Shakespearean Misquotes: William Shakespeare’s Oft MisQuoted Lines

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You have heard them, you have said them, did you say them correctly?

Misquote: “Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him well”

Correct Quote: “Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio”

Hamlet – Act V, Scene I

HAMLET

Whose was it?

FIRST CLOWN

A whoreson, mad fellow’s it was. Whose do you think it was?

HAMLET

Nay, I know not.

FIRST CLOWN

A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! ‘A pour’d a flagon of Rhenish on my head once. This same skull, sir, was Yorick’s skull, the King’s jester.

HAMLET

This?

FIRST CLOWN

E’en that.

HAMLET

Let me see. [Takes the skull.] Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio. A fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath borne me on his back a thousand times. And now how abhorred in my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kiss’d I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning? Quite chap- fall’n? Now get you to my lady’s chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come. Make her laugh at that. Prithee, Horatio, tell me one thing.

HORATIO

What’s that, my lord?

HAMLET

Dost thou think Alexander look’d o’ this fashion i’ th’ earth?

HORATIO

E’en so

HAMLET

And smelt so? Pah!

[Puts down the skull.]

Misquote: “Bubble bubble, toil and trouble”

Correct Quote: “Double, double toil and trouble”

“Double, Double Toil and Trouble” is the magnum opus from Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen, the decorated thespians of “Full House” fame. This is the greatest song ever. Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, Mozart, Bach are all posers. I recommend you track down this song, it makes a great ring tone.

Double, Double, Toil and Trouble (1993) (TV): IMDB.comExternal Link

Double, Double, Toil and Trouble – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Wikipedia.comExternal Link

Macbeth – Act IV, Scene I

[Thunder. Enter the three Witches] FIRST Witch

Thrice the brinded cat hath mew’d.

SECOND WITCH

Thrice, and once the hedge-pig whin’d.

THIRD WITCH

Harpier cries; ’tis time, ’tis time.

FIRST WITCH

Round about the cauldron go; In the poison’d entrails throw. Toad, that under cold stone Days and nights has thirty-one Swelter’d venom sleeping got, Boil thou first i’ the charmed pot. ALL

Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble. SECOND WITCH

Fillet of a fenny snake, In the cauldron boil and bake; Eye of newt and toe of frog, Wool of bat and tongue of dog, Adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting, Lizard’s leg and owlet’s wing, For a charm of powerful trouble, Like a hell-broth boil and bubble. ALL

Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble. THIRD WITCH

Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf, Witches’ mummy, maw and gulf Of the ravin’d salt-sea shark, Root of hemlock digg’d i’ the dark, Liver of blaspheming Jew, Gall of goat, and slips of yew Silver’d in the moon’s eclipse, Nose of Turk and Tartar’s lips, Finger of birth-strangled babe Ditch-deliver’d by a drab, Make the gruel thick and slab: Add thereto a tiger’s chaudron, For the ingredients of our cauldron. ALL

Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble. SECOND WITCH

Cool it with a baboon’s blood, Then the charm is firm and good. [Enter HECATE to the other three Witches]

Misquote: “Friends, Romans, Countrymen, Lend me your ears”

Correct Quote: It is the correct quote, it is just misattributed. It is often attributed to Caesar, but it is spoken by Antony after Caesar was murdered.

Julius Caesar – Act 3, Scene 2

ANTONY

You gentle Romans,–

CITIZENS

Peace, ho! let us hear him.

ANTONY

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones; So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus Hath told you Caesar was ambitious: If it were so, it was a grievous fault, And grievously hath Caesar answer’d it. Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest– For Brutus is an honourable man; So are they all, all honourable men– Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral. He was my friend, faithful and just to me: But Brutus says he was ambitious; And Brutus is an honourable man. He hath brought many captives home to Rome Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill: Did this in Caesar seem ambitious? When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept: Ambition should be made of sterner stuff: Yet Brutus says he was ambitious; And Brutus is an honourable man. You all did see that on the Lupercal I thrice presented him a kingly crown, Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition? Yet Brutus says he was ambitious; And, sure, he is an honourable man. I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke, But here I am to speak what I do know. You all did love him once, not without cause: What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him? O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts, And men have lost their reason. Bear with me; My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar, And I must pause till it come back to me. FIRST CITIZEN

Methinks there is much reason in his sayings.

SECOND CITIZEN

If thou consider rightly of the matter, Caesar has had great wrong.

Misquote: “Lead on, Macduff”

Correct Quote: “Lay on, Macduff, and damned be him who first cries ‘Hold! enough!’”

Macbeth – Act 5, Scene 8

MACDUFF

Then yield thee, coward, And live to be the show and gaze o’ the time: We’ll have thee, as our rarer monsters are, Painted on a pole, and underwrit, ‘Here may you see the tyrant.’

MACBETH

I will not yield, To kiss the ground before young Malcolm’s feet, And to be baited with the rabble’s curse. Though Birnam wood be come to Dunsinane, And thou opposed, being of no woman born, Yet I will try the last. Before my body I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff, And damn’d be him that first cries, ‘Hold, enough!’

[Exeunt, fighting. Alarums]

[Retreat. Flourish. Enter, with drum and colours, MALCOLM, SIWARD, ROSS, the other Thanes, and Soldiers]

Misquote: “Methinks the lady doth protest too much”

Correct Quote: “The lady doth protest too much, methinks”

Hamlet – Act III, Scene II

[Exit] HAMLET

Madam, how like you this play?

GERTRUDE

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

HAMLET

O, but she’ll keep her word.

CLAUDIUS

Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in’t?

HAMLET

No, no! They do but jest, poison in jest; no offence i’ th’ world.

CLAUDIUS

What do you call the play? 2130

HAMLET

‘The Mousetrap.’ Marry, how? Tropically. This play is the image of a murther done in Vienna. Gonzago is the duke’s name; his wife, Baptista. You shall see anon. ‘Tis a knavish piece of work; but what o’ that? Your Majesty, and we that have free souls, it touches us not. Let the gall’d jade winch; our withers are unwrung.

[Enter Lucianus. This is one Lucianus, nephew to the King.]

Misquote: “To gild the lily”

Correct Quote: “To gild refined gold, to paint the lily”

I was unable to find video of this quote, I apologize that you will have to read instead of watch.

The Life and Death of King John – Act IV, Scene II

[Enter KING JOHN, PEMBROKE, SALISBURY, and other Lords] KING JOHN

Here once again we sit, once again crown’d, and looked upon, I hope, with cheerful eyes.

PEMBROKE

This ‘once again,’ but that your highness pleased, Was once superfluous: you were crown’d before,And that high royalty was ne’er pluck’d off, the faiths of men ne’er stained with revolt; fresh expectation troubled not the land With any long’d-for change or better state.

SALISBURY

Therefore, to be possess’d with double pomp, to guard a title that was rich before, to gild refined gold, to paint the lily, to throw a perfume on the violet, to smooth the ice, or add another hue Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish, is wasteful and ridiculous excess.

PEMBROKE

But that your royal pleasure must be done, this act is as an ancient tale new told, and in the last repeating troublesome, being urged at a time unseasonable.

SALISBURY

In this the antique and well noted face of plain old form is much disfigured; And, like a shifted wind unto a sail, It makes the course of thoughts to fetch about, startles and frights consideration, Makes sound opinion sick and truth suspected, for putting on so new a fashion’d robe.

 


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