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Assorted Bob Books Cool quotes

Quotes: Shakespeare’s take on ‘eat the rich’

We saw the Globe Theatre’s production of Hamlet last night at the Folger here in D.C. Wonderful production. It also was my first time seeing a play at the Folger, which is a fantastic space despite the fact that some sight lines are obstructed. (That’s the Capitol at right as viewed from the entrance to the Folger.)

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Hamlet: A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.

Claudius: What dost thou mean by this?

Hamlet: Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar.

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Assorted Bob Books D.C. Bob

Imagine a world with no Macbeth

The First FolioThe New York Times recently had a good story on the Folger Library’sFame, Fortune & Theft: The Shakespeare First Folio.” In addition to prompting me to add the exhibit to my to-do list, the story made my head spin with the following paragraph:

“If it weren’t for the First Folio, there would be no extant copies of ‘The Tempest,’ ‘Julius Caesar,’ ‘Macbeth,’ ‘Twelfth Night’ ‘As You Like It’ or ‘The Winter’s Tale.’ All the world wouldn’t be a stage; no countrymen would lend anyone their ears; and life wouldn’t be a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing.”

Wow. Imagine the cultural gap we would have suffered had the First Folio not been published and preserved. And then start wondering what cultural gems were lost when they weren’t afforded the same treatment …