How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare (46 page)

The moon shines bright
—Act V, Scene 1, lines 1–21

How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank
—Act V, Scene 1, lines 62–73

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM:

Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires
—Act I, Scene 1, lines 69–80

How now, my love? Why is your cheek so pale
?—Act I, Scene 1, lines 130–51

I swear to thee by Cupid’s strongest bow
—Act I, Scene 1, lines 172–81

How happy some o’er other some can be
—Act I, Scene 1, lines 232–57

Either I mistake your shape and making quite
—Act II, Scene 1, lines 33–60

These are the forgeries of jealousy
—Act II, Scene 1, lines 84–120

His mother was a vot’ress of my order
—Act II, Scene 1, lines 127–42

The lunatic, the lover and the poet
—Act V, Scene 1, lines 7–18

Now, until the break of day
—Act V, Scene 1, lines 418–39

If we shadows have offended
—Act V, Scene 1, lines 440–55

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING:

This can be no trick
—Act II, Scene 3, lines 223–48

What fire is in mine ears?
—Act III, Scene 1, lines 113–22

Lady Beatrice, you have wept all this while?
—Act IV, Scene 1, lines 269–305

Dost thou not suspect my place
?—Act IV, Scene 2, lines 76–89

RICHARD II:

For God’s sake let us sit upon the ground
—Act III, Scene 2, lines 160–82

ROMEO AND JULIET:

Two households both alike in dignity
—Prologue to Act I

Even or odd, all days of the year
—Act I, Scene 3, lines 18–53

O then I see Queen Mab hath been with you
—Act I, Scene 4, lines 58–99

THE TAMING OF THE SHREW:

Good morrow, Kate, for that’s your name, I hear
—Act II, Scene 1, lines 190–202

I’ll tell you, Sir Lucentio
—Act III, Scene 2, lines 160–85

THE TEMPEST:

Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises
—Act III, Scene 2, lines 148–56

You elves of hills
—Act V, Scene 1, lines 42–66

TWELFTH NIGHT:

Tell him he shall not speak with me
—Act I, Scene 5, lines 145–61

Now sir, what is your text?
—Act I, Scene 5, lines 219–51

APPENDIX 4

A List of Favorite Epigrams

Even so quickly may one catch the plague?

What great ones do the rest will prattle of
.

Dost thou think because thou art virtuous there shall be no more cakes and ale?

Is it not strange that sheep’s guts should hale souls out of men’s bodies?

Speak low if you speak love
.

There was never yet a philosopher / That could endure the toothache patiently
.

All that glitters is not gold
.

He jests at scars that never felt a wound
.

Parting is such sweet sorrow
.

A plague on both your houses
.

Fair is foul and foul is fair
.

Nothing in his life / Became him like the leaving of it
.

Yet I do fear thy nature; / It is too full of the milk of human kindness
.

Sleep … knits up the raveled sleeve of care
.

Double, double, toil and trouble; / Fire burn and cauldron bubble
.

Out, damned spot, out I say!

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark
.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy
.

All that lives must die, passing through nature to eternity
.

Frailty thy name is woman
.

The funeral baked meats / Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables
.

The play’s the thing / Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king
.

As flies to wanton boys are we t’the gods, / They kill us for their sport
.

Small cheer and great welcome makes a merry feast
.

The better part of valor is discretion
.

There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow
.

Use every man after his desert, and who shall ’scape whipping?

There is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so
.

How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is / To have a thankless child
.

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ’em
.

The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils
.

What’s past is prologue
.

Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows
.

That which we call a rose / By any other word would smell as sweet
.

The purest treasure mortal times afford / Is spotless reputation
.

APPENDIX 5

Sample Quotation Pages

O, Romeo, Romeo
,

Wherefore art thou Romeo?

Deny thy father and refuse thy name
,

Or, if thou wilt not
,

Be but sworn my love
,

And I’ll no longer be a Capulet
.

Tomorrow

and

tomorrow

and

tomorrow
,

Creeps in this petty pace

from day to day
,

To the last syllable of recorded time;

And all our yesterdays

have lighted fools

The way to dusty death
.

Out, out brief candle!

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 no endure
.

Our revels now are ended
.

These our actors
,

As I foretold you
,

were all spirits, and

Are melted into air, into thin air;

…We are such stuff

As dreams are made on
,

and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep
.

Bibliography

BOOKS FOR CHILDREN

I have found the following children’s literature particularly helpful in introducing and clarifying Shakespeare for children. Please note that this is a selection and not meant to be comprehensive.

Aliki.
William Shakespeare and the Globe
. New York: HarperCollins, 1999. This book for the very young tells the story of moving the Globe Theatre across the Thames.

Ganeri, Anita.
The Young Person’s Guide to Shakespeare
. With performances on CD by the Royal Shakespeare Company. London: Pavilion Books, 1999. This book provides an intelligent overview of most of the plays, along with a brief life of Shakespeare and a description of his theater. It is beautifully illustrated, mainly with photographs, which makes it somewhat unique among children’s books on Shakespeare. Highly recommended.

Greenhill, Wendy, and Paul Wignall.
Shakespeare Library
Series. Chicago: Heinemann Library, 1997. This series of brief, informative paperbacks approaches the study of Shakespeare by topic. They’re all fun to read and very well illustrated. Greenhill was head of education at the Royal Shakespeare Company. The series includes:

Shakespeare: A Life

Shakespeare’s Theatre

Shakespeare’s Players

Julius Caesar

Macbeth

The Merchant of Venice

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Romeo and Juliet

Twelfth Night

Holdridge, Barbara, ed.
Under the Greenwood Tree: Shakespeare for Young People
. Illustrated by Robin and Pat DeWitt. Gilsum, N.H.: Stemmer House, 1986. This short book of passages from the plays and poems is beautifully illustrated.

Lamb, Charles and Mary.
Tales from Shakespeare
. New York: Puffin Books, 1994. Originally published in 1807, this book is the classic retelling of many of the stories for children. It has its nineteenth-century oddities, and there have been many retellings for children since 1807, but the Lambs’ version has a strange way of staying with us.

Langley, Andrew.
Shakespeare’s Theatre
. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. This book tells the story of the original Globe Theatre and the construction of the new Globe in the 1990s.

Pollinger, Gina, ed.
Something Rich and Strange: A Treasury of Shakespeare’s Verse
. Illustrated by Emma Chichester Clark. New York: Kingfisher, 1995. This book of passages from the plays and poems is nicely illustrated and attractive.

BOOKS FOR PARENTS, TEACHERS, AND ADVANCED STUDENTS

These books have all informed my understanding of Shakespeare in significant ways over the years, and they all make exciting reading.

Bate, Jonathan.
The Genius of Shakespeare
. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Bate is an outstanding modern authority on Shakespeare, and this wide-ranging book on everything from Shakespeare’s life and times to his influence on subsequent generations is riveting.

Bloom, Harold.
Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human
. New York: River-head Books, 1998. Bloom is unique and exhilarating, a professor who has spent a lifetime thinking deeply about literature. This book (which has a separate chapter on each of the plays) takes the view that Shakespeare invented Western men and women by example. Bloom is Falstaffian in the breadth of his humanity and even in the way he writes.