Thought and Memory

Tag: Shakespeare

  • King Lear and the Fool in the Storm

    King Lear and the Fool in the Storm by William Dyce

    William Dyce 19 September 1806 in Aberdeen – 14 February 1864) was a Scottish artist, who played a part in the formation of public art education in the United Kingdom, and the South Kensington Schools system. (Wikipedia)

    King Lear is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare. It tells the tale of a king who bequeaths his power and land to two of his three daughters, after they declare their love for him in a fawning and obsequious manner. His third daughter gets nothing, because she will not flatter him as her sisters had done. When he feels he has been treated with disrespect by the two daughters who now have his wealth and power, he becomes furious to the point of madness. He eventually becomes tenderly reconciled to his third daughter, just before tragedy strikes her and then the king. (Wikipedia)

  • Macbeth and Banquo meeting the witches on the heath

    by Théodore Chassériau

  • This royal throne of kings

    This royal throne of kings, this scepter’d isle,
    This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
    This other Eden, demi-paradise,
    This fortress built by Nature for herself
    Against infection and the hand of war,
    This happy breed of men, this little world,
    This precious stone set in the silver sea,
    Which serves it in the office of a wall,
    Or as a moat defensive to a house,
    Against the envy of less happier lands,
    This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,
    This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,
    Fear’d by their breed and famous by their birth,
    Renowned for their deeds as far from home,
    For Christian service and true chivalry,
    As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry,
    Of the world’s ransom, blessed Mary’s Son,
    This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,
    Dear for her reputation through the world,
    Is now leased out, I die pronouncing it,
    Like to a tenement or pelting farm:
    England, bound in with the triumphant sea
    Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege
    Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame,
    With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds:
    That England, that was wont to conquer others,
    Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.
    Ah, would the scandal vanish with my life,
    How happy then were my ensuing death!

    Richard II 2.1.45

    Coat_of_Arms_of_England_(1558-1603)