Summer's Lease...

It's the first of June so that must mean it's time for another Calendar Challenge and this month, Simon Drew offers a pictorial take on the words of the immortal Bard to kickstart our days of Summer...

To my mind, I think 'not to be' sounds rather drastic so I'm voting for the former. But in any case, this quote (from Hamlet in case you were wondering) does make me think about William Shakespeare's influence in our language. 

I took literature both at High School and then as my minor at Uni, and I remember how surprised I was at the proliferation of quotes that were already familiar to me. Just sticking with Hamlet, I had heard of both to thine own self be true and neither a borrower nor a lender be despite never actually studying the play itself. 

And while I've never gotten around to seeing As You Like It, my theatre forays here on Gidday from the UK are tagged with all the world's a stage. Imitation is, after all, the sincerest form of flattery.

What I did study was Macbeth - three times. Not for me the dark romance of Romeo and Juliet (who was the sun) nor the comic delights of a Midsummer Night's Dream, where the course of true love never did run smooth. 

No, after wading through this tragedy as our compulsory Shakespeare in Year 11 English, taking English Literature in Year 12 found me double double toil and trouble-ing again with the teacher thinking it would be better to do something we already knew. And then I went to Uni to broaden my horizons and such-like only to find that rather than bear[ing] a charmed life, fair was foul and I was in the hurly burly...again.

Thanks goodness we did The Merchant of Venice in second semester and I got to learn all about pound[s] of flesh. And I did finagle a spate of Twelfth Night. With wonderful lines like 'Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them' it is little wonder that this remains one of my favourite plays.

I have since seen quite a few of the Bard's back catalogue here in London, most recently Measure for Measure, King Lear and Much Ado About Nothing. And I love them but I've noticed a peculiar pattern emerging. The norm is that I struggle to keep pace with the language in the first half, then google the story again in the interval to see whether I have managed to gain any sense of what's going on. The answer is almost always yes and I invariably return and just relax into the language, trusting that I will get all of the points that must be made and having a much more enjoyable time as a result. 

And speaking of enjoyment, today is the first day of Summer here in the UK. It has been sunshine-y and warm and the roses are out in force at Gidday HQ - who needs all the perfumes of Arabia [to] sweeten this little hand?

And with that, it seems to me that the only fitting end to this post lies in Shakespeare's Sonnet 18:

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date".

Here's to a fabulous Summer!

ps...and just in case you are struggling with the translation of the pictogram...

To be or not to be - that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep--

No more

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Calendar Challenge 2014 - Back Catalogue
Keep Calm And Carry On
Sour Grapes
Water Water Everywhere
On The Shore
What Lies Before Me