23 April is “Talk Like Shakespeare Day”! Newly discovered act of a rare play….

After Masses this morning, TLM and NO, I had lunch and nap.

I awoke with a start.

Today, I suddenly realized, is…

TALK LIKE SHAKESPEARE DAY!

shakespeareYes, it is the birthday of the Bard.

In the past I have encouraged you to talk like Shakespeare.

To help you, I have offered videos and some suggestive words.  I hope you remember them.

I also, to enkindle in you a true zeal for this moment – which can spill over into tomorrow because, hey, why not? – I even posted a scene from a little known play called… A Most Tragikal Hystory of Obama I

I found another little known piece (I dashed off) which might bring you to beg the Muse for … the… thing muses give.

The Trumping of the Shrew

Dramatis personae:
Chorus
Lord Trump: President of these USA
Lord Sean: Baron of Spicer – Secretary of Press
Lord Bannon: Earl of Breitbart – Counselor
CNN
New York Times
Lord Sessions – Attorney General
Hillary Clinton
MSNBC
Crowd – Outside

CHORUS:
O for a network pundit that would salve
the anxious outcome of elections tense,
a stage for wonk debates, senators to prate,
and congressmen to guide th’ electorate.
So has the ruddy Donald, hair swept up,
defied th’ establishment and, in his wake,
has claimants one by one discomfited,
brought down in vanquishment and loss.
But pardon, sponsors all, for we halt now
your pandering for sales with this stock gang
of mainsteam media elites, who press
in conference for POTUS now to hear.
List! List! O list if ever you
did county love and office high respect.
For Donald, hair in place, has enteréd
a statement now to make, with many quips
to batter newsies where they stand or sit,
because their daily coverage is for….

[TRUMP-ETS. ENTER Trump, Sean, Bannon, retainers]

SEAN:
Hail now the coming of himself. All rise.
Honor now to POTUS Donald raise.

TRUMP:
All during our campaign, you leeches fleered
and hooted high whenever I foretold
that we would sweep our states with style
and with our college electoral take the crown.
No no, you clowns with twisted news and fake,
conspired our ascendancy to break.
Thus speak I now.  I, not you, was right.
And you were wrong our victory to scorn.
But it was huge, huge I say and great.
Safe, strong and fair America shall be
again, believe me, I can tell you that.

SPICER:
Vultures, do your best the President
to harm, his every word to twist and wrench.
The Donald will your hollow questions take.

TRUMP:
I see one there, of lefty CNN
e’er in the sack with foe homonymous.

CNN:
O POTUS, smug and with thy mane o’er thrust,
when during months campaigning, with your sneer
thou didst make sundry vows and promises.
Of taxes you said plenty.  Where’s the beef?
And rampaged you against the thrifty care
which blessed Obama graciously did grant
to all the poor, his name forever blessed.
The wall you called for with your rabid mass
of devotees deluded’s still not up.
Now what? What now, o promiser in chief?
Cans’t show us ought as token of success
in this centenary of days primordial?

[CROWDS OUTSIDE]
Build the Wall!  Build the Wall!
Mexico shall pay withal!

TRUMP:
A beaut’, thou art, sirrah, a real beaut’.
Did e’er your channel, bewizzened and beguiled,
you commie, tree-enamored blatteroons,
attention lend to facts and state them fair?
Fake!  Fake, your news. Forsooth, it’s fake!
Believe me, I can tell you that, again.
In governing, the waste and taxes swoll’n
shall be laid low in blesséd sweet relief
of fardels foisted on the working man
by dems, known otherwise as losers all.
Renew we now our oft-repeated pledge.
Again America renewed shall be
and great and safe and strong.  Believe you me!

SPICER:
In nebulosity sulphuric there
I spy a lady frantic, gray and shrunk,
mad to retrace her halcyon steps when she
did once o’er-awe the inky media.
Let next Hell’s Bible query POTUS here
for our amusement and their termless shame.

NYT:
Mister President – O how that word
does stick as if it were a sharpened bone
or twig or any other sort of thing
with points and jags and cuts and stings and … points –
O would that I could point and jag and sting
with cutting prose and jabbing stinging … points
and … but… Deny this, in a rush
of phrases known by now by everyone so well!
It’s true for sure that you and yours, by which
I mean your evil clutch of Breitbart serfs,
your hireling attendants such as that
retainer there, are in the Russians’ pay
and are so compromised, that every course
homey and domestic is bewitched.
Tell, O POTUS, tell!  Cans’t thou be true?

TRUMP:
See?  See? This is what I mean.
The times of Knickerbocker fame have past.
They scrape and con, subscribers to elate,
and tired old subscriptions to retain.
No way did Vlad extend in cyberplots
dread influence forth to local, and to state
or federal contests, safe and e’er secure.
Why waste we now our time on this old times,
whose time is past, whose readership is few?
If Russian stories you would seek, then go,
alacritous to Chappaqua thee hie.
Of Hillary there ask, or ask her vile
ensconcéd servers, though in fostering
these questions thou mays’t accidently die
and wind up in some park against a tree.
Now go.  Ask not thou Roosky chat from me.
Seek sordid Bill and worsted Hillary.

[CROWDS OUTSIDE]
Lock her up!  Lock her up!

BANNON:
Good my liege and POTUS, stay and hear
while news I bring to presidential ear.
Foreseeing that the MSM would dote
upon the Clintons, facts ignoring all,
the senior staff of this thy snowy house
surprise has sorted, documents made out
so that, indicted, seized and brought to town,
judicial process and the FBI
at long last might sift Hillary anew.
And though the MSM shall take the part
of Alekto, shall Tisiphone’s play out,
be they Magaera in the flesh, we shall
in equity remain, and blameless cool,
irenic ever to their Erinyes.

SPICER [Aside]:
Not.

TRUMP:
Well and fairly explainest thou thyself,
believe me, I will tell you by and by,
O counsel bearing Bannon, trusted aide.
But, speak now, hide this not from POTUS eyes.
Now tell us in the press room here before
the present MSM, agog – what beauts!
Reveal!  What’s in this wondrous cheery tale
you hinted at of portents unforeseen?

SPICER:
With keen juridic Sessions, comes she now.
It’s presaged by that clanking in the hall.

[ENTER HILLARY in chains, AG SESSIONS and DORYPHORE AGENTS]

PRESS, ALL:
Woe!  Woe! And more woe!

[CROWDS OUTSIDE]
Lock her up!  Lock her up!

TRUMP:
What’s this ghost-like image I descry?

HILLARY:
Oooooooo…..

TRUMP:
O wrinkléd one.

HILLARY:
Eeeeeeeee….

SPICER:
Gentlemen and ladies of the press,
you know the former lady of his place.
First lady of the land as once she was
she stands now neither lady nor the first.
In second place defeated came she in,
though you, the MSM, did long e’re since
bedeck her with your plaudits, laurels raw.
You simpered, fawning, supine, biased all,
sycophantic toadies that you are.

[CROWDS OUTSIDE]
Lock her up!  Lock her up!

TRUMP:
Sweet music.  Sweet days.
Silence, now, and let her have her say,
[ASIDE to AG]
but guard thine ears from poison that she’ll spray.

HILLARY:
Thus did I ever make this land my purse.
For mine own slaves made I these media fools.
For this great office did I time expend,
deserving, righteous, due and next in line
to take and hold for always what is mine.
Mine.  Mine it is!  Taken, precious, lost.
Soros rich, and MSM besides
could not conspire to bring me to my prize.
Alinsky tactical, dread Satan’s champ,
provided me with playbook thick with scams.
As chief among Obama’s diplomats
I, myself the law, did smile at regs
made for the lesser beings, for their rule,
while we, th’ enlightened, dictated and fleeced
the man forgotten, simple, dim and slow.
Though heavy hang these chains in place of crowns,
again name I the morons who opposed
me bigots, racists, homophobic dolts.
Your heads deplorable shall fall into
the teaming baskets fit for xenophobes.
As for the forty and the fourth in line
of oval office yon, I hate the moor,
who lent not pardon when my hopes were rent
and to the White House Donald Trump was sent.

CNN:
O piteous spectacle!

NYT:
O woeful day!

TRUMP:
Didn’t I say it?  Did I it not say?
In penultimate debate I made it clear
that, when this lofty office I did claim
we’d find, o fibber, emails erased.
Quoth I before the biased MSM
my general attorney to engage
to ferret out the truth behind thy lies
and see that justice in this land be done.
And to my promises I shall be true.
As never knew the Attic denizens,
who raiséd up stout wooden parapets
‘gainst the Spartans grim, shall our wall be.
The Roman, close to courses mine on heaths
of golfy Scotland palisades did frame
Hadrianatical.  Nor Gobi dry,
nor Beijing smoggy saw our ramparts high,
high, lofty strong and unafraid.
For in that wall towards welcome guests arrived
there op’s a comprehensive door,
a door, believe me, op’ed to lawful path.
Against all hombres peccant, dudes corrupt,
I can tell you, this wall will be sealéd.
Seal’d, that is, not op’ed. And that’s for you,
you fake news types who haven’t got a clue.

[CROWDS OUTSIDE]
Build the Wall!  Build the Wall!
Mexico shall pay withal!

HILLARY:
Eeeeeeeeee….!

CNN, NYT
Woe, woe and thrice woe.

TRUMP:
We are going to work to make a land
once known for justice, pow’r, wealth and hope,
which enemies abroad and here do hate,
become again America the Great!

[CROWDS OUTSIDE]
USA!  USA!

TRUMP:
Sessions, good my lord, Enforcer Prime,
take ye now this baggage hence and hie
unto the Tower grim, her trial to hold,
her sentence to attend and prison taste.
Let thoughts of laws long-scorned race though her brain
as sparks of conscious lightning might old ash
fire into humble penance and respect.
If indeed, as she lamented now,
the lack of pardon from the forty-fourth,
the forty-fifth, who weighs and wields right now
prerogative benign, may issue forth
mild pardons and his commutations kind.
It will be huge.  Believe.  ‘Tis truth I tell.
But now, to Mar-A-Lago let us go.
A Baron does await our presence there
with true Melania, and Ivanka fair,
dear siblings and the rest.  Come, let us go.

[TRUMP-ETS – EXIT TRUMP, BANNON, SESSIONS, AGENTS, and HILLARY, clanking]

SPICER:
What say you, newsies?  Agents of fake news?
What say you in the wake of these events?
What shall your carrion messages convey,
to trouble all our homeland, free and brave?

CNN, NYT:
Revenge! About! Seek! Burn! Fire! Kill! Slay!

MSNBC:
To Berkeley!

[EXEUNT OMNES]

 

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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15 Comments

  1. yatzer says:

    I hope it’s OK to remark that I like this better than Shakespeare. Well done!

    [LOL! Thanks… but, no, it really isn’t.]

  2. anilwang says:

    For the record, the original Shakespeare sounded a lot different than you think it sounds:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPlpphT7n9s

  3. Robert of Rome says:

    Brilliant, simply brilliant!

  4. LovedSinner says:

    You’re a fucking monster Fr. Z.

    Fuck you!

    [A real wordsmith! And for the casual passerby, I get this stuff all the time in the combox and in email. I’ve been at this internet thing since 1992, so it doesn’t phase me. If it is threatening, however, I turn it over to law enforcement. FWIW]

  5. LovedSinner says:

    You mock and laugh at people like me. Do you know how much this hurts me. To have a priest, mocking me??

    Enjoy your fun.

    Nathan

    [I’ll take that as a “No” vote. Please feel free to leave a donation on the way out.]

  6. Gratias says:

    Great Bard of an immortal tale for the ages. Should be a Trilogía Subita.

  7. How doth I within this wall of flesh, there is a soul that counts thee its creditor for such worthy entertainment? Bowing gracefully into a curtesy …

  8. DavidR says:

    O holy excellent! Thou collar’d Bard,
    That skewers with thy pen the MSM,
    And lofts on high the orange-hairéd Prez!
    That we, Deplorables might entertain
    The thoughts that Law and Justice shall prevail!

    The elder Media has been deposed,
    And alphabetic frauds are now O’Reilly’d,
    Discomfiture long due and well-deserved.
    A Sheriff new has enteréd our house
    And sets to right the wrongs so long endured.

    Perhaps monopolies he will disband,
    And cable “news” shall die upon the vine.
    New sources shall spring up, as in a spring,
    And once again, the Truth shall make us free.
    And liars all shall ne’er us fool again.

    [Thanks, gentle reader, and well done.]

    Fr. Z's Gold Star Award

  9. wanda says:

    Bravo, Fr. Z. Bravo!

  10. Bos Mutissimus says:

    The real tragedy of Omaba I is that there’s a “I” at the end of it (implies there will be a “II”). To paraphrase Disraeli, the former was a disaster but the latter would be a catastrophe….

  11. James P says:

    That made my day. Thanks for that!

  12. Kathleen10 says:

    Fr. Z., this is about the fourth Talk Like Shakespeare Day I have witnessed.
    I’m having trouble coming up with adjectives here. I don’t want to hurt myself, so let me just say you’ve done it again, it’s superb, I don’t know how you manage to do it and actually have it not only make sense but be pointedly wonderful. You have really, really captured it, all of it. Dead on accurate, center mass. Beautifully humorous.
    @DavidR, well done Sir. Very!

    Your hate mail is bizarre. After seeing so much of this lately, my only conclusion is our young people are often just not capable of emotional restraint or civil discourse. These are verbal temper tantrums from well, limited cognitive and/or communicative resources.

    [I suspect that person is not young… chronologically.]

  13. un-ionized says:

    Kathleen10, the name Nathan is common among young people so I think you are correct. somebody from my generation wouldn’t say what he did either.

  14. Semper Gumby says:

    Fr. Z and David R: Classic! Many great lines. Hadrianatical, Alinsky tactical, “but guard thine ears from poison that she’ll spray.”, etc.

    One of these days I must learn iambic pentameter. Perhaps next year: King Trump and the Sultans of Barbary.

    Hmm…Mad Dog Mattis and the Chairman of the JCS…

    ENTER King Trump’s boon companion Mad Dog Mattis- Keeper of the Privy Arsenal:

    But hark! What cruise missile through yonder window
    breaks?
    Mayhaps ’twas a MOAB titanic,
    either way that was quite dramatic.

    Baron Dunford V of JCS:
    I proclaim’d it throughout my host,
    Mad Dog,
    such outward things dwell not in my
    desires,
    but if it be a sin to covet either weapon,
    I am the most offending soul alive.

    Mad Dog:
    Good herald, the deed is done no matter,
    pray tell, the name of camp jihadi that once stood hard by?

    etc. etc.

  15. Immō doctē! Exémplum admīrábile. Facḗté dictum! Sēscéntās grátiās!

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