“What Angel wakes me from my flowery bed?” (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) In Bard Words (19) Oberon, King of the Fairies instructed his henchman Robin Goodfellow (Puck) to obtain a the juice of a rare flower and with it to anoint the eyes of Titania, the Fairy Queen. The effect of this juice is to […]
The Magpies – Undertow
I am delighted to be able to post a review of the latest offering from The Magpies. This is their second album and the first since the departure of Polly Bolton and the welcome addition of Kate Griffin. The album displays the growing maturity of the group and a tighter more balanced sound with the […]
Bard Words (19)
“I know a bank where the wild thyme blows” (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) Today we return to Shakespeare’s ‘Dream’ in which we find a tangled knot of lovers. Hermia is ordered by her father, to marry Demetrius, who is loved by Helena, but Hermia loves Lysander. The star-crossed pair decides to flee the forest, followed […]
Bard Words (18)
‘Make me a willow cabin at your gate‘ (Twelfth Night) Viola (in her disguise as Cesario) delivers this speech to Olivia after Orsino has sent her to carry his messages of love to Olivia. In this speech, however, Cesario sets aside the prepared messages and instead tells Olivia what he would do if he were […]
Bard Words (17)
‘O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!’ (Hamlet): Hamlet exclaims in one of his more despairing soliloquies in Shakespeare’s play. But what prompts him and what does he say in this important speech in the play? Hamlet’s soliloquy comes in act 2 scene 2, shortly after he has spoken with the players or […]
Bard Words (16)
“What a piece of work is a man” (Hamlet) In the play the prince is visited by two fellow university students, brought to Elsinore by Hamlet’s murderous uncle, to spy on him. They find him depressed and spiritually paralysed. He tells them that ‘I… have lost all my mirth, foregone all customs and exercise.’ The […]
Bard Words (15)
‘Hath not a Jew eyes?’ (The Merchant of Venice) is one of Shylock’s most important and memorable speeches in the play (Act 3 Scene 1). The play revolves in part around the debt Antonio (the actual merchant of Venice) owes to Shylock; since Antonio has failed to pay up, Shylock argues that, in accordance with […]
Bard Words (14)
“What is honour?” (Henry IV). Though it is one of the principal themes of the play, the concept of honour is never given a consistent definition in 1 Henry IV. In fact, the very multiplicity of views on honour that Shakespeare explores suggests that, in the end, honour is merely a lofty reflection of an […]
Bard Words (13)
“No matter where; of comfort no man speak. Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs; “ (Richard II) Yesterday we heard John of Gaunt reflect on the calamity that faced England when ruled by a weak king who was blinded by power and the trappings of office, without regard for the lives of his […]
Bard Words (12)
‘This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle’ is part of one of the best-known speeches in William Shakespeare’s plays. It is delivered by John of Gaunt as he is dying. The speech alludes to the excesses of King Richard II. Gaunt loves his country and uses his dying words to mourn “her” fate in […]