Don Pedro. Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you, for out o’ question you were born in a merry hour.
Beatrice. No, sure, my lord, my mother cried, but then there was a star danced, and under that was I born. — Cousins, God give you joy!
—Much Ado About Nothing
Also (and actually) born today: Optimatum and Rós þyrnir. Joy to all!
Happy birthday shakespeare!
To celebrate, I will list a bunch of the correct ways to spell Shakespeare:
Shakespeare
Shakespere
Shakespear
Shakspeare
Shackspeare
Shakspere
Shake-speare
Shakeſpere
Shak-speare
Shake-ſpeare
Shaksper
Shagspur
Shaxpers
WHO IS SHAKESPEARE!?!?
All I know is he wrote Romeo and Juliet.
And nobody, NOBODY can live 450 years!!!!!
He is in fact dead. But he was probably the most famous English playwright in all of history, and arguably the best. His plays can be difficult to read if you’re not used to them, since they’re written in Elizabethan-era English. Sometimes seeing them performed makes it easier to understand them, but reading them in annotated versions is also helpful. Check them out sometime!
No human, certainly, but a redwood can quite easily, and for a bristlecone pine, 450 years is hardly anything.
William Shakespeare was a famous poet and playwright who lived in 16th century England. He did indeed write Romeo and Juliet, as well as many other famous plays such as Hamlet, Macbeth, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. His works are still widely read and even more widely quoted today. He was the first to use many common words and expressions in modern English, such as “I must be cruel to be kind”, “green-eyed monster” and “dead as a doornail”.
Marry, madam, he is an excellent fyne felowe, possess’d of much wit and as much discernment. He wil mak yow laugh and wepe by turnes, and oft both at once. I bid you loke to hys Playes; for there is grete delighte to be had therein.
Shakespeare did not spell things that badly. Look it up. Also, he used the letter “V” instead of “U” just like everybody else did back then.
Most editions of Shakespeare you read these days have modern spelling, but the original texts were pretty similar to what Paul just wrote. (Paul Baker has been pretending to be an Elizabethan Englishman longer than either of us have been alive. He knows what he’s talking about.)
(well played.)
Pretending to be?! Pb&j is an Elizabethan Englishman, POSOC!