🎭 Give me some music, music, moody food Of us that trade in love.
— Cleopatra, Antony and Cleopatra
Shakespeare loves music and there are thousands of references about music. This is one of them.
We can tell that she is moody because she is in love with Antony. I think she must’ve been a constant lady rather than a moody one, until she met Antony. This feeling of moodiness must be new to her.
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🎭 My glass shall not persuade me I am old, So long as youth and thou are of one date.
— sonnet 22
It seems ageing is the oldest problem human beings have in any culture.
When your young friend is so fresh and young, we ourselves feel younger. But in fact, the mirror would tell us we are old, however much we refuse to accept the fact.
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🎭 York lies; he might have sent and had the horse; I owe him little duty, and less love; And take foul scorn to fawn on him by sending.
— Duke of Somerset, Henry VI-1
Somerset is talking about sending his army to France to save his countryman Lord Talbot. But he is in bad terms with Duke of York. Both of them blame the other for not sending the army.
Both of them left Talbot being killed in France, only because they didn’t want to fight together. It is like;
…there were three brothers. Two of them argued over little thing , and never reconciled. One day, their big brother was held hostage by their common enemy. To save him, the younger brothers needed to hold hands. But they refused, out of their poor pride, just blaming each other, and the big brother left killed.
Red rose represents Somerset (House of Lancaster) , and white rose York (House of York). The play reveals the moment when the War of the Roses started. It was the English civil war which lasted for about 30 years, and the nation went really exhausted. Shakespeare was very interested in those days, wondering why people fight over for such a long time, when the starting point was a trivial thing. In fact, in his days, the power balance between the two houses were still fragile.
In his Romeo and Juliet, the Prologue starts as “Two households, both alike in dignity, … from ancient grudge break new mutiny, where civil blood makes civil hands unclean”, which, seems to me, he was actually talking about his country, not Verona.
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🎭 To win me soon to hell, my female evil Tempteth my better angel from my side, And would corrupt my saint to be a devil, wooing his purity with her foul pride.
— Sonnet 144
A young soul is in love with a woman and feeling his purity would be corrupted. Any thought or experience?
The section is about the middle part of 144 which starts with “Two loves I have of comfort and despair…”
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🎭 Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore, So do our minutes hasten to their end.
— Sonnet 60
Theatre educator Malcolm Morrison uses the phrase in his book Classical Acting. It must be very famous phrase. You almost hear the sound of pebbles as if it is the clock which pushes you towards your end. Or, you may feel you are one of those pebbles which are rolled helplessly and washed away.
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🎭 this is the third man that e’er I saw; the first that I e’er sigh’d for.
Miranda has never seen a human being except her aged father and his slave and the native of the island Caliban. That make you nod she could sigh for at anyone who was young and proper. In fact, this man was Prince Ferdinand of Naples, who was sobbing spoiled weak kid. Only, he had his manners to greet Miranda with courtesy, which made her believed he was the most exquisite being in the whole world.😂
![Give Me Some Music [Shakespeare For You]](https://elicamiwa.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/pexels-photo-210854.jpeg)
![My glass shall not persuade me [Shakespeare For You]](https://elicamiwa.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/pexels-photo-54377.jpeg)
![York lies, he might have sent and had the horse [Shakespeare For You]](https://elicamiwa.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/pexels-photo-2889742.jpeg)
![To win me soon to hell [Shakespeare For You]](https://elicamiwa.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/pexels-photo-8512238.jpeg)
