A Bard by Any Other Name

Posted on | April 24, 2010 | 2 Comments

My freshman year of high school, a particularly frightening nun / English teacher (who delighted in finding the smallest infractions in her students) would make those unlucky enough to escape her glare memorize and recite the prologue to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet as part of their punishment. (This particular task was set because all of the freshmen English classes read R&J as part of the curriculum.)

Absolutely terrified of this towering pillar of Catholicism – and still adjusting to a new school in which literature recitations were the norm – I decided to memorize the prologue just in case. I wasn’t really a discipline problem, but I was scared to death that one of my shoelaces might accidentally become untied and then I would be doomed.

Turns out, the joke was on me, because not only did I enjoy memorizing some of Shakespeare’s greatest words (and can, to this day, recite the R&J prologue on demand), but I also began a lifelong love affair with the Bard and his words – his magical, poetic, delightful, wonderful words.

Today was Shakespeare’s birthday, or at least the day on which it is traditionally celebrated. In honor of this great event, I present “Quoting Shakespeare,” an essay by Bernard Levin that was originally part of The Story of English, a television series and subsequent book from BBC and PBS. It also graces the walls of my apartment as a poster from The Globe, Shakespeare’s theater on the banks of the Thames in London. It is, in my opinion, the single best example of Shakespeare’s brilliance and his incomparable contributions to the English language.

If you cannot understand my argument, and declare “It’s Greek to me”, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you claim to be more sinned against than sinning, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you act more in sorrow than in anger; if your wish is farther to the thought; if your lost property has vanished into thin air, you are quoting Shakespeare.

If you have ever refused to budge an inch or suffered from green-eyed jealousy, if you have played fast and loose, if you have been tongue-tied, a tower of strength, hoodwinked or in a pickle, if you have knitted your brows, made a virtue of necessity, insisted on fair play, slept not one wink, stood on ceremony, danced attendance on your lord and master, laughed yourself into stitches, had short shrift, cold comfort or too much of a good thing, if you have seen better days or lived in a fool’s paradise -why, be that as it may, the more fool you, for it is a foregone conclusion that you are, as good luck would have it, quoting Shakespeare.

If you think it is early days and clear out bag and baggage, if you think it is high time and that that is the long and short of it, if you believe that the game is up and that truth will out even if it involves your own flesh and blood, if you lie low till the crack of doom because you suspect foul play, if you have teeth set on edge (at one fell swoop) without rhyme or reason, then – to give the devil his due – if the truth were known (for surely you have a tongue in your head) you are quoting Shakespeare.

Even if you bid me good riddance and send me packing, if you wish I was dead as a door-nail, if you think I am an eyesore, a laughing stock, the devil incarnate, a stony-hearted villain, bloody-minded or a blinking idiot, then – by Jove! O Lord! Tut tut! For goodness’ sake! What the dickens! But me no buts! – It is all one to me, for you are quoting Shakespeare.

Comments