BS: Everyday Shakespeare

Subject: RE: BS: Everyday Shakespeare
From: robomatic
Date: 01 Oct 09 - 04:56 PM

Done by one of great wit (obviously not moi-meme):
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Pulp Fiction Done by Shakespeare
J: And know'st thou what the French name cottage pie?
V: Say they not cottage pie, in their own tongue?
J: But nay, their tongues, for speech and taste alike
Are strange to ours, with their own history:
Gaul knoweth not a cottage from a house.
V: What say they then, pray?
J: Hachis Parmentier.
V: Hachis Parmentier! What name they cream?
J: Cream is but cream, only they say le crème.
V: What do they name black pudding?
J: I know not;
I visited no inn it could be bought.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

J: My pardon; did I break thy concentration?
Continue! Ah, but now thy tongue is still.
Allow me then to offer a response.
Describe Marsellus Wallace to me, pray.
B: What?
J: What country dost thou hail from?
B: What?
J: How passing strange, for I have traveled far,
And never have I heard tell of this What.
What language speak they in the land of What?
B: What?
J: The Queen's own English, base knave, dost thou speak it?
B: Aye!
J: Then hearken to my words and answer them!
Describe to me Marsellus Wallace!
B: What?
JULES presses his knife to BRETT's throat
J: Speak 'What' again! Thou cur, cry 'What' again!
I dare thee utter 'What' again but once!
I dare thee twice and spit upon thy name!
Now, paint for me a portraiture in words,
If thou hast any in thy head but 'What',
Of Marsellus Wallace!
B: He is dark.
J: Aye, and what more?
B: His head is shaven bald.
J: Has he the semblance of a harlot?
B: What?
JULES strikes and BRETT cries out
J: Has he the semblance of a harlot?
B: Nay!
J: Then why didst thou attempt to bed him thus?
B: I did not!
J: Aye, thou didst! O, aye, thou didst!
Thou hoped to rape him like a chattel whore,
And sooth, Lord Wallace is displeased to bed
With anyone but she to whom he wed.

Subject: RE: BS: Everyday Shakespeare
From: Joe_F
Date: 30 Sep 09 - 09:13 PM

Dry, or, Twelfth Night
Wet, or, A Midsummer Night's Dream
3", or, Much Ado about Nothing
6", or, As You Like It
9", or, The Taming of the Shrew
Abortion, or, Love's Labour's Lost

Subject: RE: BS: Everyday Shakespeare
From: GUEST,MarkS (on the road)
Date: 30 Sep 09 - 07:17 PM

Actually, all English speakers quote Shakespeare every day, without really knowing it.

"Sound and fury"
"Frailty.............woman"{
"Once more unto the breach"
"More in sorrow than in anger"
Have some fun - lets see how many other examples of "Shakespeak" we can come up with!

Mark

Subject: RE: BS: Everyday Shakespeare
From: Donuel
Date: 30 Sep 09 - 06:27 PM

Virginia Tam

I enjoyed that very much.

If I were to write a rather vulgar one sentence paraphrase of your beautiful sonnet...


Shut up and kiss me already!

Subject: RE: BS: Everyday Shakespeare
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 30 Sep 09 - 04:18 PM

Ages ago for a course on Shakespeare, I wrote a sonnet in response to Sonnet 128

SONNET 128
How oft, when thou, my music, music play'st,
Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds
With thy sweet fingers, when thou gently sway'st
The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,
Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap
To kiss the tender inward of thy hand,
Whilst my poor lips, which should that harvest reap,
At the wood's boldness by thee blushing stand!
To be so tickled, they would change their state
And situation with those dancing chips,
O'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,
Making dead wood more blest than living lips.
    Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,
    Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.



THE DARK LADY'S RESPONSE
T'give you my lips to kiss, I would. Thou say'st
I may give fingers to make music's rounds.
But love's sweet words which from thy lips now play'st
Tis music sweeter far than from me sounds.
Jealous I of words that senty do keep
My lips from thy lips. Words as wardens stand.
They fright off my advances and plunge me deep
In blushing timidity. Thy lips command.
My kisses with thy words would change their state
If thou would'st bid "Be still!" to thy glib lips.
"Loquacity is love's enemy," thou prate,
Yet see'st not how love o'er endless words trips.
    Since thou relish in words and not my kiss,
    Music thy word is. My lot is to list'.


Took me about 15 minutes to write. I was quite chuffed.

Subject: RE: BS: Everyday Shakespeare
From: Amos
Date: 30 Sep 09 - 03:14 PM

That last one really is a sorry twist on the original.

Subject: RE: BS: Everyday Shakespeare
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Sep 09 - 02:26 PM

"Am I or aren't I, that's what I ask myself" from a Terry Thomas rewrite of Hamlet back in 1950s.

Subject: RE: BS: Everyday Shakespeare
From: HuwG
Date: 30 Sep 09 - 12:46 PM

Duncan: What bloody man is that?

God, these extras!

...


Macbeth: Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Elton John Goodbye English Rose/ May you ever grow in our hearts/ You were the grace that placed itself/ Where lives were torn apart Excuse me ... bleaagh!

...

Macbeth: Thou losest labour: as easy mayst thou the intrenchant air with thy keen sword impress, as make me bleed: Let fall thy blade upon vulnerable crests; I bear a charmed life, which must not yield to one of woman born.

Nah, nah, nah nahner!

Macduff Despair thy charm; and let the angel whom thou hast served tell thee, Macduff was from his mother's womb untimely ripp'd

Oh, shit!

Subject: RE: BS: Everyday Shakespeare
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 30 Sep 09 - 11:24 AM

His plots were not 'nicked' so much as recycled. It is only recently that originality of plot was even expected: all Greek drama, for instance, put new spins and twists on the well-known traditional stories, so that we have a version of the Electra story from all three of Æschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. They would no doubt all have written versions of all the stories, but most are lost. In our own time, similar reworkings have been done by Giraudoux, Anouilh, Arthur Miller ... And, as Doktor Doktor points out, musicals based on Shax plays, in turn based on Plutarch, Holinshed, whoever, are legion.

Subject: RE: BS: Everyday Shakespeare
From: Doktor Doktor
Date: 30 Sep 09 - 10:20 AM

Archaic it ain't - the language conveys its meaning much better in the original to my mind. Great to see The Good Dr McGrath in full and righteous defence, too.

What really marks the bard out is the way his plots* lend themselves to adaptation - West Side Story for a start.

Got to go now - looking for a handsaw on freecycle. Wish me luck, last time I tried I ended up with a Perigrine Falcon.

*plots as distinct from stories - most of the components were nicked - but its the way they're woven together that does the magic. The dear old lad would have had overpaid copyright attorneys suing his ass off if he'd written the stuff in our time.

Subject: RE: BS: Everyday Shakespeare
From: Peter T.
Date: 30 Sep 09 - 08:05 AM

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
creeps in its petty pace from day to day
until the last syllable of recorded time,
and all our yesterdays have lighted fools
the way to dusty death.
Out out brief candle,
Life's but a walking shadow,
a poor player who struts and frets his hour
upon the stage and then is heard no more -- it is a
tale told by an idiot,
full of sound and fury,
signifying nothing.

None of that seems remotely archaic.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Everyday Shakespeare
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 30 Sep 09 - 02:04 AM

You reckon so, Meself? Just try checking every quote of 'Wherefore art thou?' or every ref to MofV you come across & see how many get it right! I mean, for a start, just look at the 'Wherefore' efforts above that provoked McGrath's post to which I was responding. So McGrath knows, & you know, & I know. Let's see how many more as the thread goes on...

Just one for·instance: a cartoon in The Spectator a few months ago, showing Juliet seated at her desktop, with 'Search — Romeo, Romeo' on the screen. And that is supposed to be a journal for the educated...

So there's for thee, Mercutio!

Subject: RE: BS: Everyday Shakespeare
From: meself
Date: 29 Sep 09 - 11:25 PM

You don't credit us with much intelligence, let alone education, do you Signor Benedick? You are like one of those fellows who goes into a tavern, claps me his sword on the table, saying God grant me no need of thee!, and by the drawing of the second cup has drawn upon the drawer.

Subject: RE: BS: Everyday Shakespeare
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 29 Sep 09 - 10:47 PM

THANK YOU, McGrath of Harlow — Why [or 'wherefore'] can nobody ever get it into their heads that 'Wherefore art thou Romeo?' DOESN'T mean 'Where are you, Romeo?'; it means 'WHY do you have to be called "Romeo"' [and so one of the other lot]? Juliet goes on 'Tis but thy name that is my enemy.'

It goes with the other vulgarity, that 'the Merchant of Venice' was Shylock. Of course, the eponymous dealer was Antonio — the whole point of the play is that Jews couldn't BE merchants so had to lend money to make a living at all.

Oh, what's the use. "I wonder you would still be talking, Signor Benedick. Nobody marks you."

Subject: RE: BS: Everyday Shakespeare
From: Peace
Date: 29 Sep 09 - 09:27 PM

From Shakespeare's Richard III, 1591/2:

CATESBY:
Rescue, my Lord of Norfolk, rescue, rescue!
The king enacts more wonders than a man,
Daring an opposite to every danger:
His horse is slain, and all on foot he fights,
Seeking for Richmond in the throat of death.
Rescue, fair lord, or else the day is lost!

Modern: The King needs a horse or night will fall [the day is lost].

KING RICHARD III:
A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!

Modern: He means it!

CATESBY:
Withdraw, my lord; I'll help you to a horse.

Modern: Freakin' ace.

Subject: RE: BS: Everyday Shakespeare
From: Bill D
Date: 29 Sep 09 - 09:04 PM

"Alas, poor Yorrick...I knew him, Horatio."

"See, Horatio? I TOLD the boy he couldn't jump all the way over that vat of acid..hmmm..do you think his hats would fit me?"

Subject: RE: BS: Everyday Shakespeare
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Sep 09 - 07:07 PM

"Romeo Romeo where for art thou Romeo..."

should surely be something more on the lines of

"Your name bugs me..."

Subject: RE: BS: Everyday Shakespeare
From: Acorn4
Date: 29 Sep 09 - 06:30 PM

"To be or not to be?" =

"Yer know worra mean like, innit?"

Subject: RE: BS: Everyday Shakespeare
From: Acorn4
Date: 29 Sep 09 - 06:28 PM

But we all know that Obama nicked his most famous speech from Bob the Builder:-

Can we fix it? Yes we can!

Subject: RE: BS: Everyday Shakespeare
From: Wesley S
Date: 29 Sep 09 - 05:13 PM

A rose by any other name....

E tu Brutis?

Subject: RE: BS: Everyday Shakespeare
From: Amos
Date: 29 Sep 09 - 05:12 PM

I think it would be an excellent project. For someone.

Bit ain't me, babe, it ain't me you're lookin' for. Babe.

;>)



A

Subject: BS: Everyday Shakespeare
From: Donuel
Date: 29 Sep 09 - 04:09 PM

English is not spoken as well as it used to be. We have ebonics, unglish and spanglish but seldom is there english with the gravity of Shakespeare. Obama gives me hope for english. He gets the point across very well yet he rarely,if ever, uses a poetic flourish. I noticed whenever I paraphrase Shakespeare I get some nasty looks.
Actually I always get nasty looks but it goes to show that its not what you say but how you say it.

If music be the food of love, play on.
Hey if those tunes get you laid, turn it up.

There are far far stranger things...
Shit if I know

Romeo Romeo where for art thou...
Hey if you get my text, lets hook up at...

A horse a horse my kingdom for...
A signal a signal I'd give anything for a god damn cell phone signal.


I was wondering if someone has done prosaic or profane Shakespearean plays or sonnets, or even just a list of Shakespearean sayings in our current day vernacular. ?