Tag Archives: @Shakespeare

Will and Ben: Renaissance Men – Second Best Bed

Posted on January 13, 2019 by | 2 comments

Will & Ben: Renaissance Men – Second Best Bed.

Will: My Second Best Bed? It’s in the wash. Why do you ask, Ben?

Ben: How could your bed be in the wash, Will?

Will: Second Best Bed, Ben.

Ben: Okay. How could your Second Best Bed be in the wash, Will?

Will: When you put your mind to something, Ben, you will find a way to achieve more than you could dream of.

Ben: Yes, Will; but, in the wash!

Will: Ben, Ben, Ben! It is a metaphor. My Second Best Bed is not a bed to lie upon.

Ben: I’ truth?

Will: It is a saying that says not the message that the words combine to form. For example: ‘My Second Best Ben is in the Ale House.’

Ben: You have another friend that calleth himself ‘Ben’, Will?

Will: No, Sirrah. It is thee! When thou are in the Ale House you are not my Best Ben, but my Second Best Ben. Due to the Ale that thou consumest.

Ben: Ah! Now I see; but, about your bed…?

Will: I lied upon it, Ben.

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Will & Ben: Renaissance Men – ‘Lichen’

Posted on December 23, 2018 by | Leave a comment

Will & Ben: Renaissance Men – ‘Lichen’

Will: Shall I compare thee to a lump of moss…

Ben: Lichen!

Will: Okay, if you prefer, Ben. ‘Shall I ‘liken’ thee to a lump of moss.

Ben: ‘Sigh!’

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Park Side Story

Posted on December 15, 2018 by | Leave a comment

Park Side Story

The Crows

Vs.

The Geese

The Crows were erring on the side of cawtious; whilst the Geese were being open in their use of backganders to secure inside information about their foes.

The Sharks and The Jets has nothing on them – as Sharks live in the sea, and Jets fly in the air.

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Will & Ben: Renaissance Men – Fish Supper.

Posted on December 11, 2018 by | Leave a comment

Will & Ben: Renaissance Men – Fish Supper.

Will & Ben and the Invention of the Fish Supper.

Little do people know that it was William Shakespeare who first invented the fish supper as we know it today.

It’s creation came about in this strange way…

One night in Southwark’s more salubrious quarters, Will and Ben were downing (and sometimes quaffing) pints of merrry mead when the conversation turned on to the subject of food.

Will: Hast one a hunger, Ben?

Ben: Aye, Will; I hast a hunger for wine, women and song!

Will: Apart from those fine hobbies of yours, Ben, hast thou a hunger for the love of food?

Ben: Well, Will, now that you come to mention it… hast thou any thoughts upon what food we could devote our attentions?

Will: ‘Tis Friday, Ben; and fish is the recommended dish, is it not?

Ben: Yeah, verily, Will: good old English fish cooked in good old English water and served with a good old English apology.

Will: Usually, Ben, I would say ‘yes, you are quite right!’ but I know a place where they will fry the fish for you. I supplied them with a flour-paste coating for the fish – with special herbs – and they coat the fish with it!

Ben: Sounds disgusting, Will!

Will: That’s as maybe, Ben; but, I have gained a taste for it; they will also fry some of Raleigh’s Potatoes for you, if you like.

Ben: Was that also at your behest?

Will: Aye, Ben; I am something of a fish-monger as well as being a word-monger.

Ben: Okay, Will, where is this place?

Will: Up by the Battery.

Ben: Let is do this thing, Will; ‘tid Friday, and we shall suffer fish.

Will: Super, Ben; let us begone hence!

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The Gravediggers (Reprised) from Hamlet.

Posted on November 16, 2018 by | Leave a comment

The Gravediggers (Reprised) from Hamlet.

The grave-diggers ‘were’ quite sombre.

Nothing seemed to cheer them at all.

Even Grave-digger No. 1

was not being the life and the soul

of the party –

it was a wake after all.

A farewell to a departing soul.

But, usually, there was the dry banter of their kind,

a way of dispersing the mood,

lightening the burden

of burying the dead.

“What’s wrong, Grave-digger No. 1?” enquired Grave-digger No. 2.

“I have heard that young Lord Hamlet, son to the previous, prior King Hamlet of Denmark, who bore the same name, Hamlet, and named his son, Hamlet, yet the same again.”

“A long line of Hamlets!” interjected Grave-digger No. 2.

“Precisely, sirrah! A line that stretches back into a time long ago, but now stretches forward no more.”

“Sadly, ‘tis so.” spake Grave-digger No. 2. “Thou speakst the sad truth, as thou rarely dost.”

“I’faith, I am of quite a sorrowful countenance. The old Yorick reminded to me; the beautiful Ophelia buried; and then young Hamlet, gone before his time.”

“Life is not fair, my friend and digging companion. One day, too, we shall be lain in boxes i the ground.”

“Aye! And who would have thought that we might’st live to see ‘that’ day?”

“Who, indeed?”

“It bears not the thinking about!”

“Then let us not!”

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Will & Ben: Renaissance Men – Smells.

Posted on November 2, 2018 by | Leave a comment

Will & Ben: Renaissance Men – Smells.

Will & Ben: Renaissance Men

Will: A goose by any other name would smell as sweet.

Ben: Don’t you mean ‘Rose?’

Will: No., Ben. I mean ‘goose’.

Ben But, Geese smell… well, like geese!

Will: Very descriptive, Ben. But if a Rose were a goose, and roses were geese…? Do you see what I am saying? Do you smell what I do?

Ben: Will, sometimes you do speak a lot of nonsense.

Will: Quotable nonsense, Ben. Quotable nonsense. You smell like a dung-heap, Ben.

Ben: Ah! I see a dung-heap by any other name would smell- hold on, was that one of your insults, Will?

Will: Well, if I said that you smelled like a rose… you might have taken it as a compliment.

Ben: Oh, well, that’s alright then. Will. And by the way…

Will: Yes, Ben?

Ben: You stink!

Will: Touché, Ben. Touché!

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Sad Cypress?

Posted on September 19, 2018 by | Leave a comment

Song: “Come away, come away, death” 

BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

(from Twelfth Night)

Come away, come away, death,

    And in sad cypress let me be laid.

Fly away, fly away, breath;

    I am slain by a fair cruel maid.

My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,

             O, prepare it!

My part of death, no one so true

         Did share it.

Not a flower, not a flower sweet,

    On my black coffin let there be strown.

Not a friend, not a friend greet

    My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown.

A thousand thousand sighs to save,

             Lay me, O, where

Sad true lover never find my grave,

             To weep there!

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