VICTORIAN COLLEGE OF THE ARTS
The University of Melbourne
School of Drama Bachelor of Dramatic Art - Acting Audition Monologues Requirements for 2007
Please read the following instructions carefully: •
Choose one piece from the selection of pieces pieces from the plays of Shakespeare. Shakespeare.
•
Choose a second piece from the selection of pieces from contemporary plays. plays.
It is essential that both your pieces are chosen from this VCA list, otherwise we cannot audition you. You may wish to read the entire play to further y our understanding of the context of the piece. For that purpose we have included a list of possible sources of the text (libraries and bookshops). It will not always be possible to source copies of the entire play. The pieces you choose should be contrasting; they should also be speeches to which you relate and which you think show you to advantage. Here are some notes to help you prepare and present your pieces: •
They The y must must be be learnt. We are unable to audition you otherwise.
•
Do not use accents. They are not necessary or important for auditions at this school.
•
With the Shakespeare speeches, by all means observe the verse form and language, but do not let them intimidate you. A connection to meaning is all that is needed.
•
We are not, not, at this stage, interested in seeing if you can play characters well outside your age range. A piece of this kind might be suitable only if you can relate to it in a personal way.
•
Try to present the speeches in a way which shows an understanding of the the text and which is simple and truthful.
FEMALE
Richard II
Duchess: Finds brotherhood in thee no sharper spur? F E M A L E Hath love in thy old blood no living fire? Edward's seven sons, whereof thyself art one, Were as seven vials of his sacred blood, Or seven fair branches springing from one root. Some of those seven are dried by nature's course, Some of those branches by the Destinies cut; But Thomas my dear lord, my life, my Gloucester, One vial full of Edward's sacred blood, One flourishing branch of his most royal root, Is crack'd, and all the precious liquor spilt, Is hack'd down, and his summer leaves all faded, By envy's hand, and murder's bloody axe. Ah, Gaunt, his blood was thine! that bed, that womb, That mettle, that self-mould, that fashioned thee Made him a man; and though thou livest and breathest, Yet art thou slain in him; thou dost consent In some large measure to thy father's death In that thou seest thy wretched brother die, Who was the model of thy father's life. Call it not patience, Gaunt, it is despair; In suff'ring thus they brother to be slaughter'd, Thou showest the naked pathway to thy life, Teaching stern murder how to butcher thee. That which in mean men we intitle patience Is pale cold cowardice in noble breasts. What shall I say? to safeguard thine own life, The best way is to venge my Gloucester's death.
Act I Scene ii William Shakespeare
FEMALE
King Henry IV, Part Two
Act II Scene iii William Shakespeare
Lady Percy: O yet, for God’s sake, go not to these wars! The time was, father, that you broke your word When you were more endeared to it than now; When your own Percy, when my heart’s dear Harry, Threw many a northward look to see his father Bring up his powers; but he did long in vain. Who then persuaded you to stay at home? There were two honours lost, yours and your son’s. For yours, the God of heaven brighten it! For his, it stuck upon him as the sun In the grey vault of heaven, and by his light Did all the chivalry of England move To do brave acts. He was indeed the glass Wherein the noble youth did dress themselves. He had no legs that practised not his gait; And speaking thick, which nature made his blemish, Became the accents of the valiant; For those that could speak low and t ardily Would turn their own perfection to abuse, To seem like him. So that in speech, in gait, In diet, in affections of delight, In military rules, humours of blood, He was the mark and glass, copy and book, That fashion’d others. And him - O wondrous him! O miracle of men! - him did you leave, Second to none, unseconded by you, To look upon the hideous god of war In disadvantage, to abide a field Where nothing but the sound of Hotspur’s name Did seem defensible: so you left him. Never, O never, do his ghost the wrong To hold your honour more precise and nice With others than with him! Let them alone.
CONTENTS Male Contemporary A Bright Room Called Day Tony Kushner ........................................................................................................p2 Curse of the Starving Class Sam Shepard ........................................................................................................p3 Aristocrats Brian Friel ............................................................................................................. p4 Wild Honey Michael Frayn ....................................................................................................... p5 Up the Road John Harding ........................................................................................................p6
Male Shakespeare Measure for Measure Act II Scene ii William Shakespeare ............................................................................................p7 Julius Caesar Act I Scene ii William Shakespeare ............................................................................................p8 King Lear Act I Scene ii William Shakespeare ............................................................................................p9 The Taming of the Shrew Act IV Scene i William Shakespeare ............................................................................................p10 Romeo and Juliet Act I Scene iv William Shakespeare ............................................................................................p11
Female Contemporary The Rain Dancers Karin Mainwaring ..................................................................................................p12 Low Level Panic Claire McIntyre ......................................................................................................p13 Wild Honey Michael Frayn ....................................................................................................... p14 Three Sisters Anton Chekhov .....................................................................................................p15 The Art of Success Nick Dear ..............................................................................................................p16
Female Shakespeare The Winter's Tale Act III Scene ii William Shakespeare ............................................................................................p17 The Winter's Tale Act III Scene ii William Shakespeare ............................................................................................p18 Troilus and Cressida Act III Scene ii William Shakespeare ............................................................................................p19 King Henry IV, Part Two Act II Scene iii William Shakespeare ............................................................................................p20 Richard II Act I Scene ii William Shakespeare............................................................................................. p21 This page is deliberately blank.............................................................................. p22
MALE
FEMALE
Troilus and Cressida
A Bright Room Called Day Tony Kushner
William Shakespeare
Baz:
Cressida
Yesterday I was on my way to buy oranges. I eat them constantly in the winter, even though they cost so much, because they prevent colds. On my way to the grocer's I passed a crowd in front of an office building; I asked what was going on and they showed me that a man had jumped from the highest floor and was dead. They had covered the man with tarpaper but his feet were sticking out at angles that told you something was very wrong. There was a pink pool of red blood mixed with white snow. I left.
Hard to seem won: but I was won, my lord, With the first glance that ever--pardon me-If I confess much, you will play the tyrant. I love you now; but not, till now, so much But I might master it: in faith, I lie; My thoughts were like unbridled children, grown Too headstrong for their mother. See, we fools! Why have I blabb’d? who shall be true to us, When we are so unsecret to ourselves? But, though I loved you well, I woo’d you not; And yet, good faith, I wish’d myself a man, Or that we women had men’s privilege Of speaking first. Sweet, bid me hold my tongue, For in this rapture I shall surely speak The thing I shall repent. See, see, your silence, Cunning in dumbness, from my weakness draws My very soul of counsel! stop my mouth.
At the grocer's I felt guilty and embarrassed buying these fat oranges for myself only minutes after this man had died. I knew why he had jumped. I thought of him opening the window, high up, and the cold air... On my way home I reimagined the whole thing, because I felt a little sick at heart. The dead man was sitting up in the snow, and now the tarpaper covered his feet. As I passed by I gave him one of my oranges. He took it. He stared at the orange, as though holding it could give him back some of the warmth he'd lost. All day, when I closed my eyes, I could see him that way, Sitting in the snow, holding the orange, and comforted. Still bloody, still dead, but... comforted.
Act III Scene ii
FEMALE
The Winter's Tale
MALE
Act III Scene ii
Curse of the Starving Class Sam Shepard
William Shakespeare Hermione: Wesley: Sir, spare your threats: The bug which you would fright me with I seek. To me can life be no commodity: The crown and comfort of my life, your favour, I do give lost; for I do feel it gone, But know not how it went. My second joy And first-fruits of my body, from his presence I am barr’d, like one infectious. My third comfort Starr’d most unluckily, is from my breast, The innocent milk in its most innocent mouth, Haled out to murder: myself on every post Proclaimed a strumpet: with immodest hatred The child-bed privilege denied, which ‘longs To women of all fashion; lastly, hurried Here to this place, i’ the open air, before I have got strength of limit. Now, my liege, Tell me what blessings I have here alive, That I should fear to die? Therefore proceed. But yet hear this: mistake me not; no life, I prize it not a straw, but for mine honour, Which I would free, if I shall be condemn’d Upon surmises, all proofs sleeping else But what your jealousies awake, I tell you ‘Tis rigour and not law. Your honours all, I do refer me to the oracle: Apollo be my judge!
I was lying there on my back. I could smell the avocado blossoms. I could hear the coyotes. I could hear stock cars squealing down the street. I could feel myself in my bed in my room in this house in this town in this state in this country. I could feel this country close like it was part of my bones. I could feel the presence of people outside, at night, in the dark. Even sleeping people I could feel. Even all the sleeping animals. Dogs. Peacocks. Bulls. Even tractors sitting in their wetness, waiting for the sun to come up. I was looking straight up at the ceiling at all my model airplanes hanging by all their thin metal wires. Floating. Swaying very quietly like they were being blown by someone's breath. Cobwebs moving with them. Dust laying on their wings. Decals peeling off their wings. My P-39. My Messerschmitt. My Jap Zero. I could feel myself lying far below them on my bed like I was on the ocean and overhead they were on reconnaissance. Scouting me. Floating. Taking pictures of the enemy. Me, the enemy. I could feel the space around me like a big, black world. I listened like an animal. My listening was afraid. Afraid of sound. Tense. Like any second something could invade me. Some foreigner. Something undescribable. Then I heard the Packard coming up the hill. From a mile off I could tell it was the Packard by the sound of the valves. The lifters have a sound like nothing else. Then I could picture my Dad driving it. Shifting unconsciously. Downshifting into second for the last pull up the hill. I could feel the headlights closing in. Cutting through the orchard. I could see the trees being lit one after the other by the lights, then going back to black. My heart was pounding. Just from Dad coming back.
FEMALE
MALE
Aristocrats
The Winter's Tale
Act III Scene ii William Shakespeare
Brian Friel Casimir:
Paulina:
Yes yes. I discovered a great truth when I was nine. No, not a great truth; but I made a great discovery when I was nine - not even a great discovery but an important, a very important discover for me. I suddenly realised I was different from other boys. When I say I was different I don't mean - you know, good Lord, I don't for a second mean I was - you know - as they say nowadays 'homo-sexual' - good heavens I must admit, if anything, Eamon, if anything I'm - (looks around) - I'm vigorously hetero-sexual ha-ha. But of course I don't mean that either. No, no. But anyway. What I discovered was that for some reason people found me... peculiar. Of course I sensed it first from the boys at boarding-school. But it was Father with his usual - his usual directness and honestly who made me face it. I remember the day he said to me: 'Had you been born down there' - we were in the library and he pointed down to Ballybeg - 'Had you been born down there, you'd have become the village idiot. Fortunately for you, you were born here and we can absorb you.' Ha-ha. So at nine years of age I knew certain things: that certain kinds of people laughed at me; that the easy relationships that other men enjoy would always elude me; that - that - that I would never succeed in life, whatever - you know whatever 'succeed' means. That was a very important and a very difficult discovery for me, as you can imagine. But it brought certain recognitions, certain compensatory recognitions. Because once I recognised - once I acknowledged that the larger areas were not access ible to me, I discovered I had to discover smaller, much smaller areas that were. Yes, indeed. And I discovered that if I conduct myself with some c ircumspection, I find that I can live within these smaller, perhaps very confined territories without exposure to too much hurt. Indeed I find that I can experience some happiness and perhaps give a measure of happiness, too. My great discovery. Isn't it so beautiful?
What studied torments, tyrant, hast for me? What wheels? racks? fires? what flaying? boiling? In leads or oils? What old or newer torture Must I receive, whose every word deserves To taste of thy most worst? Thy tyranny, Together working with thy jealousies (Fancies too weak for boys, too green and idle For girls of nine), O think what they have done, And then run mad indeed: stark mad! for all Thy by-gone fooleries were but spices of it. That thou betray’dst Polixenes, ‘twas nothing; That did but show thee, of a fool, inconstant And damnable ingrateful: nor was’t much, Thou would’st have poison’d good Camillo’s honour, To have him kill a king; poor trespasses, More monstrous standing by: whereof I reckon The casting forth to crows thy baby daughter, To be or none or little: though a devil Would have shed water out of fire, ere done ‘t: Nor is’t directly laid to thee the death Of the young prince, whose honourable thoughts (Thoughts high for one so tender) cleft the heart That could conceive a gross and foolish sire Blemish’d his gracious dam: this is not, no, Laid to thy answer: but the last - O lords, When I have said, cry “woe!” - the queen, the queen, The sweet’st, dear’st creature’s dead: and vengance for’t Not dropp’d down yet.
FEMALE
MALE
The Art of Success
Wild Honey Nick Dear
Michael Frayn Osip:
Louisa: Wind off the Thames blows down the avenues, round the rotunda, through the triumphal arches and directly up my skirt. I must have the coldest legs in England. A sailor in a Bermondsey cellar said that in China they tell of a wind disease, a cold, cold wind blowing round the body, typhoon in your arms and legs, whispering draughts at the back of your skull. I told him I think I've got it, mate, it all sounds dead familiar. He laughed and bit my nipple with splintering teeth. What I would have loved, at that moment, what I longed for, was that all the air would whoosh out of me like a burst balloon, and I sink down to nothing at his feet, and teach the disbelieving rat a lesson. Here I am out in all weathers, all the entrances and exits in my body open to the elements day and freezing night, what's to stop the gale when it comes in and fills me? And blows round my bones for ever? - Wait, is he walking this way? That dragoon? He looks so sad... doesn't he look sad... I don't know, they call this place a pleasure garden, I've never seen such misery, I'd christen it the garden of wind and disappointment, or cold and frosted cunt.
Hot summer's day. Like today. In the forest here. I'm going along this track and I look round and there she is, she's standing in a little stream and she's holding her dress up with one hand and she's scooping up water in a dock leaf with the other. She scoops. She drinks. Scoops. Drinks. Scoops again, and pours it over her head. It's one of those days when y ou can feel the air heavy on you, and you can't hear nothing but the buzzing of the flies... She pays no heed to me. Just another peasant, she thinks. So I go down to the edge of the stream, right close up to her, as close as I am to you now, and I just look at her. Like this, like I'm looking at you. And she stands there in the water in front of me, with her skirts up in her hand, and she bends, she scoops, she pours. And the water runs over her hair, over her face and her neck, then down over her dress, and all she says is: 'What are you staring at, idiot? Haven't you ever seen a human being before?' And she scoops and she pours, and I just stand gazing. Then suddenly she turns and gives me a sharp look. 'Oh,' she says, 'you've taken a fancy to me, have you?' And I say: 'I reckon I could kiss you and die.' So that made her laugh. 'All right,' she says, 'you can kiss me if you like.' Well, I felt as if I'd been thrown into a furnace. I went up to her - into the stream, boots and all, I didn't think twice - and I took her by the shoulder, very lightly, and I kissed her right here, on her cheek, and here on her neck, as hard as ever I could. 'Now, then,' she says, 'be off with you! And you wash a little more often', she says 'and you do something about your nails!' And off I went.
FEMALE
MALE
Three Sisters
Up The Road
Anton Chekhov
John Harding
Translation by Michael Frayn Ian:
Irena:
Hey, brother, how do I look? Or have you been watching me for a while. I never got to tell you about the places I've been or the people I've met. I've travelled a bit. Went to Cooper Pedy, had a go at mining. First day on the job I fell down a shaft and broke my arm. Decided mining wasn't for me. Some way or other I ended up in Canberra. You used to Brylcreem my hair for me. I used to love the way you'd grab my ears like motor cycle handles and twist them. Vroom vroom. And that toy sheep we used to fight over. I was just talking with Auntie about it. Had a bit of a blue with Susie. She's been at my throat since I got back. They've all been having a go at me. They reckon it's easy. But they've never been off the bloody mission. They reckon I'm a coconut. She's a firey woman. It's bloody fresh up here, isn't it? Those boots of yours keep you warm? I got a big electric heater at home. I bought my own place now. What a whitefella, eh? A real house. Double brick. And I'm the only one in it. Well, you got the family up here. What've I got? I hate being alone. You all keep leaving me alone. Mum, dad, you. Now Uncle Kenny's gonna be up here. Youse be fucking right. What the fuck's going on? They're punishing me. Are you punishing me too? I didn't want to leave, Nat. They all told me to go. They made me go away. Not doing nothing. I fucking hated 'em. They did jack shit. Those cops killed you and they did jack shit. Are you ashamed of me for that, my brother? If it was me they'd killed, you would've rode your horse into the fucken station and torn those cunts apart. That's what I wanted to do. But they made me go away. I thought you were a king and they killed you like a fucken dog. I'm sorry, Nat, I'm sorry. You knew I'd be back. You knew I'd be back here with you. It's fresh, eh? I love you, Nat. I love you brother. (sings) Amazing Grace how sweet the sound / that saved a wretch like me / I once was lost but now I'm found / Was blind but now I see.
Tell me, why is it I'm so happy today? Just as if I were sailing along in a boat with big white sails, and above me the wide, blue sky, and in the sky great white birds floating around? You know, when I woke up this morning, and after I'd got up and washed, I suddenly felt as if everything in the world had become clear to me, and I knew the way I ought to live. I know it all now, my dear Ivan Romanych. Man must work by the sweat of his brow whatever his class, and that should make up the whole meaning and purpose of his life and happiness and contentment. Oh, how good it must be to be a workman, getting up with the sun and breaking stones by the roadside - or a shepherd - or a schoolmaster teaching the children - or an engine-driver on the railway. Good Heavens! It's better to be a mere ox or horse, and work, than the sort of young woman who wakes up at twelve, and drinks her coffee in bed, and then takes two hours dressing... How dreadful! You know how you long for a cool drink in hot weather? Well, that's the way I long for work. And if I don't get up early from now on and really work, you can refuse to be friends with me any more, Ivan Romanych.
FEMALE
MALE
Wild Honey
Measure for Measure Michael Frayn
Act II Scene ii William Shakespeare
Anna:
Angelo:
How can you say that? How can you lie to me, on such a night as this, beneath such a sky? Tell your lies in autumn, if you must, in the gloom and the mud, but not now, not here. You're being watched! Look up, you absurd man! A thousand eyes, all shining with indignation! You must be good and true, just as all this is good and true. Don't break this silence with your little words! There's no man in the world I could ever love as I love you. There's no woman in the world you could ever love as you love me. Let's take that love; and all the rest, that so torments you we'll leave that to others to worry about. Are you really such a terrible Don Juan? You look so handsome in the moonlight! Such a solemn face! It's a woman who's come to call, not a wild animal! All right - if you really hate it all so much I'll go away again. Is that what you want? I'll go away, and everything will be just as it was before. Yes...? (she laughs) Idiot! Take it! Snatch it! Seize it! What more do you want? Smoke it to the end, like a cigarette - pinch it out - tread it under your heel. Be human! You funny creature! A woman loves you - a woman you love - fine summer weather. What could be simpler than that? You don't realise how hard life is for me. And yet life is what I long for. Everything is alive, nothing is ever still. We're surrounded by life. We must live, too, Misha! Leave all the problems for tomorrow. Tonight, on this night of nights, we'll simply live!
What’s this ? What’s this ? Is this her fault, or mine ? The tempter, or the tempted, who sins most, ha ? Not she; nor doth she tempt; but it is I That, lying by the violet in the sun, Do as the carrion does, not as the flower, Corrupt with virtuous season. Can it be That modesty may more betray our sense Than woman’s lightness? Having waste ground enough, Shall we desire to raze the sanctuary And pitch our evils there? O fie, fie, fie! What dost thou, or what art thou, Angelo? Dost thou desire her foully for those things That make her good? O, let her brother live! Thieves for their robbery have authority, When judges steal themselves. What, do I love her, That I desire to hear her speak again? And feast upon her eyes? What is’t I dream on? O cunning enemy, that, to catch a saint, With saints dost bait thy hook! Most dangerous Is that temptation that doth goad us on To sin in loving virtue. Never could the strumpet With all her double vigour, art and nature, Once stir my temper: but this virtuous maid Subdues me quite. Ever till now When men were fond, I smil’d, and wonder’d how.
MALE
Julius Caesar
FEMALE
Act I Scene ii
Low Level Panic
William Shakespeare Cassius: I know that virtue to be in you, Brutus, As well as I do know your outward favour. Well, honour is the subject of my story. I cannot tell what you and other men Think of this life; but for my single self, I had an lief not be as live to be In awe of such a thing as I myself. I was born free as Caesar; so were you; We have both fed as well, and we can both Endure the winter’s cold as well as he: For once, upon a raw and gusty day, The troubled Tiber chafing with her shores, Caesar said to me, “Dar’st thou, Cassius, now Leap in with me into this angry flood, And swim to yonder point?” Upon the word, Accoutred as I was, I plunged in And bade him follow; so indeed he did. The torrent roar’d, and we did buffet it With lusty sinews, throwing it aside And stemming it with hearts of controversy. But ere we could arrive the point propos’d, Caesar cried, “Help me, Cassius, or I sink.” I, as Aeneas, our great ancestor, Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder The old Anchises bear, so from the waves of Tiber Did I the tired Caesar. And this man Is now become a god, and Cassius is A wretched creature, and must bend his body If Caesar carelessly but nod on him. He had a fever when he was in Spain, And when the fit was on him, I did mark How he did shake; ‘tis true, this god did shake; His coward lips did from their colour fly, And that same eye whose bend doth awe the world Did lose his lustre; I did hear him groan; Ay, and that tongue of his, that bade the Romans Mark him and write his speeches in their books, Alas, it cried, “Give me some drink, Titinius,” As a sick girl. Ye gods, it doth amaze me A man of such a feeble temper should So get the start of the majestic world, And bear the palm alone.
Claire McIntyre Mary: Maybe if I'd been wearing trousers it wouldn't have happened. I was only wearing a s kirt because I'd just come from work and it's the kind of place where they like you to wear a skirt, that or smart trousers. Well, I haven't got any smart trousers so I have to wear a skirt. You're better off on a bike in trousers I know. It's obvious. But it's not as if I was going on a marathon. It takes ten minutes to cycle home at the outside. More like five. If that. I'm not really comfortable on a bike in a skirt: it just makes people look at your legs. But who's around at that time of night to look? Anyway I wasn't even on the bike: I was going to get on it. I was going to. It's not as if I was cycling along with my skirt up round my ears. I wasn't. I don't do silly things like that. I could have been getting into a car in a skirt. Would that have made a difference? I could have cycled to work wearing a pair of jeans and had my skirt folded up in one of the panniers but then it would have been all squashed and that wouldn't have gone down well at all with the management. Or I could have come to work on the bicycle wearing a skirt and could have changed into trousers to go home given that you're meant to be alright in the daylight but you're not safe at night. Or I could have walked to work and got a taxi home and I could have worn whatever I liked. But I'd still have been there, on the edge of the road at midnight, about to get on my bicycle or into a car or just been stuck there waiting for a taxi whether I'd been in a skirt or not, whether I had good legs or not, whether I was fifteen or menopausal or lame, I'd still have been there.
FEMALE
MALE
The Rain Dancers
King Lear Karin Mainwaring
Kat: I was playing with Doug behind the tank-stand. We were bored. We were playing with a lizard we'd found, dead, in the dust. We'd poked at it with sticks trying, I think, to worry the life back into it. All we'd done was worried the files out of it. It was full of them. There were ants too. They were going mad. It was the weather... hot and still and humid. Everything was flat. Like the earth knew that a great weight of water was about to fall upon it. And the smell... as if the rain was coming, for it was, was a hand that held the earth in its palm, like an orange, squeezing it, fragrance spraying out like zest. The lizard was flat too. But that was the insects pulling its mass away from it. Doug and I knelt in the dust... sticks discarded and watched it... and from this frenzied fight for food came order... the soft bits were triumphantly carted away first... then ants with big claw heads came to saw and rip away the harder pieces. We pretended we were ants and ate some. It was hard to see what they were getting so excited about. Doug pretended a maggot was a witchetty grub. He ate it. I couldn't. And then it started to rain. Drops like maggots splattered around us lifting the dust into the air so that, for a second, the earth hovered under a red haze. I looked down the front of my dress, it was soaked, pink... voile I think. I remember it had a shirred bust... not that I had one to shirr. I always thought that was something you did to eggs. You would not believe what I thought ladies had in their dresses. Mine had nothing but dead lizard stains smeared across it. My dress was wet. I could see my underpants. They were white, waisted Cottontails. Like these. Not very sexy I admit. Although Mum tells me there are some dirty men who find the sight of grown women in undies like these exciting. She calls this a fetish. She says they are perverts. They have a fixation. Doug had no such fixation. In fact he preferred me without any underpants at all. Like this. We both thought this was very funny. Nobody else did. The rain was fallling in sheets, like iron, slicing through the air. It was so much like being slapped that, by the time I realised I was being slapped, it was too late to transmute the tears of joy that streamed down my face to ones of sorrow. And that was the last time I saw a man, boy, male until I saw you in the dirt outside.
Act I Scene 2 William Shakespeare
Edmund: Thou, Nature, art my goddess; to thy law My services are bound. Wherefore should I Stand in the plague of custom, and permit The curiosity of nations to deprive me? For that I am some twelve or fourteen moon shines Lag of a brother? Why bastard? Wherefore base? When my dimensions are as well compact, My mind as generous and my shape as true As honest madam’s issue? Why brand they us With base? With baseness, Bastardy? Base, base? Who in the lusty stealth of nature take More composition and fierce quality Than doth within a dull stale tired bed Go to the creating of a whole tribe of fops Got ‘tween asleep and wake. Well, then, Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land. Our father’s love is to the bastard Edmund As to the legitimate. Fine word,'legitimate'! Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed And my invention thrive, Edmund the base Shall top the legitimate. I grow, I prosper: Now gods, stand up for bastards!
MALE
The Taming of the Shrew
MALE
Act IV Scene i
Romeo and Juliet
William Shakespeare
Petruchio:
Thus have I politicly begun my reign, And ‘tis my hope to end successfully. My falcon now is sharp and passing empty; And till she stoop she must not be full-gorged, For then she never looks upon her lure. Another way I have to man my haggard, To make her come and know her keeper’s call, That is, to watch her, as we watch these kites That bate and beat and will not be obedient. She eat no meat to-day, nor none shall eat; Last night she slept not, nor to-night she shall not; As with the meat, some undeserved fault I’ll find about the making of the bed; And here I’ll fling the pillow, there the bolster, This way the coverlet, another way the sheets: Ay, and amid this hurly I intend That all is done in reverend care of her; And in conclusion she shall watch all night: And if she chance to nod I’ll rail and brawl And with the clamour keep her still awake. This is a way to kill a wife with kindness; And thus I’ll curb her mad and headstrong humour. He that knows better how to tame a shrew, Now let him speak: ‘tis charity to show.
Mercutio: O then I see Queen Mab hath been with you. She is the fairies’ midwife, and she comes In shape no bigger than an agate-stone On the fore finger of an alderman, Drawn with a team of little atomie Over men’s noses as they lie asleep. Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub, Time out o’ mind the fairies’ coachmakers. Her wagon-spokes made of long spiders’ legs, The cover of the wings of grasshoppers, The traces of the smallest spinner's web, Her collars of the moonshine’s watery beams, Her whip of cricket’s bone, the lash of film, Her wagoner a small grey-coated gnat, Not half so big as a round little worm Prick’d from the lazy finger of a maid; And in this state she gallops night by night Through lovers’ brains, and then they dream of love; O’er courtiers’ knees, that dream on court’sies straight, O’er lawyers’ fingers who straight dream on fees, O’er ladies ‘ lips, who straight on kisses dream, Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are. Sometime she gallops o’er a courtier’s nose, And then dreams he of smelling out a suit; And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig’s tail Tickling a parson’s nose as a lies asleep; Then dreams he of another benefice. Sometime she driveth o’er a soldier’s neck And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats, Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades, Of healths five fathom deep; and then anon Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes, And being thus frighted swears a prayer or two And sleeps again. This is that very Mab That plats the manes of horses in the night And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs, Which, once untangled, much misfortune bodes. This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs, That presses them and learns them first to bear, Making them women of good carriage. This is she -
Act 1 Scene 4 William Shakespeare
