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After a weekend of gales where I live, I now know exactly what Shakespeare meant when he wrote in Sonnet 18: "Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May."

Any relation to the series 'the darling buds of mays' starring David Jason
I wonder?

If not disregard me as usual

cheers
B....OZ

PS the first time I layed eyes on that welsh lass CZJ

Yes there is. H.E.Bates who wrote the 'Darling buds of May' took the title from Sonnet 18.

whilst i'm babbling on about literature, Shakespeare - total genius

Under-rated---due to people having him forced on them at school. Some of the comedies are a bit duff, but many of the tragedies can speak to us 400 years later since the importance of their themes hasn't changed.

"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow . . . ."

You live and learn

cheers
B....OZ

I too, found him dry and antiquated in Eng. Lit (most of these classes in the 70s seemed to have the deliberate object of turning kids OFF reading), but I started doing the Times crossword in my late teens (yes, to show off that I had a cerebral side), when it featured many more quotations than nowadays (I think they've been banned completely now as they're deemed 'unfair', which if true is a sad commentary on modern Eng. Lit. education), and was stumped by "Touchstone's ultimate mendacity (3,3,6)".
This being the days before PCs, I trawled through the ODQ, found 'the Lie Direct' bit, read the rest of the quoted quoted, found I liked it, dug AYLI out (like most homes then, we of course had a copy of the Folio, in some grotty edition or other), read it with relish, and the rest, as they say, is History (or Tragedy, or Comedy).
"What three things does drink especially provoke"?
"Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and urine.
Lechery, sir, it provokes, and unprovokes;
It provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance:
Therefore, much drink may be said to be an equivocator with lechery:
It makes him, and it mars him; it sets him on, and it takes him off;
It persuades him, and disheartens him; makes him stand to, and
not stand to;
In conclusion, equivocates him in a sleep, and, giving him the lie, leaves him".
Would yopu believe that speech was once cut from school texts because of its 'ribald' content?

Mr Bowdler found his immortality by taking the rude bits out of Shakespeare.

The fact that Julius Caesar is so easily translated to modern day politics, that the strength of Othello is not in racism but in jealousy, that ambition devours Macbeth but leaves him empty inside, that Lear's vanity leads to his downfall . . . . the tragedies are about emotion, and the pitfalls they bring with them.

To me, there's nothing that epitomises the disillusion and weariness with the world like Macbeth's lines on being told of his wife's death:

"She should have died hereafter; there would have been a time for such a word. To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time; and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

If that wasn't written by a man fed up with life, I'll eat my bodkin.

Reminds me of the guy on Tricia or some such programme who said of a failed relationship: It started off like Romeo and Juliet but it ended up as a tragedy.

Mart

Truly the Master of the Human Heart, as someone once said.