Time for another round of “Did Shakespeare really say that?” Today’s quote is:  “Empty vessels make the loudest sound.” Turns out, he did!  Henry V, Act 4, scene 4 (thanks Clusty!) Boy : Suivez-vous le grand capitaine. I did never know so full a voice issue from so empty a heart: but the saying is true ‘The empty vessel makes the greatest sound.‘ Bardolph and Nym had ten times more valour than this roaring devil i’ the old play, that every one may pare his nails with a wooden dagger; and they are both hanged; and so would this be, if he durst steal any thing adventurously. I must stay with the lackeys, with the luggage of our camp: the French might have a good prey of us, if he knew of it; for there is none to guard it but boys.   What I think is funny about this one is that, in context, it says “as the saying goes”.  So although it’s technically a Shakespeare quote, Shakespeare’s saying “I wasn’t the first one to say this.”

http://news-briefs.ew.com/2009/07/camp-rock-2-jonas-brothers.html 🙂 Relax – the new Camp Rock movie just looks like it’ll have some Romeo and Juliet thrown in, which I’m sure simply means “boy and girl can’t be together because parents are stupid.”  And, like all good comedies, it’ll have a happy ending when everybody learns their lesson early enough so nobody has to die. Of course, now that the High School Musical craze has died down, my daughters are perfectly poised to become Camp Rock nuts.  So I suppose it’s not a bad deal to get a little Shakespeare thrown in.  Although if I know my kids it’ll take them about 2 seconds to spot the similarities and say “Wait, that’s not how it goes in the real story…”

When I saw what looks like a trailer for an Iago movie, I was all over that in a flash as you could well imagine.  Problem is, it’s in Italian:

  Anybody know what they’re saying? Good news is that IMDB tells us this is indeed a real movie.  Bad news is that the reviews are awful.  (Actually looking closer I see that there are only 2 reviews – a 2, and a 10.  Wonder if they were watching the same movie?) Oh well.  The idea’s neat.  Iago could handle his own movie, I think.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/jun/26/michael-jackson-death-in-la Go ahead and read the article – I couldn’t stomach it. I link it only for the Shakespeare connection.  Spot it?  The article’s written by Germaine Greer, who wrote a book about Shakespeare’s wife (among other contributions to the field). Had to post that.  I try so hard to stay on topic, but the rest of the world is busy talking about Mr. Jackson today, I wanted to get in on the act 🙂

Or so I saw quoted on Twitter today, attributed to one Mr. William Shakespeare.  I was excited, as this almost directly reflects the First Noble Truth of Buddhism which, roughly paraphrased, says “Desire is the root of all suffering.” I’m thrilled when interests of mine cross like that.
But…it doesn’t sound like Shakespeare.  I don’t know if I’m developing the golden ear or what, but I’m finding that when I hear a Shakespeare quote that I’ve not heard before, I have pretty good luck in determining whether it’s misattributed.
And thus far, I cannot find a single piece of evidence that this is indeed Shakespeare.  It’s attributed all over the place, but always just to “William Shakespeare”, never with an associated work – even in lists where they otherwise do specify the work.
Anybody got the scoop?  Surely if it’s in the plays (or sonnets or long poems) then it would pop up in a search, wouldn’t it?

Don’t forget to check out Not By Shakespeare where we track down the source of this and many more quotes mistakenly attributed to Shakespeare.