WORDS, WORDS, WORDS: More taglines for the New Penguin Shakespeare. Here are two from me:

TWELFTH NIGHT: Clown: Why, ‘some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrown upon them.’ I was one, sir, in this interlude; one Sir Topas, sir; but that’s all one. ‘By the Lord, fool, I am not mad.’ But do you remember? ‘Madam, why laugh you at such a barren rascal? an you smile not, he’s gagged:’ and thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM: Bottom: The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man’s hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was.

And here are a few from Cacciaguida: ROMEO AND JULIET:

— If I profane with my unworthiest hand

This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:

My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand

To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

— Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,

Which mannerly devotion shows in this;

For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch,

And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.

MACBETH:

What man dare, I dare:

Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear,

The arm’d rhinoceros, or the Hyrcan tiger;

Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves

Shall never tremble: or be alive again,

And dare me to the desert with thy sword;

If trembling I inhabit then, protest me

The baby of a girl. Hence, horrible shadow!

Unreal mockery, hence!

ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA:

Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch

Of the ranged empire fall! Here is my space.

Kingdoms are clay: our dungy earth alike

Feeds beast as man: the nobleness of life

Is to do thus; when such a mutual pair

And such a twain can do’t….

OTHELLO: Nay, do it not with poison: strangle her in her bed….

TROILUS AND CRESSIDA:

You vile abominable tents,

Thus proudly pight upon our Phrygian plains,

Let Titan rise as early as he dare,

I’ll through and through you! and, thou great-sized coward,

No space of earth shall sunder our two hates:

I’ll haunt thee like a wicked conscience still,

That mouldeth goblins swift as frenzy’s thoughts.

TITUS ANDRONICUS:

You kill’d her husband, and for that vile fault

Two of her brothers were condemn’d to death,

My hand cut off and made a merry jest;

Both her sweet hands, her tongue, and that more dear

Than hands or tongue, her spotless chastity,

Inhuman traitors, you constrain’d and forced.

What would you say, if I should let you speak?

Villains, for shame you could not beg for grace.

Hark, wretches! how I mean to martyr you….

CORIOLANUS:

You common cry of curs! whose breath I hate

As reek o’ the rotten fens, whose loves I prize

As the dead carcasses of unburied men

That do corrupt my air….

AS YOU LIKE IT:

— I do not like her name.

— There was no thought of pleasing you when she was christened.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM:

But all the story of the night told over,

And all their minds transfigured so together,

More witnesseth than fancy’s images

And grows to something of great constancy;

But, howsoever, strange and admirable.

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING:

O that I were a man! What, bear her in hand until they

come to take hands; and then, with public

accusation, uncovered slander, unmitigated rancour,

–O God, that I were a man! I would eat his heart

in the market-place.