There is the modernized Romeo and Juliet with a young "dashing" Romeo, Leonardo Di Caprio, who, with hands down, dislodged Brad Pitt from my daughter’s pinup board.This current version features a contemporary, faddish city with the same warring families of the Montagues and the Capulets.
Instead of using Verona, Italy, as the place of conflict, the producers rehashed it as a fictitious "Verona Beach."Swords and harpoons were replaced by guns and knives as weapons of war and the soundtrack was MTV-inspired and digitally mastered to update the soporific lyres and harps.Castles were replaced by nouveau-riche mansions and estate villas while horses were substituted with mean and thunderous 12-cylinder convertibles. Instead of period gowns and "Little Lord Fauntleroy" knee-high socks, the protagonists wore miniskirts, retro blouses, leather vests, tee shirts, and jellied hairpieces. The only thing that remained faithful to Shakespeare was the dialogue which was kept very Elizabethan therefore authentic and original as penned by the master Bard himself.The famous balcony scene with the profusion of "wherefores," "art-thous," "thees" and other tongue-grooving P’s and F’s, as is wont to happen when one recites the dialogues of Romeo and Juliet, was kept intact.
Al Pacino, Hollywood ’s favorite Don Corleone, is a confirmed Shakespearean disciple himself.He came out with his funny and emotionally-charged movie version of Richard III entitled Looking for Richard.It was a drama full of power, lust and betrayal as Richard III plotted, connived, sowed intrigue and committed murder to snatch the throne from his brother.Pacino’s camera went on a free-spirited romp of the streets of New York interviewing pedestrians, students and your-everyday-man-on-the-street before proceeding to the reconstructed Globe Theatre in London, then on to the birthplace of William Shakespeare. Finally, after a series of open discussions and debates with his cast, crew and noted Shakespearean actors, he acted out in front of his camera the role of Richard III — the greedy and wicked monarch. Pacino’s version gave a cohesive, intimate picture of the characters as Shakespeare would have molded and envisioned them.
How well do we remember our Shakespeare?
If our favorite English professor would conduct a test today, would we be able to point out which phrases are attributed to Shakespeare and which ones have been confused or falsely accredited to him?More importantly, how many of them have we taken for granted?
Without being conscious about it and free from any boast, we have in fact been quoting Shakespeare all our lives. Some phrases have become so common that we use them easily as a kitchen appliance.
To prove my point, I gathered a selected list of familiar phrases and invite you to quiz yourself on how good your memory is. Don’t worry.If you find yourself suffering a lapse, half of the population would be in the same predicament.In short, memory-challenged and having a senior moment as well.
1) All the World’s a Stage…and all men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages. (As You Like It,Act 2, Scene 7.)
I can almost picture a majority of us humming Elvis Presley’s Are You Lonesome Tonight plus the short monologue filled with anguish that was really a direct quote from these famous lines. Fans go limp like rag dolls when they hear the deep, husky voice of Mr. Blue Suede Shoes himself.
My alternate source writes the phrase "all the world’s a stage" was already clichéd when Shakespeare wrote this play.The Bard likens the world to a "wide and universal theater" and notes the first age is infancy when the baby is sobbing and "puking" in his nurse’s arms while the last age is "second childishness" and complete senility.
To us, this is a tired and overused excuse resorted to by those who often interchange or categorize politics and the theater as one big on-location shoot.How many of us, however, have remained "babies" throughout the different stages of life?
2)The better part of valor is discretion… in which better part I have sav’d my life. (Henry the Fourth, Part I, Act 5, Scene 4.)
In the play, Sir John Falstaff, a gutless knight, fakes his death in order to escape real death on the battlefield. To save face, and excuse his cowardly act, he argues that valor or bravery is an image and one has got to stay alive in order to find more opportunities to cultivate that image.
How many lives could have been saved if only we exercised "restraint," temperance or discretion and kept our heads cool?Try saying this to motorists stuck along EDSA or the Alabang/Zapote junction.
3) Double, double, toil and trouble…fire burn, and cauldron bubble. (Macbeth, Act 4, Scene 1.)
The three Scottish witches were going about their business mixing a knockout brew from entrails, frog toes, lizard ears, etc. while waiting for the man they said would be king — Macbeth. The jumbling of words was only part of their incantation, yielding twice the work and twice the trouble for Macbeth, presumably.
I thought the prosthetic makeup we all wanted piled up on our faces was more memorable than these "lobol-lobol" tongue twisters we were made to memorize during the drama classes of the good old high school "Speak English campaign" days.
4) He hath eaten me out of House and Home. (Henry the Fourth, Part 2, Act 2, Scene 1.)
Again, it referred to the fat, obnoxious knight, Sir John Falstaff, who after eating voraciously refused to pay the bill.My professor in English believes that it also refers to someone who has "used up all of one’s provisions and (deprived too) one’s domestic comfort."And that brings it closer to home.
How many of us have faced unwanted and unexpected free-loading friends and relatives who descended on us en masse, giving no indication of how long they planned to stay? A clear case of abuse. Many times I’ve heard people sigh in frustration, "Oh, if only we could choose our relatives."
5) Every inch a King. (King Lear, Act 4, Scene 6.)
Nowadays, this phrase is taken at face value but Shakespeare meant it in dramatic terms, as a lie.King Lear slowly lost his wits after being stripped of power and dignity by his cruel daughters. Although he declared himself "every inch a king," he himself believed that it was only a delusion, a lame title.
So many of the pretenders to long-gone kingdoms in Europe still cling to mere titles of nobility; in much the same way as people who have lost their grip (on power and influence) still hang on to reflected illusions. We are lucky to remain un-titled, simple and uncomplicated folks.
6) For goodness sake. (Henry the Eighth, Scene 1.)
As this phrase became more and more common, it lost its status as an adverb and became a simple exclamation where we throw up our hands rather than urge any particular action for the sake of "goodness." We have modified this further to use "For Pete’s sake" (referring to St. Peter) which is still in line with referring to something akin or close to "goodness."The old school and typecast maiden aunts insist on the use of clean and wholesome expressions like this under threat of oral scrub with laundry soap.
7)Method in the madness. (Hamlet,Act 2, Scene 2.)
Hamlet was perceived to have gone mad by one of the numerous spies of King Claudius, Polonius.Polonius, however, recognizes that even in the seeming craziness of Hamlet’s speech, he has maintained a kind of artfulness and order. Hamlet was in fact only faking madness. When Hamlet spoke about the frailties of old age, he was making fun of Polonius without the latter being aware of it.
What goes on in the mind of a killer?He or she can act and look normal to get away with murder.In our crazy world, one never knows who has really gone stark raving mad. Pray you don’t live, or worse, sleep with one.
8) Parting is such sweet sorrow. (Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 2.)
This is Juliet’s famous line which is an oxymoron combining contradictory ideas of pleasure and pain.
You can be wistful and sad when saying goodbye to people you truly love or be a scalawag when the meaning behind your goodbye is really "good riddance."
9) If music be the food of love, play on… give me excess of it; that surfeiting, the appetite may sicken, and so die. (Twelfth Night,Act 1, Scene 1.)
The main character, Duke Orsino, has convinced himself that he’s insanely in love with a wealthy but unimpressed lady who was annoyed with him. The duke’s idea of a cure for his "unrequited" love was to stuff himself sick with his own passion.
We have no problem with this phrase because, if taken literally, there are many music stations to tune to. But for "goodness sake" (and for health reasons, too) choose soothing, relaxing, healing and happy music as opposed to loud and disturbing sounds.
10) To thine own self, be true. (Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 3.)
Polonius spoke these words to his son, Laertes, before he left on a boat to Paris.As he sees it, borrowing and lending money, living it up with women of dubious character, constitute being "false" to oneself or disadvantageous, at the least.By "true," he means one has to be "loyal to your own best interests."
There is wisdom in what Polonius advises. If you take care of yourself first, you will be in a position to take care of others. But the key word here is integrity.How can one preach wisdom and virtue when one is mired in deceit and abuse?
Look within and see the real picture.
These are just some of Shakespeare’s more famous and quotable words and phrases. Here are more:Good riddance, green-eyed monster, heart on my sleeve, an itching palm, knock, knock, who’s there? Laugh oneself into stitches, a lean and hungry look, what fools these mortals be, the marriage of true minds, masters of their fates, the milk of human kindness, more than kin and less than kind, neither a borrower nor a lender be, one fell swoop, pomp and circumstance, neither rhyme nor reason, sigh no more ladies sigh no more, something wicked this way comes, sweet to they sweet, wild goose chase, the world’s mine oyster, there is a tide in the affairs of men, strange bedfellows.
To those who have quoted Shakespeare all their lives and simply got carried away, I list below phrases mistakenly attributed to Shakespeare. As in the first list, I’d be happy to provide you with the background on each faux Shakespeare:
All that glitters is not gold, every dog will have his day, elbow room, mine own flesh and blood, laughing stock, fool’s paradise, out of the question, the long and short of it, the naked truth, I have not slept a wink.
I spent a long and vigorous night to put this list together but my work was made easy by Michael Macrone whose book with the same title proved to be my entertaining guide, and a great source of word reference.
To all the resurrected, potential and would-be masters of the Shakespearean language, a thousand times goodnight (another borrowed phrase).
You just can’t get away from Bill’s influence. He will continue to be everybody’s favorite appliance.