Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Surprising Sayings We Owe to William Shakespeare

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Love is blind: "But love is blind, and lovers cannot see/The petty follies that themselves commit." -- Jessica, The Merchant of Venice (this phrase appears in Two Gentlemen of Verona and Henry V)
Knock knock! Who's there?: "Knock, knock, knock! Who's there, i' th' name of Beelzebub? Here's a farmer that hanged himself on the expectation of plenty. Come in time, have napkins enough about you, here you'll sweat for 't." -- Drunk or hungover porter, Macbeth
Green-eyed monster: "O, beware, my lord, of jealousy!/It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock/The meat it feeds on." -- Iago, Othello
The world is my oyster: "Why then the world's mine oyster/Which I with sword will open." -- Pistol, The Merry Wives of Windsor
Wild goose chase: "Nay, if our wits run the wild-goose chase, I am done; for thou hast more of the wild goose in one of thy wits than, I am sure, I have in my whole five." -- Mercutio, Romeo & Juliet
In a pickle: "And Trinculo is reeling ripe: where should they find this grand liquor that hath gilded 'em? How camest thou in this pickle?" -- Alonso, The Tempest
Break the ice: "And if you break the ice and do this feat/Achieve the elder, set the younger free/For our access, whose hap shall be to have her/Will not so graceless be to be ingrate." -- Tranio, The Taming of the Shrew
Hair stand on end: "Thy knotted and combinèd locks to part/And each particular hair to stand on end/Like quills upon the fearful porpentine." -- Ghost, Hamlet



Surprising Sayings We Owe to William Shakespeare | The Stir

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