"Full fathom five thy father lies.
Of his bones are coral made.
Those are pearls that were his eyes.
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea change
Into something rich and strange."
- William Shakespeare, "The Tempest" (Act 1, Scene 2)

Sonnet 033 - XXXIII
Full many a glorious morning have I seen
Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye,
Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;
Anon permit the basest clouds to ride
With ugly rack on his celestial face,
And from the forlorn world his visage hide,
Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:
Even so my sun one early morn did shine,
With all triumphant splendour on my brow;
But out, alack, he was but one hour mine,
The region cloud hath mask'd him from me now.
Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth;
Suns of the world may stain when heaven's sun staineth.

bot by @davidaugust

Sonnet 088 - LXXXVIII
When thou shalt be dispos'd to set me light,
And place my merit in the eye of scorn,
Upon thy side, against myself I'll fight,
And prove thee virtuous, though thou art forsworn.
With mine own weakness being best acquainted,
Upon thy part I can set down a story
Of faults concealed, wherein I am attainted;
That thou in losing me shalt win much glory:
And I by this will be a gainer too;
For bending all my loving thoughts on thee,
The injuries that to myself I do,
Doing thee vantage, double-vantage me.
Such is my love, to thee I so belong,
That for thy right, myself will bear all wrong.

bot by @davidaugust

Viola loves Orsino
Orsino loves Olivia
Olivia loves Cesario
Cesario is Viola…
Or is it the other way around?

Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night is a queer play. But what if you could make it queer-er?

What You Will, a Queer-er Shakespeare. Now available
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0C815H9DY

Other: https://books2read.com/u/4D8qkQ

Sonnet 113 - CXIII
Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind;
And that which governs me to go about
Doth part his function and is partly blind,
Seems seeing, but effectually is out;
For it no form delivers to the heart
Of bird, of flower, or shape which it doth latch:
Of his quick objects hath the mind no part,
Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch;
For if it see the rud'st or gentlest sight,
The most sweet favour or deformed'st creature,
The mountain or the sea, the day or night,
The crow, or dove, it shapes them to your feature.
Incapable of more, replete with you,
My most true mind thus maketh mine eye untrue.

bot by @davidaugust

Ladies & Gentlemen, may I present: WYRDHOARD: LEARNING & LORE FOR WRITERS & READERS.
https://youtu.be/SqwMaogyte4?si=5CH87R7fXwnOIwur
#writing #reading #books #editing #coaching #classes #literature #podcast #Inklings #Narnia #CSLewis #Shakespeare

Sonnet 127 - CXXVII
In the old age black was not counted fair,
Or if it were, it bore not beauty's name;
But now is black beauty's successive heir,
And beauty slandered with a bastard shame:
For since each hand hath put on Nature's power,
Fairing the foul with Art's false borrowed face,
Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy bower,
But is profaned, if not lives in disgrace.
Therefore my mistress' eyes are raven black,
Her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem
At such who, not born fair, no beauty lack,
Sland'ring creation with a false esteem:
Yet so they mourn becoming of their woe,
That every tongue says beauty should look so.

bot by @davidaugust

Sonnet 112 - CXII
Your love and pity doth the impression fill,
Which vulgar scandal stamped upon my brow;
For what care I who calls me well or ill,
So you o'er-green my bad, my good allow?
You are my all-the-world, and I must strive
To know my shames and praises from your tongue;
None else to me, nor I to none alive,
That my steeled sense or changes right or wrong.
In so profound abysm I throw all care
Of others' voices, that my adder's sense
To critic and to flatterer stopped are.
Mark how with my neglect I do dispense:
You are so strongly in my purpose bred,
That all the world besides methinks y'are dead.

bot by @davidaugust

FYI, the TodayTix app has $30 rush tickets for the Bell Shakespeare production of Coriolanus this arvo and tonight at the Arts Centre in Melbourne. Looks good - would've bought some tix if we were free tonight!

MACBETH: Come what come may,

Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.

— Macbeth, I, iii

Sonnet 006 - VI
Then let not winter's ragged hand deface,
In thee thy summer, ere thou be distilled:
Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place
With beauty's treasure ere it be self-killed.
That use is not forbidden usury,
Which happies those that pay the willing loan;
That's for thy self to breed another thee,
Or ten times happier, be it ten for one;
Ten times thy self were happier than thou art,
If ten of thine ten times refigured thee:
Then what could death do if thou shouldst depart,
Leaving thee living in posterity?
Be not self-willed, for thou art much too fair
To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir.

bot by @davidaugust

A quotation from Shakespeare

MIRANDA:                            Do you love me?
FERDINAND: O heaven, O Earth, bear witness to this sound,
   And crown what I profess with kind event
   If I speak true; if hollowly, invert
   What best is boded me to mischief. I,
   Beyond all limit of what else i’ th’ world,
   Do love, prize, honor you.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Tempest, Act 3, sc. 1, l. 80ff (3.1.80-86) (1611)

Sourcing, notes: wist.info/shakespeare-william/…

Whaur’s yer Willie Shakespeare noo?
11 Sept, Royal Society of Edinburgh – free, ticketed

How does Scots language come alive on stage – and what does it say about us?

Playwright Ian Brown & linguist Jeremy Smith explore the Scots & English language varieties woven into THE SCOTCH PLAY (1990) – Brown’s reimagining of Shakespeare’s Macbeth

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/whaurs-yer-willie-shakespeare-noo-tickets-1489136991829

Sonnet 017 - XVII
Who will believe my verse in time to come,
If it were fill'd with your most high deserts?
Though yet heaven knows it is but as a tomb
Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts.
If I could write the beauty of your eyes,
And in fresh numbers number all your graces,
The age to come would say 'This poet lies;
Such heavenly touches ne'er touch'd earthly faces.'
So should my papers, yellow'd with their age,
Be scorn'd, like old men of less truth than tongue,
And your true rights be term'd a poet's rage
And stretched metre of an antique song:
But were some child of yours alive that time,
You should live twice, in it, and in my rhyme.

bot by @davidaugust

Sonnet 081 - LXXXI
Or I shall live your epitaph to make,
Or you survive when I in earth am rotten,
From hence your memory death cannot take,
Although in me each part will be forgotten.
Your name from hence immortal life shall have,
Though I, once gone, to all the world must die:
The earth can yield me but a common grave,
When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie.
Your monument shall be my gentle verse,
Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read;
And tongues to be, your being shall rehearse,
When all the breathers of this world are dead;
You still shall live, such virtue hath my pen,
Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men.

bot by @davidaugust

MOWBRAY: We shall be winnow'd with so rough a wind

That even our corn shall seem as light as chaff

And good from bad find no partition.

— 2 Henry IV, IV, i

Sonnet 060 - LX
Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end;
Each changing place with that which goes before,
In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
Nativity, once in the main of light,
Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crowned,
Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight,
And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth
And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,
Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow:
And yet to times in hope, my verse shall stand
Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.

bot by @davidaugust

The fools last night in Fisher Heights Park. https://www.fools.ca/

They are a lot of fun. Go and see them if you can! Pleasant weather for it last night too.
And no garden rakes or mops in sight on stage!