| .......Now
Available................................Shakespeare:
a Guide to the Complete Works...........................................
In Hardback & Paperback Plot Summaries
of All the Plays and Narrative Poems | Themes | Imagery | Historical Background
| Glossaries
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For All Occasions |
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.. .. Compiled by Michael J. Cummings Acting And if the boy hath not a woman's gift to rain a shower of commanded tears an onion will do well for such a shift.The Taming of the Shrew: Scene 1, Preceding Act I. Adversity Sweet are the uses of adversity which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head.As You Like It: Act II, Scene I. Appearances That Deceive It
is the bright day that brings forth the adder, and that craves wary walking.Julius
Caesar: Act II,
April 15: (Tax Time in the U.S.) Delays have dangerous ends--King Henry VI, Part I: Act III, Scene II. Autumn The
teeming Autumn big with rich increase,
Beauty It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear; beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!Romeo and Juliet: Act I, Scene V. Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, and summer's lease hath all too short a date.Sonnet 18. To
me, fair friend, you never can be old
Beauty
itself doth of itself persuade
Caesar, Julius As he was valiant, I honor him; but, as he was ambitious, I slew him.Julius Caesar: Act III, Scene II. When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept; ambition should be made of sterner stuff.Julius Caesar: Act III, Scene II. Calumny Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny.Hamlet, Act III, Scene I. Chastity I thought her as chaste as unsunn'd snow.Cymbeline: Act II, Scene V. Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny.Hamlet, Act III, Scene I. Children How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child.King Lear: Act I, Scene IV. Choice There's small choice in rotten apples.The Taming of the Shrew: Act I, Scene I. Cleopatra The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne, burned on the water; the poop was beaten gold, purple the sails, and so perfumed that the winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver, which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made the water which they beat to follow faster, as amorous of their strokes.Antony and Cleopatra: Act II, Scene II. Commiseration One fire burns out another's burning, one pain is lessened by another's anguish.--Romeo and Juliet: Act I, Scene II. Conscience O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me.King Richard III: Act V, Scene V. Contentment
Cosmetics God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another.Hamlet, Act III, Scene I. Cowardice Cowards die many times before their death; the valiant never taste of death but once.Julius Caesar: Act II, Scene II. Danger Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.King Henry IV, Part I: Act II, Scene III. Death A plague o' both your houses! They have made worms' meat of me.Romeo and Juliet: Act III, Scene I. (Mercutio, Romeo's friend, speaks those words while dying after being wounded in a duel.) When beggars die, there are no comets seen; the heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes. Julius Caesar: Act II, Scene II. They'll give him death by inches.Coriolanus: Act V, Scene IV. Cowards die many times before their death; the valiant never taste of death but once.Julius Caesar: Act II, Scene II. Beauty's
ensign yet is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks, and death's pale flag
is not advanced there.
Full fathom five thy father lies; of his bones are coral made: those are pearls that were his eyes: nothing of him that doth fade, but doth suffer a sea-change into something rich and strange.The Tempest: Act I, Scene II. This fell sergeant, death, is strict in his arrest.Hamlet: Act V, Scene II. Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die, take him and cut him out in little stars, and he will make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night, and pay no worship to the garish sun.Romeo and Juliet: Act III, Scene II. There is no sure foundation set on blood, no certain life achieved by others' death.--King John, Act IV, Scene II. The
weariest and most loathed worldly life
Deceit Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under 't.Macbeth: Act I, Scene V. Away,
and mock the time with fairest show; false face must hide what the false
heart doth know.
Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more, men were deceivers ever, one foot on sea and one on shore, to one thing constant never.Much Ado About Nothing: Act II, Scene III. To show an unfelt sorrow is an office which the false man does easy.Macbeth: Act II, Scene III. A goodly apple rotten at the heart, O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!The Merchant of Venice: Act I, Scene III. For
I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,
Deeds Tut! I have done a thousand dreadful things as willingly as one would kill a fly.Titus Andronicus: Act I, Scene V. How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.The Merchant of Venice: Act V, Scene I. How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds makes ill deeds done!King John: Act IV, Scene II. Delay Delays have dangerous ends.King Henry VI, Part 1: Act III, Scene II. Desire Is it not strange that desire should so many years outlive performance?King Henry IV, Part 2: Act II, Scene IV. Disgrace When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes I all alone beweep my outcast state, and trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries.Sonnet 29. Disloyalty Et tu, Brute! (And you, Brutus!)Julius Caesar: Act III, Scene I. Doubt Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.Measure for Measure: Act I, Scene IV. Dreams True,
I talk of dreams, which are the children of an idle brain, begot of nothing
but vain fantasy.
We are such stuff as dreams are made of, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.--The Tempest: Act 4, Scene 1. Drinking MacDuff:
What three things does drink especially provoke?
[Drink] provokes the desire, but takes away the performance.Macbeth: Act II, Scene III. I have very poor and unhappy brains for drinking: I could wish courtesy would invent some other custom of entertainment.Othello: Act II, Scene III. Emotions His heart's his mouth: What his breast forges, that his tongue must vent.Coriolanus: Act II, Scene II. Has this fellow no feeling of his business, that he sings at grave-making?Hamlet: Act V, Scene I. But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve for daws to peck at.Othello: Act I, Scene I. England This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle, this earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, this other Eden, demi-paradise, this fortress built by Nature for herself against infection and the hand of war, this happy breed of men, this little world, this precious stone set in the silver sea, which serves it in the office of a wall, or as a moat defensive to a house, against the envy of less happier lands, this blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England, this nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings, feared by their breed and famous by their birth.King Richard II: Act II, Scene 1. Evil Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones.Julius Caesar: Act III, Scene II. The world is grown so bad, that wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch.--Richard III, Act I, Scene III. Excess They are as sick that surfeit with too much as they that starve with nothing.The Merchant of Venice: Act I, Scene II. To gild refined gold, to paint the lilly, to throw a perfume on the violet, to smooth the ice, or add another hue unto the rainbow, or with taper-light to seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish, is wasteful and ridiculous excess.King John: Act IV, Scene II. They surfeited with honey and began to loathe the taste of sweetness, whereof a little more than a little is by much too much.King Henry IV, Part 1: Act III, Scene II. Failure Oft expectation fails, and most oft there where most it promises.All's Well That Ends Well: Act II, Scene I. Fame He lives in fame that died in virtue's cause.Titus Andronicus, Act I, Scene I Fatal Vision Is
this a dagger which I see before me, the handle toward my hand? Come, let
me clutch thee. I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. Art thou not,
fatal vision, sensible to feeling as to sight? or art thou but a dagger
of the mind, a false creation, proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
Faults And
oftentimes excusing of a fault doth make the fault worse by the excuse.King
John: Act IV,
Fear I would give all my fame for a pot of ale, and safety.King Henry V: Act III, Scene II. To fear the worst oft cures the worse.Troilus and Cressida, Act III, Scene II. Fighting Fight till the last gasp.King Henry VI, Part 1: Act I, Scene II. Flattery But when I tell him he hates flatterers, he says he does, being then most flattered.Julius Caesar: Act II, Scene I. Foolery Foolery, sir, does walk about the orb like the sun; it shines everywhere.Twelfth Night: Act III, Scene I. Fools The dullness of the fool is the whetstone of the wits.As You Like It, Act I, Scene II. Lord, what fools these mortals be.A Midsummer-Night's Dream: Act III, Scene II. The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.--As You Like It, Act V, Scene I. Fortune There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.Julius Caesar: Act IV, Scene III. O! I am Fortune's fool.Romeo and Juliet: Act III, Scene I. Future O! that a man might know the end of this day's business, ere it come.--Julius Caesar, Act II, Scene II." Getting Even For 'tis the sport to have the engineer hoist with his own petard.Hamlet: Act III, Scene IV. (A petard is an explosive device.). Goodness There is some soul of good in things evil, would men observingly distill it out.Henry V, Act IV, Scene I. Greatness Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon'em.Twelfth Night : Act II, Scene II Grief Grief fills the room up of my absent child, lies in his bed, walks up and down with me, puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words, remembers me of all his gracious parts, stuffs out his vacant garments with his form.King John: Act III, Scene IV. Guests Unbidden guests are often welcomest when they are gone--Henry VI, Part I, Act II, Scene II." Guilt Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind; the thief doth fear each bush an officer.King Henry VI, Part 3: Act V, Scene VI. So full of artless jealousy is guilt, it spills itself in fearing to be spilt.Hamlet: Act V, Scene V. Habit How use doth breed a habit in a man!--The Two Gentlemen of Verona: Act V, Scene IV. Homebodies Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits.The Two Gentlemen of Verona: Act I, Scene I. Honesty 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.Hamlet: Act I, Scene III. Honor But if it be a sin to covet honor, I am the most offending soul alive.Henry V, Act IV, Scene III. Hunger Our stomachs will make what's homely savoury.Cymbeline, Act III, Scene IV. Hope Every cloud engenders not a storm.Henry VI, Part III: Act V, Scene III. Law And do as adversaries do in law, strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.The Taming of the Shrew: Act I, Scene II. The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.--Henry VI, Part II: Act IV, Scene II. Life Life's
but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon
the stage, and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full
of sound and fury, signifying nothing.Macbeth: Act V,
I love long life better than figs.Antony and Cleopatra: Act I, Scene II. Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale, vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.King John: Act III, Scene IV. Love Then must you speak of one that lov'd not wisely, but too well; of one not easily jealous, but, being wrought perplex'd in the extreme; of one whose hand, like the base Judean, threw a pearl away richer than all his tribe.Othello: Act V, Scene II. This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath, may prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.Romeo and Juliet: Act II, Scene II. But love is blind, and lovers cannot see the pretty follies that themselves commit.The Merchant of Venice: Act II, Scene VI. Ay me! for aught that ever I could read, could ever hear by tale or history, the course of true love never did run smooth.A Midsummer-Night's Dream: Act I, Scene I. And ruined love, when it is built anew, grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater.--Sonnet 119. It was a lover and his lass, with a hey and a ho, and a hey nonino, that o'er the green corn-field did pass, in the spring time, the only pretty ring time, when birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding; sweet lovers love the spring.As You Like It: Act V, Scene III. Love is a spirit all compact of fire, not gross to sink, but light, and will aspire.--Venus and Adonis, Line 145. O! how this spring of love resembleth the uncertain glory of an April day!--The Two Gentlemen of Verona: Act I, Scene III. Man What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals!Hamlet: Act II, Scene II. Mercy The quality of mercy is not strained, it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath: it is twice blessed; it blesseth him that gives and him that takes: 'tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes the throned monarch better than his crown; his scepter shows the force of temporal power, the attribute to awe and majesty, wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings, but mercy is above this sceptered sway, it is enthroned in the hearts of kings, it is an attribute to God himself, and earthly power dost then show likest God's when mercy seasons justice.The Merchant of Venice, Act IV, Scene I. Misanthropy Immortal gods, I crave no pelf; I pray for no man but myself: Grant I may never prove so fond to trust man on his oath or bond.Timon of Athens: Act I, Scene II. Morning But, look, the morn in russet mantle clad, walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill.Hamlet, Act I, Scene I." Names What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene II. Night 'Tis now the very witching time of night, when churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out contagion to this world.Hamlet: Act III, Scene II. Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty mountaintops.Romeo and Juliet: Act III, Scene V. One for the Road Come, let's have one other gaudy night. Call to me all my sad captains. Fill our bowls once more. Let's mock the midnight bell.Antony and Cleopatra: Act III, Scene XIII. Pain One fire burns out another's burning, One pain is lessened by another's anguish.Romeo and Juliet, Act I, Scene II." Peace It is a glorious thing to 'stablish peace, and kings approach the nearest unto God by giving life and safety unto men.Edward III, Act V, Scene I. Plenty and peace breeds cowards.Cymbeline, Act III, Scene IV. Rural Life Under the greenwood tree who loves to lie with me, and turn his merry note unto the sweet bird's throat, come hither, come hither, come hither. Here shall he see no enemy but winter and rough weather.As You Like It: Act II, Scene V. Sadness For
never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo.Romeo
and Juliet: Act V,
Sin O! what authority and show of truth can cunning sin cover itself withal.Much Ado About Nothing, Act IV, Scene I. Slander For slander lives upon succession, forever housed where it gets posession.--The Comedy of Errors, Act III, Scene I. Scripture The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.The Merchant of Venice: Act I, Scene III. Spring Now
tis the spring, and weeds are shallow-rooted; suffer them now and they'll
o'ergrow the garden.
Strength O! it is excellent to have a giant's strength, but it is tyrannous to use it like a giant.Measure for Measure: Act II, Scene II. Suicide Why should I play the Roman fool, and die on mine own sword?Macbeth: Act V, Scene VII. Time Come what come may, time and the hour runs through the roughest day.Macbeth: Act I, Scene III. Temper The brain may devise laws for the blood, but a hot temper leaps o'er a cold decree.The Merchant of Venice: Act I, Scene II. Theft The sanctimonious pirate . . . went to sea with the Ten Commandments, but scraped one out of the table.Measure for Measure, Act I, Scene II. (The expunged commandment was Thou shalt not steal.) Trouble Double, double, toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble.Macbeth: Act IV, Scene I. Trust My two schoolfellows, whom I will trust as I will adders fang'd.Hamlet :Act III, Scene IV. Villainy Thus I clothe my naked villainy with odd old ends stol'n forth of holy writ, and seem a saint when most I play the devil.Richard III: Act I, Scene III. When rich villains have need of poor ones, poor ones may make what price they will.Much Ado About Nothing: Act III, Scene III. Virtue He lives in fame that died in virtue's cause.Titus Andronicus: Act I, Scene I. Weakness The weakest kind of fruit drops earliest to the ground.The Merchant of Venice: Act IV, Scene I. Wealth The gods sent not corn for the rich men only.--Coriolanus: Act I, Scene I. Wisdom The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.As You Like It: Act V, Scene I. It is a wise father that knows his own child.The Merchant of Venice: Act II, Scene II. Modest
Doubt is call'd the beacon of the wise, the tent that searches to the bottom
of the worst.
Women A woman moved is like a fountain troubled, muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty.The Taming of the Shrew: Act V, Scene II. Frailty, thy name is woman!Hamlet, Act I, Scene II. (Hamlet is criticizing his mother, Gertrude, for re-marrying a short time after his father died.) Two women placed together makes cold weather.Henry VIII, Act I, Scene IV. (The Lord Chamberlain is bidding a man, Lord Sands, to sit between Anne and another lady.) Words Brevity is the soul of wit.Hamlet: Act II, Scene II. Ill deeds are doubled with an evil word.The Comedy of Errors: Act III, Scene II. My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: Words without thoughts never to heaven go.Hamlet: Act III, Scene III. These words are razors to my wounded heart.Titus Andronicus: Act I, Scene II. He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument.Love's Labour's Lost: Act V, Scene I. Words pay no debts.Troilus and Cressida: Act III, Scene II. World Why,
then, the world's mine oyster, which I with sword will open.Merry Wives
of Windsor: Act II, Scene II.
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| Film | Director | Actors |
| Antony and Cleopatra (1974) | Trevor Nunn, John Schoffield | Richard Johnson, Janet Suzman |
| As You Like It (1937) NR | Paul Czinner | Henry Ainley, Felix Aylmer |
| Hamlet (1948) NR | Laurence Olivier | Laurence Olivier, Jean Simmons |
| Hamlet (1990) NR | Kevin Kline | Kevin Kline |
| Hamlet (1991) PG | Franco Zeffirelli | Mel Gibson, Glenn Close |
| Hamlet (1996) PG-13 | Kenneth Branagh | Kenneth Branagh, |
| Hamlet (1964) NR | John Gielgud, Bill Colleran | Richard Burton, Hume Cronyn |
| Hamlet (1964) NR | Grigori Kozintsev | Innokenti Smoktunovsky |
| Hamlet (2000) NR | Campbell Scott, Eric Simonson | Campbell Scott, Blair Brown |
| Henry V (1989) PG-13 | Kenneth Branagh | Kenneth Branaugh, Derek Jacobi |
| Henry V ( 1946) NR | Laurence Olivier | Leslie Banks, Felix Aylmer |
| Julius Caesar (1950) NR | David Bradley | Charlton Heston |
| Julius Caesar (1953) NR | Joseph L. Mankiewicz | Marlon Brando, James Mason |
| Julius Caesar (1970) G | Stuart Burge | Charlton Heston, Jason Robards |
| King Lear (1970) | Grigori Kozintsev | Yuri Yarvet |
| King Lear (1971) | Peter Brook | Cyril Cusack, Susan Engel |
| King Lear (1974) NR | Edwin Sherin | James Earl Jones |
| King Lear (1976) NR | Tony Davenall | Patrick Mower, Ann Lynn |
| King Lear (1984) NR | Michael Elliott | Laurence Olivier, Colin Blakely |
| King Lear (1997) NR | Richard Eyre | Ian Holm |
| Love's Labour's Lost (2000) | Kenneth Branagh | Kenneth Branagh, Alicia Silverstone |
| Macbeth (1971) R | Roman Polanski | Jon Finch, Francesca Annis |
| Macbeth (1978) NR | Philip Casson | Ian McKellen, Judy Dench |
| The Merchant of Venice (2004) R | Michael Radford | Al Pacino, Jeremy Irons |
| The Merchant of Venice (2001) NR | Christ Hunt, Trevor Nunn | David Bamber, Peter De Jersey |
| The Merry Wives of Windsor (1970) NR | Leon Charles, Gloria Grahame | |
| Midsummer Night's Dream (1996) PG-13 | Adrian Noble | Lindsay Duncan, Alex Jennings |
| A Midsummer Night's Dream (1999) | Michael Hoffman | Kevin Kline, Michelle Pfeiffer |
| Much Ado About Nothing (1993) PG 13 | Kenneth Branaugh | Branaugh, Emma Thompson |
| Othello (1990) NR | Trevor Nunn | Ian McKellen, Michael Grandage |
| Othello (1955) NR | Orson Welles | Orson Welles |
| Ran (1985) King Lear (Japanese) | Akira Kurosawa | Tatsuya Nakadai, Akira Terao |
| Richard II (2001) NR | John Farrell | Matte Osian, Kadina de Elejalde |
| Richard III (1912) NR | André Calmettes, James Keane | Robert Gemp, Frederick Warde |
| Richard III - Criterion Collection (1956) NR | Laurence Olivier | Laurence Olivier, Ralph Richardson |
| Richard III (1995) R | Richard Loncraine | Ian McKellen, Annette Bening |
| Romeo and Juliet (1968) G | Franco Zeffirelli | Leonard Whiting, Olivia Hussey |
| Romeo and Juliet (1996) PG-13 | Baz Luhrmann | Leonardo DiCaprio, Claire Danes |
| Romeo and Juliet (1976) NR | Joan Kemp-Welch | Christopher Neame, Ann Hasson |
| The Taming of the Shrew (1967) | Franco Zeffirelli | Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton |
| The Taming of the Shrew (1976) | Kirk Browning | Raye Birk, Earl Boen, Ron Boussom |
| The Taming of The Shrew (1983) NR | Franklin Seales, Karen Austin, | |
| The Tempest PG | Paul Mazursky | John Cassavetes, Gena Rowlands |
| The Tempest (1998) | Jack Bender | Peter Fonda, John Glover |
| Throne of Blood (1961) Macbeth Japanese | Akira Kurosawa | Toshirô Mifune, Isuzu Yamada |
| Twelfth Night (1996) PG | Trevor Nunn | Helena Bonham Carter |
| The Winter's Tale (2005) NR | Greg Doran | Royal Shakespeare Company |