Passages in Early Modern English
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘Passages in Early Modern English’
In The Copybook
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘Passages in Early Modern English’
In The Copybook
Brutus tells Cassius to act while everything is going his way, or be left with nothing but regrets.
Brutus, Caesar’s assassin, is urging Cassius to march on Philippi to meet Octavius (Octavian) and Anthony in the struggle for power in Rome. Cassius is reluctant, but Brutus argues that it must be now or never.
With King John dead and the threat of invasion fading, Philip Faulconbridge reflects that the danger within is always greater than the danger without.
At the end of William Shakespeare’s play The Life and Death of King John, written in about 1594-96, the King has just died an untimely death; with him has died the threat of a French invasion, and John’s heir Henry has returned home to England to assume the crown. Henry’s cousin Philip Faulconbridge heaves a sigh of relief, and draws an optimistic moral from all that has gone before.
Shylock is savouring revenge on Antonio for years of disgusting mistreatment, but the judge warns him to temper his demands.
In The Merchant of Venice, Antonio has helped his friend Bassanio by borrowing from a Jewish moneylender named Shylock. Antonio has always treated Shylock with disgusting scorn, so when he defaults on his bond Shylock goes gleefully to court to enforce the grisly penalty agreed: a pound of flesh — unaware that Bassanio’s wife Portia has pulled some strings and will judge the case herself, in disguise of course.
Standing on the dockside with Laertes, who is eager to board ship for Paris, Polonius takes a moment to share some fatherly wisdom.
Early in William Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet, probably written around 1599-1601, Laertes is due to leave Denmark for France; he had returned home only briefly for the coronation of King Claudius, Hamlet’s uncle and step-father. As Laertes goes aboard, his father Polonius gives him his affectionate blessing, and with it a generous helping of common sense.
William Shakespeare in sombre mood clings to love as the only changeless thing in a world of decay.
Sonnet 116 was published in 1609, when William Shakespeare was forty-five and still working as an actor in London. The capital was ravaged that year by particularly relentless outbreaks of plague, which perhaps helps to explain the sombre tone of his poem about love, the one constant in a world of sickness, age and death.
Sir Thomas Smith, one of Elizabeth I’s diplomats, explains how in her day criminals were brought to trial.
In the 1560s, Sir Thomas Smith wrote a guide to the Kingdom of England, in which he detailed some of the country’s customs and laws. Among them, was the ‘hue and cry’, the pursuit and apprehension of thieves and murderers, which was not the responsibility of law officers only, but the collective responsibility of all.
Rosalind explains to Orlando that Time moves at different paces depending on who you are.
William Shakespeare’s As You Like It is believed to be the play that opened the New Globe theatre in 1599. After Frederick usurped the throne of his brother Duke Senior (so the story goes) he exiled his own daughter Rosalind for disobedience. Disguised as a boy, Rosalind fled to the Forest of Arden only to run into a long-time admirer, Orlando. To hide her confusion, and still incognito, she accosts him ‘like a saucy lackey’.