Discussion on the meaning of Shakespeare

[Gwyndara]

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. - Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd.  

[Gwyndara]

Act 5, Scene II



SCENE II. Padua. LUCENTIO'S house.

Enter BAPTISTA, VINCENTIO, GREMIO, the Pedant, LUCENTIO, BIANCA, PETRUCHIO, KATHARINA, HORTENSIO, and Widow, TRANIO, BIONDELLO, and GRUMIO the Serving-men with Tranio bringing in a banquet
LUCENTIO
At last, though long, our jarring notes agree:
And time it is, when raging war is done,
To smile at scapes and perils overblown.
My fair Bianca, bid my father welcome,
While I with self-same kindness welcome thine.
Brother Petruchio, sister Katharina,
And thou, Hortensio, with thy loving widow,
Feast with the best, and welcome to my house:
My banquet is to close our stomachs up,
After our great good cheer. Pray you, sit down;
For now we sit to chat as well as eat.

PETRUCHIO
Nothing but sit and sit, and eat and eat!

BAPTISTA
Padua affords this kindness, son Petruchio.

PETRUCHIO
Padua affords nothing but what is kind.

HORTENSIO
For both our sakes, I would that word were true.

PETRUCHIO
Now, for my life, Hortensio fears his widow.

Widow
Then never trust me, if I be afeard.

PETRUCHIO
You are very sensible, and yet you miss my sense:
I mean, Hortensio is afeard of you.

Widow
He that is giddy thinks the world turns round.

PETRUCHIO
Roundly replied.

KATHARINA
Mistress, how mean you that?

Widow
Thus I conceive by him.

PETRUCHIO
Conceives by me! How likes Hortensio that?

HORTENSIO
My widow says, thus she conceives her tale.

PETRUCHIO
Very well mended. Kiss him for that, good widow.

KATHARINA
'He that is giddy thinks the world turns round:'
I pray you, tell me what you meant by that.

Widow
Your husband, being troubled with a shrew,
Measures my husband's sorrow by his woe:
And now you know my meaning,

KATHARINA
A very mean meaning.

Widow
Right, I mean you.

KATHARINA
And I am mean indeed, respecting you.

PETRUCHIO
To her, Kate!

HORTENSIO
To her, widow!

PETRUCHIO
A hundred marks, my Kate does put her down.

HORTENSIO
That's my office.

PETRUCHIO
Spoke like an officer; ha' to thee, lad!

Drinks to HORTENSIO

BAPTISTA
How likes Gremio these quick-witted folks?

GREMIO
Believe me, sir, they butt together well.

BIANCA
Head, and butt! an hasty-witted body
Would say your head and butt were head and horn.

VINCENTIO
Ay, mistress bride, hath that awaken'd you?

BIANCA
Ay, but not frighted me; therefore I'll sleep again.

PETRUCHIO
Nay, that you shall not: since you have begun,
Have at you for a bitter jest or two!

BIANCA
Am I your bird? I mean to shift my bush;
And then pursue me as you draw your bow.
You are welcome all.

Exeunt BIANCA, KATHARINA, and Widow

PETRUCHIO
She hath prevented me. Here, Signior Tranio.
This bird you aim'd at, though you hit her not;
Therefore a health to all that shot and miss'd.

TRANIO
O, sir, Lucentio slipp'd me like his greyhound,
Which runs himself and catches for his master.

PETRUCHIO
A good swift simile, but something currish.

TRANIO
'Tis well, sir, that you hunted for yourself:
'Tis thought your deer does hold you at a bay.

BAPTISTA
O ho, Petruchio! Tranio hits you now.

LUCENTIO
I thank thee for that gird, good Tranio.

HORTENSIO
Confess, confess, hath he not hit you here?

PETRUCHIO
A' has a little gall'd me, I confess;
And, as the jest did glance away from me,
'Tis ten to one it maim'd you two outright.

BAPTISTA
Now, in good sadness, son Petruchio,
I think thou hast the veriest shrew of all.

PETRUCHIO
Well, I say no: and therefore for assurance
Let's each one send unto his wife;
And he whose wife is most obedient
To come at first when he doth send for her,
Shall win the wager which we will propose.

HORTENSIO
Content. What is the wager?

LUCENTIO
Twenty crowns.

PETRUCHIO
Twenty crowns!
I'll venture so much of my hawk or hound,
But twenty times so much upon my wife.

LUCENTIO
A hundred then.

HORTENSIO
Content.

PETRUCHIO
A match! 'tis done.

HORTENSIO
Who shall begin?

LUCENTIO
That will I.
Go, Biondello, bid your mistress come to me.

BIONDELLO
I go.

Exit

BAPTISTA
Son, I'll be your half, Bianca comes.

LUCENTIO
I'll have no halves; I'll bear it all myself.

Re-enter BIONDELLO

How now! what news?

BIONDELLO
Sir, my mistress sends you word
That she is busy and she cannot come.

PETRUCHIO
How! she is busy and she cannot come!
Is that an answer?

GREMIO
Ay, and a kind one too:
Pray God, sir, your wife send you not a worse.

PETRUCHIO
I hope better.

HORTENSIO
Sirrah Biondello, go and entreat my wife
To come to me forthwith.

Exit BIONDELLO

PETRUCHIO
O, ho! entreat her!
Nay, then she must needs come.

HORTENSIO
I am afraid, sir,
Do what you can, yours will not be entreated.

Re-enter BIONDELLO

Now, where's my wife?

BIONDELLO
She says you have some goodly jest in hand:
She will not come: she bids you come to her.

PETRUCHIO
Worse and worse; she will not come! O vile,
Intolerable, not to be endured!
Sirrah Grumio, go to your mistress;
Say, I command her to come to me.

Exit GRUMIO

HORTENSIO
I know her answer.

PETRUCHIO
What?

HORTENSIO
She will not.

PETRUCHIO
The fouler fortune mine, and there an end.

BAPTISTA
Now, by my holidame, here comes Katharina!

Re-enter KATARINA

KATHARINA
What is your will, sir, that you send for me?

PETRUCHIO
Where is your sister, and Hortensio's wife?

KATHARINA
They sit conferring by the parlor fire.

PETRUCHIO
Go fetch them hither: if they deny to come.
Swinge me them soundly forth unto their husbands:
Away, I say, and bring them hither straight.

Exit KATHARINA

LUCENTIO
Here is a wonder, if you talk of a wonder.

HORTENSIO
And so it is: I wonder what it bodes.

PETRUCHIO
Marry, peace it bodes, and love and quiet life,
And awful rule and right supremacy;
And, to be short, what not, that's sweet and happy?

BAPTISTA
Now, fair befal thee, good Petruchio!
The wager thou hast won; and I will add
Unto their losses twenty thousand crowns;
Another dowry to another daughter,
For she is changed, as she had never been.

PETRUCHIO
Nay, I will win my wager better yet
And show more sign of her obedience,
Her new-built virtue and obedience.
See where she comes and brings your froward wives
As prisoners to her womanly persuasion.

Re-enter KATHARINA, with BIANCA and Widow

Katharina, that cap of yours becomes you not:
Off with that bauble, throw it under-foot.

Widow
Lord, let me never have a cause to sigh,
Till I be brought to such a silly pass!

BIANCA
Fie! what a foolish duty call you this?

LUCENTIO
I would your duty were as foolish too:
The wisdom of your duty, fair Bianca,
Hath cost me an hundred crowns since supper-time.

BIANCA
The more fool you, for laying on my duty.

PETRUCHIO
Katharina, I charge thee, tell these headstrong women
What duty they do owe their lords and husbands.

Widow
Come, come, you're mocking: we will have no telling.

PETRUCHIO
Come on, I say; and first begin with her.

Widow
She shall not.

PETRUCHIO
I say she shall: and first begin with her.

KATHARINA
Fie, fie! unknit that threatening unkind brow,
And dart not scornful glances from those eyes,
To wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor:
It blots thy beauty as frosts do bite the meads,
Confounds thy fame as whirlwinds shake fair buds,
And in no sense is meet or amiable.
A woman moved is like a fountain troubled,
Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty;
And while it is so, none so dry or thirsty
Will deign to sip or touch one drop of it.
Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee,
And for thy maintenance commits his body
To painful labour both by sea and land,
To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,
Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe;
And craves no other tribute at thy hands
But love, fair looks and true obedience;
Too little payment for so great a debt.
Such duty as the subject owes the prince
Even such a woman oweth to her husband;
And when she is froward, peevish, sullen, sour,
And not obedient to his honest will,
What is she but a foul contending rebel
And graceless traitor to her loving lord?
I am ashamed that women are so simple
To offer war where they should kneel for peace;
Or seek for rule, supremacy and sway,
When they are bound to serve, love and obey.
Why are our bodies soft and weak and smooth,
Unapt to toil and trouble in the world,
But that our soft conditions and our hearts
Should well agree with our external parts?
Come, come, you froward and unable worms!
My mind hath been as big as one of yours,
My heart as great, my reason haply more,
To bandy word for word and frown for frown;
But now I see our lances are but straws,
Our strength as weak, our weakness past compare,
That seeming to be most which we indeed least are.
Then vail your stomachs, for it is no boot,
And place your hands below your husband's foot:
In token of which duty, if he please,
My hand is ready; may it do him ease.

PETRUCHIO
Why, there's a wench! Come on, and kiss me, Kate.

LUCENTIO
Well, go thy ways, old lad; for thou shalt ha't.

VINCENTIO
'Tis a good hearing when children are toward.

LUCENTIO
But a harsh hearing when women are froward.

PETRUCHIO
Come, Kate, we'll to bed.
We three are married, but you two are sped.

To LUCENTIO

'Twas I won the wager, though you hit the white;
And, being a winner, God give you good night!

Exeunt PETRUCHIO and KATHARINA

HORTENSIO
Now, go thy ways; thou hast tamed a curst shrew.

LUCENTIO
'Tis a wonder, by your leave, she will be tamed so.

Exeunt  

[Gwyndara]

My all time favorite scene. from the Taming of the Shrew

Act 4, Scene V



SCENE V. A public road.

Enter PETRUCHIO, KATHARINA, HORTENSIO, and Servants
PETRUCHIO
Come on, i' God's name; once more toward our father's.
Good Lord, how bright and goodly shines the moon!

KATHARINA
The moon! the sun: it is not moonlight now.

PETRUCHIO
I say it is the moon that shines so bright.

KATHARINA
I know it is the sun that shines so bright.

PETRUCHIO
Now, by my mother's son, and that's myself,
It shall be moon, or star, or what I list,
Or ere I journey to your father's house.
Go on, and fetch our horses back again.
Evermore cross'd and cross'd; nothing but cross'd!

HORTENSIO
Say as he says, or we shall never go.

KATHARINA
Forward, I pray, since we have come so far,
And be it moon, or sun, or what you please:
An if you please to call it a rush-candle,
Henceforth I vow it shall be so for me.

PETRUCHIO
I say it is the moon.

KATHARINA
I know it is the moon.

PETRUCHIO
Nay, then you lie: it is the blessed sun.

KATHARINA
Then, God be bless'd, it is the blessed sun:
But sun it is not, when you say it is not;
And the moon changes even as your mind.
What you will have it named, even that it is;
And so it shall be so for Katharina.

HORTENSIO
Petruchio, go thy ways; the field is won.

PETRUCHIO
Well, forward, forward! thus the bowl should run,
And not unluckily against the bias.
But, soft! company is coming here.

Enter VINCENTIO

To VINCENTIO

Good morrow, gentle mistress: where away?
Tell me, sweet Kate, and tell me truly too,
Hast thou beheld a fresher gentlewoman?
Such war of white and red within her cheeks!
What stars do spangle heaven with such beauty,
As those two eyes become that heavenly face?
Fair lovely maid, once more good day to thee.
Sweet Kate, embrace her for her beauty's sake.

HORTENSIO
A' will make the man mad, to make a woman of him.

KATHARINA
Young budding virgin, fair and fresh and sweet,
Whither away, or where is thy abode?
Happy the parents of so fair a child;
Happier the man, whom favourable stars
Allot thee for his lovely bed-fellow!

PETRUCHIO
Why, how now, Kate! I hope thou art not mad:
This is a man, old, wrinkled, faded, wither'd,
And not a maiden, as thou say'st he is.

KATHARINA
Pardon, old father, my mistaking eyes,
That have been so bedazzled with the sun
That everything I look on seemeth green:
Now I perceive thou art a reverend father;
Pardon, I pray thee, for my mad mistaking.

PETRUCHIO
Do, good old grandsire; and withal make known
Which way thou travellest: if along with us,
We shall be joyful of thy company.

VINCENTIO
Fair sir, and you my merry mistress,
That with your strange encounter much amazed me,
My name is call'd Vincentio; my dwelling Pisa;
And bound I am to Padua; there to visit
A son of mine, which long I have not seen.

PETRUCHIO
What is his name?

VINCENTIO
Lucentio, gentle sir.

PETRUCHIO
Happily we met; the happier for thy son.
And now by law, as well as reverend age,
I may entitle thee my loving father:
The sister to my wife, this gentlewoman,
Thy son by this hath married. Wonder not,
Nor be grieved: she is of good esteem,
Her dowery wealthy, and of worthy birth;
Beside, so qualified as may beseem
The spouse of any noble gentleman.
Let me embrace with old Vincentio,
And wander we to see thy honest son,
Who will of thy arrival be full joyous.

VINCENTIO
But is it true? or else is it your pleasure,
Like pleasant travellers, to break a jest
Upon the company you overtake?

HORTENSIO
I do assure thee, father, so it is.

PETRUCHIO
Come, go along, and see the truth hereof;
For our first merriment hath made thee jealous.

Exeunt all but HORTENSIO

HORTENSIO
Well, Petruchio, this has put me in heart.
Have to my widow! and if she be froward,
Then hast thou taught Hortensio to be untoward.

Exit  

[Gwyndara]

The Merchant of Venice
The Character Shylock speaks:

To bait fish withal: if it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge. he hath disgraced me, and hindered me half a million; lauged at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies; and what's his reason?

I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you p***k us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you posion us, do we not die? and if you wrong us shall we not revnge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resmble you in that. If a jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his suffereance be by Christian example? why, revenge. The villaniy you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.