Sassy Shakespeare: My favorite one-liners

There's a lot of these "Shakespearean insult generator" memes out there, where you choose one item from each column to create a sufficiently archaic-sounding verbal poo-fling. Gems such as "gleeking knotty-pated harpy" or "puking beef-witted apple-john" or "yeasty tardy-gaited moldwarp." Most of these sound more like Harry Potter incantations than insults.

As giggle-inducing as some of them are, they aren't genuine, actual lines from the plays. And after you'e heard some of the more pointed and exotic barbs, you begin to find it a tragedy that these colorful words and phrases aren't used more today. For example, I was irrationally tickled that the word "clotpole" is often utilized in one of my favorite BBC series: Merlin. Lear used it, as did Guderius in Cymbeline. Having encountered it before, and read about its very bawdy origins, I gasped when I heard it uttered in such a family-friendly TV show. Of course, no one outside an English Lit professor would normally pick up on it.

But it's not just the bawdy stuff I love. It's the clever throw-away lines and the chronically taken-out-of-context quotes that I've highlighted throughout my Complete Works that I feel could be useful in everyday conversation. Enjoy!

"I like this place, And willingly could waste my time in it."
--Celia, "As You Like It," Act II, Sc. IV

"You do assist the storm."
--Boatswain, "The Tempest," Act I, Sc. I

"In nature, there's no blemish but the mind; None can be call'd deform'd but the unkind."
--Antonio, "Twelfth Night," Act III, Sc. IV

"Some rise by sin and some by virtue fall..."
--Escalus, "Measure for Measure," Act II, Sc. I

"Scratching could not make it worse and 'twere such a face as yours were."
--Beatrice, "Much Ado About Nothing, Act I, Sc. I

"This is the fruit of rashness!"
--Gloster, "King Richard III," Act II, Sc. II

"He that loves to be flattered is worthy of the flatterer."
--Apemantus, "Timon of Athens," Act I, Sc. I

"For defect of judgment Is oft the cure of fear." 
--Belarius, "Cymbeline," Act. IV, Sc. II

"O, pardon me; For when no friends are by, men praise themselves."
--Lucius, "Titus Andronicus," Act V, Sc. III

"Where's hourly trouble for a minute's ease."
--Helicanus, "Pericles, Prince of Tyre," Act II, Sc. IV

"No sir, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir; but I do bite my thumb, sir."
--Sampson, "Romeo and Juliet," Act. I, Sc. I

"Most spend their mouths when what they seem Runs far before them."
--Dauphin, "King Henry V," Act II, Sc. IV

"Unquiet meals make ill digestions."
--Abbess, "The Comedy of Errors," Act V, Sc. I

"More matter with less art."
--Queen, "Hamlet," Act II, Sc. II

"Trifles light as air Are to the jealous confirmation strong As proofs of holy writ."
--Iago, "Othello," Act III, Sc. III

"...didst thou ever hear that things ill got had ever bad success?"
--King Henry VI, "3 King Henry VI," Act II, Sc. II

"'Tis no sin for a man to labour in his vocation."
--Falstaff, "1 King Henry IV," Act I, Sc. II

The Fig of Spain and other possible Shakespearean cocktails

A Joe Peretore creation

Several evenings last summer, while I was on yet another trip to the cocktail capital of the world, my self-styled bartender friend Joe enthusiastically presented me with a series of new spirited concoctions. It's always like an episode of Iron Chef with Joe--just give him a suggestion for an ingredient and he'll go to work, shaking or stirring up a fine potable for your enjoyment. One night, he ran out of raspberry preserves for something resembling a Clover Club, so he used a spoonful of fig preserves instead. He presented it to me with a slightly crestfallen aura; he was a father whose child had no name. So I took a sip and the first thing that tripped off my tongue was "Fig of Spain." It's an gonads-inspired hand gesture/ insult from Pistol in Henry V. I explained to Joe the term's bawdy origin and a new drink was born. 

While riding city busses and trains and planes that summer, I was always browsing through a Kindle book on my iPod called "Shakespeare's Bawdy" by Eric Partridge, which explains where my brain was at the time. I've always loved colorful turns of phrase, especially ones with clever, tasteful innuendo. Shakespeare is a master of the craft of penis and fart jokes. It's something I wish we could teach kids in high school so they wouldn't be so bored or put off by his plays. If they knew how truly foul-mouthed Mercutio was, or how often Romeo and his buddies talked about snatch, teenagers would relate to Shakespeare so much better. Alas, teaching them what Hamlet meant by telling Ophelia it would "cost a groaning" to take off his edge would be frowned upon in our pretends-to-be-Puritan society. But them's the breaks. 

Flipping through Joe's cocktail recipe books and noting the witty and often risqué names most of them were given, I quickly realized that Shakespeare was an endless mine of beverage monikers. Next time I'm in Brooklyn, I'll have to get Joe to make something called a "Carnal Sting" or perhaps a "Bed Presser." I'd love to try whatever might be called "Fortune's Favours," "Country Matters," or even "Beast with Two Backs." I'll be sure to share whenever we figure one out.

So in the tradition of my dear friend Elissa's Game of Thrones craft blog (which is really awesomesauce, so if you're into it check it out), I give you the recipe for one of my most favorite cocktails ever:

The Fig Of Spain (courtesy of Joe Peretore)

2 oz Beefeater Gin

3/4 oz lemon juice

1/2 oz simple syrup

1 egg white

1 teaspoon fig preserves

Shake all ingredients until your arms fall off.

Add ice until shaker is 3/4 full.

Shake until your heart gives out.

Strain into a saucer champagne glass. 

Sip and recite Shakespeare.

But if you mouth it: Notes on pronunciation

Forsooth.

I'm frequently entertained by tumblr. Sometimes, the posts surprise me with how insightful and clever they can be, and they always prove that Facebook and Pinterest will always be inferior due to their lack of GIFs. But there's one that shows up every so often regarding British accents. It claimed that Americans never stopped having a "British" accent, and that the current accent we regard as "British" is some over-poshified version of English developed over the centuries and that Shakespeare sounds "better" in an American (read: original British) accent.

Hold your diphthongs, there, glossophile. If American is the closest to Shakespeare's tongue, then why don't many of the rhymes in his sonnets work? Granted, even with a received pronunciation (RP) English accent, not all the rhymes work either, but this just proves there's 400 years of complex sociolinguistic history involved.

I recently came upon this short NPR story about Shakespeare's Accent. It features examples from the British Library's sound recording collection of Shakespeare's most famous scenes, as read by actors and actresses using an accent that is as close to the original as feasibly possible (90-95% accuracy). It results in a phonemic Rorschach test. It will sound familiar to almost any English speaker who hears it. It's not strictly any specific accent you'll ever hear, but if you have a sensitive ear, you'll recognize that it contains flecks of several regional British accents that contributed to what we think of as American (or even Australian) today.

I always challenge myself to guess where British actors come from just by listening to them. Then I check the IMDb and see how close I came. I once guessed that Richard Armitage came from somewhere close to Sheffield (South Yorkshire), because his vocals reminded me of Sean Bean. Richard's from Leicester after all, but I like to think that guessing within a two-county radius isn't bad for a non-native, non-linguistics graduate.

The truth is, Shakespeare sounds mellifluous, full stop. It's challenging to practice recitations in different accents. It serves to color the speech and give it a different emphasis. I'm no actress, but I have friends who are. (We've all had a go at pretending to be foreigners while we visit Disney parks as we were growing up. Orlando is the most anonymous place in Florida, where people come from all over the world, and fakers aren't likely to be given a second glance.)

If you're of the accent-loving clan, I recommend trying it yourself. Recite Hamlet in Scottish, or MacBeth in Irish. Or try Iago as a Southern belle. I dare you not to have fun.

Virtue? A fig!

Only Sir Olivier has the stones (and the talent) to play Othello in blackface. Do not try this at home, kids.

Every deceitful villain in literature, film, and pop culture has Iago's DNA in their blood. From Professor Moriarty to Loki, Dennis Nedry to Gollum, anyone who presents themselves as trustworthy while they smile and smile and work to betray our heroes has descended from that granddaddy of evil genius who could drive a man to murder with nought but a wave of a handkerchief. 

With 1097 lines,* Iago is third only to Richard III (1152) and Hamlet (1422) in pure lung power (per play... Hal/Henry V, whose breath sweeps through three plays, has over 1800 lines, and Falstaff has over 1600 in his three appearances). What does he accomplish with all this vocal ability, other than a whole lot of soap operatic trouble?

As with all Shakespearean villains, he speaks hard truths that cannot be cast aside with all his lies. The speech I chose strikes me as one of those particularly obvious observations of human nature. He is honest after all, since Iago is well aware that he is a perfect example of one who has chosen to sow his own seeds of villainy. He is the quintessential example of how WRONG Polonius** is when he utters   

"To thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man." Iago is true to himself, and yet is false to everyone. 

After all his silver-tongued philosophizing, one line haunts me the most. It's Iago's final line in the play, directed at Othello after Iago's one-man complot has been exposed: 

"Demand me nothing; what you know, you know:

From this time forth I never will speak word."

Lodovico's immediate response is "What, not to pray?" and Gratiano grumbles "Torments will ope your lips." But Othello stares at Iago and says "Well, thou dost best."

Iago's felt slighted the entire time, ever since Othello made Cassio his lieutenant, and perhaps even before that, as this line suggests. They appear to have a secret between them, and despite Iago's attempt to ruin Othello's good name, when Iago's honesty is finally stained, the bastard decides to zip his lip. What  have they seen and done together in their battles and voyages? What makes Iago loathe and love Othello so much? Why do I love Iago more than Polonius? Because in the end, Iago is honest.

Othello, Act I, Sc. III

Iago: Virtue! a fig! 'tis in ourselves that we are thus

or thus. Our bodies are our gardens, to the which
our wills are gardeners: so that if we will plant
nettles, or sow lettuce, set hyssop and weed up
thyme, supply it with one gender of herbs, or
distract it with many, either to have it sterile
with idleness, or manured with industry, why, the
power and corrigible authority of this lies in our
wills. If the balance of our lives had not one
scale of reason to poise another of sensuality, the
blood and baseness of our natures would conduct us
to most preposterous conclusions: but we have
reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal
stings, our unbitted lusts, whereof I take this that
you call love to be a sect or scion.

*The actual numbers of lines depend on the version/edition you read, but you get the idea.
**I fucking HATE this quote because everyone uses it out of context and they never seem to realize that everyone in Shakespeare's time understood it to be an empty, banal platitude worthy of so much eye-rolling.