# Brush up your Shakespeare (a game) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 26, 2003, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brush-up-your-shakespeare-a-game/164330 "2003-03-26T17:30:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![NoCoolUserName](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5fc32e/32.png) [@NoCoolUserName](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NoCoolUserName)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2003, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brush-up-your-shakespeare-a-game/164330/21 "2003-03-26T22:34:09Z")
Dang, the site slowed down just as there was one I could answer. Could we have some happier quotes? I know that war is on everyone’s minds, but > [@](#): > > 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. About brought me to tears already. ---
**Author:** ![Katisha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bcef8e/32.png) [@Katisha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Katisha)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2003, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brush-up-your-shakespeare-a-game/164330/22 "2003-03-26T22:42:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ITR champion \* > \*\*“Sound trumpets. Let our bloody colors wave > And either victory, or else a grave.” \*\* That sounds like _3 Henry VI._ Can’t remember the speaker offhand though… Okay, happier quotes. Though all my favorite Shakespeare quotes are horrible and bleak, I shall try to oblige… 😉 “And nightly, meadow-fairies, look you sing, Like to the Garter’s compass, in a ring: The expressure that it bears, green let it be, More fertile-fresh than all the field to see; And ‘Honi soit qui mal y pense’ write In emerald tufts, flowers purple, blue and white; Let sapphire, pearl and rich embroidery, Buckled below fair knighthood’s bending knee: Fairies use flowers for their charactery.” ---
**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 26, 2003, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brush-up-your-shakespeare-a-game/164330/23 "2003-03-26T22:57:51Z")
> [@](#): > > “Why, headstrong liberty is lash’d with woe. > There’s nothing situate under heaven’s eye > But hath his bound, in earth, in sea, in sky: > The beasts, the fishes, and the winged fowls, > Are their males’ subjects and at their controls. > Men, more divine, the masters of all these, > Lords of the wide world, and wild wat’ry seas, > Indu’d with intellectual sense and souls, > Of more pre-eminence than fish and fowls, > Are masters to their females and their lords: > Then, let your will attend on their accords” I’m betting on _The Taming of the Shrew_ for this one. OK, here’s an easy happy one: “The world must be peopled!” ---
**Author:** ![penny\_dreadful](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/71c47a/32.png) [@penny\_dreadful](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/penny_dreadful)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2003, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brush-up-your-shakespeare-a-game/164330/24 "2003-03-26T23:10:04Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Fretful Porpentine \* > \*\* > > OK, here’s an easy happy one: > > “The world must be peopled!” \*\* Benedick from _Much Ado About Nothing_. Here’s mine: “The tongues of mocking wenches are as keen As is the razor’s edge invisible.” ---
**Author:** ![herwono](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/9f8e36/32.png) [@herwono](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/herwono)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2003, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brush-up-your-shakespeare-a-game/164330/25 "2003-03-27T02:14:28Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by penny dreadful \* > “The tongues of mocking wenches are as keen > As is the razor’s edge invisible.” _Love’s Labour’s Lost_ Here’s mine: What should I do with him—dress him in my apparel and make him my waiting gentlewoman? He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man; and he that is more than a youth is not for me, and he that is less than a man, I am not for him. ---
**Author:** ![slice](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dec6dc/32.png) [@slice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slice)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2003, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brush-up-your-shakespeare-a-game/164330/26 "2003-03-27T02:43:11Z")
_Much Ado About Nothing_ I think Beatrice said it. And mine is: “I am one, sir, who comes to tell you your daughter and the Moor are making the beast with two backs.” ---
**Author:** ![Katisha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bcef8e/32.png) [@Katisha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Katisha)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2003, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brush-up-your-shakespeare-a-game/164330/27 "2003-03-27T02:47:14Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by slice \* > \*\*“I am one, sir, who comes to tell you your daughter and the Moor are making the beast with two backs.” \*\* That’s _Othello,_ 1.1 – Iago informs Brabantio of Desdemona and Othello’s marriage. BTW, nobody’s guessed the quote in my last post yet. Back to the bleak and relevant quotes for a second – this is the one that’s been in my head recently: “But if the cause be not good, the King himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all the legs and arms and heads chopped off in a battle will join together at the latter day and cry all ‘We died at such a place’: some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left. I am afeared few die well that die in a battle, for how can they charitably dispose of anything when blood is their argument? Now if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the King that led them to it, whom to disobey were against all proportion of subjection.” ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2003, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brush-up-your-shakespeare-a-game/164330/28 "2003-03-27T03:06:15Z")
> [@](#): > > Back to the bleak and relevant quotes for a second – this is the one that’s been in my head recently: > > “But if the cause be not good, the King himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all the legs and arms and heads chopped off in a battle will join together at the latter day and cry all ‘We died at such a place’: some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left. I am afeared few die well that die in a battle, for how can they charitably dispose of anything when blood is their argument? Now if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the King that led them to it, whom to disobey were against all proportion of subjection.” _Henry V_, when the common soldier Michael Williams (played by Judi Dench’s husband in the 1989 version) is grousing about the disguised king. My previous quote, "Why, headstrong liberty. . . " was from _The Comedy of Errors_. OK, try this one on. . . " O! who can hold a fire in his hand By thinking on the frosty Caucasus? Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite By bare imagination of a feast? Or wallow naked in December snow By thinking on fantastic summer’s heat? O, no! the apprehension of the good Gives but the greater feeling to the worse: Fell sorrow’s tooth doth never rankle more Than when it bites, but lanceth not the sore." ---
**Author:** ![The\_Peyote\_Coyote](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f8ce5/32.png) [@The\_Peyote\_Coyote](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Peyote_Coyote)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2003, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brush-up-your-shakespeare-a-game/164330/29 "2003-03-27T03:08:21Z")
Katisha: was your first quote from A Midsummer’s Night Dream? And is the second from Troilius and Cressida My quote is: " The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon." ---
**Author:** ![Katisha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bcef8e/32.png) [@Katisha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Katisha)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2003, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brush-up-your-shakespeare-a-game/164330/30 "2003-03-27T03:08:32Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by gobear \* > \*\*OK, try this one on. . . > \*\* Let it never be said I can’t spot a _Richard II_ quote from a mile off! That’s from 1.3 – Bolingbroke points out the flaws in Gaunt’s advice on making the best of his exile. I’ll just repost the quote nobody’s guessed yet: “And nightly, meadow-fairies, look you sing, Like to the Garter’s compass, in a ring: The expressure that it bears, green let it be, More fertile-fresh than all the field to see; And ‘Honi soit qui mal y pense’ write In emerald tufts, flowers purple, blue and white; Let sapphire, pearl and rich embroidery, Buckled below fair knighthood’s bending knee: Fairies use flowers for their charactery.” ---
**Author:** ![Katisha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bcef8e/32.png) [@Katisha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Katisha)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2003, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brush-up-your-shakespeare-a-game/164330/31 "2003-03-27T03:09:49Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by The Peyote Coyote \* > \*\*Katisha: was your first quote from A Midsummer’s Night Dream? > \*\* Sorry, try again! I picked a slightly misleading quote on purpose, just to be nasty… 😉 ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2003, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brush-up-your-shakespeare-a-game/164330/32 "2003-03-27T03:33:23Z")
_The Merry Wives of Windsor_, I believe, when Mistress Ford and Mistress Page dress up like fairies and torment Falstaff. OK, here’s another one. . . "In peace and honour rest you here, my sons; Rome’s readiest champions, repose you here in rest, Secure from worldly chances and mishaps! Here lurks no treason, here no envy swells, Here grow no damned drugs, here are no storms, No noise, but silence and eternal sleep: In peace and honour rest you here, my sons! " ---
**Author:** ![amarinth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3be4f8/32.png) [@amarinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarinth)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2003, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brush-up-your-shakespeare-a-game/164330/33 "2003-03-27T03:40:17Z")
_Titus_ "But I do think it is their husbands’ faults If wives do fall: say that they slack their duties, And pour our treasures into foreign laps, Or else break out in peevish jealousies, Throwing restraint upon us; or say they strike us, Or scant our former having in despite; Why, we have galls, and though we have some grace, Yet have we some revenge. Let husbands know Their wives have sense like them: they see and smell And have their palates both for sweet and sour, As husbands have. What is it that they do When they change us for others? Is it sport? I think it is: and doth affection breed it? I think it doth: is’t frailty that thus errs? It is so too: and have not we affections, Desires for sport, and frailty, as men have? Then let them use us well: else let them know, The ills we do, their ills instruct us so. " ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2003, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brush-up-your-shakespeare-a-game/164330/34 "2003-03-27T03:45:21Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by The Peyote Coyote \* > \*\*My quote is: " The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon." \*\* the Scots play, V, iii, 11. My quote: “And do as adversaries do in law – Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.” ---
**Author:** ![gex\_gex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/94ad74/32.png) [@gex\_gex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gex_gex)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2003, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brush-up-your-shakespeare-a-game/164330/35 "2003-03-27T12:01:38Z")
**amarinth** : is it The Taming Of The Shrew? ---
**Author:** ![Bunnylady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Bunnylady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bunnylady)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2003, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brush-up-your-shakespeare-a-game/164330/36 "2003-03-27T13:05:11Z")
Amarinth: That’s Othello, right? Spoken by Iago’s wife, whose name I forget just now… Okay, here’s mine: “Who steals my purse steals trash - 'twas something, nothing 'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands - But he that filches from me my good name Robs me of something that not enriches him But makes me poor indeed.” I apologize if the punctuation isn’t correct - I’m quoting from memory. ---
**Author:** ![gallows\_fodder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8c91f0/32.png) [@gallows\_fodder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gallows_fodder)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2003, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brush-up-your-shakespeare-a-game/164330/37 "2003-03-27T14:08:50Z")
Ooh, that’s from **Othello** , my favorite! And it’s spoken by Iago, the most excellent of villains. For your consideration, something that I have often been asking myself recently: “Where is the life that late I led?” ---
**Author:** ![gallows\_fodder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8c91f0/32.png) [@gallows\_fodder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gallows_fodder)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2003, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brush-up-your-shakespeare-a-game/164330/38 "2003-03-27T14:30:03Z")
Crap, I just realized that line was made into a song in a musical! Too easy! So here’s another quotation to use instead: “If hearty sorrow be a sufficient ransom for offence, I tender it here. I do as truly suffer as e’er I did commit.” ---
**Author:** ![Humble\_Servant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/47e85d/32.png) [@Humble\_Servant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Humble_Servant)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2003, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brush-up-your-shakespeare-a-game/164330/39 "2003-03-27T15:23:14Z")
**Northern Piper’s** is **Taming of the Shrew.** (I thought I had bookmarked a collection of Shakespeare quotations about lawyers, but I can’t find it.) Here’s one that if not happy at least has nothing to do with war: Make me a willlow cabin at your gate, And call upon my soul within the house; Write loyal cantons of contemned love And sing them loud even in the dead of night; Halloo your name to the reverberate hills And make the babbling gossip of the air cry out… ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2003, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brush-up-your-shakespeare-a-game/164330/40 "2003-03-27T15:32:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Humble Servant \* > > * * * > > Make me a willlow cabin at your gate, > And call upon my soul within the house; > Write loyal cantons of contemned love > And sing them loud even in the dead of night; > Halloo your name to the reverberate hills > And make the babbling gossip of the air > cry out… \*\* Viola, in male clothes, inadvertantly seducing Olivia in “Twelfth Night.” Here’s another one not war-related: Drink, sir, is a great provoker of three things… nose-painting, sleep, and urine. Lechery, sir, it provokes, and unprovokes; it provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance: therefore, much drink may be said to be an equivocator with lechery: it makes him, and it mars him; it sets him on, and it takes him off; it persuades him, and disheartens him; makes him stand to, and not stand to; in conclusion, equivocates him in a sleep, and, giving him the lie, leaves him. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brush-up-your-shakespeare-a-game/164330.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brush-up-your-shakespeare-a-game/164330.md?page=3)