William Shakespeare‘s work wasn’t exactly my forte in high school. I personally blame my English teacher for making us do a rap to explain the storyline of Romeo & Juliet and frankly that just ruined both rap and Shakespeare for me for a good while.
Thankfully, after I got over the trauma of rhyming “Romeo” with “yo” (a recovery which took literal years), I’ve grown to appreciate Shakespeare more and more. I still don’t know what the fuck’s going on half the time but I can acknowledge a decent drama-filled jaunt when it crosses my radar.
As Pop-up Globe is coming to Australia late-August, bringing a full-scale replica of Shakespeare’s theatre to Sydney to perform a slew of the playwright’s most notable shows (including A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Comedy of Errors, Macbeth and Merchant of Venice), I thought it was high time I explained some of Shakespeare’s more noteworthy quotes to get you up to date.
MACBETH
“Give me the daggers.”
Requesting that small, inoffensive dick.
“When shall we three meet again, in thunder, lightning, or in rain?”
The cheeky message you send after a threesome but you just come off looking far too thirsty.
“His silver skin laced with his golden blood.”
When you get tired of waiting for your sugar daddy to die so you just kill them yourself.
“Double, double, toil and trouble; fire burn, and cauldron bubble!”
Tracking down the person who bullied you in high school, seducing them and then texting them a list of instructions on how to care for gonorrhoea.
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM
“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, and therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.”
Put a bag on that shit and go to pound town.
“I’ll follow thee and make a heaven of hell, to die upon the hand I love so well.”
If masturbating’s a sin then take me now, Satan.
“The course of true love never did run smooth.”
When you find that person who’s been missing for six years chained up in your partner’s basement.
THE COMEDY OF ERRORS
“Ill deeds is doubled with an evil word.”
Telling an old person to “shut the fuck up” while you burn their photo albums and steal their TV.
“Since mine own doors refuse to entertain me, I’ll knock elsewhere, to see if they’ll disdain me”
You’ve jerked off one too many times and realise you need actual, human companionship to complain about.
“Am I in earth, in heaven, or in hell?
About six pills deep into a three-day festival.
MERCHANT OF VENICE
“All that glisters is not gold.”
When your parents are heaping praise on your brother but you still remember when he hit a dog with his car on purpose. Twice.
“I am not bound to please thee with my answers.”
When airport security asks if the kilo of heroin in your rectum is yours.
“One half of me is yours, the other half is yours; mine own, I would say; but if mine, then yours; and so all yours.”
Being in a custody battle but you lowkey hate the little fuckers and secretly want your partner to get full guardianship.
ROMEO & JULIET
“How fares my Juliet? that I ask again; For nothing can be ill, if she be well.”
Do you like that? Are you close?
“O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?”
When you wake up in an empty bed before realising your partner left you three months ago due to your unhealthy obsession with bukkake compilations.
“Thus with a kiss I die.”
Good head.
So, now that I’ve cleared up various misconceptions about Shakespeare’s complex work, feel free to grab tix to the Pop-up Globe here.
I mean, I feel like I did a pretty solid job explaining everything that you need to know, but best just see it in person for a much more accurate and entertaining depiction.
Chuck the teaser below a watch to get a feel for what’s to come:
