As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends, / I must not look to have; but, in their stead, / Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath, / Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not" (5.3.25-28).
William ShakespeareRead
Thou whoreson zed! Thou unnecessary letter! My lord, if you will give me leave, I will tread this unbolted villain into mortar, and daub the wall of a jakes with him. *all cheer for Shakespearean insults*
Interpretation
This quote humorously expresses frustration through a creative insult, showcasing the wit of Shakespeare's language.
In this quote, Shakespeare employs elaborate and imaginative language to criticize someone he despises. By inventively insulting the individual as an 'unnecessary letter' and threatening to use his body as building material for a toilet wall, it highlights the playwright's mastery of colorful insults and the comedic potential found in theatrical language. The use of such humorous expressions emphasizes the creativity one can employ even in moments of anger.
In practice
A performer could use this quote in a comedic skit to highlight Shakespeare's wit.
As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends, / I must not look to have; but, in their stead, / Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath, / Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not" (5.3.25-28).
Love bears it out even to the edge of doom.
Good company, good wine, good welcome, can make good people.
Absence doth sharpen love, presence strengthens it; the one brings fuel, the other blows it till it burns clear.
Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying!
Give it an understanding, but no tongue.
We've got a bunch of new writers now who tell me they grew up watching The Simpsons. It's bizarre, and they're writing some very funny stuff.
The greatest comedian I've ever seen is Jack Benny. He wasn't afraid of the silences.
My dream in life is to write the one gag that makes everyone in the world laugh.
Turgenev was a very serious fellow but he could make me laugh because a truth first encountered can be very funny. When someone else's truth is the same as your truth, and he seems to be saying it just for you, that's great.
I'm as old as my tongue and a little older than my teeth.
I was foreign and Jewish, with a funny name, and was very small and hated sport, a real problem at an English prep school. So the way to get round it was to become the school joker, which I did quite effectively - I was always fooling around to make the people who would otherwise dump me in the loo laugh.
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