Your Noble Son is Mad

Listen to:

Your Noble Son is Mad (3:01)

by William Shakespeare 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

as Polonius

and with Bobby Ann Loper as Gertrude

from Hamlet, Act II, scene ii

LORD POLONIUS

My liege, and madam, to expostulate

What majesty should be, what duty is,

Why day is day, night night, and time is time,

Were nothing but to waste night, day and time.

Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,

And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,

I will be brief: your noble son is mad:

Mad call I it; for, to define true madness,

What is't but to be nothing else but mad?

But let that go.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

More matter, with less art.

LORD POLONIUS

Madam, I swear I use no art at all.

That he is mad, 'tis true: 'tis true 'tis pity;

And pity 'tis 'tis true: a foolish figure;

But farewell it, for I will use no art.

Mad let us grant him, then: and now remains

That we find out the cause of this effect,

Or rather say, the cause of this defect,

For this effect defective comes by cause:

Thus it remains, and the remainder thus. Perpend.

I have a daughter--have while she is mine--

Who, in her duty and obedience, mark,

Hath given me this: now gather, and surmise.

'To the celestial and my soul's idol, the most

beautified Ophelia,'--

That's an ill phrase, a vile phrase; 'beautified' is

a vile phrase: but you shall hear. Thus:

'In her excellent white bosom, these, & c.'

QUEEN GERTRUDE

Came this from Hamlet to her?

LORD POLONIUS

Good madam, stay awhile; I will be faithful.

'Doubt thou the stars are fire;

Doubt that the sun doth move;

Doubt truth to be a liar;

But never doubt I love.

'O dear Ophelia, I am ill at these numbers;

I have not art to reckon my groans: but that

I love thee best, O most best, believe it. Adieu.

'Thine evermore most dear lady, whilst

this machine is to him, HAMLET.'

This, in obedience, hath my daughter shown me,

And more above, hath his solicitings,

As they fell out by time, by means and place,

All given to mine ear.

Queen Mab

Painting by Johann Heinrich Fussli

Listen to:

Queen Mab (3:08)

by William Shakespeare  

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

William Shakespeare was most probably born this day in 1564
(inferred from his baptismal record April 26, 1564)

from Romeo and Juliet, Act I, scene iv

Romeo is on his way to crash the Capulet's party with a group of friends, including his best friend, Mercutio. They exchange this dialogue:

ROMEO

And we mean well in going to this mask;

But 'tis no wit to go.

MERCUTIO

Why, may one ask?

ROMEO

I dream'd a dream to-night.

MERCUTIO

And so did I.

ROMEO

Well, what was yours?

MERCUTIO

That dreamers often lie.

ROMEO

In bed asleep, while they do dream things true.

to which Mercutio answers:

MERCUTIO

O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.

She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes

In shape no bigger than an agate-stone

On the fore-finger of an alderman,

Drawn with a team of little atomies

Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep;

Her wagon-spokes made of long spinners' legs,

The cover of the wings of grasshoppers,

The traces of the smallest spider's web,

The collars of the moonshine's watery beams,

Her whip of cricket's bone, the lash of film,

Her wagoner a small grey-coated gnat,

Not half so big as a round little worm

Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid;

Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut

Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,

Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers.

And in this state she gallops night by night

Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;

O'er courtiers' knees, that dream on court'sies straight,

O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees,

O'er ladies ' lips, who straight on kisses dream,

Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,

Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are:

Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,

And then dreams he of smelling out a suit;

And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig's tail

Tickling a parson's nose as a' lies asleep,

Then dreams he of another benefice:

Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,

And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,

Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,

Of healths five-fathom deep; and then anon

Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes,

And being thus frighted swears a prayer or two

And sleeps again. This is that very Mab

That plats the manes of horses in the night,

And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs,

Which once untangled, much misfortune bodes:

This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,

That presses them and learns them first to bear,

Making them women of good carriage:

This is she--

The Mystery

Listen to:

The Mystery (1:28)

by Paul Laurence Dunbar 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

I was not; now I am—a few days hence
I shall not be; I fain would look before
And after, but can neither do; some Power
Or lack of power says “no” to all I would.
I stand upon a wide and sunless plain,
Nor chart nor steel to guide my steps aright.
Whene’er, o’ercoming fear, I dare to move,
I grope without direction and by chance.
Some feign to hear a voice and feel a hand
That draws them ever upward thro’ the gloom.
But I—I hear no voice and touch no hand,
Tho’ oft thro’ silence infinite I list,
And strain my hearing to supernal sounds;
Tho’ oft thro’ fateful darkness do I reach,
And stretch my hand to find that other hand.
I question of th’ eternal bending skies
That seem to neighbor with the novice earth;
But they roll on, and daily shut their eyes
On me, as I one day shall do on them,
And tell me not the secret that I ask.

What the Thrush Said

Wood Thrush photo by Bob Gress birdsinfocus.com

Listen to:

What the Thrush Said (1:02)

by John Keats 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

O Thou whose face hath felt the Winter’s wind,
Whose eye has seen the snow-clouds hung in mist,
And the black elm tops ’mong the freezing stars,
To thee the spring will be a harvest-time.
O thou, whose only book has been the light
Of supreme darkness which thou feddest on
Night after night when Phœbus was away,
To thee the Spring shall be a triple morn.
O fret not after knowledge—I have none,
And yet my song comes native with the warmth.
O fret not after knowledge—I have none,
And yet the Evening listens. He who saddens
At the thought of idleness cannot be idle,
And he’s awake who thinks himself asleep.

To the Immortal Memory of the Halibut

Listen to:

To the Immortal Memory of the Halibut (1:47)

by William Cowper 

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

To the Immortal Memory of the Halibut

on Which I Dined This Day

[Written in a letter to Unwin April 25, 1784.  Published by

     Johnson, 1824.]

Where hast thou floated, in what seas pursued

Thy pastime? when wast thou an egg new-spawn'd,

Lost in th' immensity of ocean's waste?

Roar as they might, the overbearing winds

That rock'd the deep, thy cradle, thou wast safe—

And in thy minikin and embryo state,

Attach'd to the firm leaf of some salt weed,

Didst outlive tempests, such as wrung and rack'd

The joints of many a stout and gallant bark,

And whelm'd them in the unexplor'd abyss.

Indebted to no magnet and no chart,

Nor under guidance of the polar fire,

Thou wast a voyager on many coasts,

Grazing at large in meadows submarine,

Where flat Batavia just emerging peeps

Above the brine,—where Caledonia's rocks

Beat back the surge,—and where Hibernia shoots

Her wondrous causeway far into the main.

—Wherever thou hast fed, thou little thought'st,

And I not more, that I should feed on thee.

Peace therefore, and good health, and much good fish,

To him who sent thee! and success, as oft

As it descends into the billowy gulph,

To the same drag that caught thee!—Fare thee well!

Thy lot thy brethern of the slimy fin

Would envy, could they know that thou wast doom'd

To feed a bard, and to be prais'd in verse.

Hallow'd Season

Listen to:

Hallow’d Season (:32)

by William Shakespeare

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long:
And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.

Marcellus in Hamlet, Act I, Scene 1

Speak the Speech

Charles Cattermole, Hamlet and the Players (1878)
Folger Digital Image Collection

Listen to:

Speak the Speech (3:09)
Hamlet's Advice to the Players

from Hamlet

by William Shakespeare

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Hamlet Act III, scene II

Hamlet advises the traveling players on how to perform the speech he has written for them to insert into the evening’s entertainment, The Murder of Gonzago.

HAMLET 

Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to

you, trippingly on the tongue: but if you mouth it,

as many of your players do, I had as lief the

town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air

too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently;

for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say,

the whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget

a temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it

offends me to the soul to hear a robustious

periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to

very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who

for the most part are capable of nothing but

inexplicable dumbshows and noise: I would have such

a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant; it

out-herods Herod: pray you, avoid it.

...

HAMLET 

Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion

be your tutor: suit the action to the word, the

word to the action; with this special o'erstep not

the modesty of nature: for any thing so overdone is

from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the

first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the

mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature,

scorn her own image, and the very age and body of

the time his form and pressure. Now this overdone,

or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful

laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the

censure of the which one must in your allowance

o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. O, there be

players that I have seen play, and heard others

praise, and that highly, not to speak it profanely,

that, neither having the accent of Christians nor

the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so

strutted and bellowed that I have thought some of

nature's journeymen had made men and not made them

well, they imitated humanity so abominably.

And let those that play

your clowns speak no more than is set down for them;

for there be of them that will themselves laugh, to

set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh

too; though, in the mean time, some necessary

question of the play be then to be considered:

that's villanous, and shows a most pitiful ambition

in the fool that uses it. Go, make you ready.

I Know Thee Not, Old Man

Tom Hiddleston as King Henry V in The Hollow Crown (2012)

Listen to:

I Know Thee Not, Old Man (2:06)

from Henry IV, Part II

by William Shakespeare

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Henry IV, part 2 – Act V, Scene 4

Prince Henry, having indeed redeemed himself in his father’s eyes,  

upon the death of his father now King Henry V, 

walks along a London street, where he passes Falstaff, 

his profligate former mentor of vices. 

The old sinner calls out piteously to him, 

“My king! my Jove! I speak to thee, my heart!” 

King Henry replies:

KING HENRY V 

I know thee not, old man: fall to thy prayers;

How ill white hairs become a fool and jester!

I have long dream'd of such a kind of man,

So surfeit-swell'd, so old and so profane;

But, being awaked, I do despise my dream.

Make less thy body hence, and more thy grace;

Leave gormandizing; know the grave doth gape

For thee thrice wider than for other men.

Reply not to me with a fool-born jest:

Presume not that I am the thing I was;

For God doth know, so shall the world perceive,

That I have turn'd away my former self;

So will I those that kept me company.

When thou dost hear I am as I have been,

Approach me, and thou shalt be as thou wast,

The tutor and the feeder of my riots:

Till then, I banish thee, on pain of death,

As I have done the rest of my misleaders,

Not to come near our person by ten mile.

For competence of life I will allow you,

That lack of means enforce you not to evil:

And, as we hear you do reform yourselves,

We will, according to your strengths and qualities,

Give you advancement. Be it your charge, my lord,

To see perform'd the tenor of our word. Set on.

I Will Redeem All This

Jeremy Irons as King Henry IV and Tom Hiddleston as Prince Hal in The Hollow Crown (2012)

Listen to:

I Will Redeem All This (2:09)

from Henry IV, Part I

by William Shakespeare

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

In Act 3, scene 2, Hal has audience with the king, his father. 

The prince’s lewd behavior, “barren pleasures and rude society” 

greatly pain his father, 

who accuses him of being more an enemy to him 

than Henry Percy, know as Hotspur, 

his rival for the throne. 

Thoroughly shamed by the accusation, 

Prince Hal answers his father:

PRINCE HENRY 

Do not think so; you shall not find it so:

And God forgive them that so much have sway'd

Your majesty's good thoughts away from me!

I will redeem all this on Percy's head

And in the closing of some glorious day

Be bold to tell you that I am your son;

When I will wear a garment all of blood

And stain my favours in a bloody mask,

Which, wash'd away, shall scour my shame with it:

And that shall be the day, whene'er it lights,

That this same child of honour and renown,

This gallant Hotspur, this all-praised knight,

And your unthought-of Harry chance to meet.

For every honour sitting on his helm,

Would they were multitudes, and on my head

My shames redoubled! for the time will come,

That I shall make this northern youth exchange

His glorious deeds for my indignities.

Percy is but my factor, good my lord,

To engross up glorious deeds on my behalf;

And I will call him to so strict account,

That he shall render every glory up,

Yea, even the slightest worship of his time,

Or I will tear the reckoning from his heart.

This, in the name of God, I promise here:

The which if He be pleased I shall perform,

I do beseech your majesty may salve

The long-grown wounds of my intemperance:

If not, the end of life cancels all bands;

And I will die a hundred thousand deaths

Ere break the smallest parcel of this vow.

I Know You All

Tom Hiddleston as Prince Hal in The Hollow Crown (2012)

Listen to:

I Know You All (1:46)

from Henry IV, Part I

by William Shakespeare

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Henry IV, Part I – Act I, scene ii – Prince Hal

Prince Henry, or Hal, the wayward son of Henry IV, 

wastes his afternoon bandying wits with Falstaff 

and his crew of low-lifes, 

even agreeing to accompany them 

in their plans for robbery. 

But when they leave the stage, 

Hal reveals his darker purpose – 

to cast them all aside when the time is ripe:

PRINCE HENRY 

I know you all, and will awhile uphold

The unyoked humour of your idleness:

Yet herein will I imitate the sun,

Who doth permit the base contagious clouds

To smother up his beauty from the world,

That, when he please again to be himself,

Being wanted, he may be more wonder'd at,

By breaking through the foul and ugly mists

Of vapours that did seem to strangle him.

If all the year were playing holidays,

To sport would be as tedious as to work;

But when they seldom come, they wish'd for come,

And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.

So, when this loose behavior I throw off

And pay the debt I never promised,

By how much better than my word I am,

By so much shall I falsify men's hopes;

And like bright metal on a sullen ground,

My reformation, glittering o'er my fault,

Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes

Than that which hath no foil to set it off.

I'll so offend, to make offence a skill;

Redeeming time when men think least I will.

This Was the Noblest Roman of Them All

Marlon Brando as Antony in Julius Caesar (1953)

Listen to:
This Was the Noblest Roman of Them All (:53)

from Julius Caesar

by William Shakespeare

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Act V, scene v

Antony’s word indeed stir the hearts of the people and civil war quickly breaks out, with Antony leading the charge against Brutus and Cassius. In the end, facing eminent defeat both Cassius and then Brutus run on their swords. When Antony encounters the body of Brutus, he speaks this eulogy:

ANTONY 

This was the noblest Roman of them all:

All the conspirators save only he

Did that they did in envy of great Caesar;

He only, in a general honest thought

And common good to all, made one of them.

His life was gentle, and the elements

So mix'd in him that Nature might stand up

And say to all the world 'This was a man!'

If You Have Tears

Marlon Brando as Antony in Julius Caesar (1953)

Listen to:
If You Have Tears (3:13)

from Julius Caesar

by William Shakespeare

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Act 3, scene 2

Antony, after much struggle to win over a hostile crowd, speaks to them over the body of Caesar:

ANTONY 

If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.

You all do know this mantle: I remember

The first time ever Caesar put it on;

'Twas on a summer's evening, in his tent,

That day he overcame the Nervii:

Look, in this place ran Cassius' dagger through:

See what a rent the envious Casca made:

Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabb'd;

And as he pluck'd his cursed steel away,

Mark how the blood of Caesar follow'd it,

As rushing out of doors, to be resolved

If Brutus so unkindly knock'd, or no;

For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar's angel:

Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar loved him!

This was the most unkindest cut of all;

For when the noble Caesar saw him stab,

Ingratitude, more strong than traitors' arms,

Quite vanquish'd him: then burst his mighty heart;

And, in his mantle muffling up his face,

Even at the base of Pompey's statua,

Which all the while ran blood, great Caesar fell.

O, what a fall was there, my countrymen!

Then I, and you, and all of us fell down,

Whilst bloody treason flourish'd over us.

O, now you weep; and, I perceive, you feel

The dint of pity: these are gracious drops.

Kind souls, what, weep you when you but behold

Our Caesar's vesture wounded? Look you here,

Here is himself, marr'd, as you see, with traitors.

ANTONY 

Good friends, sweet friends, let me not stir you up

To such a sudden flood of mutiny.

They that have done this deed are honourable:

What private griefs they have, alas, I know not,

That made them do it: they are wise and honourable,

And will, no doubt, with reasons answer you.

I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts:

I am no orator, as Brutus is;

But, as you know me all, a plain blunt man,

That love my friend; and that they know full well

That gave me public leave to speak of him:

For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth,

Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech,

To stir men's blood: I only speak right on;

I tell you that which you yourselves do know;

Show you sweet Caesar's wounds, poor poor dumb mouths,

And bid them speak for me: but were I Brutus,

And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony

Would ruffle up your spirits and put a tongue

In every wound of Caesar that should move

The stones of Rome to rise and mutiny.

O Pardon Me, Thou Bleeding Piece of Earth

Marlon Brando as Antony in Julius Caesar (1953)

Listen to:
O Pardon Me, Thou Bleeding Piece of Earth (1:51)

from Julius Caesar

by William Shakespeare

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

One by one, the conspirators plunge their daggers into Caesar’s body.

Antony, having fled the Capitol in horror at the assassination of Caesar, warily  returns and humbly presents himself to the conspirators, deftly winning their consent to deliver Caesar’s funeral oration. When the conspirators leave the stage, Antony is left alone with the body of Caesar.

ANTONY 

O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,

That I am meek and gentle with these butchers!

Thou art the ruins of the noblest man

That ever lived in the tide of times.

Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood!

Over thy wounds now do I prophesy,--

Which, like dumb mouths, do ope their ruby lips,

To beg the voice and utterance of my tongue--

A curse shall light upon the limbs of men;

Domestic fury and fierce civil strife

Shall cumber all the parts of Italy;

Blood and destruction shall be so in use

And dreadful objects so familiar

That mothers shall but smile when they behold

Their infants quarter'd with the hands of war;

All pity choked with custom of fell deeds:

And Caesar's spirit, ranging for revenge,

With Ate by his side come hot from hell,

Shall in these confines with a monarch's voice

Cry 'Havoc,' and let slip the dogs of war;

That this foul deed shall smell above the earth

With carrion men, groaning for burial.

I Could Be Well Moved

Louis Calhern in the title role of Julius Caesar from 1953 film

Listen to:
I Could Be Well Moved (:59)

from Julius Caesar

by William Shakespeare

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Act 3, scene 1
On the Ides of March, Caesar answers the plea of the conspirators for mercy on Publius Cimber.

CAESAR
I could be well moved, if I were as you:
If I could pray to move, prayers would move me:
But I am constant as the northern star,
Of whose true-fix'd and resting quality
There is no fellow in the firmament.
The skies are painted with unnumber'd sparks,
They are all fire and every one doth shine,
But there's but one in all doth hold his place:
So in the world; 'tis furnish'd well with men,
And men are flesh and blood, and apprehensive;
Yet in the number I do know but one
That unassailable holds on his rank,
Unshaked of motion: and that I am he,
Let me a little show it, even in this;
That I was constant Cimber should be banish'd,
And constant do remain to keep him so.

It Must Be By His Death

James Mason as Brutus from the film Julius Caesar (1953)

Listen to:
It Must Be By His Death (1:39)

from Julius Caesar

by William Shakespeare

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Act II, scene i

Later that evening, Brutus contemplates the action he must take against Caesar.

BRUTUS 

It must be by his death: and for my part,

I know no personal cause to spurn at him,

But for the general. He would be crown'd:

How that might change his nature, there's the question.

It is the bright day that brings forth the adder;

And that craves wary walking. Crown him?--that;--

And then, I grant, we put a sting in him,

That at his will he may do danger with.

The abuse of greatness is when it disjoins

Remorse from power: and, to speak truth of Caesar,

I have not known when his affections sway'd

More than his reason. But 'tis a common proof,

That lowliness is young ambition's ladder,

Whereto the climber-upward turns his face;

But when he once attains the upmost round.

He then unto the ladder turns his back,

Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees

By which he did ascend. So Caesar may.

Then, lest he may, prevent. And, since the quarrel

Will bear no colour for the thing he is,

Fashion it thus; that what he is, augmented,

Would run to these and these extremities:

And therefore think him as a serpent's egg

Which, hatch'd, would, as his kind, grow mischievous,

And kill him in the shell.

Well, Brutus, Thou Art Noble

John Gielgud as Cassius in Julius Caesar (1953)

Listen to:

Well, Brutus, Thou Art Noble (1:06)

from Julius Caesar

by William Shakespeare

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Promising to seriously consider Cassius’words, though wary of  intentions, Brutus leaves Cassius alone. Cassius speaks:

Well, Brutus, thou art noble; yet, I see,
Thy honourable metal may be wrought
From that it is disposed: therefore it is meet
That noble minds keep ever with their likes;
For who so firm that cannot be seduced?
Caesar doth bear me hard; but he loves Brutus:
If I were Brutus now and he were Cassius,
He should not humour me. I will this night,
In several hands, in at his windows throw,
As if they came from several citizens,
Writings all tending to the great opinion
That Rome holds of his name; wherein obscurely
Caesar's ambition shall be glanced at:
And after this let Caesar seat him sure;
For we will shake him, or worse days endure.

I Know That Virtue

John Gielgud as Cassius and James Mason as Brutus in Julius Caesar (1953)

Listen to:

I Know That Virtue (4:03)

from Julius Caesar

by William Shakespeare

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

As Caesar enters Rome, Brutus, a Roman senator, fears the people will appoint Caesar dictator for life and torn about the honorable action to take, listens to the words of Cassius, a fellow senator.

Act I scene 2

CASSIUS
I know that virtue to be in you, Brutus,
As well as I do know your outward favour.
Well, honour is the subject of my story.
I cannot tell what you and other men
Think of this life; but, for my single self,
I had as lief not be as live to be
In awe of such a thing as I myself.
I was born free as Caesar; so were you:
We both have fed as well, and we can both
Endure the winter's cold as well as he:
For once, upon a raw and gusty day,
The troubled Tiber chafing with her shores,
Caesar said to me 'Darest thou, Cassius, now
Leap in with me into this angry flood,
And swim to yonder point?' Upon the word,
Accoutred as I was, I plunged in
And bade him follow; so indeed he did.
The torrent roar'd, and we did buffet it
With lusty sinews, throwing it aside
And stemming it with hearts of controversy;
But ere we could arrive the point proposed,
Caesar cried 'Help me, Cassius, or I sink!'
I, as Aeneas, our great ancestor,
Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder
The old Anchises bear, so from the waves of Tiber
Did I the tired Caesar. And this man
Is now become a god, and Cassius is
A wretched creature and must bend his body,
If Caesar carelessly but nod on him.
He had a fever when he was in Spain,
And when the fit was on him, I did mark
How he did shake: 'tis true, this god did shake;
His coward lips did from their colour fly,
And that same eye whose bend doth awe the world
Did lose his lustre: I did hear him groan:
Ay, and that tongue of his that bade the Romans
Mark him and write his speeches in their books,
Alas, it cried 'Give me some drink, Titinius,'
As a sick girl. Ye gods, it doth amaze me
A man of such a feeble temper should
So get the start of the majestic world
And bear the palm alone.

…


CASSIUS
Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves.
Men at some time are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.
Brutus and Caesar: what should be in that 'Caesar'?
Why should that name be sounded more than yours?
Write them together, yours is as fair a name;
Sound them, it doth become the mouth as well;
Weigh them, it is as heavy; conjure with 'em,
Brutus will start a spirit as soon as Caesar.
Now, in the names of all the gods at once,
Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed,
That he is grown so great? Age, thou art shamed!
Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods!
When went there by an age, since the great flood,
But it was famed with more than with one man?
When could they say till now, that talk'd of Rome,
That her wide walls encompass'd but one man?
Now is it Rome indeed and room enough,
When there is in it but one only man.
O, you and I have heard our fathers say,
There was a Brutus once that would have brook'd
The eternal devil to keep his state in Rome
As easily as a king.

Wherefore Rejoice?

Listen to:

Wherefore Rejoice? (1:37)

from Julius Caesar

by William Shakespeare

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Act 1, Scene 1
The Scene is a street in Rome, 44 B.C.
As the commoners gather to celebrate the triumphant return of Julius Caesar, Marullus, a tribune,  rebukes them.

MARULLUS
Wherefore rejoice? What conquest brings he home?

What tributaries follow him to Rome,

To grace in captive bonds his chariot-wheels?

You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!

O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome,

Knew you not Pompey? Many a time and oft

Have you climb'd up to walls and battlements,

To towers and windows, yea, to chimney-tops,

Your infants in your arms, and there have sat

The livelong day, with patient expectation,

To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome:

And when you saw his chariot but appear,

Have you not made an universal shout,

That Tiber trembled underneath her banks,

To hear the replication of your sounds

Made in her concave shores?

And do you now put on your best attire?

And do you now cull out a holiday?

And do you now strew flowers in his way

That comes in triumph over Pompey's blood?
Be gone!
Run to your houses, fall upon your knees,

Pray to the gods to intermit the plague

That needs must light on this ingratitude.

Ulysses Degree Speech

Listen to:

Ulysses' Degree Speech (1:59)

by William Shakespeare

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

The Greek army has been fighting the Trojans for seven years. Camped out on the beaches, the soldiers are divided into factions contesting with one another. Ulysses, the cunning warrior, counsels the Lord Marshall Agamemnon on the need for unity along a hierarchical order and the dangers of disorderly organization.

from Troilus and Cressida
Act One, Scene Three

The heavens themselves, the planets and this centre
Observe degree, priority and place,
Insisture, course, proportion, season, form,
Office and custom, in all line of order;
And therefore is the glorious planet Sol
In noble eminence enthroned and sphered
Amidst the other; whose medicinable eye
Corrects the ill aspects of planets evil,
And posts, like the commandment of a king,
Sans cheque to good and bad: but when the planets
In evil mixture to disorder wander,
What plagues and what portents! what mutiny!
What raging of the sea! shaking of earth!
Commotion in the winds! frights, changes, horrors,
Divert and crack, rend and deracinate
The unity and married calm of states
Quite from their fixure! O, when degree is shaked,
Which is the ladder to all high designs,
Then enterprise is sick! How could communities,
Degrees in schools and brotherhoods in cities,
Peaceful commerce from dividable shores,
The primogenitive and due of birth,
Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels,
But by degree, stand in authentic place?
Take but degree away, untune that string,
And, hark, what discord follows! each thing meets
In mere oppugnancy: the bounded waters
Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores
And make a sop of all this solid globe:
Strength should be lord of imbecility,
And the rude son should strike his father dead ...

First Player's Speech from Hamlet

Listen to:

First Player's Speech from Hamlet (2:55)

by William Shakespeare

performed by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

Hamlet receives a troupe of traveling players to Elsinore. An avid fan of theatre, Hamlet requests from the leader of the troupe a "passionate speech," specifically Aeneas' tale to Dido. With just one false start, Hamlet begins the speech:

"The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable arms,

Black as his purpose, did the night resemble

When he lay couched in the ominous horse,

Hath now this black and dread complexion smear'd

With heraldry more dismal; head to foot 

Now is he total gules; horridly trick'd

With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons,

Bak'd and impasted with the parching streets,

That lend a tyrannous and damned light

To their vile murders: roasted in wrath and fire,

With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus

Old grandsire Priam seeks."

Then Hamlet tells the actor to continue the speech and the actor complies with:

First Player

'Anon he finds him
Striking too short at Greeks; his antique sword,
Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls,
Repugnant to command: unequal match'd,
Pyrrhus at Priam drives; in rage strikes wide;
But with the whiff and wind of his fell sword
The unnerved father falls. Then senseless Ilium,
Seeming to feel this blow, with flaming top
Stoops to his base, and with a hideous crash
Takes prisoner Pyrrhus' ear: for, lo! his sword,
Which was declining on the milky head
Of reverend Priam, seem'd i' the air to stick:
So, as a painted tyrant, Pyrrhus stood,
And like a neutral to his will and matter,
Did nothing.
But, as we often see, against some storm,
A silence in the heavens, the rack stand still,
The bold winds speechless and the orb below
As hush as death, anon the dreadful thunder
Doth rend the region, so, after Pyrrhus' pause,
Aroused vengeance sets him new a-work;
And never did the Cyclops' hammers fall
On Mars's armour forged for proof eterne
With less remorse than Pyrrhus' bleeding sword
Now falls on Priam.
Out, out, thou strumpet, Fortune! All you gods,
In general synod 'take away her power;
Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel,
And bowl the round nave down the hill of heaven,
As low as to the fiends!'

***

‘But who, O, who had seen the mobled queen
Run barefoot up and down, threatening the flames
With bisson rheum; a clout upon that head
Where late the diadem stood, and for a robe,
About her lank and all o'er-teemed loins,
A blanket, in the alarm of fear caught up;
Who this had seen, with tongue in venom steep'd,
'Gainst Fortune's state would treason have
pronounced:
But if the gods themselves did see her then
When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport
In mincing with his sword her husband's limbs,
The instant burst of clamour that she made,
Unless things mortal move them not at all,
Would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven,
And passion in the gods.'