The Works of Shakespeare
Shakespeare does not come easy for me, so the first time through I read the sonnets and longer poems once, and the plays for the most part twice. Now (January 2020) I have read the Sonnets again sequentially, and am reading all the plays again. After that I plan to re-read the few long poems attributed to Shakespeare. A new activity has spurred this reading hobby of mine I've been attending the Shakespeare reading group at the Redwood Library on Wednesday afternoons. Really fun!
Comments about the sonnets. Many of the earlier ones (as numbered, not necessarily chronologically) seem to be about the duty to procreate: "Despite of wrinkles, this thy golden time./ But if thou live rem'bred not to be,/ Die single, and thine image dies with thee." (No. 3); "Make thee another self for love of me/That beauty still may live in thine or thee." (No. 10; see also Nos. 13, 17)
A lot of the others are about the brevity of life, growing old, and approaching death: "No longer mourn for me when I am dead/ Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell/ Give warning to the world that I am fled/ From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell" (No. 71); "That time of year thou mayst in me behold/ When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang/ Upon those boughs which shake against the cold/ Bare ruin'd choirs where late the sweet birds sang." (No. 73; see also Nos. 74, 77, 81)
And, of course, some express what today seems like silly romanticism: "Being your slave, what should I do but tend/ Upon the hours and times of your desire?" (No. 57); "Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing ...." (No. 87); "For nothing in this wide universe I call/ Save thou, my rose; in it thou art my all." (No. 109).
On other topics, like a sinful life: "For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;/ Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds." (No. 94); lust: "Enjoyed no sooner but despised straight;/ Past reason hunted, and no sooner had,/ Past reason hated, as a swallowed bait/ On purpose laid to make the taker mad;/ ... All this the world well knows; yet not knows well/ To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell." (No. 129); the way lovers lie to each other to flatter themselves (No. 138).
Here are my capsule reviews/summaries of the plays and the long poems:
Shakespeare's plays
All's Well That Ends Well
Antony and Cleopatra, The Tragedy of
As You Like It
Comedy of Errors, The
Coriolanus, The Tragedy of
Cymbeline
Hamlet, The Tragedy of
Henry the Fourth, Part 1 Part 2
Henry the Fifth
Henry the Sixth, Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
Henry the Eighth
Julius Caesar, The Tragedy of
King John
King Richard II
King Richard III
Lear, The Tragedy of King
Love's Labour's Lost
Macbeth, The Tragedy of
Measure for Measure
Merchant of Venice, The
Merry Wives of Windsor
Midsummer Night's Dream
Much Ado About Nothing
Othello, The Tragedy of
Romeo and Juliet, The Tragedy of
Taming of the Shrew, The
Tempest, The
Timon of Athens
Titus Andronicus
Troilus and Cressida
Twelfth Night
Two Gentlemen of Verona
Two Noble Kinsmen, The
Winter's Tale, The
Reflections on Shakespeare's plays
Shakespeare's poems
Adonis and Venus
Lover's Complaint, A
Lucrece
Passionate Pilgrim, The
Phoenix and Turtle, The
All's Well That Ends Well [Next review] [Back to Plays]Helena, the orphan daughter of a famous physician, uses notes from her father's files to cure the French king of a serious disease, which none of his physicians had been able to cure. In return she asks the king that she be allowed to marry any of his nobles that she chooses. She chooses a handsome noble, Bertram, who under pressure marries her, but then deserts her to go to fight in Italy. Bertram has a bombastic companion, Parolles, but Lord Lafew, an elderly French lord, sees right through him. Among other things, when arguing with Parolles, Lord Lafew delivers this scabrous put-down, "Thou wert best set thy lower part where thy nose stands." Act II, Scene 3.
Helena follows Bertram to Italy in the guise of a religious pilgrim. She discovers that he is trying to seduce a virgin named Diana, and by clever planning (involving the switching of a special ring), arranges to be in Diana's bed when Bertram climbs into her room at night. When Bertram returns to France, Helena and Diana, and Diana's mother, all follow, and Helena, who is now pregnant with Bertram's child and has the ring Bertram had given Diana, winds up getting Bertram back as a husband after all. So all's well that ends well!
The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra [Next review] [Preceding review] [Back to Plays]
Although married to Fulvia, Mark Antony, one of three Triumvirs of Rome, is charmed into becoming the lover of Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, who had formerly borne a son to Octavian, who later (I think) became the first emperor of Rome. Antony is a great warrior and leader of men, but he is hopelessly weak-kneed when it comes to women, or at least to Cleopatra (Pompey calls him the "ne'er lust-wearied Antony"). The plot revolves around the tension between Antony and the other two triumvirs, Octavius Caesar and Lepidus, when Rome is threatened by Pompey, the son of a former Roman Emperor. Caesar and Lepidus want Antony to "Leave thy lascivious wassails" in Egypt and join them in fighting against Pompey. After vacillating, Antony reluctantly agrees. However, before leaving Egypt to return to Rome, Antony learns that his wife, Fulvia, has died, which brings him some momentary sorrow but also frees his conscience about consorting with Cleopatra.
When Antony meets Caesar back at Rome, at first there is so much tension between them that they threaten to fight each other. However, Agrippa, one of Caesar's friends, proposes a solution to their differences. If Antony, now a widower, will marry Caesar's sister, Octavia, that will make the men brothers-in-law. Antony agrees (apparently Octavia's consent was assumed or considered unnecessary), and that seems to solve the immediate need for unity in the battle against Pompey, although Antony's lieutenant Enobarbus has his doubts. The battles between the forces of Pompey and Rome are not described in detail. Rome is much stronger on land, but Pompey's navy rules the sea. Antony, encouraged by Cleopatra, foolishly challenges Pompey at sea, even though warned by one of his common soldiers that he should only fight on land. When the 60 sailing vessels supplied by Egypt (and carrying Cleopatra) retreat from the battle, Antony's ships follow, bringing about a general rout and handing Pompey a great victory.
The end comes when Antony, after abandoning Octavia and returning to Egypt, challenges Caesar to fight him one-on-one. Caesar refuses, so then Antony's army engages Caesar's and wins a great victory. Antony is overjoyed, and goes back to Cleopatra boasting and joyful. However, the next morning Caesar refuses to fight on land, and Antony unwisely faces him again at sea. When the Egyptian vessels supporting Antony surrender to the Romans, and in fact the Egyptian sailors begin carousing and celebrating with them, Antony is crushed. He accuses Cleopatra of betraying him again, calls her a "Triple-turn'd whore," and vows to kill her. He tells her that Caesar will "hoist thee up to the shouting plebeians" and that Octavia will "plough thy visage up/ With her prepared nails."
So Cleopatra flees back to her palace and locks herself up in her "monument" (apparently a burial tomb, perhaps prepared for her). However, she tells her eunich, Mardian, to find Antony and tell him that she has committed suicide with the last word on her lips, "Antony." When Antony hears that Cleopatra is dead, he orders his aide to kill him, and when the aide kills himself instead, Antony tries to stab himself but, though wounded, does not die immediately. While still conscious he learns that Cleopatra has not killed herself; he asks to be brought to her side, but it is too late. One final kiss and Antony dies, whereupon Cleopatra, unwilling to live without him, has a servant arrange to bring her a basket of figs containing poisonous asps. She clasps an asp to her breast and dies next to Antony's dead body. Caesar orders that they be buried side-by-side in a state funeral with all his army attending.
What to make of this amazing play? It speaks of love and lust, power and pride, nobility and cowardice. Antony is both noble (when deserted by his lieutenant Enobarbus, Antony refuses to condemn him and sends his belongings to him in Caesar's camp) and a scoundrel or at least a fool in love. He pays no attention to his marriage vows, partying with Cleopatra while his wife, Fulvia, is in Rome, and then abandoning his second wife, Octavia, to return to Cleopatra in Egypt. Cleopatra is vain and charming, and apparently super-seductive. As Enobarbus says about her: "Age cannot wither her nor custom stale/ Her infinite variety. Other women cloy/ The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry/ Where most she satisfies; for vilest things/ Become themselves in her, that the holy priests/ Bless her when she is riggish."
As You Like It [Next review] [Preceding review] [Back to Plays]
Two female cousins run away from the father of one of them (the usurping Duke) to join the father of the other (the rightful Duke) and his followers who are living like Robin Hood in the forest. For practical reasons, the taller one, Rosalind, takes the name "Ganymede" and wears men's clothing, while her cousin, Celia, becomes "Aliena." Ultimately Rosalind finds her true love, Orlando, while Celia winds up with Orlando's brother, Oliver. I enjoyed this play, although only with a good imagination can the forest scenes with Rosalind dressed like a man be believed. Famous lines include "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players." (Act 2, Scene 7) Also, "I am a woman ....
The Comedy of Errors [Next review] [Preceding review] [Back to Plays]
A rather silly plot, scarcely believable even with a lot of imagination. Identical twin brothers, Antipholus of Ephesus and Antipholus of Syracuse, are served by identical twin brothers, Dromio of Ephesus and Dromio of Syracuse, but both sets of twins were separated shortly after birth by a terrible storm at sea. Antipholus of Syracuse is searching the world for his long-lost brother; finds him in Ephesus but is condemned to die because no one from Syracuse is allowed to enter Ephesus; and his efforts to buy his way out of the judgment lead to many humorous mixups between the various twins and others they meet in Ephesus. Not too good, in my opinion.
The Tragedy of Coriolanus [Next review] [Preceding review] [Back to Plays]
This is a morality play. Caius Marcius, a great Roman general, leads his army to victory over the Volscians, single-handedly defeating the city of Corioles by entering its gates alone, during the battle, and emerging victorious. For that exploit he was named Coriolanus. He was also nominated consul by the Roman Senate. However, by Roman custom the common citizens had to consent for anyone to be elected consul, and they hate Coriolanus because he is arrogant, refuses their pleas for corn and grain, and despises them (calls them "dissentious rogues" and "curs").
Coriolanus's mother, Volumnia, his wife, Virgilia, and his friends urge him to present himself in the accepted "gown of humility" before the people and ask to be appointed consul. After some grumbling Coriolanus does put on the gown, and when he first appears before the people all seems to go well. But two of the tribunes, Brutus and Sicinius (who apparently were not present), ask the citizens whether he was mocking them and showed contempt when he appeared before them. Yes, they agree with the tribunes and turn against Coriolanus and revoke their previous consent. Coriolanus rails against them, and says they are deliberately plotting to "curb the will of the nobility." The more he speaks, the more the people are incensed, and finally they call him a "viperous traitor" and vow to hurl him to his death from a high rock. However, his fellow general, Cominius, and especially his mother beseech him to go again before the people and "perform a part" to gain their acceptance. He grudgingly agrees to do so, but just cannot pull it off. When he hears the word "traitor" applied to him, he flies into a rage, which of course only further arouses the crowd. With much effort, their riot is subdued and the tribunes announce that Coriolanus is guilty but will not be killed ... only banished forever from Rome.
Coriolanus responds, "I banish you!" and says "There is a world elsewhere." He goes to his former enemies, the Volscians, offering to fight for them against Rome. The leader of the Volscians (and Coriolanus's bitter enemy), Aufidius, welcomes him and makes him a co-leader of his army. However, when the Volscian army is victorious, proud Coriolanus takes all the credit. Then, before he attacks Rome itself, his mother and wife come pleading with him to spare the city. He agrees, but his pride and agreement to call off the attack (without consulting Aufidius) enrages the Volscians and they kill him. Then they give him a state funeral!
The obvious moral of this play is that one should not be proud and look down on common people, but Shakespeare does not make it one-sided. Coriolanus has his good points. He does not try to curry favor or ingratiate himself, even when the enormous honor of being consul is presented to him. He is incredibly brave and yet deflects praise; he is frank and says and acts on what he believes. He also has enormous respect for his mother. When she appears before him (except when she pleads for him to spare the city of Rome) he kneels, although she is sort of a super-patriot who glorifies his exploits in battle and rejoices in his wounds. Shakespeare depicts the crowd of commoners as fickle, easily roused to hail Coriolanus as a conquering hero but then just as easily swayed by the tribunes to run him out of the city. Sounds like the crowd before Pilate when Jesus was brought to trial!
Cymbeline [Next review] [Preceding review] [Back to Plays]
Imogen, daughter of King Cymbeline by a former queen, has married a relatively impoverished gentleman, Posthumus Leonatus, who has been banned by Cymbeline because his current Queen wants, Cloten, her son by a former husband to marry Imogen and be heir to the crown. Posthumus escapes to Italy, where he makes a foolish wager with Iachimo (apparently an Italian playboy) that the latter cannot seduce Imogen. Iachimo goes to England and fails to seduce Imogen but through a ruse (hiding in a box that he persuades her to keep overnight in her room) he sees her asleep, slips a bracelet Posthumus had given her off her arm, and notes a mole or mark above her breast. He goes back to Italy, gives Posthumus this evidence of her "infidelity" and wins the bet. Posthumus then seeks to kill Imogen in revenge, but with the help of her servant she dresses in men's clothing and escapes to a cave, where eventually she is rescued by two sons of Cymbeline who had been stolen in infancy and grew up living in the forest. Eventually, Cloten is killed by one of the king's sons, the evil Queen dies, Posthumus is jailed and then freed, and Imogen reveals herself to Cymbeline, her father, who forgives and restores her.
The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark [Next review] [Preceding review] [Back to Plays]
Hamlet's father, also named Hamlet, was murdered by his brother Claudius, Hamlet's uncle, who then married Hamlet's recently widowed mother, Gertrude. Late one night Hamlet sees his father's ghost walking majestically in full armor on a platform before the castle, Elsinore. The ghost tells Hamlet to avenge his murder by killing the murderer, Hamlet's uncle, the king.
But Hamlet is not sure. He pretends to be mad, but cleverly figures out how to doctor a play presented by visiting actors to confront the king with his foul deed. However, most of the court thinks Hamlet is just madly in love with Ophelia, the daughter of Polonious, the Lord Chamberlain, and sister to Laertas. The king is afraid of Hamlet, but is reluctant to take action against him because of his wife's protective love for her son. So he decides to send Hamlet on a voyage to England, ostensibly to collect tribute owed by England to Denmark. But secretly the king sends instructions, through the perfidy of Hamlet's traveling companions and erstwhile friends' Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, to have Hamlet executed upon his arrival in England. This plot is foiled, however, when the ship is attacked by pirates, and in the ensuing confusion Hamlet finds the treacherous commission in the luggage of his so-called friends and exchanges it with a forged commission written by Hamlet himself, ordering the execution of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
Before this happens, Hamlet accidentally kills Polonious, Ophelia's father. She is distraught, and either intentionally or accidentally drowns herself, whereupon her brother, Laertes, hearing of it, vows to kill Hamlet. Upon Hamlet's return to Denmark, the king plots with Laertes to have Hamlet killed in a duel, with a back-up plan to give him a poisoned drink. However, the play comes to a relatively abrupt end when the queen accidentally drinks the poison, Laertes is fatally wounded by his own poison-tipped foil, then Hamlet makes the king drink of the poisoned cup and he drinks it himself. So all the leading actors are dead.
Henry the Fourth, Part 1 [Next review] [Preceding review] [Back to Plays]
King Henry IV's son, Prince Hal, likes to drink and hang out with disreputable friends at the Boar's Head Tavern in Eastcheap, served by the hostess, Mistress Quickly. Chief among Hal's friends is Sir John Falstaff, a likable but big, fat and immoral knight who is always looking for a "bottle of sack." Falstaff is one of Shakespeare's greatest creations. Although he himself is a coward, he repeatedly cries, "A plague of all cowards" after Hal and his friend Ned Poins, who were supposedly going to join Falstaff and three others in robbing some travelers, hid themselves and then in disguise took the money from Falstaff. The highly exaggerated story Falstaff tells about this incident is hilarious, as is the ensuing role-playing when Falstaff plays the part of the king to rebuke Hal, and then he and Hal switch roles. (Act II, Scene IV) This is a very funny play, laced with Elizabethan trash talk.
However when a rebellion breaks out in the north of the kingdom, led by Henry Percy, nicknamed "Hotspur," everything gets serious. Prince Hal leads the King's forces. One of the rebels, the Earl of Douglas, fights against Falstaff, who falls down and fakes death. Prince Hal fights and kills Hotspur, which ends that part of the rebellion, then Hal vows to repent of his dissolute life.
Henry the Fourth, Part 2 [Next review] [Preceding review] [Back to Plays]
Rebellion, continued. The king's forces win again, but this time by treachery. Henry's second son, John of Lancaster, agrees in a parley with the rebels to meet all their demands, and then, when the rebel troops have all been dismissed, John arrests the rebel leaders, including the Bishop of York, and has them hauled away to be executed. The old king then dies and Prince Hal becomes Henry V. Falstaff, expecting him to be the same as young Hal, goes to the coronation but when he calls out to the new king, Henry V says, "I know thee not, old man. Fall to thy prayers." However, King Henry also orders that Falstaff and his other former friends be "very well provided for" from public funds, and only banished until "we hear you do reform yourselves." The play is still pretty funny, but I don't like the implied approval of the royal forces' treachery.
Henry the Fifth [Next review] [Preceding review] [Back to Plays]
The carousing Prince Hal of Henry IV becomes the noble, inspiring Henry V. He rebukes but does not punish his erstwhile drinking buddy, Sir John Falstaff. The "Dauphin," prince of France, had sent messengers to King Henry with a "treasure" of tennis balls, to mock his claim to be ruler of France. The Dauphin arrogantly boasts that his French army will send the English packing, but rather the French are routed at Agincourt, where King Henry leads the vastly outnumbered English troops to victory. He calls on them to charge again into the breach in the wall of Agincourt, crying, "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more ...." When the Duke of Gloucester expresses the fear that the French will come upon the English army in its weakened condition, Henry responds, "We are in God's hand, brother, not in theirs." At the end of the play King Henry woos Katherine, daughter of the French king, and wins her as his wife.
Henry the Sixth, Part 1 [Next review] [Preceding review] [Back to Plays]
Opens with the funeral of the much lamented King Henry V. Messengers arrive, telling of the rebellion of the French and the crowning of "the Dauphin Charles" as their King. Although Lord Talbot, the English hero, is captured, other English troops under Lord Bedford are defeating the French army when a "holy maid," Joan Pucelle ("Joan of Arc"), comes on the scene and leads the French troops to victory before being captured by the ransomed Talbot. Back in England, the English nobles are divided, with a great rivalry between the Bishop of Winchester (later Cardinal) and the Duke of Glocester, the king's uncle and Protector. Help promised from England does not arrive, and Talbot, with his son John, are both slain and the French rejoice. The Pope intervenes, pleads for peace "To stop effusion of our Christian blood," and this peace is apparently sealed with the Duke of Suffolk entering a proxy marriage with Margaret, the daughter of the King of Naples, in order to deliver her to King Henry VI as his Queen.
Henry the Sixth, Part 2 [Next review] [Preceding review] [Back to Plays]
Henry VI, good-hearted, pious, but very weak, is unable to halt the internecine rivalry between various nobles, mainly the Duke of York, who claims the crown for himself, and Humphrey, the Duke of Gloucester. The latter complains that the marriage contract of Queen Margaret provided for no dowry and required England to surrender two conquered French provinces, Anjou and Maine. Duke Humphrey's wife, Eleanor, is so ambitious to be queen that she turns to sorcery, for which she is punished and exiled to the Isle of Mann. Then Humphrey is murdered in bed at the instigation of the Queen (who is strong, vengeful, and extremely jealous of Eleanor), Lord Suffolk, Cardinal Beaufort, and the Duke of York. King Henry just wrings his hands helplessly ("So mighty are his enemies" he wails). Then the "commons," instigated by the Duke of York, break out in rebellion, and demand that Lord Suffolk be punished for Humphrey's death. This time Henry shows some spine and, despite Margaret's pleading, he banishes Suffolk from the realm, and Suffolk is himself murdered at sea. Meanwhile the commons, led by a clothier named Jack Cade, riot and start killing various officials, who are basically guilty of being educated. (One of Cade's followers, Dick the Butcher, utters the famous words, "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.") The rabble capture London Bridge, but then the Duke of Buckingham and Lord Clifford, allies of the King, get Cade's followers to surrender, although Cade himself escapes (only to be killed a few days later when he climbs into a gentleman's garden to find something to eat). Finally, the Duke of York openly challenges the King, and he and his sons kill those protecting him. The play ends with Henry VI fleeing with Margaret to London.
Henry the Sixth, Part 3 [Next review] [Preceding review] [Back to Plays]
Richard, Duke of York, enters Parliament with his sons and sits on King Henry's throne. Henry then arrives with Lord Clifford and other allies. Henry tries to conciliate York, to the dismay of his allies, and then agrees that if York will let him live out his days as king, the throne will then be turned over to the House of York. Thus Henry VI disinherits his son, Edward. When Queen Margaret hears about it, she is enraged. She calls him a "timorous wretch" and then storms out with their son, Edward. While the Queen's forces meet those of Richard, Duke of York, in battle, King Henry sits on a molehill and meditates on how unhappy he is; he says he would rather be one of the "shepherds looking on their silly sheep." A lot of bloodshed follows – York himself is killed and beheaded, and Lord Clifford slays Rutland, York's youngest son, and then is himself slain. A father kills his unrecognized son and a son kills his unrecognized father.
Edward, son of Richard, winds up on the throne, but when the beautiful widow, Lady Grey, comes to ask him to restore her husband's property to her, he boldly says he plans to sleep with her and, ultimately, marries her. Meanwhile, the Earl of Warwick is in France trying to arrange a royal marriage between King Edward and Bona, sister of Lewis, King of France. When Warwick hears about Edward marrying Lady Grey, he switches his loyalty back to Queen Margaret and vows to "uncrown" Edward. Lewis, the French King, agrees to send forces to help him avenge the slight to Bona. But Warwick dies in battle, and Henry's son Richard, whom he disinherited, is captured, and when he speaks contemptuously to King Edward, he is promptly slain. Then another son of Richard, also named Richard, who is apparently misshapen from birth, kills King Henry in the Tower of London. Thus ends a bloody tale. The moral of the story seems to be that a king's piety and reluctance to fight can be worse than a king's fierce aggression.
Henry the Eighth [Next review] [Preceding review] [Back to Plays]
Not the murderous Henry VIII of history, but a more gentle even compassionate ruler who, yes, does divorce his wife of 20 years, Katherine, to marry her beautiful maid, Anne Bullen, but feels bad about it, constantly asks about Katherine, and continues to vow his love for her. Anne is loyal to her mistress, Queen Katherine, and says (to an old woman) that she does not want to be queen, but of course she does become Henry's queen after first being named Marchioness of Pembroke with a stipend of a thousand pounds a year. Queen Katherine is admirable, charging the avaricious and manipulative Cardinal Wolsey, in the presence of the King before her divorce, with harshly taxing the King's subjects, and then when he and Cardinal Campeius, who came from Rome to help conduct the divorce trial, want to question her alone, she says, "Out with it boldly. Truth loves open dealing." She not only refuses to cooperate in the divorce proceedings, but tells Cardinal Wolsey to his face:
You are mine enemy, and make my challenge
You shall not be my judge; for it is you
Have blown this coal betwixt my lord and me
Which God's dew quench! Therefore I say again,
I utterly abhor, yea, from my soul
Refuse you for my judge, whom, yet once more,
I hold my most malicious foe and think not
At all a friend to truth. (Act II, Scene 4)
The divorce is granted, apparently on trumped up grounds, and Henry secretly marries Anne Bullen, to the displeasure of Cardinal Wolsey, who wanted him to marry the French king's sister. Wolsey, the dealmaker, is himself undone when he mistakenly includes, in a report he gives the king, some documents showing the enormous wealth he has accumulated and his duplicity in writing to the Pope about Henry's proposed marriage to Anne Bullen. Henry questions the Cardinal, then hands him the incriminating documents, saying on his way out, "Read o'er this,/ And after, this; and then to breakfast with/ What appetite you have." Wolsey realizes that he is undone, and then apparently undergoes a not-quite-believable change of heart, exclaiming "Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye!" He tells his servant Cromwell, "I know myself now, and I feel within me/ A peace above all earthly dignities,/ A still and quiet conscience." He then fell sick and moved to an abbey, where he died a few days later.
Meanwhile, Katherine also falls sick, and has a vision of heavenly beings dressed in white robes dancing around her. She writes a final letter to King Henry, beseeching him to take care of their young daughter, to find noble husbands for her maids, and to pay the men who waited on her their wages. Katherine's replacement, the Lady Anne is crowned queen; she becomes pregnant and gives birth to a little daughter. At the end of the play the baby is christened Princess Elizabeth, to great joy and celebration.
The Tragedy of Julius Caesar [Next review] [Preceding review] [Back to Plays]
The mighty Roman conqueror, Julius Caesar, who "doth bestride the narrow world/ Like a colossus," returns to Rome in triumph after defeating Pompey. He appears vain, infatuated with himself and his power. An ambitious and devious citizen, Cassius, implores Brutus, who is an idealistic, highly esteemed Roman and friend of Caesar's, to join a plot against Caesar because he has become too autocratic and is likely to be crowned king. Although reluctant at first, Brutus is persuaded to join them because although he loves Caesar, his love for Rome and its citizens' freedom is greater. The plan is to stab Caesar while he is seated in the Senate. Caesar's final, touching, words when he looks at Brutus among the murderers, "Et tu, Brute?"
Although he is admired and loved for his probity, Brutus does not seem to have an abundance of common sense. In joining the conspirators to commit murder, he seems to believe that if he just explains why he suspects Caesar's ambitions (for all he has are suspicions), everything will be all right. And then at Caesar's funeral he lets Caesar's friend, Mark Antony, a great warrior, address the crowd after he speaks and goes home. As a result, when Brutus speaks to explain the reasons for the assassination, the citizens do not at first blame him or the other conspirators; in fact, they want to make Brutus king in Caesar's place. But then Mark Antony steps into the pulpit and addresses the crowd. Although he says, "I am no orator, as Brutus is," Antony is in fact a great public speaker. At first, after getting their attention ("Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears ...."), he effusively praises Brutus. He says over and over, "Brutus is an honorable man," but then he starts talking about all that Caesar did for Rome, finally disclosing that in his will Caesar made a generous bequest for every Roman citizen. At that point the fickle crowd is ready to lynch Brutus and the other conspirators, although they wind up killing Cinno, an innocent poet, instead.
Next comes the almost anti-climactic reaction to Caesar's murder by Mark Antony and other friends and relatives of Caesar. Forces allied with each side meet on the battlefield at Philippi. When the conspirators are defeated, Cassius and Brutus, with the help of their servants, fall on their own swords and die. At the end, Mark Antony stands over Brutus's body and proclaims, "This was the noblest Roman of them all./ All the conspirators save only he/ Did that they did in envy of great Caesar;/ He, only in a general honest thought/ And common good to all, made one of them./ His life was gentle, and the elements/ So mix'd in him that Nature might stand up/ And say to all the world, This was a man!'"
King John [Next review] [Preceding review] [Back to Plays]
Urged on by his mother and accompanied by the Bastard (the older but illegitimate son of a prominent noble), King John of England races to France with his troops to stop the French from claiming and seizing territory ruled by England, although in France. The French army, led by the French king, Philip, is joined by the Austrian army, and they all meet up at the walled city of Algiers. King John demands that the citizens of Algiers open up to welcome him as their true king; King Philip demands the same in the name of France; but the citizens refuse to open the gates until they can determine who is their true sovereign. At the Bastard's suggestion, the leaders of the armies decide to bombard the city from all directions until it is leveled and then fight it out among themselves. But the quick-witted citizens of Algiers come up with a solution that is at first embraced by all parties for King Philip's son, called the Dauphin, to marry King John's niece, Blanch of Spain, thus uniting France and England but that is torpedoed when the Pope's Legate, Cardinal Pandulph, shows up and excommunicates King John for not recognizing the Pope's authority in England. Cardinal Pandulph also orders King Philip to have nothing to do with the King of England, which puts the two countries at enmity again. King John seizes his nephew Arthur from King Philip, takes Arthur back to England and orders Hubert, one of his nobles, to blind and then kill the boy. Although Hubert disobeys this command, Arthur climbs out of a window in his cell and jumps out, trying to escape but killing himself on the rocks below. In a somewhat murky ending to the play, King John is poisoned, apparently by one or more of the monks he was shaking down to pay for his military exploits, and his son, Richard, is crowned king. Not one of Shakespeare's best, in my opinion.
King Richard II [Next review] [Preceding review] [Back to Plays]
Fatuous and frivolous, yet at times regal and even philosophical, King Richard II, son of King John, is a bundle of contradictions. He starts out apparently defusing a bitter enmity between his cousin, Henry Bolingbroke, Duke of Hereford, and Thomas Mowbray, Duke of York, by halting their knightly joust just as it was about to begin. However, while he stops them from killing each other, he exiles them from England, Mowbray for life and Bolingbroke for ten years. Then Richard continues his free-spending ways, heavily taxing the populace and, when Bolingbroke's father, John of Gaunt, dies, he confiscates all his property, although legally it should go to his exiled son. Before he dies, Gaunt delivers a famous soliloquy about England. (Act II, Scene I)
When his subjects in Ireland revolt, Richard sets out to bring them to heel, but soldiers promised from Wales disappear and victory is far from assured. Then Richard receives word that Bolingbroke has violated his banishment and returned to England with an army that is daily swelling in numbers with disaffected Englishmen who want Bolingbroke to be king. King Richard retreats to Flint Castle in Wales, then agrees to meet with Bolingbroke, who at first says he does not want to depose Richard as king; he only wants to receive his rightful inheritance from his father, and the king agrees to this. But most of Richard's followers have deserted him, and it soon becomes clear that his days as king are numbered. When he meets with Bolingbroke, he vacillates between threatening divine vengeance on him as a traitor ("God omnipotent,/ Is mustering in his clouds on our behalf/ Armies of pestilence ....") and self-pity ("I'll give my jewels for a set of beads,/ My gorgeous palace for a hermitage,/ My gay apparel for an almsman's gown,/ My figured goblets for a dish of wood,/ My sceptre for a palmer's walking staff./ My subjects for a pair of carved saints,/ And my large kingdom for a little grave,/ A little little grave, an obscure grave ...." (Act III, Scene III) Then he yields to Bolingbroke, goes to London, and in Westminster Hall, after a bit more dithering, he ultimately hands over his crown.
Bolingbroke, now crowned King Henry IV, has Richard imprisoned, where he is murdered by one of Bolingbroke's followers, not on the new king's instructions but with his tacit assent. On hearing the news that Richard is dead, Henry IV apparently undergoes some kind of spiritual crisis (or projects a repentant attitude), calls on his lords to mourn the former king's death, and vows to "make a voyage to the Holy Land/ To wash this blood off from my guilty hand." (To be continued in King Henry IV, Part 1)
King Richard III [Next review] [Preceding review] [Back to Plays]
I thought I had met Shakespeare's most evil character in Iago (Othello) but Richard III clearly is worse. The play opens with Richard, Duke of Gloucester, the younger brother of King Edward IV, griping about the time of peace ("Now is the winter of our discontent ....") that has followed the King's successful war against his enemies. Richard, who fought valiantly in that war, does not like peacetime because he is deformed, apparently a hunchback, and is scorned by ladies and even barked at by dogs. He announces right at the beginning that he is "determined to prove a villain" and says he is "subtle, false, and treacherous." One by one he arranges for the murder of all those who stand in the way of his ascension to the throne when his brother Edward dies. Even Edward's two young sons, Richard's nephews, are put in the Tower of London and then smothered at his direction. But a day of reckoning is coming! The Earl of Richmond, of the rival "house of Lancaster," comes from France with an armed force, augmented by many in England who are fed up with Richard's atrocities, and meets Richard and his soldiers on the battlefield. The night before the climactic battle the ghosts of all those Richard has killed appear to him and then to Richmond in dreams. To Richard they say "despair and die" but to Richmond they say "Live and flourish!" Richard is shaken, but quickly recovers in the morning and leads his troops into battle. Although his horse is killed ("A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!"), he is still a fierce warrior on foot. But Richmond slays him in hand-to-hand combat and the battle is over. Richmond is crowned King Henry VII, and grants a pardon to all who fought on Richard's side.
Love's Labour's Lost [Next review] [Preceding review] [Back to Plays]
Ferdinand, King of Navarre, persuades three of his lords to live cloistered with him for three years to study philosophy, without seeing a woman, fasting completely one day a week and eating just one meal on the other days, and sleeping only three hours a night. Needless to say, one by one they all break their promises. First, the king forgot that the French king's daughter was on her way "in embassy" to negotiate with him about a dispute over Aquitaine (apparently a French province). Ferdinand forbids her to come within his gates, but goes out, with his lords, to speak with her in a field encampment. His lords all fall for one or the other of the princess's ladies, but each tries to keep it a secret from the others to avoid the shame of breaking his oath. Much of the play is taken up with the "wooing" of the French ladies by the king and his lords; among other things, they dress up as Russians to present an entertainment, and the ladies all show up in masks, so they men cannot tell which is which. Finally, just before the princess and her ladies return to France, the men all swear their undying love, but the ladies say, in effect, wait a year and see how you feel then (apparently that's the losing of "love's labour"). Pretty far-fetched, but entertaining, with a lot of word-play.
Measure for Measure [Next review] [Preceding review] [Back to Plays]
The Duke of Vienna, Vincentio, decides to leave town suddenly. He appoints as his deputy, with full authority to rule, a gentleman of virtuous character, Angelo, who takes his duties reluctantly but super-conscientiously. One of his first acts is to condemn to death a gentleman named Claudio. His offense? Getting his girlfriend, Juliet, pregnant. Although this kind of immorality has not been taken seriously in Vienna for many years, Angelo says it is necessary to make an example of Claudio to deter others from such conduct. Through an intermediary, Claudio begs his sister, Isabella, who has just become a novitiate, to intervene for him with Angelo and plead for his life. She does so, but Angelo is himself overcome with temptation and offers to set Claudio free only if Isabella will sleep with him. She refuses to sacrifice her honor even to save her brother.
Meanwhile, however, the Duke, wanting to find out how Angelo is doing, returns to Vienna disguised as a monk. He learns about Claudio's death sentence, visits him in prison, and then devises a scheme to save him, a somewhat farfetched scheme that involves Angelo's former fiancι, Mariana, whom he jilted because her dowery was too small, going to Angelo's room at night in Isabella's place. The scheme works (with the help of the jailer, who substitutes the head of another prisoner who fortuitously has just died, for Claudio's head). Claudio, revealed to be alive at the last minute, is freed to marry Juliet; Angelo marries Mariana, who says she still loves him; and (apparently because Shakespeare loves tidy, happy endings) the Duke even offers his hand in marriage to Isabella, presumably if she quits the nunnery. Very enjoyable play, with a profound message of grace and forgiveness in lieu of "measure for measure!"
Merchant of Venice, The [Next review] [Preceding review] [Back to Plays]
Bassanio, a nobleman of Venice, is heavily in debt to his wealthy and generous friend, Antonio, but he needs more money, a lot of it, because he wants to travel to Belmont, on the continent, to woo Portia, a rich heiress renowned for her beauty and brains and probably her money too. He broaches the idea of a further loan from Antonio, promising that he will at least be able to pay back the principal amount of that debt and hopefully will be able to pay all that he owes to Antonio. The latter is very willing to help out his friend again, but he explains that all his ships are at sea and until at least one of them returns safely he will not have enough money to make another loan.
But Antonio has another idea. He tells Bassanio to go find a money lender who will lend him what he needs on Antonio's credit. So Bassanio goes to Shylock, a wealthy Jew who lends money at interest, and asks to borrow 3,000 ducats for three months, and says Antonio will bind himself for the loan. Before they reach an agreement, Antonio himself shows up and says he will be bound. Well, Shylock knows Antonio, and hates him, for being a Christian who lends money without charging interest (thus undercutting Shylock's business), but also because Antonio looks down on him, curses him, and calls him a dog. So canny Shylock says he will lend him the money, and will not even charge him any interest, but if he fails to repay the debt in three months, Shylock will have the right to cut a "pound of your fair flesh" from any part of Antonio's body. Although Bassanio remonstrates with him, Antonio agrees, confident that his ships will arrive a month before the debt is due. With the money from Shylock, Bassanio travels to Belmont to try to win the hand of the fair Portia.
With the help of her maid, Nerissa, Portia has been entertaining suitors, and dismissing them one after the other because they failed the test set up by her now-deceased father whoever would marry Portia must guess which of three caskets contains her picture. One casket is made of gold, a second of silver, and the third of lead. Two suitors choose the gold and the silver, respectively, and are sent packing. Then comes Bassanio from Venice, enriched with Shylock's 3000 ducats, and he chooses the lead casket, finds Portia's picture, and they make happy plans to wed. Meanwhile, in two parallel romantic tangles, Bassanio's friend, Gratiano, who accompanies him to Belmont, falls in love with Nerissa, Portia's maid, and when Shylock goes out of his house, his beautiful daughter, Jessica, disregards his warnings to lock up the house and not to even look out the window at the "Christian fools with varnish'd faces" reveling in the streets. Instead, she escapes with a Gentile admirer, Lorenzo, taking with her jewels and money belonging to her father.
A messenger from Venice to Belmont brings a letter from Antonio, telling Bassanio that all his ships have foundered, which means he cannot repay his debt to Shylock, and that Shylock demands his pound of flesh. Antonio pleads with Bassanio to come visit him before he will surely die at the hand of Shylock. Bassanio then tells all to Portia about his debt to Antonio, and what a magnificent friend Antonio has been to him and Portia urges him to marry her quickly and then speed off to Venice to see if he can save his friend. Portia says to offer Shylock twice or three times the $3,000 owed, or as much more as it takes to set Antonio free, and meanwhile she and Nerissa will live as "maids and widows" until he returns, with his friend.
Actually. as soon as Bassanio is gone, Portia and Nerissa put on men's clothing and follow them, after Portia hatches a plot to impersonate her cousin, a learned doctor of laws. The trial begins, with the Duke of Venice as judge. The Duke and a friend of Antonio's excoriate Shylock for being so hard-hearted, but Shylock says he stands upon the law, and the Duke does not dare to refuse his claim because of the precedent it would set. But before passing judgment, he says that a "young and learned doctor" has been commended to the court, and he invites the doctor in to testify. In comes Portia, decked out like a doctor of laws, and she first delivers to Shylock an ode to mercy. She says, "The quality of mercy is not strain'd, It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven," etc. But Shylock is unmoved.
So the young doctor agrees with the Duke that the terms of the debt are clear, and Shylock is entitled to his pound of Antonio's flesh. Shylock bursts out, "A Daniel come to judgment! yea, a Daniel! O wise young judge, how I do honor thee!" But the learned doctor of laws goes on to say, "This bond doth give thee here no jot of blood. Take then thy bond, take thou thy pound of flesh; / But, in the cutting it, if thou dost shed / One drop of Christian blood, thy lands and goods / Are, by the laws of Venice, confiscate / Unto the state of Venice." Shylock says, "Is that the law?" Portia, aka the doctor of laws, assures him that he can see the law requiring confiscation, and adds, "For, as thou urgest justice, be assured / Thou shalt have justice, more than thou desirest."
When Shylock slinks off, Portia and Nerissa hustle back to Belmont in time to welcome Bassanio and Gratiano back, with their friend Antonio (but not before the women play a little trick on them involving an exchange of rings the men had sworn never to give up).
Merry Wives of Windsor [Next review] [Preceding review] [Back to Plays]
Sir John Falstaff, the baudy friend of Prince Hal before he became King Henry IV, is as immoral as ever in this play, but he is upstaged by two virtuous wives of prosperous citizens of Windsor. Falstaff has run out of money, so he devises a scheme to seduce Mistress Page, wife of George Page, and Mistress Ford, wife of Frank Ford, with the ultimate goal of getting money out of them because their husbands are rich. The Pages have a pretty daughter, Anne, who is courted by three of the characters, but the focus of the play is not on Anne but on her mother and her mother's close friend, Mistress Ford. Falstaff sends a flowery letter professing his love to Mistress Page and seeking a tryst, and then copies the letter, changing only the name of the recipient and sends the copy to Mistress Ford. Since the women are close friends, they share their letters with each other, are both amused and offended at Falstaff's impudence, and decide to teach him a lesson. Mistress Page sends a message to Falstaff, inviting him to her home the next day when she assures him her husband will be away. Mistress Ford responds to his love letter by telling him her husband is not often away but she hoped there would soon come a time when Falstaff could visit her.
Frank Ford, without is jealous by nature, learned of Falstaff's planned visit, so he disguises himself and approaches Falstaff, pretending to want to seduce Mistress Ford, who is, of course, his wife. He offers to pay Falstaff for news that he had seduced Mistress Ford, which he said would pave the way for his own amorous desires. But he was enraged not only by Falstaff's boasting that he would make love to his wife, but also by the insults that Falstaff heaped on him. So he made plans to bring armed men to his home when Falstaff would be there to teach him a lesson, but Mistress Page beat him to it by showing up first and warning Mistress Ford that her husband was on his way home. So the women connive to hide Falstaff in a big basket of dirty linen, and had two servants carry it out to the river and dump the contents. In that way she fooled both her husband and Falstaff.
But Falstaff did not give up easily, and made plans to visit Mistress Ford on another day, and once again became the butt of the women's revenge, when they devised a plan to sneak him out of the house disguised as an old lady whom Ford hated. At that point, Mistress Ford let her husband in on what was happening, and he was so delighted that he joined the two women, and the Pages' daughter Anne and some children of Windsor, in a final trick involving some "fairies" who appeared and tormented Falstaff at midnight in the woods where he had arranged to meet the women he sought to conquer. Right after this scene, Anne is spirited off to be married to Fenton, the young gentleman whom she really wanted to marry, foiling the plans of both her mother and father to marry her off to other suitors. But at the end of the play the good-natured Mistress Ford says they should all including Sir John Falstaff go home and have a good laugh about everything that has happened. So it turns out to be a "they all lived happily ever after" play.
Midsummer Night's Dream [Next review] [Preceding review] [Back to Plays]
A silly play, with an intricate, quite unbelievable plot, driven by fairies who daub both human and fairy eyes with magic potions to manipulate their romantic desires. However, the play does have some good parts, especially a "play within a play" put on by some good-hearted, simple workmen who want to provide some entertainment for the coming marriage of the Athenian duke, Theseus, to the Queen of the Amazons. The workmen are so sincere and try so hard to entertain, but they do not realize that they are being laughed at, not with, as they mangle their lines, interject wordy and unnecessary explanations to the audience, and come out with funny malaprops. In brief, the rest of the play involves a strong willed young woman named Hermia, whom her father wants to marry to an Athenian youth named Demetrius, but she is intent on marrying an equally eligible (in her eyes) Athenian named Lysander. A close friend of Hermia, Helena, is in love with Demetrius, but he will have nothing to do with her; that is, until the fairies get into the act and sprinkle magic love potion on his eyes. After some silly stuff in the forest, all the true lovers are united and presumably live happily ever after. Not one of Shakespeare's better plays.
Much Ado About Nothing [Next review] [Preceding review] [Back to Plays]
Tart-tongued Beatrice and the equally-edgy Benedick, who continually engage in verbal warfare, are the focus of this comedy, but I think the funniest character is Dogberry, the constable, who is not only the most kind-hearted and ineffective officer of the law but also innocently mangles the English language as he tries to carry out his duties. He tells the governor of Messina that his new watchmen, who uncover the plot against the governor's daughter, Hero, "have comprehended two auspicious persons." When the governor declines to examine the suspects, Dogberry says to his partner, "We are now to examination these men," adding "Only get the learned writer to set down our excommunication ...." (Act III, Scene 5) As to the basic plot, Don Pedro, the prince of Aragon, with a few young lords or "gallants" (including Benedick), returning from a successful battle, stop to visit the governor of Messina, Leonato, and his daughter, Hero, and niece, Beatrice. One of the lords, Claudio, falls in love with Hero. But through the machinations of Don Pedro's bad-natured brother, Don John, Claudio comes to believe, on the night before his wedding to Hero, that she has been promiscuous with other men. He denounces her right before the altar, whereupon she goes into a death-like swoon.
Through the counsel of Friar Francis, the story is spread that Hero died and has been buried. The miscreants arrested by Dogberry and his fellow constable confess that they fooled Claudio into believing the worst about Hero. When Claudio hears that, he is humbled and shaken, but agrees to marry a niece of Leonarto's, whom Leonarto says looks just like Hero. Meanwhile, each of the two spitfires, Beatrice and Benedick, who are widely considered to despise each other because of their caustic repartee, is tricked into believing that he or she is madly loved by the other. When Claudio agrees to marry the niece recommended by Leonarto, Beatrice and Benedick decide to get married at the same time, and when the bride for Claudio shows up, lo and behold, it is Hero herself. And so Shakespeare pulls off a happy ending to this very enjoyable play.
The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet [Next review] [Preceding review] [Back to Plays]
When Romeo, the son of a prominent family in Verona, the Montagues, attends a masked ball held by the Capulets, another prominent family in the same city, he meets the Capulets' beautiful daughter, Juliet, and is smitten, as she is with him. The problem is that these two families have had a blood feud lasting for generations. Romeo sneaks into the Capulets'orchard, meets Juliet secretly, and they exchange promises to be married. They meet Friar Lawrence in his cell, again secretly, and he marries them, although they have to separate immediately. Juliet sneaks back into her house and Romeo heads for home. However, later Romeo and his friends meet Tybalt, a hot-headed nephew of Lady Capulet's, on the street. Tybalt recognizes Romeo as a Montague and tried to pick a fight with him, but Romeo, who has just married a Capulet, tries to pacify him. However, one of Romeo's friends, Mercutio, pulls out his sword and challenges Tybalt. As they fight, Tybalt thrusts at him but his sword is deflected by Romeo so that Mercutio is killed. When Tybalt returns to the scene, apparently to gloat, Romeo fights and kills him. This enrages the prince of Verona, who had decreed that any more fighting between the Montagues and the Capulets would be punished by death. He shows some leniency, however, and merely banishes Romeo from Verona.
To Romeo, that sentence is as bad as death, because it separates him from Juliet. Meanwhile Juliet's father, thinking that her tears (which are actually for her separation from Romeo) are for her slain cousin, Tybalt, decides that the only way to help her get over it is to have her marry her longtime suitor, County Paris. She rebels, he threatens, and elaborate preparations are made for the wedding in just a few days. However, with the help of her nurse, Juliet goes to see Friar Lawrence, who comes up with a plan. He gives her a vial of a potent liquid that he says will put her into a death-like sleep for 42 hours, when she will awake. Friar Lawrence says he will send another friar to Romeo, who is in Mantua, to tell him about the plan so he can sneak back to Verona, find Juliet in her tomb, and be with her when she awakes.
Alas, the plan goes awry. Romeo doesn't get the message about her waking; instead his servant finds him in Mantua and tells him that Juliet is dead and in the tomb. Romeo buys some poison; his plan is to go to Juliet in her tomb and drink the poison to join her in death. He goes back to Verona, but before he reaches the tomb he is intercepted by County Paris, who tries to apprehend him as a felon. However, that provokes Romeo, who kills him, and then finds Juliet apparently dead, and drinks the poison. Juliet wakes to find Romeo dead beside her, so she grabs Romeo's dagger and stabs herself to die with him. A terrible tragedy, but it has one good result – it reconciles the Montagues and the Capulets.
The Tragedy of King Lear [Next review] [Preceding review] [Back to Plays]
At first merely autocratic and unwise, Lear, King of Britain, eventually does go mad, then recovers his sanity, at least partially, before dying. As the play opens, King Lear has decided to divide his entire kingdom among his three daughters and retire from public life, living with each daughter for a month at a time, along with 100 knights. However, he abruptly disinherits his youngest (and favorite) daughter, Cordelia, when she declines to follow her sisters' long, flattering protestations of filial love with a similar speech. Lear is furious, and when Cordelia's suitor refuses to marry her without a dowery, Lear impulsively gives her to the King of France as his queen. Meanwhile Cordelia's two sisters, Goneril and Regan, marry their suitors, the dukes of Albany and Cornwall, and Lear, after banishing his long-time servant, Kent, for sticking up for Cordelia, goes with his retinue of 100 knights to spend a month with Goneril.
This does not work out well, and when Goneril criticizes his knights for their riotous living, Lear storms off to stay with Regan. However, Regan and her husband, being warned in a letter from Goneril, leave home and intercept Lear at the castle of another noble, an old friend of Lear's, the Earl of Glocester. Regan shows herself to be even less hospitable to her father and his knights than Goneril was, so Lear again storms off, this time into a literal storm. He is not dressed for bad weather, and in a sign of his madness he rails against the gods, against the wind and the rain, and barely survives the ordeal. This play is a tragedy, and at the end almost everyone dies except Edgar, the legitimate son of Glocester, who had been wrongly accused by his half-brother, Edmund, of intending to murder his father. Glocester is blinded by the Duke of Cornwall, who in turn is stabbed by his servant and dies from the wound. Goneril poisons her sister, Regan, and then commits suicide by stabbing herself. Edmund orders Cordelia and Lear killed, but when Lear learns of Cordelia's death he collapses and dies. The Duke of Albany, Goneril's husband, calls Edmund a traitor and challenges him to a duel, but actually Edgar, Edmund's half brother, responds to the call to confront Edmund as a traitor, and kills him in the ensuing sword fight.
Although wildly improbable in parts, this play is powerful and fascinating, deeply probing the ambitions and relationships of family members, servants, and friends.
The Tragedy of Macbeth [Next review] [Preceding review] [Back to Plays]
A valiant, victorious general in Scotland, Macbeth, is told by three "weird sisters" or witches that he will be named "Thane of Cawdor," although another nobleman already has that title, and then that he will someday be king. Apparently that is all that is necessary to fuel his inward desire for fame and glory at any price, and his wife, Lady Macbeth, is a ruthless woman who spurs him on. When King Duncan comes to visit him, Macbeth, egged on by his wife, hires three men to murder him, while Lady Macbeth helps by getting the king's two attendants so drunk that they have no idea what is happening. Lady Macbeth smears blood all over the attendants, so it looks like they murdered the king, and then Macbeth slaughters them in hypocritical anger. The king's two sons flee, and Macbeth becomes king. There's a lot more, but the plot goes on to show how the Macbeths are haunted and ultimately destroyed by their guilty consciences. For example, he sees apparitions of Banquo, a rival he had murdered; and she starts to sleepwalk while going through the motions of washing her hands and muttering incriminating remarks like, "Out, damn'd spot! out, I say!" referring to the blood of the murdered King Duncan. This is one of Shakespeare's best-known plays, with many memorable lines. I think it is a superb psychological and spiritual examination of guilt.
The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice [Next review] [Preceding review] [Back to Plays]
This play features Shakespeare's most evil, or second-most evil (see King Richard III), character. Iago, a lower-level officer (referred to as Othello's "Ancient") has been passed over for promotion to lieutenant by Othello, a valiant Moor, who has often led the forces of Venice against enemies. Iago burns with resentment against both Othello and the one who was named Othello's lieutenant, Cassio. But Iago has to keep serving Othello to keep alive his chances of eventual promotion, so just about everything he does and says in this play is hypocritical. And evil.
However, Iago's resentment and revenge is not purely arbitrary, without reason. It is based on his sense of justice. He has been, in his mind, unfairly rejected by Othello for a position he was more qualified for than Cassio, who is, according to Iago, "a great arithmetician" who "never set a squadron in the field" nor knows "the division of a battle," and furthermore is a foreigner, a Florentine.
The play opens with Iago and a friend waking up Brabantio, a senator, in the middle of the night to tell him that his daughter, Desdemona, has run off with the dark-skinned Othello. Iago refers to Othello as "thick-lips;" and "an old black ram [who]/ Is tupping your white ewe." He says that his daughter will be "cover'd with a Barbary horse" and that "your daughter and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs." Brabantio finds that indeed his daughter is not in her room, and he brings charges against Othello in the Senate. However, he has no facts to support his case (just hearsay from Iago), and furthermore the senators have a more important matter to deal with. A Turkish fleet is bearing down on Cyprus, a Venetian colony. So instead of being punished for taking (and secretly marrying) Brabantio's daughter, Othello is appointed to lead the fight against the Turks. He insists on taking Desdemona with him, but before any fighting takes place, a sudden storm routs the Turkish galleys and the danger is averted.
However, while Cyprus is safe, Othello's troubles are just beginning. Iago plants suspicions in his mind that Desdemona and Cassio are lovers. He intimates that they "kiss in private" and that Desdemona may have been "naked with her friend in bed/An hour, or more, not meaning any harm." A key piece of evidence is a handkerchief embroidered with strawberries that Othello had given to Desdemona. Emilia, Desdemona's attendant and Iago's wife, finds the handkerchief where Desdemona had dropped it and gives it to her husband, who had been urging her to steal it and give it to him. Iago plants the handkerchief in Cassio's room, then mentions to Othello that he has seen Cassio using that handkerchief.
Othello is not easily aroused. He really does have a noble bearing and even Iago says he is "of a free and open nature." But the suspicions cleverly sowed and nurtured in his mind by Iago fester and grow. Perhaps Othello also remembers the words of Brabantio, Desdemona's father, to him after learning of his secret marriage to his daughter: "Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see./ She has deceiv'd her father, and may thee." So Othello succumbs to his suspicions. He tells Iago to kill Cassio, but the attempt fails and he is only wounded in the leg. Then, although he really loves Desdemona, Othello confronts her about Cassio, does not believe her protestations of innocence, and in a rage smothers her in bed.
Emilia finds her dying and confronts Othello, who admits he did it. She cries for help, and some men, including her husband, Iago, run into the room. Emilia tells them that Othello murdered his wife. When Othello claims that he found the handkerchief that he had given to his wife in Cassio's hand, proving that she had been false to him, Emilia explains how she found the handkerchief that Desdemona had dropped and gave it to her husband. At that point, Iago stabs her to death before he is disarmed and arrested. Othello then commits suicide by falling on his sword, and Iago is held for torture and trial. Not exactly a happy ending!
The Taming of the Shrew [Next review] [Preceding review] [Back to Plays]
Perhaps the most misogynistic or at least the most politically incorrect of Shakespeare's plays. Baptista Minola, a gentleman of Padua, has two daughters, Katherina (the shrew) and Bianca. Bianca had, or could have, many suitors, but no one wants to marry the fiery Katherina, so their father decrees that Bianca cannot marry until Katherina is married. The way is opened for Bianca's suitors when Petruchio, a gentleman of Verona, agrees to marry Katherina and vows to tame her. While other suitors use various strategies to woo Bianca (for example, posing as scholars to teach her), Petruchio faces down Katherina, gets her father's permission to marry her, and then to "tame" her he uses a little force but mostly exaggerated kindness and an absurd insistence that she must not cross him in anything, even the time of day or whether the moon or the sun is shining.
Petruchio shows up late for the wedding and acts like a madman, arriving in ragged old clothes and riding a broken-down nag; he swears at the priest and strikes him; throws wine sops in the face of the sexton; and then refuses to stay for the feast that Katherina's father has prepared. Despite her protests, he carries Katherina away to his house, where he finds fault with the servants and the food, takes her to their bedroom but keeps her up all night, and in general tyrannizes her until she finally surrenders.
By the time they finally arrive back at her father's house for a visit, Katherina is submissive and obedient to Petruchio, more so than Bianca and her husband. The famous declaration by Petruchio of his rights over Katherina must give shivers to feminists: "I will be master of what is my own. / She is my goods, my chattels; she is my house, / My household stuff, my field, my barn, / My horse, my ox, my ass, my anything!" (Act III, Scene 2) Shakespeare also refers to lawyers in describing how the two suitors for Bianca's hand should treat each other: "And do as adversaries do in law,/ Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends." Act I, Scene 2, lines 284-85.
The Tempest [Next review] [Preceding review] [Back to Plays]
This is a different kind of play altogether, featuring not only the usual public officials (king, dukes, lords, etc.), a brave and handsome youth and a beautiful maiden, but also airy spirits, a witch and her son (so deformed he is referred to as a monster), and a magician who commanded the spirits by his secret arts. In brief, Prospero, the duke of Milan, was deposed by his brother Antonio, who then ingratiated himself with Alonso, the king of Naples, who in turn officially recognized Antonio as the duke. Prospero was not only deprived of his office, he and his three-year-old daughter were set adrift in a leaky boat far from shore and would have drowned if a faithful old counselor, Gonzalo, had not stowed food and supplies (including his books of magic) aboard the craft. This saved their lives, and they made it to an apparently deserted island, where Prospero made a home (a "cell") in a cave and, with his magic, controlled both the good spirits (Ariel and others) as well as the half-human, half-animal witch's son, Caliban.
About 12 years after they arrived on the island, when Prospero's daughter, Miranda, had become a beautiful teenager, the king of Naples was returning from a wedding in Tunis when his ship was torn apart by a fierce storm (the "tempest"). Unbeknownst to the king and his whole party, this was not a random storm of nature; it was instigated by Prospero with his magic arts, apparently to punish his brother and the king for forcing him out of office and trying to murder him and his daughter by drowning. The spirit that created the storm at Prospero's command, Ariel, made sure than everyone on board was brought safely to land (even the ship was miraculously saved), although they were scattered and wandering and did not, for the most part, find each other.
One of those saved from the storm was Ferdinand, the handsome son of Alonso, the king of Naples. At Prospero's command, Ariel led Ferdinand to meet Miranda, and of course they fell madly in love, partly because Miranda did not remember ever seeing another man besides her father. Although Prospero tested Ferdinand by giving him an onerous job of carrying logs, he was secretly pleased with the youth and readily accepted him as his daughter's fiancι when he overheard them pledging themselves to one another. That led to Prospero forgiving his brother and Ferdinand's father, and they restored him to his rightful position as duke of Milan. Finally, Prospero ordered Ariel to give them a safe trip back to Naples and, as a reward, he set Ariel free from his service.
Timon of Athens [Next review] [Preceding review] [Back to Plays]
Scholars think this is an unfinished play by Shakespeare, never performed, and inferior to most of his work. Makes sense to me, after reading it. In brief, Timon is a very wealthy and very generous Athenian spendthrift. He freely even unbelievably lavishes gifts on everyone who comes to him, without considering his diminishing estate. He does have a faithful steward, Flavius, who tries to warn Timon that he is running out of money while staving off his creditors, but his efforts are futile. When Timon finally realizes his precarious financial situation, he confidently tells his steward and other servants to go to some of the main beneficiaries of his largess and borrow money. They all refuse and Timon goes crazy. Literally. He goes out into the woods and digs roots for food. He says, "I am Misanthropos and hate mankind." There is more to the story, but not much of substance, in my opinion.
Titus Andronicus [Next review] [Preceding review] [Back to Plays]
An incredibly bloody and gruesome tale of murder, rape, revenge, and even (involuntary) cannibalism, with two truly evil characters (and none who are really innocent). Titus Andronicus, a great Roman general who had lost a number of his sons in wars against the Goths, has returned to Rome. He finds that the Emperor has died and his two sons, Saturninus and Bassianus are contesting for the throne. Although Titus's brother, Marcus, nominates him to be Emperor, Titus declines and says the late Emperor's oldest son, Saturninus, should be crowned.
It all goes downhill from there. Titus had brought to Rome the queen of the Goths, Tamora, and several of her sons as captives. At the burial of one of Titus' sons, Tamora's oldest son, Alarbus, is sacrificed to the gods in spite of Tamora's anguished pleas to Titus to spare him. Titus' own daughter, Lavinia, is chosen by the new Emperor, Saturninus, to be his bride, but although she is willing, the Emperor's brother, Bassianus, apparently had a prior claim and with the help of Titus' sons he spirits her away.
But not for long. Saturninus then chooses Tamors as his bride, and her two sons, Demetrius and Chiron, with the help of their mother and her lover, Aaron the Moor, lay a trap for Bassianus and also plot to rape Lavinia. Not only do they kill Bassianus and ravish Lavinia, they slash off her hands and cut out her tongue so she cannot tell who did it. Furthermore, the plot set by Tamora and Aaron is so clever that Titus's sons Martius and Quintus are charged with murdering Bassianus, and Demetrius and Chiron appear to get off scot-free. While Martius and Quintus are awaiting execution, Aaron the Moor, who has no moral code at all, brings an offer to Titus to spare his sons' lives if he, his brother, or his remaining son will chop off one of their hands and send it to the Emperor. Titus immediately slashes off his hand and gives it to Aaron, but it is all a cruel joke. What he receives in return is not his sons' lives but their severed heads, along with his own cut-off hand.
Titus almost goes crazy with grief, but nevertheless gets his revenge. Lavinia, with the help of her uncle Marcus, figures out a way to tell who raped and mutilated her. Holding a staff in her arms, she traces out the names of Demetrius and Chiron in sand. Then crafty old Titus sends his grandson to the Emperor with some of his best weapons as a gift. The grandson arrives as Tamora is giving birth to a son but not the son of Saturninus. Tamora is pregnant by Aaron and her baby is black. Before the news gets out, Aaron orders the midwife and the nurse who brought news of the birth to be killed and he makes plans to save his child by sneaking him away to the Goths.
Meanwhile Titus continues to puzzle and taunt Saturninus, first by getting his grandson to shoot arrows bearing messages to the gods into the court and then by sending a clown bearing pigeons and a letter. At that point, Saturninus hears that Titus's son Lucius, whom he had banned from the country, has raised an army of Goths and is on his way to attack Rome. Tamora calms the Emperor's fear and rage, and figures out a plan. Tamora and her sons go to Titus and persuade him to send his brother, Marcus, to Lucius asking for a parley at Titus' house.
But her plans go awry. First, on their way to attack Rome, Lucius and the Goths find Aaron with his child. Lucius is going to have them killed when Aaron says if he will save his child's life, he will tell him some "wondrous things" that will be of great advantage to him. Lucius reluctantly agrees, and Aaron confesses even brags about his role in helping Tamora and her sons kill Martius and Quintus and ravish Lavinia. Then the invitation to parley at Titus' house arrives and Lucius, with some misgivings, agrees to attend. However, back in Rome, when Tamora leaves Titus's house to tell the Emperor about the success of her plan, Titus calls two of his relatives (who have apparently been waiting outside) to come in and bind Demetrius and Chiron. Then Titus himself slits their throats while Lavinia holds a basin to catch the blood in the stumps of her arms.
Now comes the even more gruesome and not-quite-believable part: Titus has the skulls of Demetrius and Chiron ground to powder and baked in a pie. When everyone arrives for the parley, Titus himself serves the pie to Tamora and while they are eating he first stabs Lavinia, his own daughter, to kill her shame. He tells Saturninus and Tamora it was really the fault of Tamora's sons, Demetrius and Chiron, because they killed Martius and Quintus and raped his daughter. When Saturninus calls for Tamora's sons to be brought before him, Titus says, in effect, "Oh, they are already here, baked in the pie that their mother has been eating."
Titus then stabs Tamora, Saturninus stabs Titus, and Lucius stabs Saturninus. Lucius is crowned Emperor by public acclaim, and the first thing he does is sentence Aaron: "Set him breast-deep in earth, and famish him, There let him stand and rave and cry for food." And Aaron's response? "I am no baby, I, that with base prayers/ I should repent the evils I have done./ Ten thousand worse than ever yet I did/ Would I perform if I might have my will./ If one good deed in all my life I did,/ I do repent it from my very soul." Not exactly a happy or even a satisfying ending.
Titus Andronicus was Shakespeare's first play, or one of the first, and the excessive violence has raised questions about whether he really wrote it. The consensus seems to be that he was the author, and that it may have been experimental. But apparently blood and gore were very popular in Shakespeare's day and he may have wanted to (figuratively) wallow in it to promote its success.
Troilus and Cressida [Next review] [Preceding review] [Back to Plays]
Helen, the beautiful wife of the Greek king Menelaus, was abducted by Paris, a son of Priam, king of Troy, and kept by Paris inside the walls of Troy. Vowing revenge, Menelaus and other Greek kings sailed to Troy and set up their battering rams but could not penetrate the city. For seven long years the war dragged on, and during that time the Greeks were anything but united. Indeed, their chief warrior, Achilles, had withdrawn from fighting and sat in his tent with a friend (male lover?) making fun of the other Greek leaders. Achilles was also very vain, living on past glory, and loving the adulation of all who knew about his exploits. The Trojans had a great warrior too, Hector, who although at first inclined to surrender Helen to end the bloodshed, decided to issue a personal challenge to any Greek who would meet him on the field of battle. He was hoping to fight Achilles, but the Greeks did not want that to happen because if Hector should win, they would lose their greatest soldier, whereas if Achilles should win, his vanity would know no bounds and he would be insufferable. So the Greeks rigged it so that a soldier named Ajax, a bit of a buffoon, would go up against Hector. However, apparently Ajax was distantly related to Hector, so the latter declined to fight him seriously.
Meanwhile a younger brother of Hector, Troilus, a good but not great fighter, was madly in love with Cressida, a beautiful young Trojan woman whose father was a priest who had deserted Troy to side with the Greeks. Cressida was under the supervision of her crafty uncle, Pandarus, who tried to play the matchmaker with her and Troilus. But the more he praised Troilus, the more Cressida seemingly scorned him, although actually she was just playing hard-to-get. Pandarus finally got them both together and Cressida and Troilus pledged their undying love to each other. However, after one short night together, Cressida became a pawn in the war between the Greeks and the Trojans. Her father persuaded the Greeks to demand that she be brought to Troy in exchange for Antenor, a Trojan prince who had been captured by the Greeks.
A handsome Greek soldier named Diomed was sent into Troy to fetch her, and here's where Cressida's fickleness is revealed. When brought into the Greek camp she willingly kisses all the Greek generals, and then is observed by Troilus (who had sneaked into the Greek encampment) flirting with Diomed in her tent. Troilus is enraged by this, but before he can take vengeance on Diomed on the battlefield, Achilles has agreed to take up Hector's challenge. However, Achilles, although a great warrior, is not noble. He comes upon Hector while he is unarmed and calls upon his followers to murder him. Then he ties Hector's body to his horse and drags it around the battlefield. In other words, the "good guy" doesn't win in this play, and the moral of it seems to be that men are vain and stupid, women are fickle, and war is evil.
Twelfth Night [Next review] [Preceding review] [Back to Plays]
Identical twins, a brother and sister, Sebastian and Viola, are shipwrecked and each believes the other to have perished. Viola persuades the sea captain who rescued her to help her dress in men's clothing and become an aide to Duke Orsino, a leading citizen of Illyria, where they land. The Duke is in love with a countess, Olivia, and sends his new aide, whom he knows as Cesario, to woo Olivia. Olivia doesn't think much of the Duke, but falls in love with his handsome young aide. Meanwhile Olivia's carousing uncle, Sir Toby Belch, and his equally frivolous friend, Sir Andrew Aguecheek (a would-be suitor of Olivia), are plotting to harass Olivia's straight-laced steward, Malvolio. They connive with Olivia's maid-servant Maria, to make Malvolio think Olivia is in love with him. The upshot is that Olivia thinks Malvolio is mad and he is put in a dark room in Olivia's house, where he is visited by the jester or clown Feste, who impersonates a curate, Sir Topas. Finally, Viola's brother Sebastian shows up, with Antonio, the sea captain who rescued him, and then Shakespeare has some more fun with mistaken identities. At the end Viola and Sebastian recognize and hug one another, Viola says she will get her "maiden weeds" and the Duke says she will be "Orsino's mistress and his fancy's queen. It's a silly play, but I'm sure a lot of fun to watch.
Two Gentlemen of Verona, The [Next review] [Preceding review] [Back to Plays]
Another silly, quite unbelievable, comedy. Valentine and Proteus, the two gentlemen who live in Verona, are close friends. Valentine decides to go to Milan to serve the Duke of Milan. Proteus wants to stay in Verona, because he is madly in love with Julia, but his father orders him to follow Valentine and go to Milan so he can broaden his experience and further his education. Valentine falls in love with the Duke's daughter, Silvia, and when Proteus shows up and sees how beautiful Silvia is, he do – despite his vows of eternal love to Julia – falls in love with Silvia. In short, Proteus double-crosses his friend Valentine, betrays his hometown love, Julia, and does everything he can to win Silvia's heart. However, Julia doesn't give up so easily. Disguising herself as a young man, she follows Proteus to Milan and – this requires a stretch of imagination – becomes his servant! Proteus apparently has no idea that he is hiring his erstwhile love. Julia, now called Sebastian, agrees to go to Silvia for Proteus and give her a ring, the same ring that Julia had given him when he left Verona! Add to this concoction a contrived ending, in which the Duke, who had banished Valentine, forgives them all (including some outlaw friends of Valentine's), and invites everyone to the wedding of his daughter and Valentine.
Two Noble Kinsmen, The (by John Fletcher and William Shakespeare) [Next review] [Preceding review] [Back to Plays]
This and King Henry VIII are apparently the only plays co-authored by Shakespeare. At the wedding of Thesus, Duke of Athens, and Hippolyta, an Amazon, three widowed queens appear before Thesus, Hippolyta and her sister, Emilia, to beg a favor. They claim that Creon, King of Thebes, will not let them bury or cremate their husbands, who were killed by the "wrath of cruel Creon." Meanwhile, two of Creon's nephews, Palamon and Arcite, who are planning to leave the city and get away from their irascible uncle, remain loyal to Thebes and lead Creon's forces when Thesus attacks and defeats them. Palamon and Arcite fight nobly but are captured and put in a prison in Athens. There they are both captivated by the sight of Emilia, who enters the garden below the prison with her maid servant. In fact, they each fall in love with her, and despite the fact that they are the closest of cousins, they fall into a bitter dispute about which one shall have her.
Arcite is set free by Thesus, but banished from the kingdom, while the jailer's daughter, who has been smitten by Palamon, frees him from prison. But he does not meet her in the woods, as she planned, and so she goes crazy, literally. To make a long and somewhat unbelievable story short, both of the cousins fall into the hands of Thesus, who is begged by Emilia to set them free, but they refuse banishment as a condition and vow to keep fighting each other for Emilia. So they struggle, and Arcite is the victor. But his victory is short-lived. Riding a prancing horse on a "flinty pavement," Arcite is thrown under the horse when it rears up, and suffers a mortal injury. At his request, he is brought to Palamon in a chair and tells him Emelia is his, and then he dies.
Meanwhile, the jailer asks a doctor about his daughter, now singing and babbling insanities. The doctor first says he cannot minister to her but then advises the daughter's wooer to pretend to be Palamon and to do everything she asks him to do, even sleep with her. The father remonstrates with him, but the doctor says that's the only way to cure her. Sure enough, the daughter asks "Palamon" to kiss her and sleep with her. (Scene ends)
Later when Palamon is imprisoned awaiting execution, he asks the jailer about his daughter, who had set him free. The jailer tells Palamon that his daughter is "Well restor'd/ And to be married shortly." Finally, just as Palamon is about to be killed, Thesus issues a last-minute pardon so he can marry Emilia. And so they all, except Arcite, live happily ever after.
Winter's Tale, The [] [Next review] [Preceding review] [Back to Plays]
Polixenes, King of Bohemia, visits Leontes and Hermione, King and Queen of Sicilia, but when he plans to leave, Hermione persuades him to stay a week. Although Polixenes and Leontes are old friends, Leontes becomes jealous when his queen pays too much attention to Polixenes, holding his hand and gushing over him. Camillo, a Lord of Sicilia, tries to talk Leontes out of his jealousy, saying that Polixenes and Hermione are doing nothing wrong, but Leontes orders him to poison Polixenes. However, Camillo discloses the plot to Polixenes and urges him to flee with his followers. Then Leontes accuses Hermione of being pregnant by Polixenes, and has her thrown into prison, where she bears a baby daughter, who is brought to Leontes. He rejects the baby, says she is a bastard born to his wife by Polixenes, and gives orders that the baby should be taken to some remote place and leave it exposed there. Hermione appeals to the Oracle of Apollo, who sends word declaring her innocent of wrongdoing and says that Leontes is a "jealous tyrant." At that point Leontes' and Hermione's son dies, and the Hermione herself is found apparently dead. The rest of the story plays out in storybook fashion. The baby daughter, Perdita, survives and grows up to marry Florizel, the son of Polixenes. Hermione turns out not to be dead, forgives her husband, Leontes, and is reunited with him.
Reflections on Shakespeare's plays. The plots are sometimes far-fetched, and he uses conventions (apparently acceptable or even necessary in his time) that are not believable at all, such as young women putting on men's clothing and being able to pass as males, even among friends, relatives and lovers! (See As You Like It, Cymbeline, Twelfth Night, The Two Gentlemen of Verona). See also King Lear, who hires his own long-time servant, Kent, whom he has banished from the land, apparently not recognizing him in disguise. Not all the characters in Shakespeare's plays are human. The Tempest, for example, features airy spirits (Ariel and others), a witch (Sycorax), and the witch's half-human, half-animal son (Caliban), referred to as a "monster."
But Shakespeare's language and insights into human nature are remarkable. His impact on today's English is huge, perhaps more than any other written work except the Bible. So much of his language come to us as familiar phrases: "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." (Dick the Butcher, in Henry the Sixth, Part 2; ("Something is rotten in the state of Denmark" (Marcellus, after the ghost appears in Hamlet); "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy" (Hamlet). "Good-night, good-night! Parting is such sweet sorrow,/ That I shall say good-night till it be morrow." (Romeo and Juliet); "Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand?" (Macbeth just before murdering King Duncan, in Macbeth); "Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble." (the witches who meet Macbeth, in Macbeth). "Tis a monster/Begot upon itself, born on itself." (Emilia in Othello, speaking of jealousy). And I like this line from Timon of Athens: "For policy sits above conscience." (spoken by a stranger when he overhears a flattering Lord, who had received gifts of money and jewels from Timon, refuse, with profuse apologies, to help him in return).
In another famous passage, old John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, speaks of his beloved England:
This royal throne of kings, this scept'red isle,
This earth of majesty, the seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands;
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,
This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,
Fear'd by their breed and famous by their birth,
Renowned for their deeds as far from home,
For Christian service and true chivalry,
As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry
Of the world's ransom, blessed Mary's son;
This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,
Dear for her reputation through the world ....
King Richard II, Act II, Scene 1.
Finally, the extended poems:
Adonis and Venus [Next review] [Preceding review] [Back to top]
If Lucrece shows male lust at its worst, Adonis and Venus shows female desire at its hottest. Out in the countryside Venus finds the youth Adonis on his horse, ready for a boar hunt, and pleads with him to dally with her for a while. In fact, she "pluck[s] him from his horse" and pulls him down in the grass and starts kissing him. He is shy and embarrassed and struggles to get up. She begs for just one kiss. He agrees, "But when her lips were ready for his pay/ He winks and turns his lips another way." But Venus never gives up. "Art thou obdurate, flinty, hard as stone?" she asks him, and begins to weep. Then she gets really seductive. Locking her fingers with his and looking into his eyes, she murmers: "I'll be a park, and thou shalt be my deer/ Feed where thou wilt, on mountain or in dale/ Graze on my lips; and if those hills be dry/ Stray lower, where the pleasant fountains lie."
It's no use. Adonis has had enough. He springs up, and was just about to jump on his horse when a "breeding jennet, lusty, young, and proud" spies his horse, and the horse takes after her, ripping away his reins and galloping after the mare into the woods. This, of course, renews Venus's efforts to seduce Adonis. When he complains that his horse is gone, she says, "learn of him, I heartily beseech thee/ To take advantage of presented joy." But he will have none of it, and when the day is over and darkness falls, he breaks away, after much reluctant kissing, telling her that the next day he will be boar hunting with his friends. At that, she warns him, "I prophesy thy death, my living sorrow/ If thou encounter with the boar tomorrow."
Sure enough, the next day, after she hears the baying of the hounds, she looks for Adonis, and finds him lying on the ground gored and bloody. Then the mourning begins, and Venus (apparently) flies away to her mythical home.
A Lover's Complaint [Next review] [Preceding review] [Back to top]
In this short poem a teary-eyed maiden pours out her woes to an old man who befriends her on a hillside. She tells him that she had met a charming young man, whose "qualities were beauteous as his form," so much so that he enchanted everyone he encountered, male and female. He boasted that even a nun had fallen for him and given up her holy vocation. At first the maiden, knowing that she was "being desired" and aware of his "amorous spoil," did not yield. "With safest distance I mine honor shielded," she said, because she "knew the patterns of his foul beguiling." But then she began to listen to his gentle pleading. As she explained to the old man, "For, lo, his passion, but an art of craft,/Even there resolved my reason into tears;/ There my white stole of chastity I daff'd ...." But despite her remorse at being seduced, she ends her story by admitting that if faced again with such false wooing, it "Would yet again betray the fore-betrayed,/ And new pervert a reconciled maid!"
Lucrece [Next review] [Preceding review] [Back to top]
In rhymed verse, Shakespeare delves deep into the nature of sexual temptation and male lust (for the female counterpart, see Adonis and Venus). During a Roman siege of Ardea, several Roman noblemen were gathered in the tent of Sextus Tarquinius, son of the Roman king. They began to boast of their wives' faithfulness, and decided to all go back to Rome to see what their wives were up to. They discovered that every one was out partying except for Collatine's wife, Lucrece, who was at home spinning. The nobles returned to their tents, in full agreement that Collatine's wife was the most faithful of all.
Tarquin, however, driven by mad desire, secretly sneaked back to Collatine's home. He was courteously welcomed by Lucrece and allowed to stay overnight. In the middle of the night he crept into Lucrece's room and said if she didn't yield to him, he would ravish and kill her, and also kill one of her servants and put her dead body in the dead servant's arms so he would be deemed guilty. Lucrece pleaded with Tarquin to desist and cried out for help to Roman gods, but she was raped though not killed and left to endure the remaining hours of darkness tormented with self-condemning thoughts.
Meanwhile Tarquin slipped away, his lust satisfied but his conscience burdened with guilt. When daylight came, Lucrece sent an urgent message to her husband, who arrived with Brutus and other nobles. With great difficulty Lucrece shared the terrible news of what happened to her, and blurted out the name of Tarquin as the one who did it. Suddenly she whipped out a dagger and stabbed herself to death. Collatine and her father (who was present) were overcome with grief, but Brutus urged Collatine to rise and seek revenge, which he and his friends did by driving the Tarquins out of Rome.
Finally, a couple of other poems apparently attributed to Shakespeare.
Passionate Pilgrim, The [Next review] [Preceding review] [Back to top]
Not sure about the "pilgrim" part, but this poem in 20 stanzas, the first eight or nine as sonnets with 14 lines, does contain a lot about lovers' passion. After several stanzas referring to Adonis and Venus, there are lines like this: "Were kisses all the joys in bed,/ One woman would another wed." The poem also blames women for being false and it is definitely not politically correct. For example: "The wiles and guiles that women work,/ Dissembled with an outward show,/ The tricks and toys that in them lurk,/ The cock that treads them shall not know./ Have you not heard it said full oft,/ A woman's nay doth stand for naught?" The poem ends, however, with a nice tribute to true friends: "He that is thy friend indeed,/ He will help thee in thy need./ If thou sorrow, he will weep;/ If thou wake, he cannot sleep./ Thus of every grief in heart/ He with thee doth bear a part./ These are certain signs to know/ Faithful friend from flatt'ring foe."
Phoenix and Turtle, The [Preceding review] [Back to top]
This is a strange one-page poem apparently about the unity of true love, although frankly I have no idea about most of it.