And this, on the shortest day of the year…

“Blow, blow, thou winter wind, thou art not so unkind as man’s ingratitude. ”
~William Shakespeare

The Morning after the Wedding…

“Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs.”

  ~William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

As soon go kindle fire with snow, as seek to quench the fire of love with words.

– William Shakespeare

‘Tis Time for Shakespeare

How like a winter hath my absence been

(Sonnet 97) by William Shakespeare

How like a winter hath my absence been

From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!

What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!

What old December’s bareness every where!

And yet this time remov’d was summer’s time;

The teeming autumn, big with rich increase,

Bearing the wanton burden of the prime,

Like widow’d wombs after their lords’ decease:

Yet this abundant issue seem’d to me

But hope of orphans and unfather’d fruit;

For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,

And, thou away, the very birds are mute:

Or, if they sing, ’tis with so dull a cheer,

That leaves look pale, dreading the winter’s near.

On Halloween…

The Witches’ Spell

Act IV, Scene 1 from Macbeth (1606) by William Shakespeare

A dark Cave. In the middle, a Caldron boiling. Thunder. Enter the three Witches. 1 WITCH. Thrice the brinded cat hath mew’d. 2 WITCH. Thrice and once, the hedge-pig whin’d. 3 WITCH. Harpier cries:—’tis time! ’tis time! 1 WITCH. Round about the caldron go; In the poison’d entrails throw.— Toad, that under cold stone, Days and nights has thirty-one; Swelter’d venom sleeping got, Boil thou first i’ the charmed pot! ALL. Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble. 2 WITCH. Fillet of a fenny snake, In the caldron boil and bake; Eye of newt, and toe of frog, Wool of bat, and tongue of dog, Adder’s fork, and blind-worm’s sting, Lizard’s leg, and owlet’s wing,— For a charm of powerful trouble, Like a hell-broth boil and bubble. ALL. Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble. 3 WITCH. Scale of dragon; tooth of wolf; Witches’ mummy; maw and gulf Of the ravin’d salt-sea shark; Root of hemlock digg’d i the dark; Liver of blaspheming Jew; Gall of goat, and slips of yew Sliver’d in the moon’s eclipse; Nose of Turk, and Tartar’s lips; Finger of birth-strangled babe Ditch-deliver’d by a drab,— Make the gruel thick and slab: Add thereto a tiger’s chaudron, For the ingrediants of our caldron. ALL. Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble. 2 WITCH. Cool it with a baboon’s blood, Then the charm is firm and good.

“Tongues in Trees”

“And this, our life, exempt from public haunt,

finds tongues in trees…. and good in everything.”

– William Shakespeare

Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”

The lunatic, the lover, and the poet
Are of imagination all compact.

(A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 5. 1)

 

“A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM” — Evansville (Indiana) Civic Theatre’s Shakespeare in the Park production, 6 p.m. daily June 26-28 in the park Fourth and Main streets. Admission free.