Dave the Gnome, you're response to our old pal gargoyle confirms that you are a great-hearted and robust soul who refuses to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune damge his jovial countenance. I think, whatever your opinion of old Will, he would have approved of you.

alanabit said "the only really loathsome villain in the whole of Shakespeare is the truly appalling, egocentric Hamlet. I wouldn't want him for a mate!" My response is that Shakespeare wrote few true villains. Iago comes closest. Most of the main characters in the Tragedies were examples of the standard dramatic conceit of "the tragic flaw" : For Macbeth it was ambition, for Othello Jealousy, and for Hamlet it was Indecision. I think Shakespeare understood too much about the ambiguity and depth of human nature to write any true villains. Shylock the Jew was stereotypically painted as avaricious, cunning, deceitful, and yet Shakespeare gave him one of the most impassioned speeches ever made in protest of prejudice and hatred...hath not a Jew eyes?