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Tag Archives: Shakespeare

Sweet-peas, Twelfth Night and Another Birthday Cake

The sweet peas on the trellis outside the kitchen window are beginning to flower. The geranium is the best its ever been.

We’ve been to see Twelfth Night this evening and laughed all evening. What a terrific interpretation of the play and just five actors playing all the roles! Miracle Theatre are touring Cornwall so if you are a local reader, do try to catch it, all outdoor performances and utterly delightful.

The set

Our dear friend for whom I made the cake on Tuesday, celebrated her actual birthday this evening with a trip to the show and a fabulous chocolate cake made by her lovely husband.

White Dahlia, Pink Amaryllis and Friendship

04 Oct

Our white Dahlias are very lovely this year. They seem to have found their feet at last.

White Dahlia in our garden

I have been singing with friends this afternoon, getting ready for a performance in November. Their garden is glorious but only this photo worked today as I am getting to know how my new camera works.

Amaryllis in J&M’s garden

My Blog is dedicated to my lovely friend, Kath, who died six years ago today. In Sonnet 104, Shakespeare talks about the value of friendship and the fact that enduring friendship remains intact despite the “process of the seasons” and the passing of the years.

To me, fair friend, you never can be old,

For as you were when first your eye I eyed,

Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold

Have from the forests shook three summers’ pride;

Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turned

In process of the seasons have I seen;

Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burned,

Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.

Ah yet doth beauty, like a dial hand,

Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived;

So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,

Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived.

For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred:

Ere you were born was beauty’s summer dead.

I have written almost every day with Kath in mind, a total so far of 2,309 posts in her memory.

3 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on October 4, 2017 in Beauty, environment, friendship, nature, Photography, poetry, postaday2017

Tags: Shakespeare, Sonnet 104

Hamlet on Radio 4, Parents’ Tao and Narcissi

27 Mar

1 Confined to the house as I am with pleurisy (what a bummer!) I am loving listening to BBC Radio 4’s Afternoon play which each afternoon this week is a marvellous interpretation of Hamlet, one of my favourite of Shakespeare’s plays. Today’s episode reached the oh so moving speech when Queen Gertrude tells Laertes that his sister, Ophelia has drown’d.

“There is a willow grows aslant a brook

That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream.

There with fantastic garlands did she come

Of crowflowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples,

That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,

But our cold maids do “dead men’s fingers” call them.

There, on the pendant boughs her coronet weeds

Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke,

When down her weedy trophies and herself

Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide,

And mermaid-like a while they bore her up,

Which time she chanted snatches of old lauds

As one incapable of her own distress,

Or like a creature native and indued

Unto that element. But long it could not be

Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,

Pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay

To muddy death.

Those beautiful, sad words brought Milais’ painting into my head.

Ophelia by John Everett Millais

2 A blogging friend, Lou, introduced me to The Presents of Presence when she re-blogged a post. The following words really spoke to me so I, in turn, give them to you here:

Make the Ordinary Come Alive

Do not ask your children,
To strive for extraordinary lives.

Such striving may seem admirable,
but it is a way of foolishness.

Help them instead to find the wonder
and the marvel of an ordinary life.

Show them the joy of tasting
tomatoes, apples and pears.

Show them how to cry
when pets and people die.

Show them the infinite pleasure
in the touch of a hand.

And make the ordinary come alive for them.

The extraordinary will take care of itself.

From ‘The Parent’s Tao Te Ching” by William Martin

3 Last night two of my knitting friends brought me some beautiful Pheasant’s Eye Narcissi. Not only do they look amazing, they smell just lovely. Thank you N and T.

Pheasant’s Eye Narcissi

8 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on March 27, 2014 in art, Beauty, literature, nature, painting, photography, poetry, Postaday 2014

Tags: Hamlet, John Everett Millais, Ophelia, Ophelia by John Everett Millais, Queen Gertrude, Shakespeare

Clematis, Dahlia and Othello

26 Sep

1 There is just one flower on the clematis, a final fling before the winter comes along.

Just one Elizabeth Clematis

2 The dahlias are coming into their best right now.

Another white dahlia

3 The National Theatre occasionally sends live feeds of stage plays to cinemas all over the country and tonight we have been privileged to be in the audience for one of my favourite Shakespeare plays, Othello, just down the road at our local cinema. It was brilliant – the whole audience left the theatre still with bated breath. It was a truly thrilling production – so like being right there in the theatre that the cinema audience applauded along with those actually at The National! Set in modern dress and with the war in the desert, the timelessness of the themes (and the words) of Shakespeare’s plays strikes the audience anew.

Othello with Adrian Lester and Rory Kinnear

The following is taken from the publicity material.

“The National Theatre presents a major new production of William Shakespeare’s celebrated play about the destructive power of jealousy.Olivier Award-winning actor Adrian Lester (Henry V at the National Theatre, BBC’sHustle) takes the title role.Playing opposite him as the duplicitous Iago is fellow Olivier Award-winner Rory Kinnear (The Last of the Haussmans, James Bond: Skyfall), who is reunited with director Nicholas Hytner (Timon of Athens, One Man, Two Guvnors) following their acclaimed collaboration on the National Theatre’s recent production of Hamlet. Othello, newly married to Desdemona – who is half his age – is appointed leader of a major military operation. Iago, passed over for promotion by Othello in favour of the young Cassio, persuades Othello that Cassio and Desdemona are having an affair.”

3 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on September 26, 2013 in Beauty, flowers, garden, National Theatre Live, nature, photography, Postaday2013, theatre

Tags: clematis, dahlia, Othello, Shakespeare, The National Theatre

Richard III, DNA and Josephine Tey

04 Feb

How exciting! There really is a King in the car-park! It’s Richard III!

Richard III

Last September, bones were excavated from under a car-park in Leicester, UK, where in the 15th Century there once stood Greyfriars Church. Richard III was killed nearby in 1485 in the Battle of Bosworth Field and, it turns out, was buried, somewhat hastily according to the Lead Archaeologist, Richard Buckley from Leicester University. He says that the grave was clumsily cut with sloping sides and not big enough for the body and he said, “There was no evidence of a coffin or shroud which would have left the bones in a more compact position.Unusually, the arms are crossed and this could be an indication the body was buried with the wrists still tied.”

We already know that after death, Richard was stripped naked on the battlefield and thrown over the back of a horse and that he did not receive the burial of a King but, until now, we didn’t know exactly where he was.

There seems to be plenty of evidence following ‘rigorous academic study’ to support this identification:

The skeleton is that of a man aged late 20s – early 30s according to Dr Jo Appleby, an osteo-archaeologist and we know that Richard was 32 when he died.
The bones have been carbon dated to between 1455 and 1540
The skeleton’s spine is curved (Contemporary Historians describe Richard as having a curved posture and of course, Shakespeare has him as a hunchbacked villain)
The injuries are many and consistent with a violent death -10 injuries including 8 to the skull at ‘around’ the time of death. Some may have been inflicted after death and that too is consistent with historical accounts. There is also evidence of some “humiliation injuries’ which would have been inflicted after death.
But, best of all, the genealogists have been able to trace an ancestor and to match the DNA! They found a 17th generation descendant of Richard’s sister in Canada! Unfortunately she died a few years ago but her son is right here in London and gave a DNA sample. Dr Turi King, project geneticist, said, “There is a DNA match between the maternal DNA of the descendants of the family of Richard III and the skeletal remains we found at the Greyfriars dig. In short, the DNA evidence points to these being the remains of Richard III.”

Isn’t that just remarkable? I’ve long been a defender of Richard! As a youngster, I read Josephine Tey’s ‘The Daughter of Time” and was convinced by the fictional Inspector Grant’s conclusion, after researching reference books and contemporary documents, that Richard was totally innocent of the murder of the Princes in the Tower!

Actually, history shows that despite being King for only 26 months he passed significant legal reforms that protected the ordinary citizen. He introduced the idea of bail and he outlawed the introduction of taxes without the assent of both Houses of Parliament. He had a reputation for fairness and mediation. He was known to be a skilled and valiant knight in battle. He was loyal to his brother, King Edward IV, who loved him and entrusted him with the care of the young Princes and he was much loved by the people especially in the North of England.

To me, Richard was no villain and Shakespeare and the rumour-mongers have much to answer for!

I wonder what you think? Was Richard a murderous villain or a much maligned man of his times?

I know this is not my usual post but to me a series of beautiful things led to this discovery!

19 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on February 4, 2013 in History, Postaday2013, quotations

Tags: 1485, Battle of Bosworth Field, carbon dating, DNA, Dr Jo Appleby, Dr Turi King, King Edward IV, King in the car-park, King Richard, Leicester University, Postaday, postaday2013, Richard Buckley, Richard III, Shakespeare

Three Wise Monkeys, Othello and Bubbles

12 May

1 My Three Wise Monkeys sculpture, made in copper especially for me by the artist, Jeremy Beswick, some years ago, has today been put up on the wall by Mr S. I grew up with three carved wooden monkeys but they didn’t end up with me so I had some made! The Three Wise Monkeys “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil”

‘Three Wise Monkeys’ by Jeremy Beswick, Artist

2 What a treat! Shakespeare’s Othello has been on BBC Radio 4 this afternoon and I’ve been planting up my monkey sculpture with the radio close by. Lenny Henry was brilliant as Othello in this Northern Broadsides production.

3 Beautiful bubbles have been blowing over the fence from next door’s 5 year old having fun. 🙂 Click on the photo to enlarge and see the bubbles clearly.

Bubbles, caught on camera!

2 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on May 12, 2012 in art, garden, Northern Broadsides, sculpture, senses, theatre

Tags: BBC, bbc radio 4, beautiful bubbles, Bubbles, Copper Sculpture, Lenny Henry, literature, Northern Broadsides, Othello, Shakespeare, Three Wise Monkeys, writing

Shakespeare’s Birthday, St George’s Day and Ceramic Sculpture

23 Apr

1 In honour of The Bard’s Birthday, The Globe yesterday held a poetry reading of Sonnet 18 in many different languages,(from Norwegian through Latin to Catalan!) which The Guardian has published today. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/apr/22/in-praise-of-shakespeares-sonnet-18 If you follow the link, there is a fascinating discussion which many of my poetry-lover readers may enjoy. The Globe Theatre is putting on all 37 plays in 37 different languages which is brilliant. (What’s not so brilliant is that the event is being sponsored by BP)

2 Yesterday at the Lelant Garden Centre, I saw this delightful wooden sculpture of St George and the Dragon.That poor Dragon and the rotten triumphal George!