We had a terrific weekend bringing our Shakespeare Walks to Farnham for the first time, as part of the town's inaugural Literary Festival.
Across 12 & 13 March, walkers discovered the beauty, pain, and silliness of Shakespeare's timeless words.
If you were on the walk and want to know where the speeches came from and what sonnets we used, read on for more or download the sheet!
Venue: The Victorian Garden
Actor: ROSALIND BLESSED
Speech: Polonius from Hamlet
Yet here, [friends]! Aboard, aboard, for shame!
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
And you are stay'd for. There; my blessing with thee!
And these few precepts in thy memory
See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportioned thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledged comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,
Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
And they in [Farnham] of the best rank and station
Are of a most select and generous chief in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine ownself be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell: my blessing season this in thee!
Venue: The Haren Garden
Actor: GAVIN FOWLER
Speech: Sonnet 29
When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
Venue: Gostrey Meadow
Actor: CHRIS PORTER
Speech: Duke Senior from As You Like It
Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile,
Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
More free from peril than the envious court?
Here feel we but the penalty of Adam,
The seasons' difference, as the icy fang
And churlish chiding of the winter's wind,
Which, when it bites and blows upon my body,
Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say
'This is no flattery: these are counsellors
That feelingly persuade me what I am.'
Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;
And this our life exempt from public haunt
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones and good in every thing.
I would not change it.
Venue: Vicarage Lane
Actor: ISABELLA MARSHALL
Speech: Sonnet 57
Being your slave, what should I do but tend
Upon the hours and times of your desire?
I have no precious time at all to spend,
Nor services to do, till you require.
Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour
Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,
Nor think the bitterness of absence sour
When you have bid your servant once adieu;
Nor dare I question with my jealous thought
Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,
But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought
Save, where you are how happy you make those.
So true a fool is love that in your will,
Though you do anything, he thinks no ill.
Venue: St Andrew’s Churchyard
Actor: JOHANNE MURDOCK
Speech: Sonnet 33
Full many a glorious morning have I seen
Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye,
Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;
Anon, permit the basest clouds to ride
With ugly rack on his celestial face,
And from the forlorn world his visage hide,
Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:
Ev'n so my sun one early morn did shine
With all triumphant splendour on my brow;
But out alack! He was but one hour mine,
The region cloud has mask'd him from me now.
Yet him for this, my love no whit disdaineth,
Suns of the world may stain, when heav'n's sun staineth.
Venue: Farnham Museum Garden
Actor: ELI MURTON
Speech: Perdita from The Winter’s Tale
Here's flowers for you;
Hot lavender, mints, savoury, marjoram;
The marigold, that goes to bed wi' the sun
And with him rises weeping: these are flowers
Of middle summer, and I think they are given
To men of middle age. You're very welcome.
Now, my fair'st friend,
I would I had some flowers o' the spring that might
Become your time of day; and yours, and yours,
That wear upon your virgin branches yet
Your maidenheads growing: O Proserpina,
For the flowers now, that frighted thou let'st fall
From Dis's waggon! Daffodils,
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty; violets dim,
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes
Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses
That die unmarried, ere they can behold
Bright Phoebus in his strength - a malady
Most incident to maids; bold oxlips and
The crown imperial; lilies of all kinds,
The flower-de-luce being one! O, these I lack,
To make you garlands of, and my sweet friend,
To strew him o'er and o'er!
[O], take your flowers:
Methinks I play as I have seen them do
In Whitsun pastorals…
Venue: Corner of Hart and West Street
Actor: IMRAN MOMEN
Speech: Sonnet 50
How heavy do I journey on the way
When what I seek, my weary travel's end,
Doth teach that ease and that repose to say,
'Thus far the miles are measured from thy friend.'
The beast that bears me, tirèd with my woe,
Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me,
As if by some instinct the wretch did know
His rider loved not speed being made from thee.
The bloody spur cannot provoke him on,
That sometimes anger thrusts into his hide,
Which heavily he answers with a groan
More sharp to me than spurring to his side,
For that same groan doth put this in my mind -
My grief lies onward and my joy behind.
Venue: Lion & Lamb Yard
Actor: DEWI MUTIARA SARGINSON
Speech: Sonnet 91 & Portia The Merchant of Venice
Sonnet 91
Some glory in their birth, some in their skill,
Some in their wealth, some in their bodies' force,
Some in their garments, though new-fangled ill,
Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse;
And every humour hath his adjunct pleasure,
Wherein it finds a joy above the rest:
But these particulars are not my measure;
All these I better in one general best.
Thy love is better than high birth to me,
Richer than wealth, prouder than garments' cost,
Of more delight than hawks or horses be;
And having thee, of all men's pride I boast:
Wretched in this alone, that thou mayst take
All this away and me most wretched make.
Portia
The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice.
Venue: BORELLI’S WINE BAR
Actor: SIMON NOCK & ROBIN MORRISSEY
Speech: The Comedy of Errors
ANTIPHOLUS
Why, how now, Dromio! Where runn'st thou so fast?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
Do you know me, sir? am I Dromio? am I your man? am I myself?
ANTIPHOLUS
Thou art Dromio, thou art my man, thou art thyself.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
I am an ass, I am a woman's man and besides myself.
ANTIPHOLUS
What woman's man? and how besides thyself? besides thyself?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
Marry, sir, besides myself, I am due to a woman; one that claims me, one that haunts me, one that will have me.
ANTIPHOLUS
What is she?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
A very reverent body; ay, such a one as a man may not speak of without he say 'Sir-reverence.' I have but lean luck in the match, and yet is she a wondrous fat marriage.
ANTIPHOLUS
How dost thou mean a fat marriage?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
Marry, sir, she's the kitchen wench and all grease; and I know not what use to put her to but to make a lamp of her and run from her by her own light.
ANTIPHOLUS
What complexion is she of?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
Swart, like my shoe, but her face nothing half so clean kept: for why, she sweats; a man may go over shoes in the grime of it.
ANTIPHOLUS
What's her name?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
Nell, sir; but her name and three quarters, that's an ell and three quarters, will not measure her from hip to hip.
ANTIPHOLUS
Then she bears some breadth?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
No longer from head to foot than from hip to hip: she is spherical, like a globe; I could find out countries in her.
ANTIPHOLUS
In what part of her body stands Ireland?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
Marry, in her buttocks: I found it out by the bogs.
ANTIPHOLUS
Where Scotland?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
I found it by the barrenness; hard in the palm of the hand.
ANTIPHOLUS
Where England?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
I looked for the chalky cliffs, but I could find no whiteness in them; but I guess it stood in her chin, by the salt rheum that ran between France and it.
ANTIPHOLUS
Where Spain?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
Faith, I saw it not; but I felt it hot in her breath.
ANTIPHOLUS
Where America, the Indies?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
Oh, sir, upon her nose all o'er embellished with rubies, carbuncles, sapphires, declining their rich aspect to the hot breath of Spain; who sent whole armadoes of caracks to be ballast at her nose.
ANTIPHOLUS
Where stood Belgia, the Netherlands?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
Oh, sir, I did not look so low. To conclude, this drudge, or diviner, laid claim to me, call'd me Dromio; swore I was assured to her!
ANTIPHOLUS
Go hie thee presently, post to the road:
An if the wind blow any way from shore,
I will not harbour in this town to-night:
If any bark put forth, come to the mart,
Where I will walk till thou return to me.
If every one knows us and we know none,
'Tis time, I think, to trudge, pack and be gone.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
As from a bear a man would run for life,
So fly I from her that would be my wife.
THE END!
