Make haste! Kelly is running a contest for Brush Up Your Shakespeare Month, and you only have until tomorrow, midnight, to post your favorite bit of his poetry for a chance to win a Folger Shakespeare Library Edition of Shakespeare's Sonnets.
I truly can't pick a favorite bit---for me, Shakespeare's all about how his words roll off the tongue and like a dessert buffet, whatever my mouth is tasting at the moment is the best ever! I'm picking his Sonnet #90, only because I don't know it well, but it's dolefully delicious to recite and I adore the line "Give not a windy night a rainy morrow."
Sonnet 90
Now, while the world is bent my deeds to cross,
Join with the spite of fortune, make me bow,
And do not drop in for an after-loss:
Ah, do not, when my heart hath 'scoped this sorrow,
Come in the rearward of a conquer'd woe;
Give not a windy night a rainy morrow,
To linger out a purposed overthrow.
If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,
When other petty griefs have done their spite
But in the onset come; so shall I taste
At first the very worst of fortune's might,
And other strains of woe, which now seem woe,
Compared with loss of thee will not seem so.
Ooh - that one IS lovely to read aloud. I think it's all those lovely round vowels he's got going (long Os and OWs and whatnot). He sure had a way with words!
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for entering!! *smooch*
Ooh, I love this one. The line you mentioned is the best one for beauty, and I love this bit for what he's saying:
ReplyDeleteIf thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,
When other petty griefs have done their spite
But in the onset come