hello you've been eating pop-tarts I
resisted it looked fantastic though
well now what a day we're having
absolutely inspirational fantastic
I saw romeo Dallaire remark on these
geese earlier on and i considered these
geese canada geese they're all over the
world you know they're taking over the
world but like Shakespeare Shakespeare
surrounds us the Shakespeare where
enormous ly familiar with but the
Shakespeare that we know and we don't
know and of course every day we're
quoting Shakespeare but we don't know it
Shakespeare we don't know a great deal
about the man what we know about him is
generally through his works he was a man
just like you and me he lived his life
felt great joy and great sadness
tremendous success and great tragedy in
Canada talk about Shakespeare
surrounding us we have the Stratford
Shakespeare Festival in Ontario that's
the biggest theatre festival I might add
in North America we have that's right
we have bottom of each Shakespeare here
in Vancouver we got Shakespeare
Festival's in between in America
Americans love their Shakespeare you
have Ashland Oregon lots of
Shakespeare's festivals through America
you have the globe in London and of
course the Royal Shakespeare Company in
stratford-upon-avon so Shakespeare is
alive and well but since you left out of
bed this morning and you've had this
wonderful day here I'm sure most of you
are very much unaware that you've been
quoting Shakespeare all day let me give
you a bunch of examples first of all I
want to I want you to do something for a
change when I point at you and beckon
you on I want you to say quoting
Shakespeare now come on with all that
energy from the pop-tarts give it a go
it's pretty good once more even louder
if you cannot understand my argument and
declare it's Greek to me you are
if you claim to be more sinned against
than sinning you are if you recall your
salad days you are if you act more in
sorrow than in anger if your wish is
father to the fort if your lust property
has vanished into thin air you are
if you've ever refused to budge an inch
or suffered from green-eyed jealousy if
you've been played fast and loose been
tongue-tied a tower of strength
hoodwinked or in a pickle if you have
knitted your brows made a virtue of
necessity insisted on fair play slipped
not one wink stood on ceremony danced
attendance on your Lord and Master
laughed your self into stitches had
short shrift cold comfort or too much of
a good thing if you've seen better days
or lived in a fool's paradise why be
that is in May the more fool you for it
is a foregone conclusion that you are as
good luck would have it
if you think in his early days and clear
our bag and baggage if you think it is
high time and the that is the long and
the short of it if you believe that the
game is up and that the truth will out
even if it involves your own flesh and
blood
if you lie low to the crack of doom
because you suspect foul play if you
have your teeth set on edge that one
fell swoop without rhyme or reason then
to give the devil his due if the truth
were known for surely our tongue in your
head you are even if you bid me good
riddance and send me packing if you wish
I was as dead as a doornail if you think
I'm and I saw a laughingstock the devil
incarnate a stony-hearted villian
bloody-minded
or a blinking idiot then by Jove Oh Lord
tut-tut for goodness sake what the
Dickens but me no buts
it's all one to me for you are there you
are
so Shakespeare surrounds us let's look
at the private man that I alluded to a
moment ago the private man
the playwright in London the producer
the actor there's a gorgeous little
sonnet a sonnet is a fourteen line poem
and Shakespeare wrote over a hundred and
fifty of those and this particular one
it's perhaps one of the best-known
pieces of poetry I think probably in the
world shall I compare thee to a summers
day now generally this little piece of
poetry is said or recited written down
for great occasions weddings birthday
celebrations but there's a theory that
in fact nestling inside this poetry if
you think of it another way Shakespeare
we didn't know in the mystery that
surrounds all that all that that in fact
this little sonnet was a eulogy
Shakespeare had three three children one
of them was a son his little boy was
called Hamnett not Hamlet
this one's H AM n et the other one H AM
L et is a very good play he wrote but
his son was called Hamlet and he got
word when he was working away in London
that Hamlet was very sick now here's the
man the man like you and me living his
life and now crisis hits
and of course he has to go he has to go
from London now if we were to drive from
central London to stratford-upon-avon
now where his family were that would
probably take us we had a good run a
little over 90 minutes but in those days
it was three days so Shakespeare took
off and he got there and when he got to
Stratford he was met by his family and
he found out that his son was dead
buried there was nothing left to do but
what could he do apart from comfort his
family but to survive it what was he
going to do you imagine the heartache I
like to imagine that perhaps after
everyone had gone to bed he stayed up
the candle and his quill pen and he
wrote and he did what Shakespeare could
do best of all through words he could
express his feelings and I like to think
he wrote this little poem shall I
compare thee to a summers day and he
talks about eternity in the poem and as
long as men can breathe and eyes can see
this lives forever that this froze
little hamlet in time in his mind to be
an immortal in Shakespeare's lifetime
shall I compare thee to a summers day
thou art more lovely and more temperate
rough winds do break the Darling Buds of
May and summers lease hath all too short
a day sometimes too hot the eye of
heaven shines and often is his gold
complexion dimmed and every fair from
fair sometime declines by chance or
nature's changing course untrimmed
but thy eternal summer shall not fade
nor lose possession of that fair thou
owest nor shall death brag thou
wand'rest in his shade when in eternal
lines to time thou grow'st so long as
men can breathe or eyes can see so long
lives this and this gives life to thee a
eulogy I don't know it's beautiful
there's a mystery about it as there is
about so much of Shakespeare and I think
that's part of the magic of it all now
is the winter of our discontent now is
the winter of our discontent my goodness
gracious look at Europe right now Occupy
Wall Street occupy everywhere else
well it sounds positively positively
Shakespearean but in times like this
when there's so much going on in the
world and is also deeply complicated
this is a time I think that if we could
skip back skip forward 400 years that
Shakespeare would thrive this is a time
for great initiative great inspiration
great leadership this is time for heroes
I think to help to show us the way
Shakespeare was rich in heroes to look
at Henry v we few we happy few we band
of brothers wonderful stuff and then now
is the winter of our discontent who was
that Richard Duke of Gloucester it's the
opening line of Richard the third
Richard the third what does he want he
wants trouble
Iran's trouble and he doesn't care he's
willing to risk every time everything
talk about being bold his eldest brother
is the king there's another brother in
between the King has two Prince sons so
Richard Duke of Gloucester the younger
brothers never going to be king not
unless something fantastic happens but
he's going to force that and he tells us
all about it off the top of Richard the
third
malevolent dangerous but nevertheless we
as an audience he seduces us we become
complicit in his dreadful plans and it's
the most extraordinary feeling sitting
in the audience watching him Richard lay
waste to all these people and sitting
there thinking yes yes yes it's an awful
feeling
Richard the third deformed as he calls
himself the traditional Rivard left-side
the crook back now is the winter of our
discontent made glorious summer by this
son of York and all the clouds that
lowered upon our house in the deep bosom
of the ocean buried now at our brows
bound with victorious wreaths our
bruised arms hung up for monuments our
Stern alarums changed to merry meetings
our dreadful marches to delightful
measures
grim-visaged war hath smooth'd his
wrinkled front and now instead of
mounting barbed steeds to fright the
souls of fearful adversaries he capers
nimbly in a lady's chamber to the
lascivious pleasings of a lute but I
that am NOT shaped for sportive tricks
nor made to court an amorous
looking-glass I that am rudely stamped
and once loves Majesty to strut before a
wanton ambling nymph I that am curtailed
of this fair proportion cheated of
feature by dissembling nature deformed
unfinish'd sent before my time into this
breathing world scarce half made up and
that so lamely and unfashionable the
dogs barked at me as I halt by them and
therefore since I cannot prove a lover
to entertain these fair well-spoken days
I'm determined to prove a villain
and hate the idle pleasures of these
days it has been a hard day's night and
I've been working like a dog it's been a
hard day's night and I should be
sleeping like a log but when I get home
to you I find the things that you do
will make me feel all right
so that perhaps was the Shakespeare
you did not know tweet that thanks very
much
you