King Henry V (died: 31 August 1422)

  "I think the king is but a man, as I am: the violet smells to him as it doth to me: the element shows to him as it doth to me; all his senses have but human conditions: his ceremonies laid by, in his nakedness he appears but a man; and though his affections are higher mounted than ours, yet, when they stoop, they stoop with the like wing. Therefore when he sees reason of fears, as we do, his fears, out of doubt, be of the same relish as ours are."

Shakespeare Sunday

  “O Kate, nice customs curtsy to great kings. Dear Kate, you and I cannot be confined within the weak list of a country's fashion: we are the makers of manners, Kate; and the liberty that follows our places stops the mouth of all find-faults; as I will do yours, for upholding the nice fashion of your country in denying me a kiss: therefore, patiently and yielding. (They kiss) You have witchcraft in your lips, Kate: there is more eloquence in a sugar touch of them than in the tongues of the French council; and they should sooner persuade Harry of England than a general petition of monarchs.” - William Shakespeare, Henry V

Shakespeare Sunday

Thus far, with rough and all-unable pen, Our bending author hath pursued the story, In little room confining mighty men, Mangling by starts the full course of their glory. Small time, but in that small most greatly lived This star of England: Fortune made his sword; By which the world's best garden be achieved, And of it left his son imperial lord. Henry the Sixth, in infant bands crown'd King Of France and England, did this king succeed; Whose state so many had the managing, That they lost France and made his England bleed: Which oft our stage hath shown; and, for their sake, In your fair minds let this acceptance take. - William Shakespeare, Henry V

The King is dead. Long live the Queen!

At approximately 1400hrs, His Most High and Mighty Majesty, King Romeo, crossed the Rainbow Bridge to join his sisters, Queen Furball and Princess Juliet.

"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." Queen Jelly, the Reluctant, has this day ascended to the throne. "I will tell you. The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne, Burn'd 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. For her own person, It beggar'd all description: she did lie In her pavilion--cloth-of-gold of tissue-- O'er-picturing that Venus where we see The fancy outwork nature."

Shakespeare Sunday

"I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks, Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass; I, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty To strut before a wanton ambling nymph; I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion, Cheated of feature by dissembling nature, Deformed, unfinish'd, sent before my time Into this breathing world, scarce half made up, And that so lamely and unfashionable That dogs bark at me as I halt by them; Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace, Have no delight to pass away the time, Unless to spy my shadow in the sun And descant on mine own deformity: 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." - William Shakespeare, Richard III

Shakespeare Sunday

“For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground And tell sad stories of the death of kings; How some have been deposed; some slain in war, Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed; Some poison'd by their wives: some sleeping kill'd; All murder'd: for within the hollow crown That rounds the mortal temples of a king Keeps Death his court and there the antic sits, Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp.” - William Shakespeare, Richard II

“Now is the winter of our discontent Made glorious summer by this sun of York; And all the clouds that lour’d upon our house In the deep bosom of the ocean buried. Now are out brows bound with victorious wreaths; Our bruised arms hung up for monuments; Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings, Our dreadful marches to delightful measures. Grim-visage war hath smooth’d his wrinkled front.” - King Richard III [with help from William Shakespeare] (born: 2 October 1452)

Shakespeare Sunday

"No; it is not possible you should love the enemy of France, Kate: but, in loving me, you should love the friend of France; for I love France so well that I will not part with a village of it; I will have it all mine: and, Kate, when France is mine and I am yours, then yours is France and you are mine." - William Shakespeare, Henry V

Shakespeare Sunday

"Sir Thomas More," Act 2, Scene 4. By William Shakespeare.

Grant them removed, and grant that this your noise Hath chid down all the majesty of England; Imagine that you see the wretched strangers,... Their babies at their backs and their poor luggage, Plodding tooth ports and costs for transportation, And that you sit as kings in your desires, Authority quite silent by your brawl, And you in ruff of your opinions clothed; What had you got? I’ll tell you. You had taught How insolence and strong hand should prevail, How order should be quelled; and by this pattern Not one of you should live an aged man, For other ruffians, as their fancies wrought, With self same hand, self reasons, and self right, Would shark on you, and men like ravenous fishes Would feed on one another. ... You’ll put down strangers, Kill them, cut their throats, possess their houses, And lead the majesty of law in line, To slip him like a hound. Say now the king (As he is clement, if th’ offender mourn) Should so much come to short of your great trespass As but to banish you, whether would you go? What country, by the nature of your error, Should give you harbor? Go you to France or Flanders, To any German province, to Spain or Portugal, Nay, any where that not adheres to England,— Why, you must needs be strangers. Would you be pleased To find a nation of such barbarous temper, That, breaking out in hideous violence, Would not afford you an abode on earth, Whet their detested knives against your throats, Spurn you like dogs, and like as if that God Owed not nor made not you, nor that the claimants Were not all appropriate to your comforts, But chartered unto them, what would you think To be thus used? This is the strangers’ case; And this your mountanish inhumanity.

Has anyone seen them in the same room at the same time? Just asking. ;-)

Shakespeare Sunday

"O for a muse of fire, that would ascend The brightest heaven of invention, A kingdom for a stage, princes to act And monarchs to behold the swelling scene! Then should the warlike Harry, like himself, Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels, Leash'd in like hounds, should famine, sword and fire Crouch for employment." - William Shakespeare, Henry V