Shakespeare

[Molech]

It's about damn time this Thread gets started.
A Random Shakespeare Thread.

So, how many of you are Stratfordians and how many of you are Oxfordians? (Stratfordians RULE!)

And, what's your favorite play or movie? Does 10 Things I Hate About You crack your top ten list of Shakespeare productions? And oh my god, Denzel, you were horrible in Much Ado About Nothing; I had thought you to be a good actor. So, if anyone were actually able to pull off King Lear after Olivier's do you think Jack Nicholson could?

-W. E. Ray

[Vic Wertz]

Sorry—who's this now?

[Adam Daigle]

Vic Wertz wrote:

Sorry—who's this now?

I think he was in that movie with that girl.

[Heathansson]

When devils do their darkest deeds put on,
They do at first pretend with heavenly shows.

[Doombunny]

I like to call it Stratford-upon-Awesome.

Ian McKellen's Richard III was ridiculously good. 10 Things I Hate About You was only tolerable because they mentioned beer-flavored nipples.

[Patrick Curtin]

While I am not a fervent Shakespeare afficianato, I do think that he is one of the best wordsmiths that has ever crafted the English Language. Some of my favorite quotes:

"Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend, and borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry". Hamlet (Act I, Scene III)

Brevity is the soul of wit". Hamlet (Act II, Scene II).

"All the world 's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts" As You Like It (Act II, Scene VII).

"The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool". As You Like It (Act V, Scene I)

"A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!". Richard III(Act V, Scene IV).

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet". Romeo and Juliet (Act II, Scene II).

"The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose". Merchant of Venice (Act I, Scene III).

"Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown". King Henry IV (Act III, Scene I)

This paltry web grab just scratches the surface!

[Vic Wertz]

Daigle wrote:

Vic Wertz wrote:

Sorry—who's this now?

I think he was in that movie with that girl.

Oh— you mean the TV show with the girl and the dude in the blue box? Yeah, that was pretty good.

[Adam Daigle]

Shakespeare was a hack. I heard he had an infinite number of monkeys typing away in some sweatshop. Must've had a good editor though, now that I think about it.

[Kruelaid]

Molech wrote:

So, how many of you are Stratfordians and how many of you are Oxfordians? (Stratfordians RULE!)

Oxford, you fool!

It escapes me how a man with an education can actually believe the glovemaker's son could have written about worldly matters with such depth.

Fie! Fie upon you!

;P

[Vic Wertz]

Kruelaid wrote:

It escapes me how a man with an education can actually believe the glovemaker's son could have written about worldly matters with such depth.

Yep. Just like you can't write about incestuous hillbilly ogres without actually living with them for a time. (Ask Nick Logue about his high school years sometime.)

[Molech]

Kruelaid wrote:

Molech wrote:

So, how many of you are Stratfordians and how many of you are Oxfordians? (Stratfordians RULE!)

Oxford, you fool!

It escapes me how a man with an education can actually believe the glovemaker's son could have written about worldly matters with such depth.

Fie! Fie upon you!

;P

Ed Deviers DIED in 1605 you FOOOOOL!!!!!!!

[Leeroy Jenkins]

My favorite play is Shakespeare in Love. I don't know why we didn't read that on in high school!

I think William Shakespeare should get, like, an Oscar, or a Grammy or something.

Yeah, he's pretty cool.

[Pete Apple]

Catch "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)" if it comes to your town. Great show. Hamlet in under a minute. Awesome.

[Dramatis Personae]

Molech wrote:

Ed Deviers DIED in 1605 you FOOOOOL!!!!!!!

=D

Your point?

Evidence that any of the plays were written AFTER that date. Looked everywhere for it. Can't find it.

Oh! And where did all of Ed's plays get to. I mean all his contemporaries wrote about his drama writing skills, but there are no remaining plays. How odd.

[Kruelaid]

By the way. Two really good books which I'm sure Molech is aware of...

The End of the Authorship Question

Shakespeare by Another Name

[Dramatis Personae]

Why isn't this thread in the books section?

[Aberzombie]

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

[donnald johnson]

ive seen the complete works of shakespeare here in albuquerque, it was so much fun. the whole second half was hamlet, they ran through it seven times, once backwards.

[Molech]

OH MY GOD I spelled Ed DeVeres' name wrong! In my defense, though, I was an undergrad the last time I saw his name in print.
Oh, yeah, he died in 1604, not 5.

[Kruelaid]

Cool. Now I don't have to make fun of you.

[Molech]

Patrick Curtin wrote:

Some of my favorite quotes:

Come on, man, you just read these out of book of quotes!

"A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!".

This has got to be the most overrated line in Shakespeare. I mean come on.

However, the ever-so-amazing, awesome-beyond-human-reckoning, most-supercalifragilistickespialadocious Ian McKellen nazi version of Richard III, where Richard can't start that damn jeep -- that's priceless! I mean, the whole movie you're thinking, how the hell is McKellen gonna pull off that line?

-W. E. Ray

[Molech]

Hey Kruelaid, YOU'RE the Brit Lit prof, how come you didn't correct me?

Huh?

Huh?

[Molech]

Aberzombie wrote:

Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

Where's Vomit Guy when you need him?

This quote calls to him.
Like Cthulhu.

[Molech]

Dramatis Personae wrote:

Why isn't this thread in the books section?

Shakespeare wrote plays and poems, not books.

Now go get your shine box.

[Kruelaid]

Molech wrote:

Hey Kruelaid, YOU'RE the Brit Lit prof, how come you didn't correct me?

Huh?

Huh?

Because I have a hundred papers on my desk.

[Kruelaid]

I also teach Shakespeare.

[Kruelaid]

Molech wrote:

Dramatis Personae wrote:

Why isn't this thread in the books section?

Shakespeare wrote plays and poems, not books.

Now go get your shine box.

Dramatis Personae is me, LOL.

That's the account I use for PBP NPCs.

Please, more sentences ending in acronyms.

[The Jade]

Kruelaid wrote:

I also teach Shakespeare.

What do you teach him?

[Trey]

Molech wrote:

Now go get your shine box.

Yikes! Goodfellas quote? Watch out for the deer paw.

I was just thinking about this the other day:

I know thee not, old man: fall to thy prayers;
How ill white hairs become a fool and jester!
I have long dream'd of such a kind of man,
So surfeit-swell'd, so old and so profane;
But, being awaked, I do despise my dream.
Make less thy body hence, and more thy grace;
Leave gormandizing; know the grave doth gape
For thee thrice wider than for other men.
Reply not to me with a fool-born jest:
Presume not that I am the thing I was...

Obviously, copied and pasted. I wish my knowledge or memory were so good.

[Patrick Curtin]

Molech wrote:

Patrick Curtin wrote:

Some of my favorite quotes:

Come on, man, you just read these out of book of quotes!

"A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!".

This has got to be the most overrated line in Shakespeare. I mean come on.

Actually I used my magical computro thingummy to look up a list of quotes, rather than rooting in my book collection for my complete Shakespeare. I'm lazy like that.

Personally I LOVE that quote ... it is overUSED, but that is because it fits in so many scenarios, to wit:

"A coffee! A coffee! My kingdom for a coffee!

A crit! A crit! My kingdom for a crit!

A clue! A clue! My kingdom for a clue!

I personally don't give a fig whether Billy S. or Bacon, or this DeVry fellow wrote the stuff, the sh&t's GOOD. Why else are we prattling about it almost five centuries after the fact? Give me a bunch of stuff that sits in your wetware RAM like verbal viral goodness, so entrenched in our collective conciousness we hardly even remember where the quote came from in the first place, it's that universal..

Yeah, I gots writers envy ... :(

[Dramatis Personae]

The Jade wrote:

Kruelaid wrote:

I also teach Shakespeare.

What do you teach him?

:|

Goes back to grading papers.

-kruelaid

[Curaigh]

NPR has done some stories all week that start just as I leave for the office. I meant to come back and listen to them and now I guess I will. Summer Shakespeare

[yellowdingo]

Ah yes...King Lear. Those were the years. So has any one seen the very old D&D module Series based on the Works of Shakespeare?

[IconoclasticScream]

I think there should be a new core PC race in Pathfinder RPG based on that Caliban mutant Shakespeare wrote about in the X-Men comic books.

[Andrew Turner]

yellowdingo wrote:

Ah yes...King Lear. Those were the years. So has any one seen the very old D&D module Series based on the Works of Shakespeare?

Paizo use to sell PDFs called d20 Shakespeare. I bought the Macbeth module, and I remember there was a Lear and a Caesar; and I think A Midsummer Night's Dream. I don't know why they stopped offering them.

Was there an actual TSR series? I'd really like to read those.

[Patrick Curtin]

If I recall correctly there ws an adventure published in Dragon pre-Dungeon days that was based on The Tempest. If I recal correctly they statted Caliban up as a half-orc.

[Molech]

The ones I'm familiar with are in Dungeon, they are
Lear,
Macbeth,
Tempest

None of them are very good.

-W. E. Ray

[d13]

I owe Shakespeare my living. Here are a short response and a wonderful long monologue. . .

when a DM asks you why you need a 10 foot pole, respond with a quote from Lear:

"Reason not the need!"

and here is one of my current favorites, a great piece from Richard II (but having nothing to do with 10' poles):

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 deposèd bodies to the ground?
Our lands, our lives, and all are Bolingbroke's,
And nothing can we call our own but death
And that small model of the barren earth
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
For God's sake let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings!
How some have been deposed, some slain in war,
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed,
Some poisoned by their wives, some sleeping killed --
All murdered; for within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps Death his court; and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp;
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchize, be feared, and kill with looks;
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh which walls about our life
Were brass impregnable; and humored thus,
Comes at the last, and with a little pin
Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king!
Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood
With solemn reverence. Throw away respect,
Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty;
For you have but mistook me all this while.
I live with bread like you, feel want, taste grief,
Need friends. Subjected thus,
How can you say to me I am a king?

[d13]

from Hamlet:

"to thine own self be true"

possibly the greatest advice anyone has ever given.

[IconoclasticScream]

d13 wrote:

from Hamlet:

"to thine own self be true"

possibly the greatest advice anyone has ever given.

Yeah, but it's said by a man who's loyal to a murderer, completely self-serving, and who sends a servant to spy on his own son. This might not be the guy to take advice from.

[d13]

IconoclasticScream wrote:

d13 wrote:

from Hamlet:

"to thine own self be true"

possibly the greatest advice anyone has ever given.

Yeah, but it's said by a man who's loyal to a murderer, completely self-serving, and who sends a servant to spy on his own son. This might not be the guy to take advice from.

doesn't make it untrue.

Besides, Polonius may not know Claudius is a murderer.
And I don't think he's completely self-serving.
And his son is the kind of kid who plays with swords and carries poison around with him. Perhaps his Dad should be checking up on him.