Sonnet 095 - XCV
How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame
Which, like a canker in the fragrant rose,
Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name!
O! in what sweets dost thou thy sins enclose.
That tongue that tells the story of thy days,
Making lascivious comments on thy sport,
Cannot dispraise, but in a kind of praise;
Naming thy name blesses an ill report.
O! what a mansion have those vices got
Which for their habitation chose out thee,
Where beauty's veil doth cover every blot
And all things turns to fair that eyes can see!
Take heed, dear heart, of this large privilege;
The hardest knife ill-used doth lose his edge.

bot by @davidaugust

English physician Thomas Bowdler, born OTD in 1754, is best known for publishing "The Family #Shakespeare", an edition of Shakespeare's plays with the dirty parts removed https://toilet-guru.com/shakespeare.html?s=mb #censorship #history

Dramatist and pamphleteer Robert Greene, baptised OTD in 1558, is best known for a posthumous pamphlet, "Greene's Groats-Worth of Witte, bought with a million of Repentance", apparently attacking William #Shakespeare https://toilet-guru.com/shakespeare.html?s=mb #history

Who’s ready for a little ultraviolence
#shakespeare

A Modern Bard
#shakespeare

A bunch of us from church are doing a read-through of Hamlet. Here’s our deacon emeritus.

Thomas Bowdler, born OTD in 1754, published a heavily modified edition of William #Shakespeare's work with the naughty parts deleted https://toilet-guru.com/shakespeare.html?s=mb #censorship #history

English dramatist Robert Greene, baptised OTD in 1558, is now best known for a posthumously published pamphlet believed to contain an attack on William #Shakespeare https://toilet-guru.com/shakespeare.html?s=mb #history

ELY: The strawberry grows underneath the nettle

And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best

Neighbour'd by fruit of baser quality.

— Henry V, I, i

Sonnet 017 - XVII
Who will believe my verse in time to come,
If it were fill'd with your most high deserts?
Though yet heaven knows it is but as a tomb
Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts.
If I could write the beauty of your eyes,
And in fresh numbers number all your graces,
The age to come would say 'This poet lies;
Such heavenly touches ne'er touch'd earthly faces.'
So should my papers, yellow'd with their age,
Be scorn'd, like old men of less truth than tongue,
And your true rights be term'd a poet's rage
And stretched metre of an antique song:
But were some child of yours alive that time,
You should live twice, in it, and in my rhyme.

bot by @davidaugust

Sonnet 133 - CXXXIII
Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan
For that deep wound it gives my friend and me!
Is't not enough to torture me alone,
But slave to slavery my sweet'st friend must be?
Me from myself thy cruel eye hath taken,
And my next self thou harder hast engrossed:
Of him, myself, and thee I am forsaken;
A torment thrice three-fold thus to be crossed.
Prison my heart in thy steel bosom's ward,
But then my friend's heart let my poor heart bail;
Whoe'er keeps me, let my heart be his guard;
Thou canst not then use rigour in my jail:
And yet thou wilt; for I, being pent in thee,
Perforce am thine, and all that is in me.

bot by @davidaugust

KING: Strange is it that our bloods,

Of colour, weight, and heat, pour'd all together,

Would quite confound distinction, yet stand off

In differences so mighty.

— All's Well That Ends Well, II, iii

Audiobook Review. #Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent. Listening to Judi Dench's observations about each character, I was struck again and again by the depth of her emotional intelligence and keen insight. https://buff.ly/H9tTGVu

We again encourage everyone to go see the Ohio Shakespeare Festival perform "The Tempest" under the stars at the beautiful Stan Hywet Hall & Gardens in Akron! Not only is this one of William Shakespeare's most intriguing plays, but also his most inspired by pastorale, the historic fantasy subgenre we're experimenting with commedia dell'arte at Pennsic next moth!

See more and get your tickets: https://www.ohioshakespearefestival.com/

Sonnet 122 - CXXII
Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain
Full charactered with lasting memory,
Which shall above that idle rank remain,
Beyond all date, even to eternity:
Or, at the least, so long as brain and heart
Have faculty by nature to subsist;
Till each to razed oblivion yield his part
Of thee, thy record never can be missed.
That poor retention could not so much hold,
Nor need I tallies thy dear love to score;
Therefore to give them from me was I bold,
To trust those tables that receive thee more:
To keep an adjunct to remember thee
Were to import forgetfulness in me.

bot by @davidaugust

To hiss or not to hiss.

#KätToon #Shakespeare #snake #BadPuns #williamshakespeare #Schlange #SchlechteWortwitze

NURSE: And then my husband — God be with his soul,

A' was a merry man — took up the child,

'Yea,' quoth he, 'dost thou fall upon thy face?

Thou wilt fall backward when thou hast more wit,

Wilt thou not, Jule?'

— Romeo and Juliet, I, iii

Dude thinks he's the best-looking guy in the hood... and modest too!

DUKE: There is a kind of character in thy life,

That to the observer doth thy history

Fully unfold.

— Measure for Measure, I, i

Sonnet 074 - LXXIV
But be contented when that fell arrest
Without all bail shall carry me away,
My life hath in this line some interest,
Which for memorial still with thee shall stay.
When thou reviewest this, thou dost review
The very part was consecrate to thee:
The earth can have but earth, which is his due;
My spirit is thine, the better part of me:
So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life,
The prey of worms, my body being dead;
The coward conquest of a wretch's knife,
Too base of thee to be remembered.
The worth of that is that which it contains,
And that is this, and this with thee remains.

bot by @davidaugust