thought I was smoking something.
Jabberwocky is also a favorite of folk of certain bent.
I can still do the Jabberocky by heart. I had to learn MacBeth's speech in English Lit. in high school and could also do the astrology speech from Lear (I think). I could also do the Raven for a while, but that is a long time ago.
OK, yello made his comment about Jabberwocky while I was writing my post. And what exactly does that mean, a "certain bent"?
I meant the same type of people that can recite Monty Python lines at will. Deny it.
Extensively, once upon a time. These days, just the obvious ones from the films.
Wow, I got this apt pro-dog quote:
"Banish plump Puppy, and banish all the world."
Henry IV part 1, II.iv
Although I must say I'm not plump.
Wow, Shakespeare is really deep.
"The mutt doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a mutt."
And observant, too.
"There are more things in heaven and mutt, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
"We have heard the mutt at midnight."
Marc Anthony says: "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your mutt."
So I'm off. Nice visiting this blog!
The Berenstains' B Book, a book a loved as a kid and have read to all four of mine:
Big Brown Bear Blue Bull Beautiful Baboon blowing bubbles biking backwards bump Black Bugs banana boxes and Billy Bunny's bread basket and Brother Bob's Baseball Bus and Buster Beagle's Banjo Bagpipe Bugle Band. And that's what broke Baby Bird's balloon.
This is the culmination of the book. It starts with the single word Big. Then Big Brown, and so on. It's not Shakespeare, but it impresses the 4 year old.
I can recite a poem about springtime, in Russian, that I had to learn for a Russian weekend camp when I was in high school. I got an award. It's good for impressing men on the voice server when playing World of Warcraft.
Also, when I was in the 8th grade I had this fantastic English teacher who had us diagram sentences (then very unfashionable) and taught us to recite The Helping Verbs. I can still remember it:
Has have had
Do does did
Be am is are was were been
Can could
Shall should
Will would
May might must
Seem and become.
Also, a brief selection from Tennyson's "Idylls of the King," about Sir Bedivere. I don't remember all of it but I do recall some lovely bits about white samite, and how he wheels in an arc. Heady stuff, Tennyson.
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