PROTEUS       Yet writers say ‘As in the sweetest bud The eating canker dwells, so doting love Inhabits in the finest wits of all.’ VALENTINE    And writers say ‘As the most forward bud Is eaten by the canker ere it blow, Even so by love the young and tender wit Is turned to folly, blasting in […]

PROTEUS       So by your circumstance you call me fool. VALENTINE   So by your circumstance I fear you’ll prove. PROTEUS ’Tis love you cavil at. I am not love. VALENTINE Love is your master, for he masters you; And he that is so yokèd by a fool Methinks should not be chronicled for wise.          (1.1.36-41)   […]

VALENTINE   To be in love, where scorn is bought with groans, Coy looks with heart-sore sighs, one fading moment’s mirth With twenty watchful, weary, tedious nights. If haply won, perhaps a hapless gain; If lost, why then a grievous labour won; However, but a folly bought with wit, Or else a wit by folly vanquishèd. […]

VALENTINE   And on a love-book pray for my success? PROTEUS       Upon some book I love I’ll pray for thee. VALENTINE That’s on some shallow story of deep love– How young Leander crossed the Hellespont. PROTEUS That’s a deep story of a deeper love, For he was more than over-shoes in love. VALENTINE ’Tis true, for […]

PROTEUS       Wilt thou be gone? Sweet Valentine, adieu. Think on thy Proteus when thou haply seest Some rare note-worthy object in thy travel. Wish me partaker in thy happiness When thou dost meet good hap; and in thy danger– If ever danger do environ thee– Commend thy grievance to my holy prayers; For I will […]

1 January 2024   [Enter] Valentine and Proteus VALENTINE               Cease to persuade, my loving Proteus. Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits. Were’t not affection chains thy tender days To the sweet glances of thy honoured love, I rather would entreat thy company To see the wonders of the world abroad Than, living dully sluggardized at […]

I’ll begin a NEW #SlowShakespeare daily blog in January! As I get properly underway with my work on the new edition for the Arden Fourth Series, I’ll be (slowly) reading and writing about The Two Gentlemen of Verona #2Dudes1Dog – not one of the greatest hits, certainly, but interesting in lots of ways – and […]

CAESAR                      Take up her bed, And bear her women from the monument. She shall be buried by her Antony. No grave upon the earth shall clip in it A pair so famous. High events as these Strike those that make them, and their story is No less in pity than his glory which Brought them […]

DOLABELLA   Here on her breast There is a vent of blood, and something blown. The like is on her arm. FIRST GUARD This is an aspic’s trail, And these fig-leaves have slime upon them such As th’aspic leaves upon the caves of Nile. CAESAR                      Most probable That so she died; for her physician tells me […]

FIRST GUARD            O, Caesar, This Charmian lived but now; she stood and spoke. I found her trimming up the diadem On her dead mistress; tremblingly she stood, And on the sudden dropped. CAESAR                                  O, noble weakness! If they had swallowed poison, ’twould appear By external swelling; but she looks like sleep, As she would catch […]