Jan 2nd

2nd day of the New Year. Our community has dwindled down to less than 10 persons at meal times. I introduced Fr Tomislav to Jane Austen and he's now reading Pride and Prejudice after finishing Sense and Sensibility.

We got into a discussion about Victorian english and eventually leading to rhythm and scansion of the meters in poetic and narrative texts. It's incredible how much I still remember of iambic pentameters and alliteration and all that stuff I learned 30 years ago. I always loved literature.

So after citing several examples of Piers the Ploughman, and the Canterbury Tales and Shakespeare, I couldn't resist returning to two of my favourite passages from the Bard. The 1st from Macbeth and the 2nd from The Tempest.

MacBeth's speech

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing."

Caliban's speech

Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me that, when I waked,
I cried to dream again.