Articles In This Issue Page 1: Pat Farrell Page 3: SABOR Column Page 7: The Way I See It Featuring Cathey Meyer Page 13 Associate Spotlight Featuring Directions Home Loan Page 17: NARPM Column Page 22 & 23: Newsflash
Vol.VI, No.8
www.realestatenewsline.com
August 2020
Do You Realize Just How Often You Quote The Bard? By: Pat Farrell
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Although none of the plays, sonnets or poems of William Shakespeare (The Bard) were published during his lifetime, without a doubt his works are the most well remembered and most quoted of many other authors of his time. Unfortunately, there have been so few records found that would give one a full picture of Shakespeare’s life. There is documentation for when he was baptized on April 26, 1564 so it is assumed that he was born on the 23rd since the custom of the time was to baptize a child three days after birth. His wedding to a 26-year-old pregnant woman, Anne Hathaway, when he was 18 is on record as is the birth of their three children, Susanna and twins Hamnet and Judith. There is also some evidence that he may have been sought by the authorities in connection with cattle rustling during his youth. His burial is also documented as April 25, 1616 which again assumes, since burials at the time occurred two days after death, that he died on his 52nd birthday,
April 23, 1616. Shakespeare was the third of eight children born to John Shakespeare, who was a glovemaker and leather tanner and held numerous positions in the city government and his wife Mary Shakespeare (nee Arden). Although his wife and children remained in his hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon, Will, as he was known to close associates moved to London where he became part owner and member of a theater group known as “Lord Chamberlain’s Men.” Shakespeare, in addition to writing plays for the group was also an actor performing before Queen Elizabeth I and later before King James I, who appointed the members of the group ‘Grooms of Chamber’ and the company’s name changed to the “Kings Men.” Between the years 1592 – 1594 the plague had overtaken Europe so that all theaters in London were closed for that entire period and since there was no demand for plays that is when Shakespeare wrote his sonnets. Even though you may never have read any of Shakespeare’s plays, and he wrote at least 37, or any of his 154 sonnets you may, perhaps unbeknownst to you, be quoting the Bard. Have you or someone you know ever gone out to your car in the morning only to find that it would not start? Surely you described it as “dead as a doornail” which is straight out of his play “Henry VI.” Most children along with a friend or perhaps their parents have played the knock, knock game as in “Knock, knock, who’s there?” from Macbeth. How about your aunt who was always saying oh, “for goodness sake” (from Henry VIII) but in any case she had a “heart of gold” (from Henry V). According to the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations almost one tenth of the most quoted lines ever written or spoken in English were written by Shakespeare. The only writers whose material is quoted more, according
to the Literature Encyclopedia, are the writers of the bible. Two of his plays, King John and Richard II are written completely in verse and in several of the others only half of them are in prose. Two of his plays, Cardenio and Love’s Labor Won were lost and it is suspected that there may be others. And for you Trekies, Much Ado About Nothing and Hamlet have been translated into Klingon by the Klingon Language Institute who plan to translate more of them. And, on the subject of language, the Oxford English Dictionary credits Shakespeare with introducing up to 3,000 new words to the English Language. You can describe someone as impartial, sanctimonious, generous, frugal, pious, laughable, supportive, gloomy and suspicious, or you can describe something as eventful, auspicious (or inauspicious), obscene, baseless, monumental, bloody, premeditated, critical or even majestic. If you do these are just some of the words for which you have to thank the Bard. It has been estimated that Shakespeare’s vocabulary range, at between 17,000 to 29,000 words is twice that of the average person. Although he was a favorite of Royalty, not all in his time appreciated Shakespeare’s work. Prose fiction writer, Robert Greene, in his final book, A Groatsworth of Grit, that was essentially a survey of the literary scene in London took issue with the newcomer as he wrote "...there is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tiger's heart wrapped in a Player's hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Johannes factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country." It is not infrequent that when people do use a phrase from Shakespeare they either make the words fit today’s English language usage or misquote to fit the situation. “All
that glistens in not gold” (The Merchant of Venice) now reads “all that glitters…,” “the crack of doom” (Macbeth) is now “the crack of dawn,” “Not the ill wind which blows no man to good” (Henry IV) is now “an ill wind that blows no good,” and “as good luck would have it” now drops the “good.” Often when groups meet they start with an “icebreaker” to help people feel comfortable interacting, however it probably derives from “break the ice” (Taming of the Shrew) when Tranio asks Petruchio to “break the ice” by marrying the older daughter so their father would then allow him to marry the younger one. However, there are still accurate quotes: “fancy free” (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), “milk of human kindness” and “be all and end all” (Macbeth), “forever and a day” (As You Like It), “love is blind” (The Merchant of Venice), “set my teeth on edge” and “faint hearted” (Henry IV), “kill with kindness” and “refuse to budge an inch” (The Taming of the Shrew), “laughing stock” (The Merry Wives of Windsor), “foregone conclusion” and “jealousy is the green-eyed monster” (Othello), “it was Greek to me” (Julius Caesar) and “wild-goose chase” (Romeo and Juliet) to name only a few. Although Shakespeare never published his own works the source for all the Shakespeare books available comes from “The First Folio,” a compilation of 36 of his plays that were recorded and published by fellow actors, John Hemminges and Henry Condell, shortly after he died. As an afterthought, it has been pointed out by historian Jonathan Hope that Victorian scholars read Shakespeare’s texts for the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary more thoroughly than they did others’ writings and cited him more frequently, so he may have been given credit for first word use when the same words might have been found in earlier writings.