Free Bardisms by Barry Edelstein

sisterhood is friendship, this speech can be used to describe a relationship of either type. A simple introduction—“My relationship with Ashleigh is as close as a beautiful one in a Shakespeare play called As You Like It ”—is all the setup you’ll require. LeBeau’s line can also be pressed into service to describe your favorite sisterly bond. Just start the line with their instead of whose .

    Eat at the end of line 2 is pronounced et (rhymes with bet ), because it’s the past tense of the verb to eat. Modern Americans would say ate , or because of the helper verb have in this sentence, eaten . But et (spelled, confusingly, eat ) is still in wide use in England, as anyone acquainted with a Britisher will know: “Oy, mate, would you like to ’ave some dinner?” “Cheers, no. I already et .”
    BROTHERS ARE CLOSE PALS

    Two Bardisms from two very different plays articulate Shakespeare’s understanding of brotherly affection. They capture that sense that brothers are intimate teammates, agents for the same secret organization, and co-conspirators on a mission only they are privy to and which can be achieved only through their joint efforts.
From this hour

The heart of brothers govern in our loves

And sway our great designs.

—A NTONY , Antony and Cleopatra , 2.2.154–56
We came into the world like brother and brother,

And now let’s go hand in hand, not one before another.

—D ROMIO OF E PHESUS , The Comedy of Errors , 5.1.426–27
    How to use them:
Both of these speeches can be used to wish auspiciousness to your brothers, or closest friends, as they embark on any undertaking that you feel must be characterized by a mutual respect and love in order to succeed. The opening of a business or the start of a vacation are two occasions that come to mind. The lines can also help patch up a falling-out between brothers or close friends. Dromio’s speech in particular is a heartwarming expression of fraternal equality and warmth.

    Dromio is one-half of a set of identical twins, so his first line is a literal reference to the moment of his and his brother’s simultaneous birth.

    Antony is reaching out in friendship toward his rival, Octavius Caesar. His speech is a bit more comprehensible if you imagine a comma at the end of its first line, and the word may at the start of its second: “From this hour, may the heart of brothers…” That is, Antony is expressing his hope that brotherly hearts—hearts that are loving and intimately bound together—will influence, or sway , the feelings between himself and Caesar, and will help them achieve great things together.

    In both Bardisms, replace brothers and brother with sisters and sister to get the all-girl versions.

Then the Schoolboy
    SHAKESPEARE FOR THE OCCASIONS OF CHILDHOOD

And then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel, And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school.
    A few years have passed and the infant has grown up a bit. His mewling has modulated into less cacophonous but still hardly agreeable whining. His face is now puke-free, freshly scrubbed at the start of each day, and so clean that it shines. No longer in his nurse’s arms—and you can bet she’s relieved and catching her breath—he’s on his own for at least that part of the day it takes him to walk to his destination. It’s his daily project to see just how protracted he can make the journey, because what awaits him when he arrives is a bastion of heinousness as forbidding as any torture chamber ever devised in the annals of depravity and tyranny: school !
    We can all remember taking that long, unwilling walk in the morning, and that’s why Jaques’ Second Age of Man always summons a smile of recognition. Yet every time I read these lines, even as memories cascade of my own slow, satchel-laden 8:00 a.m. stroll down Hopper Avenue toward Roosevelt Elementary, I’m fascinated that this is the image Shakespeare would choose as the defining emblem of childhood.