It sounds like a website. “Get your FREE somethingsomething NOW! at eNOW.com!” It’s not. Not that I know of at least.

enow (adv.) IPA Pronunciation:
enough

KING HENRY V
If we are mark’d to die, we are enow
To do our country loss;
- Henry V (IV.iii)

Apparently enow.com is a website, I checked. Nothing interesting though. Enow is a word when reading is easy to think it’s a misprint, but it’s printed several times in almost all editions, so maybe not.

We often hear how much Shakespeare has influenced our language, that there are phrases and words we still use today. Often they go unnoticed because they’re so tightly woven into our minds and tongues. There’s one recently however that has been hitting me over the head repeatedly.

HORATIO
Now cracks a noble heart. Good night sweet prince:
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!
- Hamlet (V.ii)

“Good night sweet prince,” says Horatio as Hamlet dies. This phrase is everywhere! I haven’t always watched a lot of TV, but I’ve had time recently. Over the last couple months I’ve heard these words at multiple deaths or people going to sleep. In all instances it is used for comic effect for those who get the reference. And all should, if they paid attention in English while studying Hamlet. Most, of course, didn’t.

The most recent shows I heard this phrase were Futurama and M*A*S*H. There are others, but I can’t seem to remember them at this moment in time. I should have been keeping track.

Keep your eyes and ears peeled for this one. And let me know where else you find it. In fact, if you find other similar occurrences of different Shakespearean phrases please let me know! I’d love to hear about it.

I’m not talking about what holds the ends of your belt together. You might buckle with your buckle to buckle, but that’s not very Shakespearean, is it?

buckle (v.) IPA Pronunciation:

grapple, fight, combat

CHARLES
In single combat though shalt buckle with me.
- Henry VI, part 1 (IV.iv)

Here, Charles the King of France is challenging Joan of Arc so that she may prove she has divine support before letting her lead his men into battle. It’s always good to test that sort of thing instead of taking their word for it.

This word’s meaning can usually deduced from the context. But don’t get confused, buckle is also used with the definition you’re more familiar with.

by Charles Boyce

When I’m working on one of Shakespeare’s plays there are a few books that I won’t go too far without. This is one of them. Shakespeare A to Z is a sort of encyclopedia of Shakespeare’s plays and characters, along with entries on people, places, things, stories, mythology, times, days, and more that is mentioned in any of The Bard’s works.

This is a great companion to reading, studying, and acting anything from Shakespeare. A very handy first stop for research. Yes, first stop. Don’t use this as your only source of information. If you want to understand anything really well it needs to come from a variety of sources. Even so this text is amazingly useful and completely indispensable.

Shakespeare A to Z:
The Essential Reference to His Plays, His Poems, His Life and Times, and More

Since you have come here looking for information, I shall reguerdon you with some.

reguerdon (n.) IPA Pronunciation:
recompense, reward, repayment

KING HENRY VI
Stoop then and set your knee against my foot;
And, in reguerdon of that duty done,
I gird thee with the valiant sword of York
- Henry VI (III.i)

Also can used as a verb, exactly like the word reward. The word guerdon has the same meaning and uses as it does with the prefix re. The ability to drop or add a syllable and keep the same meaning is a useful tool to have to keep to the ten syllable meter of the verse.

The Bard Blog is a month old today. WOW! So much has been added already and there’s a billion more things to do. I have a long list of items to write about for every category in the sidebar. If you have any suggestions for something you’d like me to discuss I’d be glad to hear about, just let me know!

There are a lot of Shakespeare dictionaries and glossaries online and very few of them are any good. You’re best bet will always be a physical book. A Shakespeare Lexicon of some sorts, or the Oxford English Dictionary.

The new glossary page is by no means a substitute for those wonderful resources, I’m not even going to try. The glossary is a list of all the past Words of the day. In a long while from now it will become a long semi-comprehensive list that might be a good first place to look for some more challenging words, but don’t throw your dictionaries away! And be careful of some of those free online Shakespeare glossary pages. They’re usually not very complete, not always useful, and sometimes don’t have correct definition for the context you’re looking for.

All that aside, check out the page and enjoy!

Cutting one of Shakespeare’s plays is a common practice for obvious reasons: many of them are long. Not everyone has the patience for a three and a half hour (or more) Hamlet. Performing an uncut version of one of The Bard’s plays is in fact uncommon. But if you ever see an CUT version of The Comedy of Errors – Shakespeare’s shortest play – the director is probably crazy or is performing for an entire crowd with Attention Deficit Disorder.

But what happens to a play when we cut the tail end off of it? What is changed when the resolution of the conflict is ended but there is no return to a new or the old stasis? It might put a different spin on what the full play is showing. For example: after Romeo and Juliet kill themselves there is still another 125 lines of text consisting of Friar Laurence, the kids’ families, the Prince, and others coming to the scene. The incredulous spectators of this horrible event listen to the Friar tell how it all came to pass; Lord Montague and Capulet, in their grief, put aside their differences and end their feud; the Prince wraps everything up with a nice speech ending in a rhyming couplet.

In an uncut ending of this play, the audience is not left to think that this play “glorifies teenage suicide,” as it is often critisized of doing. We are made to see how this terrible tragedy affects the families of the two deceased. At the same time, the feuding heads of the family have to deal with the consequences of their fighting. Like at the end of most tragedies, we get some sort of an answer to the question, “How far is too far?”

How often do you see all this produced? In many of the movie versions and on stage this scene has quite a bit of text sheared from its body. Lets say a production were to have Juliet stab herself, blackout. This leaves the audience with less closure. Hopefully the director has a few notes in the program about what her/she was trying to do with the production, in case anyone is confused. But this ending elicits a host of different things to think about at the end of the show. I won’t say that this is better or worse, it is an option for anyone putting on this play.

The same goes for any of Shakespeare’s plays, but I won’t discuss them all. Just one more: Hamlet. After Hamlet dies, Fortinbras comes in and claims the throne; The English Ambassador comes to tell us that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead; Horatio will speak to the people about how this happened, etc. What if we don’t see anymore after “Good night sweet prince: And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest”? Maybe the director has cut out most the Fortinbras storyline, so it wouldn’t make sense for him to show up. Maybe they wanted to leave us thinking about the sort of tottering state Denmark would be in after the entire royal family has been killed.

There aren’t any concrete answers to these questions I bring up, just some food for thought. Directors should be mindful of what effect your cuts might have. Audience members – be aware of the effect the conclusion of a play or movie has on you. What are you left thinking, wondering, guessing? And how does that affect your enjoyment of a production?

All’s well that ends well; still the fine’s the crown;
Whate’er the course, the end is the renown.
- All’s Well That Ends Well (IV.iv)

The great potential that classic drama has to changes like this to create different responses is what really lets creativity soar sometimes, and maybe less desirable effects at other times. If you have any thoughts on this please comment and continue the discussion! I’d love to hear your thoughts too.

Pronounced like what you might do at a casino, but not related. This is a popularly asked about word in Shakespeare. The meaning isn’t always obvious from the context and isn’t familiar to everyone’s eyes. This is a special post because this is a popular and versatile word.

gambol IPA Pronunciation: /’gæm.bl/
(n.) leap, caper, antic

COUNTRYMAN
She’ll do the rarest gambols
- Two Noble Kinsmen (III.v)

(v.) shy away, leap away

HAMLET
… I the matter will re-word, which madness
Would gambol from
- Hamlet (III.iv)

(adj.) playful, sportive, spirited

FALSTAFF
such other gambol faculties ‘a has that show a weak mind and an able body
- Henry IV, Part 2 (II.iv)

Also gambold is used as a noun, which means entertainment. The most common place to find this word that I have not yet mentioned is in A Midsummer Night’s Dream when Titania tells her fairies “Be kind and courteous to this gentleman; / Hop in his walks and gambol in his eyes;” – (III.i). Referring of course to Nick Bottom, the ass. Titania is asking the fairies to entertain him.