To celebrate the birthday of the great Sir Laurence Olivier and his incredible contributions to Shakespeare, here’s a bit of Act I scene ii from Richard III.
”
This is the monstrosity in love, lady, that the will
This is the monstrosity in love, lady, that the will
is infinite and the execution confined, that the
desire is boundless and the act a slave to limit.
Troilus (Troilus and Cressida, Act III scene ii)
(Source: dailyshakespeare)
”
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answer’d it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest -
For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men -
Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him?
O judgement! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.
Antony (Julius Caesar, Act III scene ii)
(Source: dailyshakespeare)
”
No matter where; of comfort no man speak:
No matter where; of comfort no man speak:
Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;
Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth,
Let’s choose executors and talk of wills:
And yet not so, for what can we bequeath
Save our deposed bodies to the ground?
Richard II (Richard II, Act III scene ii)
On a side note, congratulations to Ben Whishaw for winning a Bafta for his portrayal of Richard II earlier today!
”
Had I but died an hour before this chance,
Had I but died an hour before this chance,
I had lived a blessed time; for, from this instant,
There ‘s nothing serious in mortality:
All is but toys: renown and grace is dead;
The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees
Is left this vault to brag of.
Macbeth (Macbeth, Act II scene iii)
(Source: dailyshakespeare)
Mavolio Before Olivia by Johann Heinrich Ramberg (Twelfth Night)
”
A stone is soft as wax, tribunes more hard than stones;
A stone is soft as wax, tribunes more hard than stones;
A stone is silent, and offendeth not,
And tribunes with their tongues doom men to death.
Titus Andronicus (Titus Andronicus, Act III scene i)
(Source: dailyshakespeare)
”
A woman moved is like a fountain troubled,
A woman moved is like a fountain troubled,
Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty;
And while it is so, none so dry or thirsty
Will deign to sip or touch one drop of it.
Kate (The Taming of the Shrew, Act V scene ii)
(Source: dailyshakespeare)
