Bardisms (18 page)

You sweet ladies should feel free to swap in
sirrah
for
lady
—and you sweet boys, too, if you’re so inclined!

KISS ME NOW, NOT LATER

“I’ll take care of it tomorrow” might work in other areas of your life, but when it comes to your heart, procrastination is obliteration, and when it comes to kissing, a lip-lock lost never returns. In
Twelfth Night
, the clown Feste (
FESS-tee
) sings a song that instructs us to open the door when love rings the bell.

What is love? ’Tis not hereafter,

Present mirth hath present laughter.

What’s to come is still unsure.

In delay there lies no plenty,

Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty.

Youth’s a stuff will not endure.

—F
ESTE
,
Twelfth Night
, 2.3.43–48

In other words:

What about love? It’s not later on. Laughter comes the moment something’s amusing. The future is always uncertain. There’s no profit in waiting around, so come and kiss me, my twenty-times sweet one. We won’t stay young forever.

How to use it:

We’ll hear Shakespeare tell us “there’s no time like the present” in Chapter Four. This lyric says something along those lines, but in the specific context of love. As such, wheel it out for a friend who can’t decide whether or not to approach the guy she has a crush on, or say it to yourself when you’re wondering if you should flash your devilish smile at that cute guy you see on the subway platform each morning.

The rhyme scheme will point you to the operative words here. Simply say the last word in each line, and you’ll understand exactly what Feste is trying to communicate:
hereafter
,
laughter
,
unsure
,
plenty
,
twenty
,
endure
.

Some details:

These lines are the second verse of a ditty called “O Mistress Mine,” one of the best known of Shakespeare’s songs. The first verse:

O mistress mine, where are you roaming?

O stay and hear, your true love’s coming,

That can sing both high and low.

Trip no further, pretty sweeting.

Journeys end in lovers meeting,

Every wise man’s son doth know.

In other words: “Hey, girlfriend, where are you going? Stay and listen: your lover’s coming, and he’s got a great voice. Don’t take another step, cutie-pie. Everybody knows that voyages end in lovers getting together.” Like the second verse above, this one admonishes us to seize love when it comes, not to run away from it or come up with some excuse as to why we can’t wait around.

The music for this song survives from Shakespeare’s day. It’s a lovely English madrigal, and if you’re interested in hearing it (or, for that matter, singing it at the next wedding you attend), it’s been recorded by a number of famous classical singers, male and female, over the years. Many eminent composers have also turned their hands to this lyric and written memorable tunes, either for specific productions of the play or just for the sake of it. The great singer Cleo Laine has a gorgeous jazz cover (on her early 1960s album
Shakespeare and All That Jazz
—a minor classic), but my current favorites are a dark rendition by rocker extraordinaire Elvis Costello and a ravishing, guaranteed tearjerker by the cult performer/singer/ violinist Emilie Autumn. They demonstrate the magic that can happen when a brilliant contemporary artist turns to the past for inspiration and creates something that fuses old and new, yesterday and today.

SOMETIMES KINKY IS GOOD

Earlier I said that
Romeo and Juliet
is Shakespeare’s hottest play. The statement merits clarification. It’s his hottest play about teenagers. For love between grown-ups, nothing—and I mean no work in world dramatic literature—beats
Antony and Cleopatra
. That’s a bold claim, I know. But this is a play which opens with a speech about the heat generated by “a gypsy’s lust” and goes on to include drunken orgies, lots of groping, some quite exotic descriptions of the female anatomy, and even eunuchs who fantasize about what sex might be like if only they had the equipment to experience it. There’s also a tiny detour into…er…shall we say, the rougher side of town…when Cleopatra mentions,

A lover’s pinch, / Which hurts, and is desired.

—C
LEOPATRA
,
Antony and Cleopatra
, 5.2.286–87

DOING IT

My high school students who delight in the discovery that Shakespeare is a mirror of their randy, gametically supercharged selves also thrill to find that he, like them, loves to talk about sex in the most inventively euphemistic terms. Whole books have been written on the subject of eroticism in the plays, so I’ll offer only these few Bardisms, Shakespeare for the Occasion of Getting It On.

First, the Bardism that Don Juan would have pledged, had Shakespeare written him:

I dedicate myself to your sweet pleasure.

—G
IACOMO
,
Cymbeline
, 1.6.137

Next, the Bardism the Marquis de Sade would have spoken, in Shakespearean language:

Fit thy consent to my sharp appetite.

—A
NGELO
,
Measure for Measure
, 2.4.161

Finally, what both Don Juan and the Marquis de Sade got busy doing, had Shakespeare written their stories:

Making the beast with two backs.

—I
AGO
,
Othello
, 1.1.118

In other words:

This is a family-friendly book, so I’ll skip this part.

How to use it:

If you don’t know, you need more than a book on Shakespeare quotations.

Some details:

Those will remain private, thank you very much.

SHAKESPEARE ON GETTING ENGAGED

We are betrothed. Nay more, our marriage hour…

Determined of.

—V
ALENTINE
,
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
, 2.4.172–74

Betrothals in Renaissance England were largely contractual matters, arranged by parents, announced publicly in special church services, and accompanied by elaborate financial negotiations. Thus it can be tricky to find a good Shakespearean version of those four earth-shattering words, “Will you marry me?” Fortunately, early modern lovers—although not necessarily those intending to marry—shared with their counterparts in our era an affection for a certain special token of mutual love: the ring. And it’s in the rhetoric of ring giving and ring taking that our search for Shakespeare for the Occasion of the Marriage Proposal yields results.

PLEASE HAVE THIS RING

All right, so this particular ring presentation is from a homicidal maniac to the vehemently opposed, still-grieving widow of one of his victims. So what? Your lover needn’t know the dramatic circumstances. The sentiment is what counts.

Look how my ring encompasseth thy finger;

Even so thy breast encloseth my poor heart.

Wear both of them, for both of them are thine.

—G
LOUCESTER
,
Richard III
, 1.2.191–93

In other words:

Look how my ring wraps around your finger. In just that same way, your body wraps around my heart. Have both my heart and my ring. They’re yours.

How to say it:

Technically, this isn’t really Shakespeare for “Will you marry me?” because the text makes sense only
after
the ring has been slipped onto your sweetie’s finger. If for any reason you don’t get that far, bail out of this speech and look for Shakespeare for Drowning Your Sorrows in Booze, to be included in the sequel to this volume!

Richard, Duke of Gloucester, is nothing if not a capable wordsmith. One of his favorite tools is antithesis (“Now is the
winter
of our discontent / Made glorious
summer
by this son of York”), and he puts it to good use here. Lines 1 and 2 are all antithesis:
Look how
versus
even so
;
my ring
versus
thy breast
;
encompasseth
versus
encloseth
; and
thy finger
versus
my heart
. Rely on those contrasts to help you, but be sure to let each line flow smoothly. Don’t let individual antitheses become more important than the larger idea you’re trying to express.