Details for this torrent 


William Shakespeare - 5 - Romeo & Juliet, Caedmon 1961
Type:
Other > E-books
Files:
116
Size:
742.02 MB

Texted language(s):
English
Tag(s):
shakespeare:romeo:juliet:poetr

Uploaded:
May 19, 2014
By:
wordcity



O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.
She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies
Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep;
Her wagon-spokes made of long spiders' legs,
The cover of the wings of grasshoppers,
The traces of the smallest spider's web,
The collars of the moonshine's watery beams,
Her whip of cricket's bone, the lash of film,
Her wagoner a small grey-coated gnat,
Not so big as a round little worm
Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid;
Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut
Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,
Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers.
And in this state she gallops night by night
Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;
O'er courtiers' knees, that dream on court'sies straight,
O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees,
O'er ladies ' lips, who straight on kisses dream,
Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,
Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are:
Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,
And then dreams he of smelling out a suit;
And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig's tail
Tickling a parson's nose as a' lies asleep,
Then dreams, he of another benefice:
Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,
And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,
Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,
Of healths five-fathom deep; and then anon
Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes,
And being thus frighted swears a prayer or two
And sleeps again. This is that very Mab
That plats the manes of horses in the night,
And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs,
Which once untangled, much misfortune bodes:
This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,
That presses them and learns them first to bear,
Making them women of good carriage:
This is she-- 

R&J is one of the first flushes of Shakespeare's genius. To quote Spurgeon 'In Romeo and Juliet the dominating image is light, every form and manifestation of it'

This is the Caedmon recording with Albert Finney and Claire Bloom as the principals. A somewhat old fashioned romantic feel to it that no contemporary production would or could attempt. And occasionally it verges on a rather stiff Victorian dramaturgy. But both the acting and the handling of Shakespeare's verse are so good you won't mind.

(Kindly seed, and if you can't find a seed for any previous poetry torrent go to the folder 'Current Poetry Torrents' and follow the instructions on the pdf.)