Sonnet 71

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 vildest worms to dwell;
Nay, if you read this line, remember not
The hand that writ it, for I love you so
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,
If thinking on me then should make you woe.
O if (I say) you look upon this verse,
When I (perhaps) compounded am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse,
But let your love even with my life decay,
Lest the wise world should look into your moan,
And mock you with me after I am gone.

This one might even work as a consolation speech during a breakup. I dunno. Someone give it a try and let me know how it went.

P.S. I couldn’t help but look up vildest in the etymology dictionary… and it wasn’t there! But this site says it’s just a “variant form” of vilest.

Photo by ChaTox.

Sonnet 47

Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took,
And each doth good turns now unto the other:
When that mine eye is famished for a look,
Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother,
With my love’s picture then my eye doth feast,
And to the painted banquet bids my heart;
Another time mine eye is my heart’s guest,
And in his thoughts of love doth share a part.
So either by thy picture or my love,
Thyself, away, are present still with me,
For thou not farther than my thoughts canst move,
And I am still with them, and they with thee;
Or if they sleep, thy picture in my sight
Awakes my heart to heart’s and eye’s delight.

That’s sweet.

I think we need to stop kidding ourselves: Shakespeare is confusing and boring out of context.

I can’t blame people for wanting to share their readings of famous passages from the plays; once you fall in love with these stories you want other people to love them, too, but you know they won’t sit down and read/watch/listen to the whole play so you try to feed them monologues: little kernels of enjoyment from the larger picture, Quality of Mercy or Romeo, Romeo, Wherefore Art Thou. Hell, I’ve memorized a couple of monologues myself and occasionally try to force them on people. But you know what? They don’t care. Because they don’t know what’s going on around the monologue. They don’t know the story. They’re not attached. You can’t enjoy the Saint Crispin’s Day Speech unless you’ve marched to Agincourt with Henry’s hungry men. You can’t enjoy To Be or Not to Be unless you’ve anguished with Hamlet over the death of his father.

I almost tried recording some of The Bard’s monologues and posting them for you to enjoy. But then I realized you wouldn’t enjoy them. No, if I’m going to give you something then I should give you something you can actually wrap your head around.

We’ll see. I’ve got some ideas.

If you’re going to put someone through 90 seconds of Shakespeare, let them hear a sonnet. Those, at least, are meant to stand alone.