Arrrr, Could This be the End of Pirate Shakespeare, Mateys?

Okay, A wizard song for thee wins. :wink:

(And I really needed the laugh, too. Thanks! :D)

Well, according to my Riverside Shakespeare, we have:

*The Two Pirates Of Verona

Othello The Pirate

The Pirate Of Venice

Shakespeare’s Sonnets To The Dark Pirate

A Pirate’s Complaint

The Pirate And Turtle

Pirate Lear*

He is also believed to have written a scene of 3 pages for:

Sir Thomas Moore: The Story Of A Pirate

How about Blackbeard and Juliet, and A Midsummer Night’s Arrrr?

Sadly, neither of those are Shakespearian. Blackbeard and Juliet was by the Earl of Oxford (as determined by such great poetry as “Great googa mooga/Can’t you hear me talkin’ to you?”), and A Midsummer Night’s Arrr was written by Ben Jonson, using a fragment by Christopher Marlowe (as I recall, the fragment starts at what is now I.II.243, and ends after Puck sings “The Pirate’s Song”)>

Good heavens, I killed another thread!

The Dread Governor Quinn

But wherefore art the rum gone?

Of course, Shakespeare wasn’t the only pirate back in ye daye. Joh Donne had a share of the booty, as well (His “Song: Goe, and Catch a Falling Star” works practically without modification as a pirate’s ode), and Ben Jonson lived a life fit for a pirate.

T. S. Eliot came along after the fad of ear piercing, but was a pirate nonetheless, as this fragment from his “The Pirate Men” (later revised and expanded for the mainstream as “The Hollow Men”) shows:
We are the pirate men
We are the brigadiers
Sailing together
Heads all filled with greed. Avast!
Our deep voices, when
We chanty together
Are loud and boisterous
As wind in a sea squall
Or virgins’ screams that break glass
In their dry cellar

Fun without law, greed without reason,
Unstoppable force, looting without manners;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us – because we sent them – not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the pirate men
The bandit men.
But, in the end, as in all things literary, our buddy William Shakespeare (I believe he preferred the pseudonym “Trimsaile” but got stuck with his birthname by a lazy editor) did it best:

No, my dread boatswain:
If yon crew is to live, we are enow
To do our captain shame; and if to die,
The fewer men, the greater share of booty.
Zounds! I pray thee, wish not one pirate more.
By Neptune, I am covetous for gold,
And care greatly who doth feed on my cost;
It yearns me much if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell high in my desires:
But if it be a sin to murder Spainiards,
I am the most offending soul alive.
. . . .
Arrr, and proclaim it, scurvy dog, through my crew
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his plank-walk shall be short
And crowns for trouble robbéd from his purse:
We would not die in that man’s company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is called the feast of Jack Sparrow:
He that outlives this day, and sails safe 'way,
Will stand a sea-legg’d when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Jack Sparrow.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the eve pillage his neighbours,
And say ‘To-morrow is Cap’n Jack Sparrow:’
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say ‘These wounds I had on Sparrow’s day.’
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day:
. . . .
This shall the pirate teach his cabin boy;
And Captain Jack Sparrow shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember’d;
We few, we happy few, we brood of bandits;
For he to-day that sheds their blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so pure,
This day shall sully his condition:
And pillagers on shore leave now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Jack Sparrow’s day.
Hee! This is fun! I could probably remake all of Henry V as a pirate movie. I mean, it practically is, anyway, with a few kings and stuff mixed in…

As did Christopher Marlowe (Marrrrrrlowe, maybe?)… :wink:

And pirate Henry V is awesome. Obviously you share my taste in Shakespeare plays, only with more pirates and stuff.