Few love to hear the sins they love to act

He's got 99 problems and sea is definitely one.

Whenever you're feeling low, just read some of "The Painfull Aduentures of Pericles, Prince of Tyre" and you'll realize that your lot ain't that bad. Pericles gives Job a run for his money. He's shipwrecked, his wife dies, he gives up his daughter for adoption, vows not to shave, hears that his daughter is dead fourteen years later, and falls into nearly catatonic depression. Then this very hirsute gentleman is serenaded by his not-dead daughter and reunited with his not-dead wife and all is well. Only Doctor Who/Sherlock writers Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss write more infamously heartbreaking tales.

The story starts out innocently enough (or as innocently as Greek adventures go) with Antiochus' riddle. He offers his daughter's hand in marriage to whomever can solve it, but failure assures that the suitor's head will join the rest that so boldy furnish the anti feng-shui decor of the palace. Brave Pericles arrives and checks out the goods, then says he accepts the challenge of the riddle. He figures it out almost instantly: Antiochus is committing incest with his own daughter. This totally sinks Pericles' proverbial boat (he sinks his literal boat later), and he spouts this very subtle speech, delivered with a wink, which lets Antiochus know that the jig is up:

Pericles, Prince of Tyre, Act I, Sc. I

Pericles: Great king,

Few love to hear the sins they love to act;
'Twould braid yourself too near for me to tell it.
Who has a book of all that monarchs do,
He's more secure to keep it shut than shown:
For vice repeated is like the wandering wind.
Blows dust in other's eyes, to spread itself;
And yet the end of all is bought thus dear,
The breath is gone, and the sore eyes see clear:
To stop the air would hurt them. The blind mole casts
Copp'd hills towards heaven, to tell the earth is throng'd
By man's oppression; and the poor worm doth die for't.
Kings are earth's gods; in vice their law's their will;
And if Jove stray, who dares say Jove doth ill?
It is enough you know; and it is fit,
What being more known grows worse, to smother it.
All love the womb that their first being bred,
Then give my tongue like leave to love my head.

If music be the food of love, play on

Duke Orsino is in love with being in love. He's so hopelessly in love with it that he opines as he opens the play with his famous speech. It waxes with as apt a metaphor as any for that most coveted of emotional states, comparing love to plant life that must be fed--almost Audrey II-like--with so much nourishing music that it would rather die of being gorged than go without.

At the start of Twelfth Night, the Duke adores countess Olivia so much that he likens himself to a hart in the wood, passively and happily pursued by the "cruel hounds" of his desires. He lies back, awaiting Valentine, the messenger, to give him word of his beloved's condition. Unfortunately, she is so overwhelmed with grief over her brother's death that she swears to cloister herself in her chamber for seven years. Orsino, understanding and even exalting the depth of her passion expressed thusly, imagines how orgasmic things will be when she comes out of her funk and decides to focus all her affections on Orsino himself. 

For the Duke, the melancholy associated with spurned love is as exciting as love itself and he wallows in it for his own appetite's sake. He can't even get off his ass to woo this sad Olivia; he sends messengers--and even the cross-dressed Viola (calling herself Cesario)--to woo Olivia in his stead. He's so obsessed with being rejected and being in sickly sweet despair that he doesn't even notice that his boy Cesario is actually a woman who has fallen in love with him. Needless to say, all is well in the end, just as soon as the breeches and yellow cross-garters are set aside and everyone reveals their true selves.

Orsino would LOVE fandom culture if he were around today. Set him in front of a Netflix-connected TV and put on Downton Abbey or Sherlock or Doctor Who and he'll likely swoon with all the unrequited romances before him. Give him an iPad with fanfiction on it, and he'll definitely implode... or start a tumblr blog. Because being in a serious fandom is much like standing in a packed theatre watching a stirring play--they both give us an intimately shared emotional joyride. Smiles or tears, the feels alone are high fantastical.

Twelfth Night, Act I, Sc. I

Duke Orsino: If music be the food of love, play on;

Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
That strain again! it had a dying fall:
O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound,
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odour! Enough; no more:
'Tis not so sweet now as it was before.
O spirit of love! how quick and fresh art thou,
That, notwithstanding thy capacity
Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there,
Of what validity and pitch soe'er,
But falls into abatement and low price,
Even in a minute: so full of shapes is fancy
That it alone is high fantastical.

All the world's a stage

Benedict Cumberbatch's "jaguar curled inside a cello" voice is perfectly suited to at least two things in this world: rattling off impressive strands of Holmesian deductive observations and conclusions... and reciting Shakespeare. Those pipes are a gift from the Universe bestowed upon geeky anglophiles the world over. In the past year, his vocal talents have been tapped like a keg at a frat party, to the squeeing of all fangirls worth their fake British accents (such as me). SO of course, when Google made this advert showcasing both Ben's mellifluous timbre AND the epically famous (abridged) speech from As You Like It, I naturally had to memorize the fucker.

It's spoken by Jaques--a lord with an affected melancholy and a penchant for long discourses on how the world turns. He is one of the blokes who follows the exiled Duke into the Forest of Arden, where they semi-reluctantly philosophize on the superior, more "honest" life to be led within Nature's bosom, compared with the duplicitous existence to be found at court. The entire play is a commentary on the pros and cons of "the simple life" and that of the nobility, mostly played out in the woods, making it one of those popular "pastoral-comical" plays Polonius lists when the players arrive in Hamlet.

The Ages of Man was a cliché in Shakespeare's time, but the eloquence of the speech--spoken by someone little more than a jester--heightens its dramatic effectiveness and memorability. What tickles me about this speech is that, as Marjorie Garber points out in her book Shakespeare After All, the ages match up with the classical conceptions of the planets: mercurial boy, venereal lover, martial soldier, jovial justice, saturnine old man. And every age is marked by the sounds of their voices, my favorite being the lover "sighing like furnace." It's at once recognizable and absolutely truthful in its poetry.

P.S. Notice that some of the "friends" names in the advert are characters from the play! Corin, Sylvia, Celia, Audrey, Orlando, Phebe. The baby's name is William, as well. It's cute. Probably TOO cute.

As You Like It, Act II, Sc. VII

Jaques: All the world's a stage,

And all the 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. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart

That's right. Hamatio.

This marks my foray into the "songfic" so popular amongst fanfiction circles (keep them coming, BBC Sherlock slash lovers!). Generally, these one-shot stories are based on lyrics of the author's choosing, usually of schmaltzy, romantic, or particularly emo subject matter. I felt that Hamlet was overqualified for this writing task. The song is "I Trust You To Kill Me" by Rocco Deluca and The Burden. The poem is mine. I wish the OTP name was mine, but sadly, tis not. Enjoy.

By Caitlin, Sept. 17, 2010

Most loyal Horatio, I beg thee

though mine heart dost tether itself to thy

friendship, that most harbored of stoic craft

whose stately sail catches only the wind

that it wisely desires, and thus favors

starboard nor port; simple distinction this

world hath not, ample time this Dane hath not

to study the cold waves as thou can read,

to feel the dark flames as thou can tame

I possess not the bleak facility

to take life, much less my very own

In you, Horatio, I place the judge

of my sanity and my name’s honor

I trust you with my life, my stark essence;

that which can suffer no earthly peril

None can harm me that love me, and therefore

I trust you to kill me