HAMLET Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced own image, and the very age and body
body of the time
it to you, trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth his form and pressure. Now this overdone or come
it, as many of our players do, I had as lief the tardy off, though it makes the unskillful laugh,
town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air cannot but make the judicious grieve, the censure
too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently; of the which one must in your allowance o’erweigh
for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, a whole theater of others. O, there be players that I
whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and have seen play and heard others praise (and that
beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. O, highly), not to speak it profanely, that, neither
it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious, having th’ accent of Christians nor the gait of
periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted and
rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the bellowed that I have thought some of nature’s
most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable journeymen had made men, and not made them
dumb shows and noise. I would have such a fellow well, they imitated humanity so abominably.
whipped for o’erdoing Termagant. It out-Herods PLAYER I hope we have reformed that indifferently
Herod. Pray you, avoid it. with us, sir.
PLAYER I warrant your Honor. HAMLET O, reform it altogether. And let those that play
HAMLET Be not too tame neither, but let your own your clowns speak no more than is set down for
discretion be your tutor. Suit the action to the them, for there be of them that will themselves
word, the word to the action, with this special laugh, to set on some quantity of barren spectators
observance, that you o’erstep not the modesty of to laugh too, though in the meantime some necessary
nature. For anything so o’erdone is from the purpose question of the play be then to be considered.
of playing, whose end, both at the first and That’s villainous and shows a most pitiful ambition
now, was and is to hold, as ’twere, the mirror up to in the fool that uses it. Go make you ready.
nature, to show virtue her own feature, scorn her (Hamlet 3.2.1-47)
VERSE
The most common verse form Shakespeare employs is iambic pentameter: ‘penta’ meaning
five, ‘iamb’ meaning foot. There are five feet to a line that is made up of unstressed and
stressed syllables (u /). The iambic pentameter form is the closest to the natural patterns of
English speech and can sound like a heartbeat: de dum, de dum de dum, de dum, de dum.
This is different to hexameter which is a metrical line of verse consisting of six feet and
which was used for epic poetry in classical Greek and Latin literature.
iamb – unstressed, stressed (u /)
spondee – stressed, stressed (/ /)
trochee - stressed, unstressed (/ u)
anapest - a poetic foot of two short syllables followed by a long one ( u u /)
dactyl – stressed, unstressed, unstresses (/ u u)
TROCHEE
LEAR
And my poor fool is hanged. No, no, no life?
Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life,
And thou no breath at all? Thou ’lt come no more,
Never, never, never, never, never.—
Pray you undo this button. Thank you, sir.
Do you see this? Look on her, look, her lips,
Look there, look there! He dies.
(King Lear, 5.3.370-5)
SPONDEE
LADY MACBETH
Out, damned spot!
(Macbeth, 5.1.25)
OTHER METERS (examples from Midsummer Night’s Dream)
trochaic tetrameter – four trochees (/ u) in a line
FAIRY: Those be rubies, fairy favours (2.1.12)
/ u / u / u/ u
catalectic trochaic tetrameter – the last syllable is missing
FAIRY: I do wander everywhere (2.1.6)
/ u / u / u /
anapaestic dimeter – two anapests (u u /)
FAIRY: Over hill, over dale,
u u / u u /
Thorough bush, thorough briar, (2.1.2-3)
u u / u u /
iambic (u /) tetrameter lines – four feet
To dew her orbs upon the green. (2.1.9)
u / u / u / u /
FIRST WITCH
When shall we three meet again?
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
SECOND WITCH
When the hurly-burly’s done,
When the battle’s lost and won.
THIRD WITCH
That will be ere the set of sun.
FIRST WITCH
Where the place?
SECOND WITCH
Upon the heath.
THIRD WITCH
There to meet with Macbeth.
FIRST WITCH
I come, Graymalkin.
SECOND WITCH
Paddock calls.
THIRD WITCH
Anon.
ALL
Fair is foul, and foul is fair;
Hover through the fog and filthy air. (Macbeth 1.1)
Sonnet 12
When I do count the clock that tells the time
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night,
When I behold the violet past prime
And sable curls all silvered o’er with white;
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,
And summer’s green all girded up in sheaves
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard;
Then of thy beauty do I question make
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake
And die as fast as they see others grow;
And nothing ’gainst Time’s scythe can make defense
Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.
Sonnet 87
Farewell, thou art too dear for my possessing,
And like enough thou know’st thy estimate.
The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing;
My bonds in thee are all determinate.
For how do I hold thee but by thy granting,
And for that riches where is my deserving?
The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,
And so my patent back again is swerving.
Thy self thou gav’st, thy own worth then not knowing,
Or me, to whom thou gav’st it, else mistaking;
So thy great gift, upon misprision growing,
Comes home again, on better judgment making.
Thus have I had thee as a dream doth flatter,
In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.
HAMLET
To be, or not to be, that is the question,
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep--
No more--and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to? 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep;
To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil
Must give us pause.
(Hamlet, 3.1.64-76)
RHYTHM, SYLLABLES AND HEARTBEAT
MACBETH
If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well
It were done quickly. If th’ assassination
Could trammel up the consequence and catch
With his surcease success, that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all here,
But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,
We’d jump the life to come. But in these cases
We still have judgment here, that we but teach
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return
To plague th’ inventor. This even-handed justice
Commends th’ ingredience of our poisoned chalice
To our own lips. He’s here in double trust:
First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,
Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,
Who should against his murderer shut the door,
Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of his taking-off;
And pity, like a naked newborn babe
Striding the blast, or heaven’s cherubin horsed
Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
That tears shall drown the wind. (Macbeth, 1.7.1-27)
SHARED LINES
MACBETH
I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a noise?
LADY MACBETH
I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry.
Did not you speak?
MACBETH When?
LADY MACBETH Now.
MACBETH As I descended?
LADY MACBETH Ay.
MACBETH Hark! -- Who lies i’ th’ second chamber?
LADY MACBETH Donalbain.
MACBETH This is a sorry sight.
LADY MACBETH
A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight.
(2.2.19-29)
PROSE AND VERSE
TWELFTH NIGHT
Olivia and Viola (1.5.164-290 )
https://www.dramaonlinelibrary.com/playtext-detail?docid=do-97814081601
07&tocid=do-9781408160107-div-00000007&actid=do-9781408160107-div-
00000015
TWELFTH NIGHT
Olivia and Viola (1.5.164-290)
Orsino and Viola (2.4.15-124)
https://www.dramaonlinelibrary.com/playtext-overview?docid=do-9781408160107&tocid=do-978140
8160107-div-00000007
MACBETH
Lady Macbeth and Macbeth (2.2)
Macbeth (5.5.1-27)
https://www.dramaonlinelibrary.com/playtext-detail?docid=do-9781474251143&tocid=do-978147425
1143-div-00000029&actid=do-9781474251143-div-00000033
TEMPEST
Prospero, Caliban and Miranda (1.2.320-75)
Prospero (4.1.148-62 and Epilogue)
https://www.dramaonlinelibrary.com/playtext-detail?docid=do-9781408160183&tocid=do-978140816
0183-div-00000045&actid=do-9781408160183-div-00000050
