Oh God, now he's repeating himself!

Yes, it's true, I did publish this 'quote of quotes' from the late and sadly missed Bernard Levin back in March 2007.  However, today, as you can see from my 'Recent Comments' list on the left, I received a comment on the original from a lady called Jennifer Duff - absolutely no relation but obviously she is of splendid and sterling stock of whom it may be said "Thou art a piece of virtue."  Anyway, it is too good not to repeat.  Incidentally, I know it is a whimsy but I do like to imagine Levin and Shakespeare conversing on a cloud - would poor old Will get a word in, I wonder?

"Quoting Shakespeare"

If you cannot understand my argument and declare "it's Greek to me", you are quoting Shakespeare. If you claim to be "more sinned against than sinning", you are quoting Shakespeare. If you act "more in sorrow than in anger", if your "wish is father to the thought", if your lost property has "vanished into thin air", you are quoting Shakespeare. If you have ever refused "to budge an inch" or suffered from "green-eyed jealousy", if you have "played fast and loose", if you have been "tongue-tied" - "a tower of strength" - "hoodwinked" or "in a pickle", if you have "knitted your brows" - "made virtue of necessity", insisted on "fair play" - "slept not one wink" - "stood on ceremony" - "danced attendance" on "your lord and master" - "laughed yourself into stitches", had "short shrift" - "cold comfort", or "too much of a good thing", if you have "seen better days", or lived "in a fools paradise", why, be that as it may, "the more fool you", for it is a "foregone Conclusion" that you are "as good luck would have it", quoting Shakespeare. If you think "it is high time", and that "that is the long and the short of it", if you believe that "the game is up", and that "truth will out", even if it involves your "own flesh and blood", if you" lie low" till "the crack of doom" because you suspect "foul play", if you have "teeth set on edge at one fell swoop" - "without rhyme or reason", then "to give the devil his due" if the "truth were known" for surely you have a "tongue in your head", you are quoting Shakespeare. Even if you bid me "good riddance" and "send me packing", if you wish I was "dead as a doornail", if you think I am an "eyesore" - a "laughing stock" - the "devil incarnate" - "a stony-hearted villain" - "bloody-minded", or a "blinking idiot", then "by jove" - "o lord"- "tut, tut!" - "For goodness sake" - "what the dickens!" - "but me no buts" - "it is all one to me", for you are quoting Shakespeare...

Comments

[Dom]

Do you remember the opening of Christmas Carol? Marley is said to be as "dead as a doornail", and then Dickens goes on to say he doesn't know why doornails are said to be dead, but that's what Marley was, dead as a doornail.

I've used the expression like most have, without ever knowing why doornails are dead. I just googled, and apparently a nail is dead when the point is hammered to one side so it can not be removed. And doornails were almost always "killed" (or clnched) like this.

Shakespeare's world must have been rich in this way, and it gave rise to a rich language. Our world is richer, what with computers and all, but we don't have direct access to it. Shakespeare may have hammered a few doornails in his life, but you won't find many poets who have wired a computer's logic board. What would we say now? "Marley died as quick as broadband bits on an optical network." Doesn't work for me.

[David Duff]

Nor me, Dom! But you raise an important point about WS's use of imagery and metaphor. There is a 1930s book by Caroline Spurgeon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Shakespeares-Imagery-What-Tells-Us/dp/0521092582

in which she undertakes a highly detailed analysis of his uses of imagery and confirms with no doubt that only a country boy of modest background could have written those plays, not an aristo like Oxford, the favourite of the various loons who refuse to believe that a non-university oik like WS could have written such brilliant plays. The knowledge of how to clinch a door nail is a perfect example.