Romans, countrymen, lovers -- put money in thy purse
March 11, 2009 10:48 PM Subscribe
What's your favorite Shakespearean monologue, and why?
For example, I have always been a big fan of the monologues in his tragedies (read into that what you will), so let me give you a couple of particulars. I've always had a special place in my heart for Brutus's speech in Julius Caesar, for two reasons: He lays out the rational and well-thought intentions behind his murder of Caesar, indicating that this was no frivolous assassination, and the following speech by Marc Antony is all sarcastic demagoguery. This is not to say sarcastic demagoguery doesn't has its place, just that the speech by Brutus both appeals to my rational side and makes me want to give the murdering ingrate a hug. He's like a CPA laying out the cost-benefit ratio of a group-stabbing.
Speaking of sarcastic bastards! I'm also a fan of pretty much any monologue by Iago. He is, hands down, the craftiest villain Old Bill ever penned. Every scene with him is like watching The Usual Suspects for the first time: you know something fishy is going down, but it isn't till the end that the full magnitude of his byzantine arch-villainy is revealed.
For example, I have always been a big fan of the monologues in his tragedies (read into that what you will), so let me give you a couple of particulars. I've always had a special place in my heart for Brutus's speech in Julius Caesar, for two reasons: He lays out the rational and well-thought intentions behind his murder of Caesar, indicating that this was no frivolous assassination, and the following speech by Marc Antony is all sarcastic demagoguery. This is not to say sarcastic demagoguery doesn't has its place, just that the speech by Brutus both appeals to my rational side and makes me want to give the murdering ingrate a hug. He's like a CPA laying out the cost-benefit ratio of a group-stabbing.
Speaking of sarcastic bastards! I'm also a fan of pretty much any monologue by Iago. He is, hands down, the craftiest villain Old Bill ever penned. Every scene with him is like watching The Usual Suspects for the first time: you know something fishy is going down, but it isn't till the end that the full magnitude of his byzantine arch-villainy is revealed.
This post was deleted for the following reason: Shakespeare is great, but this is basically straight-up chatfilter. -- cortex
I've always liked Hamlet's, particularly the what a piece of work is man monologue.
posted by jeffamaphone at 12:16 AM on March 12, 2009
posted by jeffamaphone at 12:16 AM on March 12, 2009
Macbeth for me. I don't agree with his view of life, but it's never been presented better.
posted by Zonker at 2:47 AM on March 12, 2009
posted by Zonker at 2:47 AM on March 12, 2009
I've always liked Leontes' speech from A Winter's Tale:
There may be in the cup
A spider steep'd, and one may drink, depart,
And yet partake no venom, for his knowledge
Is not infected: but if one present
The abhorr'd ingredient to his eye, make known
How he hath drunk, he cracks his gorge, his sides,
With violent hefts. I have drunk,
and seen the spider.
(incidentally, the first hit when I googled this to see if I remembered it correctly was from grumblebee's blog... I'm sure he'll be along at some point with some great suggestions)
posted by twirlypen at 3:12 AM on March 12, 2009
There may be in the cup
A spider steep'd, and one may drink, depart,
And yet partake no venom, for his knowledge
Is not infected: but if one present
The abhorr'd ingredient to his eye, make known
How he hath drunk, he cracks his gorge, his sides,
With violent hefts. I have drunk,
and seen the spider.
(incidentally, the first hit when I googled this to see if I remembered it correctly was from grumblebee's blog... I'm sure he'll be along at some point with some great suggestions)
posted by twirlypen at 3:12 AM on March 12, 2009
Puck's closing monologue from Midsummer.
If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber'd here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend:
if you pardon, we will mend:
And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck
Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue,
We will make amends ere long;
Else the Puck a liar call;
So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 4:47 AM on March 12, 2009
If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber'd here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend:
if you pardon, we will mend:
And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck
Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue,
We will make amends ere long;
Else the Puck a liar call;
So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 4:47 AM on March 12, 2009
Beatrice's "Kill Claudio" from Much ado. well, maybe not a monologue . . . but pretty bad ass in any case
posted by Think_Long at 4:58 AM on March 12, 2009
posted by Think_Long at 4:58 AM on March 12, 2009
This is my fave, from Hamlet
"Yet here, Laertes! Aboard, aboard for shame!
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
And you are stay'd for.
There ... my blessing with thee!
And these few precepts in thy memory
Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportion'd thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg’d comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel but, being in,
Bear't that th' opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgement.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man;
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are of a most select and generous chief in that.
Neither a borrower, nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell; my blessing season this in thee!"
posted by elendil71 at 5:39 AM on March 12, 2009
"Yet here, Laertes! Aboard, aboard for shame!
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
And you are stay'd for.
There ... my blessing with thee!
And these few precepts in thy memory
Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportion'd thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg’d comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel but, being in,
Bear't that th' opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgement.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man;
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are of a most select and generous chief in that.
Neither a borrower, nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell; my blessing season this in thee!"
posted by elendil71 at 5:39 AM on March 12, 2009
PROSPERO
Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves,
And ye that on the sands with printless foot
Do chase the ebbing Neptune and do fly him
When he comes back; you demi-puppets that
By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make,
Whereof the ewe not bites, and you whose pastime
Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice
To hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid,
Weak masters though ye be, I have bedimm'd
The noontide sun, call'd forth the mutinous winds,
And 'twixt the green sea and the azured vault
Set roaring war: to the dread rattling thunder
Have I given fire and rifted Jove's stout oak
With his own bolt; the strong-based promontory
Have I made shake and by the spurs pluck'd up
The pine and cedar: graves at my command
Have waked their sleepers, oped, and let 'em forth
By my so potent art. But this rough magic
I here abjure, and, when I have required
Some heavenly music, which even now I do,
To work mine end upon their senses that
This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff,
Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,
And deeper than did ever plummet sound
I'll drown my book.
I like it because it reminds me that there are two kinds of art, even if in Capote's "A Christmas Memory" Mizz Sook tells us "there's never two of anything."
posted by pernishus at 5:44 AM on March 12, 2009
Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves,
And ye that on the sands with printless foot
Do chase the ebbing Neptune and do fly him
When he comes back; you demi-puppets that
By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make,
Whereof the ewe not bites, and you whose pastime
Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice
To hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid,
Weak masters though ye be, I have bedimm'd
The noontide sun, call'd forth the mutinous winds,
And 'twixt the green sea and the azured vault
Set roaring war: to the dread rattling thunder
Have I given fire and rifted Jove's stout oak
With his own bolt; the strong-based promontory
Have I made shake and by the spurs pluck'd up
The pine and cedar: graves at my command
Have waked their sleepers, oped, and let 'em forth
By my so potent art. But this rough magic
I here abjure, and, when I have required
Some heavenly music, which even now I do,
To work mine end upon their senses that
This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff,
Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,
And deeper than did ever plummet sound
I'll drown my book.
I like it because it reminds me that there are two kinds of art, even if in Capote's "A Christmas Memory" Mizz Sook tells us "there's never two of anything."
posted by pernishus at 5:44 AM on March 12, 2009
And of course there's also several passages from Richard III, all from Act 1:
The opening solus, this line especially:
"And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
I am determined to prove a villain
And hate the idle pleasures of these days."
and
"I do the wrong, and first begin to brawl.
The secret mischiefs that I set abroach
I lay unto the grievous charge of others.
Clarence, whom I, indeed, have laid in darkness,
I do beweep to many simple gulls
Namely, to Hastings, Derby, Buckingham;
And say it is the queen and her allies
That stir the king against the duke my brother.
Now, they believe it; and withal whet me
To be revenged on Rivers, Vaughan, Grey:
But then I sigh; and, with a piece of scripture,
Tell them that God bids us do good for evil:
And thus I clothe my naked villany
With old odd ends stolen out of holy writ;
And seem a saint, when most I play the devil."
My word, he is the most magnificent bastard in all of English literature.
posted by elendil71 at 6:02 AM on March 12, 2009 [1 favorite]
The opening solus, this line especially:
"And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
I am determined to prove a villain
And hate the idle pleasures of these days."
and
"I do the wrong, and first begin to brawl.
The secret mischiefs that I set abroach
I lay unto the grievous charge of others.
Clarence, whom I, indeed, have laid in darkness,
I do beweep to many simple gulls
Namely, to Hastings, Derby, Buckingham;
And say it is the queen and her allies
That stir the king against the duke my brother.
Now, they believe it; and withal whet me
To be revenged on Rivers, Vaughan, Grey:
But then I sigh; and, with a piece of scripture,
Tell them that God bids us do good for evil:
And thus I clothe my naked villany
With old odd ends stolen out of holy writ;
And seem a saint, when most I play the devil."
My word, he is the most magnificent bastard in all of English literature.
posted by elendil71 at 6:02 AM on March 12, 2009 [1 favorite]
I'd have to say the Saint-Crispin's-Day speech from "Henry V." I'm a pacifist. I am not a patriotic person. I barely get the concept of patriotism. But when I hear that speech performed well, I want to join an army and go fight France.
posted by grumblebee at 6:36 AM on March 12, 2009
posted by grumblebee at 6:36 AM on March 12, 2009
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by mammary16 at 11:55 PM on March 11, 2009 [1 favorite]