Top Quote

I just completed my enjoyable summer project this year - which will culminate with a visit to London in October.

Each year, since my junior year in college summer holiday, I’ve been tackling some big gnarly topic each summer.  The goal is to research the topic as well as I can through reading, discussions, movie watching and review reading (if applicable).  That inaugural year it was learning the programming language, Fortran77❗️ Our professor at that time had me deliver a lecture in his class when I came back (I still remember that talk …😊)

Over the years I’ve tackled topics including Rome, WWI, WWII, AI, Bach and so on.

 

This summer I decided to tackle 6 Shakespeare Plays. The list included:

King Lear

Much Ado about Nothing

Othello 

As You Like It

Macbeth

Midsummer Night's Dream

 

 

Comedy of Errors is what we will be watching at the Globe Theatre in London in October this year.

Globe Theatre, London

For this exercise, I explicitly ruled out:

Merchant of Venice (ouch)
Romeo & Juliet (groan)
Julius Caesar (already covered in my Rome summer focus)

 
These were the favorite quotes from each play that both struck me and it seems summarize the arc of the plays:

King Lear

Nothing can come of nothing, speak again.
 

Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise. 

When we are born, we cry that we are come 
To this great stage of fools. 
 

When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down 
And ask of thee forgiveness. 
 

We that are young 
Shall never see so much, nor live so long. 


Much Ado About Nothing

Friendship is constant in all other things, 
Save in the office and affairs of love.


When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.


I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest.


Othello

But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
For daws to peck at: I am not what I am.


Our bodies are our gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners. 


O, beware, my lord, of jealousy:
It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock
The meat it feeds on.


I kissed thee ere I killed thee: no way but this,
Killing myself, to die upon a kiss.


As You Like It


All the world's a stage


Thou speakest wiser than thou art ware of.


And thereby hangs a tale.


O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes!


Macbeth

When shall we three meet again?
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
When the hurly-burly's done,
When the battle's lost and won.


What's done cannot be undone.


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


Midsummer night’s dream

The course of true love never did run smooth.


To say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays.


Me thought I was enamoured of an ass.


Top Quote

Neither Et Tu Brute nor To Be Or Not to Be were in my six selections above.  In a way, not having such transcendent quotes helped me enjoy these plays more and it enhanced the joy of discovery and recognition.

I wanted to select two quotes that jumped to the top for me personally and pick one from it as the top quote from my project this summer.   Macbeth's Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Tomorrow felt throughout the summer like it should be the runaway winner, pointing to the folly of our actions and the absurdity of life.

However, two others became contenders for me:

From King Lear:  Nothing can come of nothing, speak again. 

And

From As You Like It:  All the world's a stage

King Lear was all about hard earned wisdom through aging and As You Like It was all about play and especially playing with identity.

Both these quotes resonate with an Indian view of life as well - concepts of Maya (even Lila) and Shunyatha.

While in my own actions and living life in the arena, I can quite see all the world as indeed a stage, the value that is derived in life cannot be from nothing.  We need to "speak".  Indeed as has been said in many world texts, the entire universe started with that primordial sound.

Thus my favorite quote from this summer of Shakespeare is:
Nothing can come of nothing, speak again.

Notes on King Lear:

Abstract: King Lear wants to retire and divide his kingdom between his 3 daughters. That was a mistake! Everyone dies.

1. LaGuardia said when I make a mistake it’s a beaut ❗️ King Lear made a beauty of a mistake indeed …

2. The subplot was better than the main plot to my surprise!

3.  My favorite character to love - Edgar; and my favorite character to hate - Gonoril.  I also like loyal subject of the kingdom, Kent.

4.  I did not find the language difficult. James Bond would have said, “Shaken, stirred not…”

5. No memorable lines (like To Be or Not Be etc) - the one line that transcends the play “nothing can come from nothing”.  And Vedanta and Buddhism would disagree 

6. He could have abdicated but with a different frame of mind

7. Cordelia was foolish. And The two older daughters were not entirely wrong

8. Ian McKellan.  OMG - tour de force … that movie is A+

9.  People are gullible …. Gee!!

10.  I prefer a different ending.  It turns out that for many decades plays would be staged were King Lear and youngest daughter Cordelia would be reconciled and live on - until more recently in modern times 

I am in that camp and moreover I think Edgar should have then married Cordelia and then All’s well that ends well❗️