I'm not a huge fan of Shakespeare but I couldn't possibly leave him out of my truly greats. So I thought I would combine him with another memory from the old days.
In my youth we had a kind of scale. In the middle,the balance as it were, we used to say Friday and Saturday night were plebs nights out, two days for the workers to play. At one end Thursday was no good for the chosen few they would be preparing for their weekend in the country. For them Monday was also out of the question, that's when exhausted they tottered back to town. To be different, and by inference better, the chosen few had Tuesday and Wednesday to be out and about wining, dining, theatre disco, whatever. At the other end of the scale were the unemployed and disenfranchised for them Friday through Wednesday were no good at all. In their case the only day to be out and about was Thursday for that was when the dole paid out.
I think, in the eyes of some, Shakespeare is a bit like that: from one end to the other with a huge gulf in between. You can love Shakespeare and be anyone but if you only love the sonnets Friday and Saturday are your nights out.
I have, there is no denying it, aged, and I hope with age I have grown. Here is one of my favourite sonnets. Its so beautiful, even hundreds of years later and all the changes in between, aaand, (Shakespeare should be spinning in his grave!) I don't care what day of the week it is and I don't care if it was actually written by Shakespeare or Bacon or whoever. Nor do I care for all the analysts (spit) and their explanation of the meaning, like anyone needs that. If you can't read the meaning in this: you can't read!
Sonnet 116
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
---
Written on 11th August 2011 and updated by me today for Shakespeare is some four hundred years dead while the beauty of his art is immortal
In my youth we had a kind of scale. In the middle,the balance as it were, we used to say Friday and Saturday night were plebs nights out, two days for the workers to play. At one end Thursday was no good for the chosen few they would be preparing for their weekend in the country. For them Monday was also out of the question, that's when exhausted they tottered back to town. To be different, and by inference better, the chosen few had Tuesday and Wednesday to be out and about wining, dining, theatre disco, whatever. At the other end of the scale were the unemployed and disenfranchised for them Friday through Wednesday were no good at all. In their case the only day to be out and about was Thursday for that was when the dole paid out.
I think, in the eyes of some, Shakespeare is a bit like that: from one end to the other with a huge gulf in between. You can love Shakespeare and be anyone but if you only love the sonnets Friday and Saturday are your nights out.
I have, there is no denying it, aged, and I hope with age I have grown. Here is one of my favourite sonnets. Its so beautiful, even hundreds of years later and all the changes in between, aaand, (Shakespeare should be spinning in his grave!) I don't care what day of the week it is and I don't care if it was actually written by Shakespeare or Bacon or whoever. Nor do I care for all the analysts (spit) and their explanation of the meaning, like anyone needs that. If you can't read the meaning in this: you can't read!
Sonnet 116
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
---
Written on 11th August 2011 and updated by me today for Shakespeare is some four hundred years dead while the beauty of his art is immortal
No comments:
Post a Comment