# Best of Shakespeare monologues **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 24, 2004, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-of-shakespeare-monologues/236207 "2004-03-24T22:18:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Mr.Excellent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f19dbf/32.png) [@Mr.Excellent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Excellent)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2004, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-of-shakespeare-monologues/236207/1 "2004-03-24T22:18:06Z")
Just what the title says - post your favorite monologues or soliloquies penned by The Immortal Bard here. Preferably with link or complete text - isn’t it nice to be a fan of an author whose work is in the public domain? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![HumptysHamhole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f0a364/32.png) [@HumptysHamhole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HumptysHamhole)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2004, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-of-shakespeare-monologues/236207/2 "2004-03-24T22:52:30Z")
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; Or close the wall up with our English dead. In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man As modest stillness and humility: But when the blast of war blows in our ears, Then imitate the action of the tiger; Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, Disguise fair nature with hard-favour’d rage; Then lend the eye a terrible aspect; Let pry through the portage of the head Like the brass cannon; let the brow o’erwhelm it As fearfully as doth a galled rock O’erhang and jutty his confounded base, Swill’d with the wild and wasteful ocean. Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide, Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit To his full height. On, on, you noblest English. Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof! . . . The game’s afoot: Follow your spirit, and upon this charge Cry ‘God for Harry, England, and Saint George!’ Henry IV, Part II – I’ll bet generals don’t make speeches like that war today. ---
**Author:** ![HumptysHamhole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f0a364/32.png) [@HumptysHamhole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HumptysHamhole)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2004, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-of-shakespeare-monologues/236207/3 "2004-03-24T23:04:24Z")
Sorry - the last monologue I posted was Henry from Henry IV, part I. Also a very funny monologue from the same play by Falstaff (after pretending to die in battle): Falstaff [Rising up] Embowelled! if thou embowel me to-day, I’ll give you leave to powder me and eat me too to-morrow. 'Sblood,'twas time to counterfeit, or that hot termagant Scot had paid me scot and lot too. Counterfeit? I lie, I am no counterfeit: to die, is to be a counterfeit; for he is but the counterfeit of a man who hath not the life of a man: but to counterfeit dying, when a man thereby liveth, is to be no counterfeit, but the true and perfect image of life indeed. The better part of valour is discretion; in the which better part I have saved my life.'Zounds, I am afraid of this gunpowder Percy, though he be dead: how, if he should counterfeit too and rise? by my faith, I am afraid he would prove the better counterfeit. Therefore I’ll make him sure; yea, and I’ll swear I killed him. Why may not he rise as well as I? Nothing confutes me but eyes, and nobody sees me. Therefore, sirrah, [Stabbing him] with a new wound in your thigh, come you along with me. ---
**Author:** ![Labdad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/439d5e/32.png) [@Labdad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labdad)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2004, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-of-shakespeare-monologues/236207/4 "2004-03-25T14:20:18Z")
The opening soliloquy from _Richard III_: 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 our 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-visag’d war hath smooth’d his wrinkled front; And now,—instead of mounting barbed steeds, To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,— He capers nimbly in a lady’s chamber To the lascivious pleasing of a lute. But I, that am not shap’d 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, Deform’d, 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 see 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. Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous, By drunken prophecies, libels, and dreams, To set my brother Clarence and the king In deadly hate the one against the other: And if King Edward be as true and just As I am subtle, false, and treacherous, This day should Clarence closely be mew’d up, About a prophecy, which says, that G Of Edward’s heirs the murderer shall be. Dive, thoughts, down to my soul: here Clarence comes. What an evil son of a bitch ol’ Richard is! ---
**Author:** ![Tigers2B1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc29f/32.png) [@Tigers2B1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tigers2B1)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2004, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-of-shakespeare-monologues/236207/5 "2004-03-25T15:30:31Z")
Well I suppose I’ll add the best father / son talk ever written down. From Act I, Scene III of _Hamlet_, Polonius’ advice to Laertes. **POLONIUS: Yet here, Laertes? Aboard, aboard, for shame! The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail, And you are stayed for. There – my blessing with thee, And these few precepts in thy memory Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue, Nor any unproportioned thought his act. Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar. Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel, But do not dull thy palm with entertainment Of each new-hatched, unfledged courage. Beware Of entrance to a quarrel; but being in, Bear’t that th’ opposèd may beware of thee. Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice; Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment. Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, But not expressed in fancy; rich, not gaudy, For the apparel oft proclaims the man, And they in France of the best rank and station Are of a most select and generous chief in that. Neither a borrower nor a lender be, For loan oft loses both itself and friend, And borrowing dulleth edge of husbandry. 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. Farewell. My blessing season this in thee!** ---
**Author:** ![Draelin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ce73a5/32.png) [@Draelin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Draelin)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2004, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-of-shakespeare-monologues/236207/6 "2004-03-25T15:56:50Z")
Puck’s closing from _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_ (and this is from memory, so forgive me if I fudge it a little)… If we shadows have offended Think but this, and all is mended That you have but slumbered here While these visions did appear; And this weak and idle theme No more yielding, but a dream. Gentles, do not reprehend; If you will pardon, we will mend. As I am an honest Puck, We have unearned luck To have 'scaped the serpent’s tongue; We will make amends 'ere long. Else the Puck a liar call; So, goodnight, unto you all Give me your hands if we be friends; And Robil shall restore amends. Gives me a nice happy-cry feeling every time. ---
**Author:** ![LibrarySpy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f9ae1b/32.png) [@LibrarySpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LibrarySpy)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2004, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-of-shakespeare-monologues/236207/7 "2004-03-25T16:21:54Z")
I second **Draelin** ’s monologue and sentiment. 🙂 I love **Tigers2B1** ’s contribution too. The last moment where Iago’s trechary might have been guessed, but instead, Othello succumbs. OTHELLO I had been happy, if the general camp, Pioners and all, had tasted her sweet body, So I had nothing known. O, now, for ever Farewell the tranquil mind! farewell content! Farewell the plumed troop, and the big wars, That make ambition virtue! O, farewell! Farewell the neighing steed, and the shrill trump, The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife, The royal banner, and all quality, Pride, pomp and circumstance of glorious war! And, O you mortal engines, whose rude throats The immortal Jove’s dead clamours counterfeit, Farewell! Othello’s occupation’s gone! Villain, be sure thou prove my love a whore, Be sure of it; give me the ocular proof: Or by the worth of man’s eternal soul, Thou hadst been better have been born a dog Than answer my waked wrath! Make me to see’t; or, at the least, so prove it, That the probation bear no hinge nor loop To hang a doubt on; or woe upon thy life! If thou dost slander her and torture me, Never pray more; abandon all remorse; On horror’s head horrors accumulate; Do deeds to make heaven weep, all earth amazed; For nothing canst thou to damnation add Greater than that. - 3.3. Othello The despair makes me ache. ---
**Author:** ![Small\_Clanger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@Small\_Clanger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Small_Clanger)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2004, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-of-shakespeare-monologues/236207/8 "2004-03-25T16:31:03Z")
From the Scottish Play Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow Creeps in this petty pace from day to day To the last sylable of recorded time And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death Out out brief candle Life’s but 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 Not a happy chappy today then? ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2004, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-of-shakespeare-monologues/236207/9 "2004-03-25T17:00:55Z")
One of my favorite characters, Aaron the Moor, from _Titus Andronicus_: Ay, that I had not done a thousand more. Even now I curse the day–and yet, I think, Few come within the compass of my curse,– Wherein I did not some notorious ill, As kill a man, or else devise his death, Ravish a maid, or plot the way to do it, Accuse some innocent and forswear myself, Set deadly enmity between two friends, Make poor men’s cattle break their necks; Set fire on barns and hay-stacks in the night, And bid the owners quench them with their tears. Oft have I digg’d up dead men from their graves, And set them upright at their dear friends’ doors, Even when their sorrows almost were forgot; And on their skins, as on the bark of trees, Have with my knife carved in Roman letters, ‘Let not your sorrow die, though I am dead.’ Tut, I have done a thousand dreadful things As willingly as one would kill a fly, And nothing grieves me heartily indeed But that I cannot do ten thousand more. ---
**Author:** ![maniondl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/cdc98d/32.png) [@maniondl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/maniondl)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2004, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-of-shakespeare-monologues/236207/10 "2004-03-25T17:28:01Z")
I have to give a shout out to Henry V. Makes suicide charges seem like a good idea. King Henry V: If we are mark’d to die, we are enow To do our country loss; and if to live, The fewer men, the greater share of honour. God’s will! I pray thee, wish not one man more. By Jove, I am not covetous for gold, Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost; It yearns me not if men my garments wear; Such outward things dwell not in my desires: But if it be a sin to covet honour, I am the most offending soul alive. No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England: God’s peace! I would not lose so great an honour As one man more, methinks, would share from me For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more! Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host, That he which hath no stomach to this fight, Let him depart; his passport shall be made And crowns for convoy put into 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 Crispian: He that outlives this day, and comes safe home, Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named, And rouse him at the name of Crispian. He that shall live this day, and see old age, Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours, And say ‘To-morrow is Saint Crispian:’ Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars. And say ‘These wounds I had on Crispin’s day.’ Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot, But he’ll remember with advantages What feats he did that day: then shall our names. Familiar in his mouth as household words Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter, Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester, Be in their flowing cups freshly remember’d. This story shall the good man teach his son; And Crispin Crispian 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 band of brothers; For he to-day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile, This day shall gentle his condition: And gentlemen in England now a-bed Shall think themselves accursed they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day. Also, I have to mention “Exit, pursued by bear” from A Winter’s Tale (III, iii) as his best stage direction. ---
**Author:** ![TWDuke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e495f1/32.png) [@TWDuke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TWDuke)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2004, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-of-shakespeare-monologues/236207/11 "2004-03-25T20:05:34Z")
Curse you, Small Clanger, for getting here first! As a fallback choice, I’ll post the following from “As You Like It”. Besides the similiar subject matter, they have in common the fact that I’ve seen Ian McKellen peform both of them, which brought a quality to each that is hard to get from stark words on the page and was sadly lacking from the school productions of Shakesepeare that I had seen. The MacBeth soliloquoy was from a TV program that aired on PBS many years ago and was my first exposure to Sir Ian. I was lucky enough to be in the second row of the audience for the performance of the following passage last year. All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. At first the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms. And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier, Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard, Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice, In fair round belly with good capon lined, With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, Full of wise saws and modern instances; And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon, With spectacles on nose and pouch on side, His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, Turning again toward childish treble, pipes And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness and mere oblivion, Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. ---
**Author:** ![Mississippienne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d2c977/32.png) [@Mississippienne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mississippienne)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2004, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-of-shakespeare-monologues/236207/12 "2004-03-25T20:45:04Z")
Juliet’s monologue from “Romeo and Juliet”: Come gentle night, come, loving black-browed night, Give me my Romeo; and when he shall die Take him and cut him into 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. ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2004, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-of-shakespeare-monologues/236207/13 "2004-03-25T21:03:02Z")
> [@](#): > > Also, I have to mention “Exit, pursued by bear” from A Winter’s Tale (III, iii) as his best stage direction. Nah, his best stage direction is from _Titus Andronicus_: “Enter a messenger with two heads and a hand” 🙂 And just 'cos this thread needs a little more Richard III, I nominate this one: > [@](#): > > Was ever woman in this humour woo’d? > Was ever woman in this humour won? > I’ll have her; but I will not keep her long. > What! I, that kill’d her husband and his father, > To take her in her heart’s extremest hate, > With curses in her mouth, tears in her eyes, > The bleeding witness of her hatred by; > Having God, her conscience, and these bars against me, > And I nothing to back my suit at all, > But the plain devil and dissembling looks, > And yet to win her, all the world to nothing! > Ha! > Hath she forgot already that brave prince, > Edward, her lord, whom I, some three months since, > Stabb’d in my angry mood at Tewksbury? > A sweeter and a lovelier gentleman, > Framed in the prodigality of nature, > Young, valiant, wise, and, no doubt, right royal, > The spacious world cannot again afford > And will she yet debase her eyes on me, > That cropp’d the golden prime of this sweet prince, > And made her widow to a woful bed? > On me, whose all not equals Edward’s moiety? > On me, that halt and am unshapen thus? > My dukedom to a beggarly denier, > I do mistake my person all this while: > Upon my life, she finds, although I cannot, > Myself to be a marvellous proper man. > I’ll be at charges for a looking-glass, > And entertain some score or two of tailors, > To study fashions to adorn my body: > Since I am crept in favour with myself, > Will maintain it with some little cost. > But first I’ll turn yon fellow in his grave; > And then return lamenting to my love. > Shine out, fair sun, till I have bought a glass, > That I may see my shadow as I pass. ---
**Author:** ![InTransit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e47774/32.png) [@InTransit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InTransit)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2004, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-of-shakespeare-monologues/236207/14 "2004-03-25T21:52:27Z")
Thou, nature, art my goddess; to thy law My services are bound. Wherefore should I Stand in the plague of custom, and permit The curiosity of nations to deprive me, For that I am some twelve or fourteen moon-shines Lag of a brother? Why bastard? wherefore base? When my dimensions are as well compact, My mind as generous, and my shape as true, As honest madam’s issue? Why brand they us With base? with baseness? bastardy? base, base? Who, in the lusty stealth of nature, take More composition and fierce quality Than doth, within a dull, stale, tired bed, Go to the creating a whole tribe of fops, Got 'tween asleep and wake? Well, then, Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land: Our father’s love is to the bastard Edmund As to the legitimate: fine word,–legitimate! Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed, And my invention thrive, Edmund the base Shall top the legitimate. I grow; I prosper: Now, gods, stand up for bastards! –Edmund, _King Lear_, Act I, scene ii 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. –King Hery V to Katherine, _Henry V_, Act V, scene ii ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2004, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-of-shakespeare-monologues/236207/15 "2004-03-25T22:36:18Z")
I know you all, and will awhile uphold The unyoked humour of your idleness. Yet herein will I imitate the sun, Who doth permit the base contagious clouds To smother up his beauty from the world, That when he please again to be himself, Being wanted, he may be more wondered at By breaking through the foul and ugly mists Of vapours that did seem to strangle him. If all the year were playing holidays, To sport would be as tedious as to work; But when they seldom come, they wished-for come, And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents. So, when this loose behaviour I throw off And pay the debt I never promisèd, By how much better than my word I am, By so much shall I falsify men’s hopes; And like bright metal on a sullen ground, My reformation, glitt’ring o’er my fault, Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes Than that which hath no foil to set it off. I’ll so offend to make offence a skill, Redeeming time when men think least I will. Henry IV, Part 1 ---
**Author:** ![Age\_Quod\_Agis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d07c76/32.png) [@Age\_Quod\_Agis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Age_Quod_Agis)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2004, 7:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-of-shakespeare-monologues/236207/16 "2004-03-26T07:56:44Z")
Egad, I love this board. Where else can you see threads on Shakespeare bumping up against threads on Southpark? My contribution (since many of my favorites have already been posted), the ol’ standard from Hamlet: > [@](#): > > To be, or not to be: that is the question: > Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer > The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, > Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, > And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep; > No more; and by a sleep to say we end > The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks > That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation > Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep; > To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub; > For in that sleep of death what dreams may come > When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, > Must give us pause: there’s the respect > That makes calamity of so long life; > For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, > The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely, > The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay, > The insolence of office and the spurns > That patient merit of the unworthy takes, > When he himself might his quietus make > With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear, > To grunt and sweat under a weary life, > But that the dread of something after death, > The undiscover’d country from whose bourn > No traveller returns, puzzles the will > And makes us rather bear those ills we have > Than fly to others that we know not of? > Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; > And thus the native hue of resolution > Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought, > And enterprises of great pith and moment > With this regard their currents turn awry, > And lose the name of action.-Soft you now! > The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons > Be all my sins remember’d. ---
**Author:** ![Katisha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bcef8e/32.png) [@Katisha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Katisha)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2004, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-of-shakespeare-monologues/236207/17 "2004-03-26T08:22:50Z")
Ooh, lovely thread. Here’s a favorite of mine – from _Richard II,_ 5.5. Richard, deposed and imprisoned (and, in fact, about to be killed) tries to make sense of what’s happened to him: I have been studying how I may compare This prison where I live unto the world, And for because the world is populous And here is not a creature but myself I cannot do it – yet I’ll hammer it out: My brain I’ll prove the female to my soul, My soul the father, and these two beget A generation of still-breeding thoughts, And these same thoughts people this little world In humors like the people of this world, For no thought is contented: the better sort, As thoughts of things divine, are intermixed With scruples, and do set the word itself Against the word: As thus: ‘Come, little ones,’ and then again, ‘It is as hard to come as for a camel To thread the postern of a small needle’s eye.’ Thoughts tending to ambition, they do plot Unlikely wonders: how these vain weak nails May tear a passage through the flinty ribs Of this hard world, my ragged prison walls – And, for they cannot, die in their own pride. Thoughts tending to content flatter themselves That they are not the first of fortune’s slaves And shall not be the last – like silly beggars Who, sitting in the stocks, refuge their shame That many have, and others must, sit there, And in these thoughts they find a kind of ease, Bearing their own misfortune on the back Of such as have before endured the like. Thus play I in one person many people, And none contented: sometimes am I king, Then treasons make me wish myself a beggar, And so I am; then crushing penury Persuades me I was better when a king; Then am I kinged again, and by and by Think that I am unkinged by Bolingbroke And straight am nothing – but whate’er I be, Nor I nor any man that but man is With nothing shall be pleased, till he be eased With being nothing. [_music_] Music do I hear? Ha, ha! Keep time! How sour sweet music is When time is broke and no proportion kept: So is it in the music of men’s lives. And here have I the daintiness of ear To check time broke in a disordered string, But for the concord of my state and time Had not an ear to hear my true time broke. I wasted time, and now doth time waste me, For now hath time made me his numb’ring clock: My thoughts are minutes, and with sighs they jar Their watches on unto mine eyes, the outward watch, Whereto my finger, like a dial’s point, Is pointing still in cleansing them from tears. Now, sir, the sounds that tell what hour it is Are clamorous groans that strike upon my heart, Which is the bell: so sighs and tears and groans Show minutes, times, and hours; but my time Runs posting on in Bolingbroke’s proud joy, While I stand fooling here, his Jack o’the clock. This music mads me; let it sound no more, For though it have holp madmen to their wits, In me it seems it will make wise men mad. Yet blessing on his heart that gives it me! For 'tis a sign of love, and love to Richard Is a strange brooch in this all-hating world. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2004, 8:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-of-shakespeare-monologues/236207/18 "2004-03-26T08:29:38Z")
I know it doesn’t count, but I’d like to mention the Player’s monologue from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead. I can’t post it because it’s not in the public domain. I think it starts “Don’t you see?! We’re actors–we’re the opposite of people!” ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2004, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-of-shakespeare-monologues/236207/19 "2004-03-26T11:17:35Z")
If a young student were to complain that Shakespeare is old-timey and irrelevant, I’d give them the following speech of the Duke of Burgundy, from Henry V, to the kings of England and France. He is pleading for a peaceful resolution to the war, and showing how devestating continuing conflict is. BURGUNDY My duty to you both, on equal love, Great Kings of France and England! That I have labour’d, With all my wits, my pains and strong endeavours, To bring your most imperial majesties Unto this bar and royal interview, Your mightiness on both parts best can witness. Since then my office hath so far prevail’d That, face to face and royal eye to eye, You have congreeted, let it not disgrace me, If I demand, before this royal view, What rub or what impediment there is, Why that the naked, poor and mangled Peace, Dear nurse of arts and joyful births, Should not in this best garden of the world Our fertile France, put up her lovely visage? Alas, she hath from France too long been chased, And all her husbandry doth lie on heaps, Corrupting in its own fertility. Her vine, the merry cheerer of the heart, Unpruned dies; her hedges even-pleach’d, Like prisoners wildly overgrown with hair, Put forth disorder’d twigs; her fallow leas The darnel, hemlock and rank fumitory Doth root upon, while that the coulter rusts That should deracinate such savagery; The even mead, that erst brought sweetly forth The freckled cowslip, burnet and green clover, Wanting the scythe, all uncorrected, rank, Conceives by idleness and nothing teems But hateful docks, rough thistles, kecksies, burs, Losing both beauty and utility. And as our vineyards, fallows, meads and hedges, Defective in their natures, grow to wildness, Even so our houses and ourselves and children Have lost, or do not learn for want of time, The sciences that should become our country; But grow like savages,–as soldiers will That nothing do but meditate on blood,– To swearing and stern looks, diffused attire And every thing that seems unnatural. Which to reduce into our former favour You are assembled: and my speech entreats That I may know the let, why gentle Peace Should not expel these inconveniences And bless us with her former qualities. ---
**Author:** ![Draelin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ce73a5/32.png) [@Draelin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Draelin)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2004, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-of-shakespeare-monologues/236207/20 "2004-03-26T13:51:41Z")
> [@Johnny Bravo](#): > > I know it doesn’t count, but I’d like to mention the Player’s monologue from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead. Ohh, I love that scene. “We’re more of the love, blood, and rhetoric school. Well, we can do you blood and love without the rhetoric, and we can do you blood and rhetoric without the love, and we can do you all three concurrent or consecutive. But we can’t give you love and rhetoric without the blood. Blood is compulsory. They’re all blood, you see.” [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-of-shakespeare-monologues/236207.md?page=2)