The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

8/10

We did it! I started reading this a little over 2 years ago and finally finished it last night. A lot of things have happened since I began reading this, namely: the birth of my son, graduating from law school, studied for, took, and passed the bar exam, got a job, and moved all the way across the country. And I finished it just before the birth of my next son. We've seen, and been through a lot together, Shakespeare and I.

Anyway, it was mostly a fun and enjoyable experience. I really liked a number of his plays and usually at least slightly enjoyed most of the others. There were a few that I wasn't so keen on, but that's ok. I also decided to rank his plays and poems. Trust me, this is impossible to do. And I feel that if I re-read all his stuff again then the rankings could look quite differently. Plus, I think the rankings would look entirely different if I was ranking the actual play performances instead of just reading the plays. Nevertheless, below are the rankings. I also provide only one quote selected from each play, which was usually very difficult to narrow down. But a few plays I couldn't really even pinpoint a good one to use.

But one word before I present my rankings. My favorite is Othello. Yes, this is probably not ever listed as #1 of Shakespeare's plays, but I just love it. Mainly for 2 reasons: First, it was his first play I read that I enjoyed and realized that he's cool to read. And second, the main reason, I just can't get enough of Iago. Greatest. Shakespeare. Character. Ever.

1. Othello, The Moor of Venice

"To mourn a mischief that is past and gone
Is the next way to draw new mischief on.
What cannot be preserved when fortune takes,
Patience her injury a mockery makes.
The robbed that smiles steals something from the thief;
He robs himself that spends a bootless grief."

2. Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

"What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in action, how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god!

3. Julius Caesar

"There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat;
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures."

4. Titus Andronicus

"Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge"

5. Romeo and Juliet

"Confusion's cure lives not
In these confusions. Heaven and yourself
Had part in this fair maid; now heaven hath all.
And all the better is it for the maid:
Your part in her you could not keep from death;
But heaven keeps his part in eternal life.
The most you sought was her promotion;
For 'twas your heaven she should be advanced:
And weep ye now, seeing she is advanced
Above the clouds, as high as heaven itself?
O, in this love, you love your child so ill
That you run mad, seeing that she is well...
For though fond nature bids us all lament,
Yet nature's tears are reason's merriment."

6. King Lear

"Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides:
Who cover faults, at last shame them derides"

7. Pericles, Prince of Tyre

"One sin I know another doth provoke;
Murder's as near to lust as flame to smoke"

8. Cymbeline

"Be cheerful; wipe thine eyes:
Some falls are means the happier to arise."

9. Macbeth

"I am in this earthly world; where to do harm
Is often laudable; to do good, sometime
Accounted dangerous folly"

10. The Life and Death of King Richard III

"True hope is swift, and flies with swallows' wings;
Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings."

11. Coriolanus

"'twas pride,
Which out of daily fortune ever taints
The happy man"

12. King Henry V

"No, my fair cousin:
If we are mark'd to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men the greater share of honor.
God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold;
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires:
But if it be a sin to covet honor,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England:
God's peace! I would not lose so great an honor,
As one man more, methinks, would share from me,
For the best hope I have. O do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse:
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call'd the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbors,
And say, To-morrow is Saint Crispian:
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say, These wounds I had on Crispin's day.
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names,
Familiar in their mouths as household words, -
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloster, -
Be in their flowing cups freshly remembered.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered, -
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap while any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day."

13. King Henry VI. Third Part

"Wise men ne'er sit and wail their loss,
But cheerly seek how to redress their harms."

14. The Life and Death of King Richard II

"For gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite
The man that mocks at it and sets it light."

15. The Comedy of Errors

16. The Merchant of Venice

"The devil can cite scripture for his purpose.
An evil soul producing holy witness
Is like a villain with a smiling cheek -
A goodly apple rotten at the heart:
O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!"

17. King Henry VI. First Part

18. Much Ado About Nothing

"O, what men dare do! what men may do! what men daily do! not knowing what they do!"

19. Measure for Measure

"Heaven doth with us as we with torches do,
Not light them for themselves: for if our virtues
Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike
As if we had them not."

20. King John

"How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds
Make ill deeds done!"

21. The Winter's Tale

"Do as the heavens have done, forget your evil;
With them, forgive yourself."

22. Twelfth Night; Or, What You Will

"Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them."

23. The Tempest

"Look thou be true: do not give dalliance
Too much the rein: the strongest oaths are straw
To the fire i' the blood"

24. King Henry VI. Second Part

"What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted!"

25. King Henry VIII

"Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition:
By that sin fell the angels; how can man, then,
The image of his Maker, hope to win by it?
Love thyself last: cherish those hearts that hate thee;
Corruption wins not more than honesty.
Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace,
To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not:
Let all the ends thou aim's at be thy country's,
Thy God's, and truth's; then, if thou fall'st, O Cromwell,
Thou fall'st a blessed martyr! Serve the king;
And, - pr'ythee, lead me in:
There take an inventory of all I have,
To the last penny; 'tis the king's: my robe,
And my integrity to heaven, is all
I dare now call mine own, O Cromwell Cromwell!
Had I but served my God with half the zeal
I served my king, he would not in mine age
Have left me naked to mine enemies."

26. Two Gentlemen of Verona

"Fire that is closest kept burns most of all."
"They do not love that do not show their love."
"O, they love least that let men know their love."

27. King Henry IV. First Part

"If all the year were playing holidays,
To sport would be as tedious as to work"

28. Merry Wives of Windsor

"Better three hours too soon than a minute too late."

29. A Midsummer Night's Dream

"Disparage not the faith thou dost not know"

30. The Taming of the Shrew

31. Timon of Athens

"'Tis not enough to help the feeble up,
But to support him after."

32. Antony and Cleopatra

"We, ignorant of ourselves,
Beg often our own harms, which the wise powers
Deny us for our good; so find we profit
By losing of our prayers."

33. King Henry IV. Second Part

"O thoughts of men accurst!
Past, and to come, seems best; things present, worst."

34. Troilus and Cressida

"He that is proud eats up himself: pride is his own glass, his own trumpet, his own chronicle; and whatever praises itself but in the deed devours the deed in the praise."

35. As You Like It

"Your gentleness shall force
More than your force move us to gentleness."

36. All's Well That Ends Well

"The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together: our virtues would be proud if our faults whipped them not; and our crimes would despair if they were not cherished by our virtues."

37. Love's Labour's Lost

"All pride is willing pride."


And now to rank the Poems:

1. Venus and Adonis

"Love comforteth like sunshine after rain,
But lust's effect is tempest after sun;
Love's gentle spring doth always fresh remain,
Lust's winter comes ere summer half be done.
Love surfeits not; lust like a glutton dies:
Love is all truth; lust full of forged lies."

2. The Rape of Lucrece

"What win I if I gain the thing I seek?
A dream, a breath, a froth of fleeting joy:
Who buys a minute's mirth to wail a week?
Or sells eternity to get a toy?
For one sweet grape who will the vine destroy?
Or what fond beggar, but to touch the crown,
Would with the sceptre straight be stricken down?"

3. Sonnets to Sundry Notes of Music

"He that is thy friend indeed,
He will help thee in thy need;
If thou sorrow, he will weep;
If thou wake, he cannot sleep:
Thus of every grief in heart
He with thee doth bear a part.
These are certain signs to know
Faithful friend from flattering foe."

4. Sonnets

"Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no; it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error, and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd."

5. The Passionate Pilgrim

6. A Lover's Complaint

7. The Phoenix and the Turtle