Tag Archives: Shakespeare

Sonnet 53 by William Shakespeare [w/ Audio]

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What is your substance, whereof are you made,
  That millions of strange shadows on you tend?
  Since every one hath, every one, one shade,
  And you, but one, can every shadow lend.
 Describe Adonis, and the counterfeit
  Is poorly imitated after you;
  On Helen's cheek all art of beauty set,
  And you in Grecian tires are painted new.
 Speak of the spring and foison of the year:
  The one doth shadow of your beauty show,
  The other as your bounty doth appear;
  And you in every blessèd shape we know.
    In all external grace you have some part,
    But you like none, none you, for constant heart.

PROMPT: Reread

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Daily writing prompt
What book could you read over and over again?
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If plays count as books, then most of Shakespeare’s plays. I’ve already reread a number of them (e.g. Hamlet, Macbeth, Merchant of Venice, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.)

I’ve read Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, a couple times in full (and segments of it many times over) and expect to get to it again. I’ve read Voltaire’s Candide a couple times.

I could definitely see rereading Journey to the West, Water Margin, and Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but at this point I’m hoping my Mandarin will get good enough to read them in Simplified Chinese.

I’ve read a number of nonfiction texts multiple times — e.g. Sunzi’s Art of War, Miyamoto Musashi’s Book of Five Rings, Laozi’s Dao De Jing, and Emerson’s Selected Essays.

I’m generally not a fan of rereading books because there is so much awesome stuff out there to be read a first time. For all the reading I’ve done, there is still a massive number of classics that I have yet to touch. Usually there has to be a good reason for a reread, e.g. a new translation that promises to be improved / simplified, the book is just so potent as to still have lessons packed in after the first read, it’s a challenging read and the first go leaves a lot on the table, or — like The Little Prince — its enjoyment-to-time investment ratio is high.

Sonnet 3 by William Shakespeare [w/ Audio]

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Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewst,
 Now is the time that face should form another,
 Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,
 Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.
 For where is she so fair whose uneared womb
 Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?
 Or who is he so fond will be the tomb
 Of his self-love, to stop posterity?
 Thou art thy mother's glass, and she in thee
 Calls back the lovely April of her prime;
 So thou through windows of thine age shalt see,
 Despite of wrinkles, this thy golden time.
   But if thou live rememb'rd not to be,
   Die single, and thine image dies with thee.

Sonnet 73 by William Shakespeare [w/ Audio]

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That time of year thou mayest in me behold
  When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
  Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
  Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
 In me though seest the twilight of such day
  As after sunset fadeth in the west,
  Which by and by black night doth take away,
  Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
 In me thou seest the glowing of such fire
  That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
  As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
  Consumed with that which it was nourished by.
     This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
     To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.

“The quality of mercy is not strained” by William Shakespeare [w/ Audio]

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The quality of mercy is not strained;
 It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
   Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest;
 It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
 'T is mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
   The throned monarch better than his crown;
 His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
 The attribute to awe and majesty,
 Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
 But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
 It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
 It is an attribute to God himself;
 And earthly power doth then show likest God's
 When mercy seasons justice. 
   Therefore, Jew,
 Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
 That, in the course of justice, none of us
 Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;
 And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
 The deeds of mercy. I have spoke thus much
   To mitigate the justice of thy plea;
 Which if thou follow, this strict court of Venice
 Must needs give sentence 'gainst the merchant there.

From The Merchant of Venice (Act IV, Scene I.) Spoken in a court of law by Portia while she is disguised as a lawyer, Balthazar.

“Scorn not the Sonnet” by William Wordsworth [w/ Audio]

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British (English) School; William Wordsworth (1770-1850) ; National Trust, Wordsworth House; http://www.artuk.org/artworks/william-wordsworth-17701850-130624
Scorn not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frowned,
  Mindless of its just honours; with this key
  Shakespeare unlocked his heart; the melody
  Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound;
 A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound;
  With it Camöens soothed an exile's grief;
  The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf
  Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned
 His visionary brow: a glow-worm lamp,
  It cheered mild Spenser, called from Faery-land
  To struggle through dark ways, and, when a damp
  Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand
 The thing became a trumpet; whence he blew
 Soul-animating strains -- alas, too few!

Sonnet 24 by William Shakespeare [w/ Audio]

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Mine eye hath play'd the painter and hath stell'd
  Thy beauty's form in table of my heart;
  My body is the frame wherein 'tis held,
  And perspective it is best the painter's art.
 For through the painter must you see his skill
  To find where your true image pictur'd lies,
  Which in my bosom's shop is hanging still,
  That hath his windows glazed with thine eyes.
 Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done:
  Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me
  Are windows to my breast, wherethrough the sun
  Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee.
    Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art;
    They draw but what they see, know not the heart.

Sonnet 138 by William Shakespeare [w/ Audio]

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When my love swears that she is made of truth,
 I do believe her, though I know she lies,
 That she might think me some untutored youth,
 Unlearned in the world's false subtleties.
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
 Although she knows my days are past the best,
 Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue:
 On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed.
But wherefore says she not she is unjust?
 And wherefore say not I that I am old?
 Oh, love's best habit is in seeming trust,
 And age in love loves not to have years told.
   Therefore I lie with her and she with me,
   And in our faults by lies we flattered be.

Sonnet 116 by William Shakespeare [w/ Audio]

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Let me not to the marriage of true minds
 Admit impediments; love is not love
 Which alters when it alteration finds,
 Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no, it is an ever-fixed mark
 That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
 It is the star to every wand'ring bark
 Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
 Within his bending sickle's compass come.
 Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
 But bears it out even to the edge of doom:
  If this be error and upon me proved,
  I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Sonnet 130 by William Shakespeare [w/ Audio]

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My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
 Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
 If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
 If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
 But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
 And in some perfumes there is more delight
 Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
 That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
 I grant I never saw a goddess go;
 My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.
   And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
   As any she belied with false compare.