Fall Shakespeare 2009:
Suggested Speeches

You may use one of these passages or find your own, whether from Shakespeare or another source. If you can memorize it, great! If not, bring it with you to read. (We recommend you bring it with you, even if memorized.) ****

ROMEO Alas, that love, whose view is muffled still, Should, without eyes, see pathways to his will! Where shall we dine? O me! What fray was here? Yet tell me not, for I have heard it all. Here's much to do with hate, but more with love. Why, then, O brawling love! O loving hate! O any thing, of nothing first create! O heavy lightness! serious vanity! Mis-shapen chaos of well-seeming forms! Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health! Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is! This love feel I, that feel no love in this. Dost thou not laugh? ******

ORLANDO

Hang there, my verse, in witness of my love: And thou, thrice-crowned queen of night, survey With thy chaste eye, from thy pale sphere above, Thy huntress' name that my full life doth sway. O Rosalind! these trees shall be my books And in their barks my thoughts I'll character; That every eye which in this forest looks Shall see thy virtue witness'd every where. Run, run, Orlando; carve on every tree The fair, the chaste and unexpressive she. ******

TOUCHSTONE

Truly, shepherd, in respect of itself, it is a good life, but in respect that it is a shepherd's life, it is naught. In respect that it is solitary, I like it very well; but in respect that it is private, it is a very vile life. Now, in respect it is in the fields, it pleaseth me well; but in respect it is not in the court, it is tedious. As is it a spare life, look you, it fits my humour well; but as there is no more plenty in it, it goes much against my stomach. Hast any philosophy in thee, shepherd? ******

GHOST Your brother? Child, thou dost overlook the obvious to concoct some wild idea. Allow me to tell thee a story, a story about two brothers – identical twin brothers – both of whom sought a life on the sea. One was apprenticed, as he was ought, to a dashing crew of pirates. Unfortunately, due to a stupid domestic, the other to a boring civil service job with a Royal Navy pilot. I’m sure the similarity of these two nautical terms will cause great confusion for hundreds of years to come. ******

ETHEL I can also lift a cannon ball above my head. I can climb the rigging faster than any of you save Long John Thomas. And yet, my father will never let me be a pirate. He still treats me as a child. As a girl. ******

BEATRICE

He set up his bills here in Messina and challenged Cupid at the flight; and my uncle's fool, reading the challenge, subscribed for Cupid, and challenged him at the bird-bolt. I pray you, how many hath he killed and eaten in these wars? But how many hath he killed? for indeed I promised to eat all of his killing. ******

-- JoshShaine - 19 Jun 2009