Happy Birthday Mr Shakespeare!

Tis his official birthday today, are you a fan? I am

Some quotes!

For all us short ass and Longdriver’s wife……

Though she be but little, she is fierce!

For guests you can’t get rid of ….

Stand not upon the order of your going,
But go at once

Don’t like getting old? ……

“With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.”

For the moral high grounders, misery guts and prigs …,

“Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?”

Really love him or her? ……

“I would not wish Any companion in the world but you, Nor can imagination form a shape, Besides yourself, to like of.”

My cooking! ……

“Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

Fillet of a fenny snake,

In the cauldron boil and bake;

Eye of newt and toe of frog,

Wool of bat and tongue of dog,

Adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting,

Lizard’s leg and owlet’s wing,

For a charm of powerful trouble,

Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.”

Another for misery guts?

“Then, heigh-ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly”

And about all of us, really!

“Lord, what fools these mortals be!”

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I’ve always enjoyed the words of Will The Quill and looking to my right here at one of our book cases, I can see my copy of his complete works :ok_hand::+1:

“Though she be but little, she is fierce” most definitely describes my wife and woe betide anyone who thinks otherwise.
For me the musician, “If music be the food of love, play on” are the significant words because Mrs LD was my lead singer to my band and it was the music that drew us together. She proposed to me after a performance whilst still on stage following an encore. . the audience went wild when I accepted :sparkling_heart:. . and no, it was not a put up job for the audience. We’ve lived completely devoted other ever since :hugs:

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Happy birthday, Will!


I’m sure most of you Brits have visited his home, but when I did, I loved the treasures there.

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Once came across these and liked them.

Reminds me of the would-be Kremlin Tsar:

Oh, villain, villain, smiling damned villain!
My tables, my tables — meet it is I set it down,
“That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain.”

How true:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.

Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst
been wise.

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All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.

I’ve always like that.

I think anyone that posts on a site like this wants their 15 minutes of fame,

or was that Andy Warhol?

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Macbeth was probably my favorite. At school we called him Willy Wiggle Wiggle Dagger.

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isn’t there still a mystery surrounding “whether he really wrote a play at all”??

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Of course there is, its a mystery, might visit his gaff this coming week but won’t loiter too long incase someone nicks me Bike. :icon_wink:

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I don’t think he’ll ever become popular…
:nerd_face:

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Did the Shakespeare Marathon…
Does that count?

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I enjoyed studying Shakespeare’s plays and reading his sonnets when I was a schoolkid - I have all his writing in books and still enjoy dipping in to them occasionally, especially the sonnets -
“Shall I compare thee to a Summer’s Day?” has been one of my favourites since I was a young teenager.

I have not kept much from my childhood but I have an old tiny Birthday book, with a Shakespeare quote for every day of the year. It’s very tatty now as it has been passed down through several members of my family before I was given it when I was 11.
All the Birthdays of my family members and many of our friends are in there, past and present, each with their own Shakespeare quotation - the quote for my Birthday date is
“I charge thee fling away ambition; by that sin fell the angels”

One date that just made me chuckle now as I looked through the book, is the Birthday of my very first teenage crush. His name is written in the book underneath the name of my sister’s very first boyfriend, whose birthday was on the same date - my sis had adored him but he had dumped her after a few weeks.
The Shakespeare Quote for their Birthday is
“I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts” -
my sister’s handwriting and mine are so much alike that I am not sure which one of us has written in the margin next to the quote - “Well, that’s not true of him!” :rofl:

I wanted to show you the book but didn’t want to photograph any names - there are no totally blank pages, so I’ve picked the only page that has no people’s names recorded on it - just the names of two of our kittens, who have passed away long since - I remember watching our cat give birth to those cute little kitties, so I dutifully recorded their birthday in my book!


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A beautiful keepsake Boot.

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my guiding principle in life is Never Never discard address books or diaries or telephone books - I have to my shame and still regretting it!!

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What a lovely thing to have! You must treasure it xx

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I guess I do treasure it now, although it has been through the rough and tumble of life during our childhood and a lot of moving around in storage boxes since then.

It’s still in regular use - I recorded our latest addition to the family only last week - a great nephew - his quotation is “A loyal, just and upright gentleman. ‘Twere a man born in April.” -
I don’t know which play that’s from or who it’s about - I’ll have to look it up.

PS
I’ve just realised after my last post, the birthday date of those two “first boyfriends” I wrote about is actually on 23rd April, so I guess Shakespeare’s official birthday comes under that same “Mark Antony” quote about not coming to steal away our hearts! :wink:

He was gay.

Gay just meant being happy and carefree back in Shakespeare’s day. :slightly_smiling_face:

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Nah. He was a Willie Woofter!

Ah, now there’s the million dollar question never answered!

He might have been, or was bi, or was just a writer, writing about such things. He had a wife and three kids

Certainly, some of the sonnets are written to a dark lady, some to a young man and they were in a love triangle with the narrator/poet. But that doesn’t mean it was autobiographical, it could just have been Shakespeare creating a story

The Elizabethans were tolerant of homosexuality.

Men actors playing women’s roles must have created a bit of confusion

Deep, platonic, emotional friendships between men, based on chivalry and biblical type friendship were very common, homosexuality tended to be between older men and adolescent boys (like the sonnets!) Being homosexual wasn’t considered a permanent state, just something some men did sometimes, people weren’t thought of as permanently “gay” or “straight”

Different times and I don’t suppose it matters really.

We’ll never know for sure, but that doesn’t stop us speculating :thinking:

But “Shall I compare you to a summer’s day?” was definitely written to the young man! :rofl:

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Biblical friendships? Like who? For example David and Johnathan were at it like scissors! Similarly Ruth and Naomi were very obviously rug munchers. Even Jesus was probably a shirt lifter, after all the scriptures report that he “loved John in a special way” (nudge nudge wink wink!) Same with James and John so it looks like John was putting it about a bit!