Life and Works of Shakespeare Celebrated - April 29, 2022

             

The dedication by Thomas Thorpe's of Shakespeare's Sonnets 

The reading started with plays from Shakespeare, Macbeth and The Taming of the Shrew.  Macbeth is one of the shortest and most intense plays of Shakespeare with everything to make it a dramatic thriller, from blood and murder, to ambition, insanity and war. The metaphors in the blank verse are startling and one wonders that ordinary mortals could speak in such forceful tones, that elevate into pathos and poetry. There are many throwaway lines of bird lore like this from Act 1, Scene 6:

Banquo:
This guest of summer,
The temple-haunting martlet, does approve,
By his loved mansionry, that the heaven’s breath
Smells wooingly here. No jutty, frieze,
Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird
Hath made his pendant bed and procreant cradle.
Where they most breed and haunt, I have observed,
The air is delicate.

But the scene staged by Priya and Arundhaty has Macbeth gaping in horror at the bloody ghost of the murdered Banquo during a feast at his manor. You can see enacted at

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiSISGY8Yy8

Macbeth – ‘I have a strange infirmity, which is nothing To those that know me.’ – Act 3 Scene 4

Devika took up an old favourite, The Taming of the Shrew.  Recapping the final speech when Katharina the shrew has turned into Katharina the obedient wife, Devika observed that for once Shakespeare goes against the grain of his known penchant for strong independent women. In the scene Devika chose, Katharina is instructing the other ladies on the duties of a wife in Act 5, Scene 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dnd2lpe-rW4

Katharina – ‘Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper.’

Zefirelli’s 1967 film version has yet to be surpassed. It has Richard Burton as Petruchio, Elizabeth Taylor as Katharina, Michael Hordern as Baptista, and Michael York as Lucentio.

“The world’s most celebrated movie couple in the motion picture they are made for!” was how this film was advertised. This version shows the play as funny and entertaining, the way WS probably intended. The gorgeous colour in the sets and costumes is characteristic of Zefirelli, and is seen again in his production of Romeo and Juliet. The Shakespearean verse sounds quite believable as daily conversation in the actors’ mouths. This film is a great introduction to Shakespeare for anyone who hasn't seen his plays before. It is the perfect antidote for those who have been intimidated into thinking that Shakespeare is only for experts and scholars.

The Plays are central to the legend of Shakespeare’s universality. The Sonnets, however, can vie with the Plays in their smaller compass, for they are so compressed in thought and filled with vigorous speech that they merit reading several times – not just by lovers, but all who want to learn the variety of torments a human goes through in life, quite apart from the anguish of love. The Plays are wonderful. But once you get into the Sonnets it takes on the ageless quality that Shakespeare himself attested to in Sonnet 18 when he said.

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

The sentiments expressed are entirely contemporary and the language too. With a little familiarity that comes from frequent reading, the language also becomes contemporary — gender, sexuality, love, self-loathing, anguish, hate and everything else find their truest chronicler in WS.

Sonnets

Shakespeare’s Sonnets are concerned with ‘love’, of course, but they also reflect upon time, change, ageing, lust, absence, infidelity and the yawning gap between the ideal and reality when it comes to love. 

Sonnets 1 to 126 seem to be addressed to a young man, and the first 17 encourage the youth to marry and father children. Then the subjects diversify. Some are erotic, while others reflect upon the anguish caused by love. 

Sonnets 127 to 152 are addressed to a woman, the so-called ‘Dark Lady’ of Shakespearean legend. This woman is elusive, often tyrannous, and causes the speaker great pain and shame. The two final sonnets (Sonnets 153 and 154) focus on the classical god Cupid, and playfully detail desire and longing. 

The Sonnets were probably written, and perhaps revised, between the early 1590s and about 1605. Sonnets 128 and 144 were printed in the poetry collection called The Passionate Pilgrim in 1599. They were first printed as a sequence in 1609, with a mysterious dedication to ‘Mr. W.H.’ 

The dedication has led to intense speculation: who is ‘W.H.’? Is he the young man of the sonnets? Various candidates have been proposed, such as William Herbert, third Earl of Pembroke, and Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton. No conclusive identification has been made, and it may never be, because the poet may not even have been writing about historical individuals, but giving free rein to his imagination, founded on his lived experience. We don’t know if Shakespeare was involved in the 1609 printing of his Sonnets, because the dedication was written by the printer, not by Shakespeare.

Shakespearean sonnets are composed of 14 lines of iambic pentameters:
da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM

and most are divided into three quatrains and a concluding couplet, rhyming abab cdcd efef gg. This sonnet form and rhyme scheme, taken together, are known as the ‘Elizabethan’ sonnet. 

Sonnets arrived in England from Italy where they had a slightly different form called Petrarchan (after Francesco Petrarca 1304 – 1374). Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1516/17–1547), translated Italian sonnets into English as well as composed some of his own. Many later English writers used this sonnet form, and Shakespeare seemed to have revelled in its potential for invention. The final couplet always provides a forceful and memorable conclusion to the argument. It is strange to think of a poetic form as an argument, but that is what the sonnet is in English. For it lays out a thesis and then suddenly inverts it or subverts it in what the Italians call a volta (a change in direction or reversal) after the eighth line. Sonnet 130, for instance, builds up a picture of the speaker’s mistress as defective in all the conventional standards of beauty, but the concluding couplet remarks that, while all this is true:

And yet by heaven I think my love as rare,
As any she belied with false compare.

For further reference see: https://www.bl.uk/works/shakespeares-sonnets

Also see: https://www.bl.uk/shakespeare/articles/an-introduction-to-shakespeares-sonnets

One of the standard references for Shakespeare’s sonnets has been written by Helen Vendler, Professor Emerita at Harvard University:
The Art of Shakespeare′s Sonnets 

https://www.amazon.in/Art-Shakespeare%E2%80%B2s-Sonnets-Paper-Belknap/dp/0674637127/

Another commentary is by Don Paterson:
Reading Shakespeare's Sonnets: A New Commentary 

https://www.amazon.in/Reading-Shakespeares-Sonnets-New-Commentary/dp/0571245056/

Here below is the link to the transcript of a short lecture on what the Sonnets tell us about Shakespeare himself. It is by the distinguished Sir Stanley Wells, general editor of the Oxford Complete Works of Shakespeare, honorary president of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, and former director of The Shakespeare Institute:

https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/podcasts/what-was-shakespeare-really/what-sonnets-tell-about-shakespeare/

The Sonnets have been set to music by many singers and composers. Paul Kelly has set seven of them to contemporary pop song rhythms. According to him the sonnets work naturally as lyrics. The fact that they are composed of metrical lines (each with 10 syllables), and rhymed, has many parallels with modern songs. Here he is singing Sonnet 18:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aj0kGzuL-cA

Sonnet 18 as a pop song by Paul Kelly from his album ‘Seven Sonnets & A Song’.

Our two readers, Thomo and Geetha, presented Sonnets 73 and 87 in song, and readers of this blog can listen to their recorded voices below.

Thu May 26, 2022 will be the date for the next session, to read The Count of Monte Cristo (Abridged edition) by Alexandre Dumas.

Arundhathy & Priya

Macbeth by William Shakespeare was first published in the First Folio edition of 1623 assembled by John Heminge and Henry Condell, Shakespeare's fellow actors, who saved him for posterity. See:
https://londonvisitors.wordpress.com/2019/03/05/hidden-london-memorial-to-john-heminge-and-henry-condell-by-charles-john-allen-in-st-mary-aldermanbury-garden/

Macbeth is Shakespeare’s shortest tragedy. It is thought to have been first performed in 1606. It dramatises the damaging physical and psychological effects of political ambition on those who seek power.

A brave Scottish general named Macbeth receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. Consumed by ambition and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth murders the reigning King Duncan and takes the Scottish throne for himself. He is then wracked with guilt and acts with paranoia toward others who might stand in his way. Forced to commit more and more murders to protect himself from suspicion, he soon becomes a tyrannical ruler. The bloodbath and consequent civil war swiftly take Macbeth and Lady Macbeth into the realms of madness and death.

Arundhaty and Priya read from Act 3, Scene 4. Despite his success, Macbeth as ruler is also aware of a part of the prophecy which promises that the future heir to the throne will be the son of the Scottish lord, Banquo. Macbeth invites Banquo to a royal banquet.  When he discovers that Banquo and his young son, Fleance, will be riding out that night, Macbeth arranges to have them murdered by hired killers. The assassins succeed in killing Banquo, but Fleance escapes. Macbeth becomes furious: he fears that his power will remain insecure as long as an heir of Banquo is alive.

At the banquet, Macbeth invites his lords and Lady Macbeth to a night of drinking and merriment. Banquo's ghost enters and sits in Macbeth's place. Macbeth raves fearfully, startling his guests. In the scene the ghost is visible only to him. The others panic at the sight of Macbeth raging at an empty chair, until a desperate Lady Macbeth tells them that her husband is merely afflicted with a familiar and harmless malady that occasionally grips him. The ghost departs and returns once more, causing the same riotous anger and fear in Macbeth. This time, Lady Macbeth tells the visitors to leave, and they do so.

Shakespeare's brilliant use of metaphors describes Macbeth's consternation.  

Then comes my fit again: I had else been perfect,
Whole as the marble, founded as the rock,
As broad and general as the casing air:

This scene also depicts the fear, distress and anger and then amazement, experienced by Macbeth at the sight of Banquo's ghost appearing at the banquet. He raves at the audience:

Which of you have done this?

He shouts at the ghost:

Thou canst not say I did it: never shake
Thy gory locks at me. 
He challenges the ghost
What man dare, I dare:
Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear,
The arm'd rhinoceros, or the Hyrcan tiger;
Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves
Shall never tremble:…
If trembling I inhabit then, protest me
The baby of a girl. 

He is unaware that the ghost is visible only to him, and he exclaims in disbelief. 

Can such things be,
And overcome us like a summer's cloud,
Without our special wonder? 

Once the guests leave, upon Lady Macbeth's bidding, he exclaims in utter amazement and fear:

It will have blood; they say, blood will have blood:
Stones have been known to move and trees to speak;
Augurs and understood relations have
By magot-pies and choughs and rooks brought forth
The secret'st man of blood. 

Lady Macbeth is exasperated at her lord’s behaviour in public. She admonishes him for his lack of courage. This is a highly dramatic passage depicting the karmic consequences of an evil act, Macbeth’s astonishment at encountering the ghost of his victim, and the fitful fear and frustration suffered by him.

Devika

Devika read the final speech by Katharina from The Taming of the Shrew (TTOTS) Act 5, Scene 2

How the world has changed as time moves on …

TTOTS is a comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1590 and 1592. The main plot depicts the courtship of Petruchio and Katharina, a headstrong and obdurate shrew, the elder daughter of the rich man Baptista. Petruchio marries Katharina and tames her through various psychological and physical torments such as keeping her from eating and drinking, until she becomes a desirable, compliant and obedient bride.

Devika chose the last part of the play where Katharina gives a speech to her women friends, deriding their conceited attitude towards their husbands.

The feast given in the honour of the newlyweds is winding down, and the women adjourn, but the men begin to wager on who has the most obedient wife. They wager a large sum of 100 crowns, as each man is sure his wife will come when he calls. Lucentio calls for Bianca, but she refuses to come. Hortensio calls for the Widow, but she refuses as well. Petruchio calls for Kate, and much to everyone's deep surprise and amazement, she comes directly. She then astounds everyone by not only following Petruchio's instructions to the letter but also offering a long didactic speech on a woman's proper duty to her husband.

TTOTS is appropriate for the 16th century, perhaps, but in this day and age women would be horrified at the way men treated women in those times! And women being so readily accommodating!!

But in that period of history women from well to do homes did nothing much except manage their homes to perfection and bring up their children – whereas the menfolk travelled abroad, took part in wars, and there was no certainty of their return from these adventures.

Devika found this passage interesting for the total change Katharina has undergone: once she was a shrew, and now she has become a docile woman in high society, completely submissive to her husband. She's given up her ideals of independence and becomes an advocate for patriarchy.

Thommo & Geetha

Geetha and Thomo combined to bring 2 sonnets to the session. Thomo opened by stating that Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets and that these were published in a ‘quarto’ (the paper is folded four times) edition in 1609, covering themes such as the passage of time, mortality, love, beauty, infidelity, and jealousy. Apparently the first 126 of Shakespeare’s sonnets were addressed to a young man, and the last 28 addressed to a woman – a mysterious ‘dark lady’.

Geetha spoke about Sonnet 73 which she said is not a romantic sonnet and it that it suggested deterioration rather than vibrancy. It used autumn, twilight, and a dying fire to describe the ageing process. While it made it clear that ageing and death are inevitable, it also affirmed that the young man the poet addressed still loved the poet just the same—in fact, this young man loved the poet even more knowing that their time together is limited. Rather than rage against the march of time, the poem avers that genuine love doesn’t care about age and love need not diminish as a loved one nears death.

It also points out that the poet’s light — his vitality, attractiveness, wit, or any number of other qualities—has peaked. It has already come and gone. Everything is only going to get darker and go downhill from there.

Finally, there is the comparison to a dying fire and the connection between old age and death is made explicit because the fire is on its death-bed and must expire. Click on the link below to hear Geetha and Thomo singing Sonnet 73:

Song Version of Sonnet 73 by Geetha and Thomo

Sonnet 87 was presented by Thomo who said that the sonnet is about saying farewell; it is considered one of the great English poems about deciding to end a relationship. The poet admits that he has a lover only because the lover allowed it. The poet has nothing special that could explain why the lover would want to be with someone like the poet. The poet feels that the lover gave himself to the poet before realising just how amazing he was and that the poet misread the situation. The poet admits that he now knows better and that both are a bit wiser and that the best thing to do is to let him go. The poet admits that it was wonderful to possess him, but that it was like being in a dream – the poet felt like a king when asleep, but when he awoke, he realises that none of it was real. It is couched in the language of law with such terms as charter, bond, and patent. 

Thereafter Geetha read Sonnet 87. 

Farewell, thou art too dear for my possessing,

And like enough thou know’st thy estimate.

The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing;

My bonds in thee are all determinate.

For how do I hold thee but by thy granting,

And for that riches where is my deserving?

The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,

And so my patent back again   is swerving.

Thy self thou gav’st, thy own worth then not knowing,

Or me, to whom thou gav’st it, else mistaking;

So thy great gift, upon misprision growing,

Comes home again, on better judgment making.

Thus have I had thee as a dream doth flatter,

In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.

Thomo alerted readers to a new word he learned, misprision, meaning the deliberate concealing of the crime of another. Thereafter they sang a version of Sonnet 87 that used all the lines composed by Shakespeare but did not conform to the pattern of a sonnet. In this version the couplet is used as a chorus for musical effect.

Song Version of Sonnet 87 by Geetha & Thomo

Joe

Sonnets 65 and 119 were selected by Joe in this session. He gave a very absorbing and passionate elaboration to Sonnet 65 at the reading which enthralled the readers, according to Geetha. His take on Sonnet 119 is expressed  here below.

Sonnet 65 by William Shakespeare is a reflection on ‘sad mortality’ and a shining tribute to the power of love.

Sonnet 65

Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea

But sad mortality o’er-sways their power,

How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,

Whose action is no stronger than a flower?

O, how shall summer’s honey breath hold out

Against the wrackful siege of batt’ring days,

When rocks impregnable are not so stout,

Nor gates of steel so strong, but time decays?

O fearful meditation! where, alack,

Shall time’s best jewel from time’s chest lie hid?

Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?

Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?

   O, none, unless this miracle have might,

   That in black ink my love may still shine bright.

This sonnet shows how the poet can move the reader and make himer experience the very same impotence and rage he feels, facing the irresistible force of mortality, of death, and withering time. He is extolling beauty, but asks:

How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,

Whose action is no stronger than a flower?

In passing, can you feel one source of the poet Dylan Thomas’ villanelle on his father’s death? –

Do not go gentle into that good night:

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

The contrast between the rage of time and the weak plea of beauty from the flower could not be more intensely divergent.

The two lines that follow

O, how shall summer’s honey breath hold out

Against the wrackful siege of batt’ring days,

recall the famous lines when Romeo discovers Juliet in the tomb belonging to the Capulets:

O my love! my wife!

Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath,

Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty:

The same words, honey and breath. WS is not above re-using tender images he conceived in another context.

Look at the next line,

Against the wrackful siege of batt’ring days,

The very sound of the words wrackful and batt’ring reinforce the deadly dominion of death. In some ways what a poet does is very simple: he chooses words for their individual as well as their reinforcing sound. It is this force, more than the rhyme of the sonneteer, that leaves its impress on the reader.

The poet makes it clear he is working to counter time, and yet look at this one line that combines the best and worst of time:

… where, alack,

Shall time’s best jewel from time’s chest lie hid?

We must remember that the first 126 of the 154 sonnets are written to the young lover; so he’s referring to the lover as ‘time’s best jewel.’ And ‘time’s chest’ is the awful tomb that will cover the lover when the time is up. The poet plays such contrasts within a line, indicating the dense compression of thought in the span of a single line within a sonnet. This is why sonnets must be read, and re-read, slowly, uttering the words sonorously to extract their full vigour and thought.

The couplet that ends every Elizabethan sonnet here expresses in somewhat different terms what the poet does in sonnet 18 also. That lovely sonnet ends thus:

   So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

   So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Here in sonnet 65, he phrases the same thought:

   O, none, unless this miracle have might,

   That in black ink my love may still shine bright.

(‘Still’, we recall, has the meaning ‘forever’ or ‘always’ in Shakespearean English) The lover can surely rejoice that four hundred years later by recalling and reciting Sonnet 65, the black ink in which his words of love were written still gleam and leap off the page, as bright and as powerful, as when he wrote them, and still they overcome

the wrackful siege of batt’ring days

Sir Patrick Stewart says among the sonnets this is “one of the most famous and extraordinarily powerful.” He recites it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_gg_gNf0Ss

Sonnet 119

A lover who has been false to his beloved, repents. He hopes to recoup and be better.

What potions have I drunk of Siren tears,

Distill'd from limbecks foul as hell within,

Applying fears to hopes and hopes to fears,

Still losing when I saw myself to win!

What wretched errors hath my heart committed,

Whilst it hath thought itself so blessed never!

How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted

In the distraction of this madding fever!

O benefit of ill! now I find true

That better is by evil still made better;

And ruin'd love, when it is built anew,

Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater.

   So I return rebuked to my content

   And gain by ill thrice more than I have spent.

The ending sounds like an accountant making the Profit & Loss of his actions …

Love is often considered a form of sickness, hence the word ‘love-sick,‘ to denote a lover who goes around with a pale face and sickly hue. In Sonnet 119  the speaker seems to admit he has been unfaithful. He is miserable now and claims to have shed Siren tears. (In Greek mythology, the sirens were dangerous creatures, half-bird, half-women, who lured nearby sailors with their enchanting music and singing voices to shipwreck on the rocky coast of their island.) 

The lover has been false and now he alternates between hope and fear; he thought it was fun at the time ("still losing when I saw myself to win") but he realises now he has been seduced, and self-deceived.

The tone is that of a man baring his suffering soul. The rhetorical question of line seven has a grim anatomical setting: 

How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted?

The verb “fitted” sounds like fits of madness and, has the added sounds of mechanical engineering, here connected to the vital sense of sight. It is as though the eyes have been displaced out of their sockets by his false love. The medicine in the limbecks (a vessel used by the alchemists for purposes of distillation) cannot cure him, for the limbecks are a cauldron of corruption.

But, again, Shakespeare finds redemption in pulling the speaker out of his debasement. Good can yet come out of wrongdoing. “O benefit of ill!” he exclaims, as if to convince himself: 

O benefit of ill! now I find true

That better is by evil still made better;

And ruin'd love, when it is built anew,

Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater.

One does not know if the rebuilding may turn out to be another self-deception. Shakespeare’s sonnets have such ambiguities embedded in them. One can’t be sure. Yet the tone seems hopeful. The metaphorical shift – from medicine and alchemy to re-building – suggests a confident view of the future. The relationship, wilfully ravaged, will be rebuilt.

Shakespeare the dramatist is in evidence. There's a blunt and plain-spoken quality to this Sonnet 119 in particular.

Kumkum

KumKum read Shakespeare’s sonnets 57 and 58 at this session.

She chose these two adjacent sonnets because they contain similar themes. They belong to the Fair Youth cycle of sonnets, in which the poet expresses his love for a handsome young man. 

The poet will do anything for the beloved person. Both sonnets speak of how love is much like slavery in appearance. One person is domineering, the other, in this case the poet, acquiesces to the wishes of the dominant person without complaint. 

Acceptance of love as slavery is the theme of the sonnets. Waiting, waiting, to serve in any way is acutely expressed in several lines. There is no ill feeling, there is no bitterness against the seeming neglect by the person loved, nor by his dalliance and sundry cruelties.

But, like a sad slave, stay and think nought

Save, where you are how happy you make those.

These two sonnets reminded KumKum of the Maithili poet Jayadeva’s Gita Govinda which describes the relationship between Krishna, Radha and the gopis of Vrindavan.

Jayadeva writes about Radha's endless watching and waiting for her beloved Krishna's arrival with a similar pathos. 

Radha waiting for Krishna, Pahari school of painting.

Pamela

Pamela read Shylock's speech from The Merchant of Venice, Act 3, Scene 1

"Venice was a multicultural city, being a centre for trade and commerce. Shakespeare was fascinated by the city of Venice.

William Shakespeare explores the relationships and tensions between the peoples of Christian and Jewish faith.The protagonists Antonio and Shylock have known each other for a long time. They have traded with each other and lived in the same city for many years and yet they absolutely despise one another. Shylock feels he has been discriminated against by Antonio and other Christians who display overt anti-Semitic views and when he is asked for money by Antonio and his associate Bassanio, he sees an opportunity to get his own back.

The question which prompts this particular speech comes from another Christian of Venice, Salarino, who asks : 

"Why, I am sure, if he forfeit, thou wilt not take his flesh: what's that good for?" 

He is sceptical about Shylock’s seriousness about the threat, should Antonio fail to meet the terms of the loan. But Shylock is serious, and intends to see the conditions of the loan through in full, as the speech itself details.

This speech is a very famous one; it exhibits empathy and understanding of its antagonists' motives in a way that only Shakespeare can muster. And while it is a far cry to argue The Merchant of Venice is not an anti-Semitic play, it remains a fine example of how Shakespeare conveyed the perspectives of the oppressed to his audience who might otherwise never have cared. [taken from https://www.stagemilk.com]

Pamela went on to take examples of the Ukraine-Russia issue and the World Wars to be understood as hostilities emerging from years of oppression.

The speech itself poses some burning questions which are beautifully expressed by Al Pacino in the film version. Pacino's is a larger-than-life Shylock, incorporating all the contradictory qualities of the character into a figure of tragic dimensions.

Pamela explained certain phrases used by Shakespeare in this speech -
Hindered me half a million : cost me a fortune
Cooled my friends : Turned my friends against me
Dimensions: Human shape and form [The Virtuvian Man by Leonardo Da Vinci]
Sufferance: Tolerance, patient obedience.
Villainy: to be perceived as a villain
I will better the instruction: I will do better than I was instructed by your example. Think of it as ‘the student will become the teacher.’ 

[taken from www.stagemilk.com]

Pamela shared the story of how the Shakespearian insults were used by her daughters when they couldn't actually abuse their mom. The grandeur of the language even when employed for abuse caught the attention of the young minds. This remark caused some laughter in the group.

Shobha

Shoba read from As You Like It – Act 3 Scene 5

This scene takes place in the Forest of Ardennes. Silvius is a young shepherd, desperately in love with the disdainful Phoebe, a shepherdess.The portion Shoba read, is Phoebe’s reply to Silvius who says even an executioner:

… first begs pardon: will you sterner be

Than he that dies and lives by bloody drops?

Earlier, he had accused her of wounding him with her glances. In Phoebe’s response, she says’ 

… eyes, that are the frail'st and softest things,

Who shut their coward gates on atomies,

Should be call'd tyrants, butchers, murderers!

Now I do frown on thee with all my heart

And if my eyes can wound, let them kill thee.

Sarcasm is used in the next line, where she asks him to show a scar as proof that her looks have wounded him.

She says that when you lean an impression falls on the skin. As he carries no scar, 

… I am sure, there is no force in eyes

That can do hurt.

Silvius replies:

O dear Phebe,

If ever, – as that ever may be near, –

You meet in some fresh cheek the power of fancy,

Then shall you know the wounds invisible

That love's keen arrows make.

Shobha then read a second passage, Prospero’s Epilouge of the Tempest, Act 5, Scene 1.

The Epilogue is an excellent example of Shakespeare ‘s brilliance. It is an ending to the play as well as a reference to his own life and career. Prospero has lost his magical power so his charms are over thrown and his magical powers are diminished. He is now confined to the island, but wishes to be pardoned and go to Naples in order to reclaim his dukedom. He has pardoned the deceiver who wrongly took it from him. He asks the audience to release him from his shackles with the “help of your good hands.” The audience’s applause will be the signal that he is freed. Prospero leaves the stage.

Shobha's reading of the Tempest gave some food for thought:

The epilogue is often used to tie up loose ends, but we do not learn what is to become of Caliban or Antonio and Sebastian. 

The speculation has been that when Prospero asks the audience to free him from his imprisonment, it is as much the voice of Shakespeare asking the audience to free him from his work on the stage of London, and allow him to return home to Stratford.

The Readings

Arundhaty & Priya

Macbeth Act 3 

Scene 4. The same Hall in the palace.

A banquet prepared. Enter MACBETH, LADY MACBETH, ROSS, LENNOX, Lords, and Attendants

MACBETH

You know your own degrees; sit down: at first

And last the hearty welcome.

Lords

Thanks to your majesty.

MACBETH

Ourself will mingle with society,

And play the humble host.

Our hostess keeps her state, but in best time

We will require her welcome.

LADY MACBETH

Pronounce it for me, sir, to all our friends;

For my heart speaks they are welcome.

First Murderer appears at the door

MACBETH

See, they encounter thee with their hearts' thanks.

Both sides are even: here I'll sit i' the midst:

Be large in mirth; anon we'll drink a measure

The table round.

Approaching the door

There's blood on thy face.

First Murderer

'Tis Banquo's then.

MACBETH

'Tis better thee without than he within.

Is he dispatch'd?

First Murderer

My lord, his throat is cut; that I did for him.

MACBETH

Thou art the best o' the cut-throats: yet he's good

That did the like for Fleance: if thou didst it,

Thou art the nonpareil.

First Murderer

Most royal sir,

Fleance is 'scaped.

MACBETH

Then comes my fit again: I had else been perfect,

Whole as the marble, founded as the rock,

As broad and general as the casing air:

But now I am cabin'd, cribb'd, confined, bound in

To saucy doubts and fears. But Banquo's safe?

First Murderer

Ay, my good lord: safe in a ditch he bides,

With twenty trenched gashes on his head;

The least a death to nature.

MACBETH

Thanks for that:

There the grown serpent lies; the worm that's fled

Hath nature that in time will venom breed,

No teeth for the present. Get thee gone: to-morrow

We'll hear, ourselves, again.

Exit Murderer

LADY MACBETH

My royal lord,

You do not give the cheer: the feast is sold

That is not often vouch'd, while 'tis a-making,

'Tis given with welcome: to feed were best at home;

From thence the sauce to meat is ceremony;

Meeting were bare without it.

MACBETH

Sweet remembrancer!

Now, good digestion wait on appetite,

And health on both!

LENNOX

May't please your highness sit.

The GHOST OF BANQUO enters, and sits in MACBETH's place

MACBETH

Here had we now our country's honour roof'd,

Were the graced person of our Banquo present;

Who may I rather challenge for unkindness

Than pity for mischance!

ROSS

His absence, sir,

Lays blame upon his promise. Please't your highness

To grace us with your royal company.

MACBETH

The table's full.

LENNOX

Here is a place reserved, sir.

MACBETH

Where?

LENNOX

Here, my good lord. What is't that moves your highness?

MACBETH

Which of you have done this?

Lords

What, my good lord?

MACBETH

Thou canst not say I did it: never shake

Thy gory locks at me.

ROSS

Gentlemen, rise: his highness is not well.

LADY MACBETH

Sit, worthy friends: my lord is often thus,

And hath been from his youth: pray you, keep seat;

The fit is momentary; upon a thought

He will again be well: if much you note him,

You shall offend him and extend his passion:

Feed, and regard him not. Are you a man?

MACBETH

Ay, and a bold one, that dare look on that

Which might appal the devil.

LADY MACBETH

O proper stuff!

This is the very painting of your fear:

This is the air-drawn dagger which, you said,

Led you to Duncan. O, these flaws and starts,

Impostors to true fear, would well become

A woman's story at a winter's fire,

Authorized by her grandam. Shame itself!

Why do you make such faces? When all's done,

You look but on a stool.

MACBETH

Prithee, see there! behold! look! lo!

how say you?

Why, what care I? If thou canst nod, speak too.

If charnel-houses and our graves must send

Those that we bury back, our monuments

Shall be the maws of kites.

GHOST OF BANQUO vanishes

LADY MACBETH

What, quite unmann'd in folly?

MACBETH

If I stand here, I saw him.

LADY MACBETH

Fie, for shame!

MACBETH

Blood hath been shed ere now, i' the olden time,

Ere human statute purged the gentle weal;

Ay, and since too, murders have been perform'd

Too terrible for the ear: the times have been,

That, when the brains were out, the man would die,

And there an end; but now they rise again,

With twenty mortal murders on their crowns,

And push us from our stools: this is more strange

Than such a murder is.

LADY MACBETH

My worthy lord,

Your noble friends do lack you.

MACBETH

I do forget.

Do not muse at me, my most worthy friends,

I have a strange infirmity, which is nothing

To those that know me. Come, love and health to all;

Then I'll sit down. Give me some wine; fill full.

I drink to the general joy o' the whole table,

And to our dear friend Banquo, whom we miss;

Would he were here! to all, and him, we thirst,

And all to all.

Lords

Our duties, and the pledge.

Re-enter GHOST OF BANQUO

MACBETH

Avaunt! and quit my sight! let the earth hide thee!

Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold;

Thou hast no speculation in those eyes

Which thou dost glare with!

LADY MACBETH

Think of this, good peers,

But as a thing of custom: 'tis no other;

Only it spoils the pleasure of the time.

MACBETH

What man dare, I dare:

Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear,

The arm'd rhinoceros, or the Hyrcan tiger;

Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves

Shall never tremble: or be alive again,

And dare me to the desert with thy sword;

If trembling I inhabit then, protest me

The baby of a girl. Hence, horrible shadow!

Unreal mockery, hence!

GHOST OF BANQUO vanishes

Why, so: being gone,

I am a man again. Pray you, sit still.

LADY MACBETH

You have displaced the mirth, broke the good meeting,

With most admired disorder.

MACBETH

Can such things be,

And overcome us like a summer's cloud,

Without our special wonder? You make me strange

Even to the disposition that I owe,

When now I think you can behold such sights,

And keep the natural ruby of your cheeks,

When mine is blanched with fear.

ROSS

What sights, my lord?

LADY MACBETH

I pray you, speak not; he grows worse and worse;

Question enrages him. At once, good night:

Stand not upon the order of your going,

But go at once.

LENNOX

Good night; and better health

Attend his majesty!

LADY MACBETH

A kind good night to all!

Exeunt all but MACBETH and LADY MACBETH

MACBETH

It will have blood; they say, blood will have blood:

Stones have been known to move and trees to speak;

Augurs and understood relations have

By magot-pies and choughs and rooks brought forth

The secret'st man of blood. What is the night?

LADY MACBETH

Almost at odds with morning, which is which.

MACBETH

How say'st thou, that Macduff denies his person

At our great bidding?

LADY MACBETH

Did you send to him, sir?

MACBETH

I hear it by the way; but I will send:

There's not a one of them but in his house

I keep a servant fee'd. I will to-morrow,

And betimes I will, to the weird sisters:

More shall they speak; for now I am bent to know,

By the worst means, the worst. For mine own good,

All causes shall give way: I am in blood

Stepp'd in so far that, should I wade no more,

Returning were as tedious as go o'er:

Strange things I have in head, that will to hand;

Which must be acted ere they may be scann'd.

LADY MACBETH

You lack the season of all natures, sleep.

MACBETH

Come, we'll to sleep. My strange and self-abuse

Is the initiate fear that wants hard use:

We are yet but young in deed.

Exeunt

Devika

Taming of the Shrew - Act 5, Scene 2 - Katherine’s Speech

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.

Geetha & Thomo

Sonnets 73 & 87 sung

Sonnet 73: 

That time of year thou mayst in me behold

That time of year thou mayst in me behold

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,

Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

In me thou see'st the twilight of such day

As after sunset fadeth in the west,

Which by and by black night doth take away,

Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.

In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire

That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,

As the death-bed whereon it must expire,

Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by.

   This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,

   To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

Sonnet 87: 

Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing

Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,

And like enough thou knowst thy estimate.

The Charter of thy worth gives thee releasing;

My bonds in thee are all determinate.

For how do I hold thee but by thy granting,

And for that riches where is my deserving?

The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,

And so my patent back again is swerving.

Thy self thou gav'st, thy own worth then not knowing,

Or me, to whom thou gav'st it, else mistaking,

So thy great gift, upon misprision growing,

Comes home again, on better judgement making.

   Thus have I had thee as a dream doth flatter:

   In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.

Joe 

Sonnets 65 and 119

Sonnet 65: 

Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea

Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea

But sad mortality o’er-sways their power,

How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,

Whose action is no stronger than a flower?

O, how shall summer’s honey breath hold out

Against the wrackful siege of batt’ring days,

When rocks impregnable are not so stout,

Nor gates of steel so strong, but time decays?

O fearful meditation! where, alack,

Shall time’s best jewel from time’s chest lie hid?

Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?

Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?

   O, none, unless this miracle have might,

   That in black ink my love may still shine bright.

Sonnet 119: 

What potions have I drunk of Siren tears

What potions have I drunk of Siren tears,

Distill'd from limbecks foul as hell within,

Applying fears to hopes and hopes to fears,

Still losing when I saw myself to win!

What wretched errors hath my heart committed,

Whilst it hath thought itself so blessed never!

How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted

In the distraction of this madding fever!

O benefit of ill! now I find true

That better is by evil still made better;

And ruin'd love, when it is built anew,

Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater.

   So I return rebuked to my content

   And gain by ill thrice more than I have spent.

KumKum 

Sonnets 57 and 58

Sonnet 57: 

Being your slave, what should I do but tend

Being your slave, what should I do but tend

Upon the hours and times of your desire?

I have no precious time at all to spend,

Nor services to do, till you require.

Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour

Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you.

Nor think the bitterness of absence sour

When you have bid your servant once adieu;

Nor dare I question with my jealous thought

Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,

But like a sad slave, stay and think of nought,

Save, where you are how happy you make those.

   So true a fool is love that in your will

   Though you do anything, he thinks no ill.

Sonnet 58: 

That God forbid, that made me first your slave

That God forbid, that made me first your slave,

I should in thought control your times of pleasure,

Or at your hand th' account of hours to crave,

Being your vassal, bound to stay your leisure!

O, let me suffer (being at your beck),

Th' imprison'd absence of your liberty;

And patience, tame to sufferance, bide each check,

Without accusing you of injury.

Be where you list, your charter is so strong

That you yourself may privilege your time

To what you will; to you it doth belong

Yourself to pardon of self-doing crime.

   I am to wait, though waiting so be hell;

   Not blame your pleasure, be it ill or well.

Pamela

Shylock's speech from Merchant of Venice: Act 3, Scene 1 

SALARINO

Why, I am sure, if he forfeit, thou wilt not take

his flesh: what's that good for?

SHYLOCK

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; laughed 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 prick us, do we not bleed?

if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison

us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not

revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will

resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian,

what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian

wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by

Christian example? Why, revenge. The villany you

teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I

will better the instruction.

Shoba 

1: Rosalind monologue, As You Like It: Act 3 Scene 5.

PHEBE

I would not be thy executioner:

I fly thee, for I would not injure thee.

Thou tell'st me there is murder in mine eye:

'Tis pretty, sure, and very probable,

That eyes, that are the frail'st and softest things,

Who shut their coward gates on atomies,

Should be call'd tyrants, butchers, murderers!

Now I do frown on thee with all my heart;

And if mine eyes can wound, now let them kill thee:

Now counterfeit to swoon; why now fall down;

Or if thou canst not, O, for shame, for shame,

Lie not, to say mine eyes are murderers!

Now show the wound mine eye hath made in thee:

Scratch thee but with a pin, and there remains

Some scar of it; lean but upon a rush,

The cicatrice and capable impressure

Thy palm some moment keeps; but now mine eyes,

Which I have darted at thee, hurt thee not,

Nor, I am sure, there is no force in eyes

That can do hurt.

2: Prospero Epilogue from The Tempest, Act 5, Scene 1 

PROSPERO

Now my charms are all o'erthrown,

And what strength I have's mine own,

Which is most faint: now, 'tis true,

I must be here confined by you,

Or sent to Naples. Let me not,

Since I have my dukedom got

And pardon'd the deceiver, dwell

In this bare island by your spell;

But release me from my bands

With the help of your good hands:

Gentle breath of yours my sails

Must fill, or else my project fails,

Which was to please. Now I want

Spirits to enforce, art to enchant,

And my ending is despair,

Unless I be relieved by prayer,

Which pierces so that it assaults

Mercy itself and frees all faults.

As you from crimes would pardon'd be,

Let your indulgence set me free.