The Bard turns 450

Last year, same date, I shared a poem, by the bearded Bard himself. It’s his 450th birthday today, and everywhere, people are surely celebrating him on their blogs and other social media.

One of Shakespeare’s greatest and my favourite play, is Macbeth. I don’t really know why, but, I know I like tragedies. And Macbeth is one of the biggest tragedies. Here, is the infamous scene of Macbeth, also the major twist in the plot.

Enjoy.

Act 1 Scene 3

MACBETH:
So foul and fair a day I have not seen.

BANQUO :
How far is’t call’d to Forres? What are these
So wither’d and so wild in their attire,
That look not like the inhabitants o’ the earth,
And yet are on’t? Live you? or are you aught
That man may question? You seem to understand me,
By each at once her chappy finger laying
Upon her skinny lips: you should be women,
And yet your beards forbid me to interpret
That you are so.

MACBETH:
Speak, if you can: what are you?

First Witch:
All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, thane of Glamis!

Second Witch:
All hail, Macbeth, hail to thee, thane of Cawdor!

Third Witch:
All hail, Macbeth, thou shalt be king hereafter!

BANQUO:
Good sir, why do you start; and seem to fear
Things that do sound so fair? I’ the name of truth,
Are ye fantastical, or that indeed
Which outwardly ye show? My noble partner
You greet with present grace and great prediction
Of noble having and of royal hope,
That he seems rapt withal: to me you speak not.
If you can look into the seeds of time,
And say which grain will grow and which will not,
Speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear
Your favours nor your hate.

First Witch:
Hail!

Second Witch:
Hail!

Third Witch:
Hail!

First Witch:
Lesser than Macbeth, and greater.

Second Witch:
Not so happy, yet much happier.

Third Witch:
Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none:
So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo!

First Witch:
Banquo and Macbeth, all hail!

MACBETH:
Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more:
By Sinel’s death I know I am thane of Glamis;
But how of Cawdor? the thane of Cawdor lives,
A prosperous gentleman; and to be king
Stands not within the prospect of belief,
No more than to be Cawdor. Say from whence
You owe this strange intelligence? or why
Upon this blasted heath you stop our way
With such prophetic greeting? Speak, I charge you.

-Witches vanish-

Want more? Read the full play here.

The Road Not Taken

For a long time, I’ve been wanting to write about this poem. I’ve felt a certain closeness to this particular poem, ever since my teacher introduced me to it. It was love at sight, and though I wasn’t new to the experience, it kept haunting me. It seemed to probe me to do what I felt was right. (but it is tougher than I expected it to be)

What, in the world, is so special about this poem? I can hear you wondering.

Well, it has beautiful words.

No, really. Apart from conveying the greatest piece of advice, the words were beautiful; the wording was artistic and the story it portrayed was an absolute classic.

Go ahead and read it, if you haven’t already.

The Road Not Taken.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

-Robert Frost

I told you so!

Life Is What You Make It

“If you have not made somebody’s day happier, if you’ve not appreciated something good that has happened to you and if you have not felt thankful to be alive, then you have wasted that day of your life on earth!”

~Preeti Shenoy, Life Is What You Make It

Alright, before I start about the book, let me just declare that I can’t tolerate love stories. Surprised? Yeah, I get that a lot.

Bleeding hearts, love letters, sleepless nights, butterflies and all the other insane things people relate to love – I hate them all. Particularly when the author takes up multiple pages describing how blissfully painful the sensation is.

I totally hate when simple events are exaggerated. Oh, I can’t stand to read how people in love, trip over something as tiny as a pencil and break their leg! Love isn’t about such mindlessness and I dislike it when authors illustrate it so.

Having said that, I was a bit tentative about reading the book. Knowing it was a love story, I had evaded the book for some time now. It was only when I held the book and read the description on the cover that I realized that the story addressed a bigger issue; a disease bigger than unrequited love; Bipolar Disorder.

I so wanted to read the book after that!

I wasn’t new to the condition; I’ve read blogs of people who are bipolar, and a few other articles too.

So the adventure began. It kept me awake through the night, and that doesn’t happen often, in the case of books that is.

I’m not into reviews, so here’s the story in short. It’s the life of an Indian girl, whose ambition penetrates her love story. She is the brightest student in her MBA batch, until she starts showing signs of bipolar disorder. With her recovery, ends the story.

I only felt that the learning-to-manage-without-medication process was too quick to be true. It is a lengthy process, as I understand, but it seemed simple in the book.

Bipolar Disorder seems to have a simple solution, and trivial matters, like trusting the “weird sisters“, end up tragic. Maybe that’s the queer thing about the written word. But that’s a topic for another time.

Another Face of Poetry

I am utterly surprised at how useful Quora is. I love poetry, and though I may not be the greatest of amateur poets, I enjoy the company of good poetry. It was all thanks to Quora that I discovered this new form of poetry, (OK, it’s not entirely new; it’s just so to my knowledge. (Though that reminds me to be a bit more mindful of the things that interest me. #NoteToSelf)) that they call ‘Spoken Word Poetry’.

I’ve heard poets narrate their works, but this is different. It’s not about narrating a poem that fits on a paper so well; this, is something that cannot be recorded (and is ineffective) on paper. It’s the ultimate power of speech merged with the art of poetry. A little bit of digging into the topic made me realize that it is indeed a long-existent form of poetry and that it is I who was stuck in the medieval age.

I must say that I enjoy this form, as much as I appreciate the written form. (Though I have to admit, nothing beats the smell of print (fresh or old) on paper!))

For your auditory pleasure, here’s Sarah Kay, delivering her poem “If I should have a daughter” on TED Talks. (The poem is only a segment of her speech.)

Enjoy!

Fire and Ice

Now a days, I often catch myself wishing that the world had ended in December 2012.

That reminds me of a poem of Robert Frost that I like, Fire and Ice. It was love at first sight. It was helpful that the first sight was during the time everyone in school was so feverishly worried about the world’s end.

The poem brought a smile on my lips, what a thought! Fire and ice, two destructive forces compared to two other similarly destructive forces, desire and hate. It seemed like a perfect combination. It was so obvious.

We don’t need another Tsunami or an earthquake to destroy us. Those are just external causes. We have stronger and more dangerous forces within us that have the power to vanquish us. And, we don’t realize it. We are only worried about Natural factors.

Sometimes it sounds so unlikely that desire or hate towards something could end up perilous, but reflection would reveal the truthfulness of those words.

We don’t need to worry about what Nature would do to us, rather, what should be a matter of our concern is what we could do to the only home we have. We could and would destroy ourselves, our loved ones and our generations by our self-centeredness. That is when the world really dies.

This poem changed my view on the world’s existence.

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

~Robert Frost

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