The more Shakespeare you learn, the more you see, and that is delightful—most of the time; however, as the brain becomes more and more filled with Shakespeare, the Shakespeare tends to get mixed up with everything else. As an example, Bardfilm has compiled a list of the Shakespearean’s most frequently misquoted movie quotes. Enjoy!

Love means never having to say you’re sorry. It also means drinking the poison right before your true love, the one you thought was dead, wakes up.

Is this a dagger that I see before me, the handle toward my hand, or are you just happy to see me?

You’ve got to ask yourself one question: “Do I feel lucky?” Well, do you, Puck?

I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse: A pound of flesh for 3,000 ducats.

Hamlet: “Hello. My name is Hamlet of Elsinore. You killed my father. Prepare to die.” Claudius: “Stop saying that!”

What we’ve got here, Yorick, is a failure to communicate.

Frankly, my dear, I don’t give an incestuous, murderous, damnèd Dane.

I’m as mad as Lear, and I’m not going to take it any more!

I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Then again, I thought that about Iago.

Show me the ducats!

Back to Milan, eh—with all this lot? You’re gonna need a bigger boat.

I see dead people. You know, the ghost of Lady Anne, the ghost of Hastings, the ghosts of the princes, the ghost of Buckingham—that kind of thing.

You had me at “Forsooth.”

Keep your Iagos close; but keep your Cassios closer.

“Open the pod bay doors, Hal.” “Shut up, Falstaff.”

Demetrius, I’ve got a feeling we’re not in Athens anymore.

[Singing wistfully] Nothing comes from nothing; nothing ever could. / But somewhere in her youth or childhood, / I must have smacked Cordelia good.

Striker: “S’blood, you can’t be serious!” Rumack: “I am serious . . . and don’t call me S’blood.”

“What is between you, Ophelia? Give me up the truth.” “The truth? You can’t handle the truth!”

Horses? We ain’t got no horses! We don’t need no horses! I don’t have to show you any stinking horses! So keep your lousy kingdom, which seems to be in a right shambles in any case.

Get your stinking paws off me, you incestuous, murderous, damnèd dirty Dane!

Of all the taverns in all the streets in all Eastcheap, she walks into mine.

Gertrude: [Flails about in agony, dies.] Claudius: I’ll have what she’s having.

Our thanks for this guest post to kj, the author of Bardfilm. Bardfilm is a blog that comments on films, plays, and other matters related to Shakespeare.

We don’t discuss interpretation of the text enough these days. I really should make more progress in R3, but that’s a different story :).

The other day I answered somebody’s question on Macbeth, asking what this quote means:

I have no spur To prick the sides of my intent

I pointed out that this quote is only partial, and when you look at the rest it makes more sense:

I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself
And falls on the other.

This quote comes from Macbeth himself, trying to pump up for the bloody deed he’s about do (namely, kill the king).  My best summary for this particular passage was, “Nothing personal, Duncan.  I don’t have to do this because of anything that you did.  You’re just in the wrong place at the wrong time.  I want to be king, and that means you gotta go.”

I know that’s a gross over simplification, but sometimes that’s all these kids want.  When I think of “translating Shakespeare into modern speech” this is what I think of.

Anybody want to help flesh out (or correct) that answer?  The next time somebody googles for the meaning of that quote I’d love for them to land here and see some interesting discussion about what that passage means.

I can’t say I know much about Dr. Battis, but his resume is impressive to say the least and I felt that his contributions to our beloved playwright deserved a little recognition. Dr. Battis died this past weekend due to complications from bladder cancer.

Read the whole obituary to get the full span of this man’s achievements – I’ll list only a few here:

• He played more than 90 characters in Shakespearean plays and,
  he often noted, had only one onstage kiss in his life.
• He worked at
  Baltimore’s Centerstage before moving in 1984 to Washington, where he
  appeared in almost 70 productions of the Shakespeare Theatre. He
  received a Helen Hayes Award for his lifetime contributions to
  Washington theater in 2002.
• Dr. Battis
  acted in all but one of Shakespeare’s 37 plays — the lone exception was
  “Cymbeline” — and gave his final performance as Marcade in a 2006
  production of “Love’s Labour’s Lost” in the Bard’s home town of
  Stratford-upon-Avon in England
• Battis’s
  Falstaff, one critic wrote, “was all that Shakespeare wrote the
  character to be: braggart, glutton, coward, liar, obscene buffoon, yet
  blessed with an indomitable spirit and an ability to laugh at himself.”
• After a 1967 performance in Ohio, the Cleveland Plain Dealer
  proclaimed Dr. Battis’s interpretation “the best Lear of our
  generation.”

Sounds like we lost one of the good ones. Anybody out there happen to know his work, and can share any stories/experiences?

Flights of angels, Dr. Battis.  RIP.