Category: William Shakespeare

Cleopatra

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Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have
Immortal longings in me: now no more
The juice of Egypt’s grape shall moist this lip:
Yare, yare, good Iras; quick. Methinks I hear
Antony call; I see him rouse himself
To praise my noble act; I hear him mock
The luck of Caesar, which the gods give men
To excuse their after wrath: husband, I come:
Now to that name my courage prove my title!
I am fire and air; my other elements
I give to baser life. So; have you done?
Come then, and take the last warmth of my lips.
Farewell, kind Charmian; Iras, long farewell.

Kisses them. IRAS falls and dies

Have I the aspic in my lips? Dost fall?
If thou and nature can so gently part,
The stroke of death is as a lover’s pinch,
Which hurts, and is desired. Dost thou lie still?
If thus thou vanishest, thou tell’st the world
It is not worth leave-taking.

William Shakespeare ~ Antony and Cleopatra 

The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight

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Charles Laughton ~ The Private Life of Henry VIII., 1933 
The court of Henry VIII. As preparations are in train for the King’s third wedding to the beautiful but foolish Jane Seymour, crowds gather for the execution of his second wife, Anne Boleyn. As the king’s ladies-in-waiting make ready the royal bedchamber, they fall to gossiping, but are disturbed by the King, who takes an interest in the confident and independent Katherine Howard… ➔ BFI Screenonline
Circle of Hans Holbein ~ King Henry VIII, 1535-40 [Galleria Nazionale di Arte Antica, Rome]
I COME no more to make you laugh: things now
That bear a weighty and a serious brow,
Sad, high, and working, full of state and woe,
Such noble scenes as draw the eye to flow,
We now present. Those that can pity, here
May, if they think it well, let fall a tear;
The subject will deserve it. Such as give
Their money out of hope they may believe,
May here find truth too. Those that come to see
Only a show or two, and so agree
The play may pass, if they be still and willing,
I’ll undertake may see away their shilling
Richly in two short hours. Only they
That come to hear a merry bawdy play,
A noise of targets, or to see a fellow
In a long motley coat guarded with yellow,
Will be deceiv’d; for, gentle hearers, know,
To rank our chosen truth with such a show
As fool and fight is, beside forfeiting
Our own brains, and the opinion that we bring
To make that only true we now intend,
Will leave us never an understanding friend.
Therefore, for goodness’ sake, and as you are known
The first and happiest hearers of the town,
Be sad, as we would make ye; think ye see
The very persons of our noble story
As they were living; think you see them great,
And follow’d with the general throng and sweat
Of thousand friends; then, in a moment, see
How soon this mightiness meets misery;
And if you can be merry then, I’ll say
A man may weep upon his wedding-day. 
  
William Shakespeare, ca. 1613

Darn that dream

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‘Somehow, I suspect that if Shakespeare were alive today, he might be a jazz fan himself.’ — Duke Ellington
 Lucien Aigner ~ Louis Armstrong as Bottom in the stage musical Swingin’ the Dream, a jazz version of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer’s Night Dream, 1939


~~~~~
Darn that dream I dream each night.
You say you love me and hold me tight,
But when I awake and you’re out of sight,
Oh, darn that dream.

Darn your lips and darn your eyes,
They lift me high above the moonlit sky,
Then I tumble out of paradise–
Oh, darn that dream.

Darn that one-track mind of mine,
It can’t understand that you don’t care.
Just to change the mood I’m in,
I’d welcome a nice old nightmare.

Darn that dream, and bless it, too.
Without that dream I’d never have you.
But it haunts me, and it won’t come true,
Oh, darn that dream.


music by Jimmy Van Heusen
lyrics by Eddie DeLange

Titania

Posted on Posted in Anita Louise, Fables and Fairy Tales, Film, James Cagney, John Simmons, Littérature, Max Reinhardt, Theatre, William Dieterle, William ShakespeareLeave a comment
John Simmons ~ There Lies Titania, 1872
☀ ☀ ☀

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine:
There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,
Lull’d in these flowers with dances and delight;
And there the snake throws her enamell’d skin,
Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in:
And with the juice of this I’ll streak her eyes,
And make her full of hateful fantasies.

Oberon
A Midsummer Night’s Dream Act 2, Scene 1
William Shakespeare
☀ ☀ ☀
Anita Louise as Titania, Queen of the Fairies

 Bottom and Titania, James Cagney and Anita Louise

Featurette on the making of Max Reinhardt‘s and William Dieterle‘s 1935 film version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream  ➔  Turner Classic Movies

Two households both alike in dignity…

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ACT I

PROLOGUE

  Two households, both alike in dignity,
  In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
  From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
  Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
  From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
  A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life;
  Whole misadventured piteous overthrows
  Do with their death bury their parents’ strife.
  The fearful passage of their death-mark’d love,
  And the continuance of their parents’ rage,
  Which, but their children’s end, nought could remove,
  Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage;
  The which if you with patient ears attend,
  What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.