Category: Movies

‘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 […]

“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 […]

‘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 […]

“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 […]

“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 […]

‘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 […]

“I left no ring with her” (Twelfth Night) In the kingdom of Illyria, a nobleman named Orsino lies around listening to music, pining away for the love of Lady Olivia. He cannot have her because she is in mourning for her dead brother and refuses to entertain any proposals of marriage. Meanwhile, off the coast, […]

Continuing our research into the voices of Shakespeares’ women we return to ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ and to the words of one of the main female protangonists – Helena. Again there is a paucity of clips of this speech, and so we rely mainly on what appear to be audition tapes, however the extract featuring […]

From the words of Portia, a woman who had to disguise herself as a male lawyer to be heard, to the words of Titania, the Queen of the Fairies in her battle of words with her husband Oberon in Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. Interestingly there a fewer versions of this speech to be found […]

I think it is time that we heard a woman’s voice in our collection of Bard Words. “The quality of mercy” is a speech given by Portia in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice (Act 4, Scene 1). In the speech, Portia, disguised as a male lawyer, begs Shylock, the Jewish moneylender who has demanded a […]