In honor of Shakespeare's 444th birthday, we ditched school and spent the day making merry with all things Elizabethan and Shakespearean. Normally my older boys are just too cool for something like this, but when you add no school + anything they usually come around. There is some question as to what day Shakespeare was actually born, we know he died on April 23rd, but his birth is a bit of a mystery. After a very quick, rather unscientific search of the web I settled on April 23. After all, if this date is good enough for STRATFORD-UPON-AVON, it's good enough for me. Plus it's St. George's Day, and we got to include a little bit on him as well because Ethan loves St. George.
First we had to do a little bit of decoration, we colored pictures and hung streamers. As we decorated we listened to an audio version of A&E's Biography: William Shakespeare, it's on iTunes for only $0.95.
I had hoped to begin our time of celebration outside, but Ben is allergic to grass and oak tree pollen and both are now in full force here. Our kitchen stood in for the stage (instead of our deck) and we groundlings watched from the pit (our family room.) We recited sonnets and portions of plays. This was a little out of the comfort zone of my teenage boys, but they had fun in spite of themselves. After our oratory practice, lunch was served. We dined on duck, cheese, pears, really good bread, strawberries and clotted cream.
Next we played a file folder game I made, you can download it here. The game is called Quote to The Globe. Players must correctly identify various Shakespearean quotes in order to advance, there's a wee bit of history thrown in too. The first player to make it to The Globe wins. Suffices to say, who ever paid attention for our stage portion did well with the game. I served as reader since I knew all the answers. I also came across some fun online games at Bantam.
We ended our day with one of my favorite movies, Much Ado About Nothing. I think Kenneth Branagh is hysterical in it, and I will admit that it upsets me that he and Emma Thompson are no longer together. :-/ And that's all I have to say about that.
Our Favorite Sonnets
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:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
SONNET 73
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
SONNET 116
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
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Apr. 24, 2008 - What a wonderful day!