Vol. 09 · Shakespeare108 lines · Page 2 of 3

Actually, Shakespeare.

Page 2 of 3 — more lines everyone can quote, with what Shakespeare actually wrote.

"Macbeth shall sleep no more."

"Methought I heard a voice cry "Sleep no more! / Macbeth does murder sleep.""

Macbeth (reporting the voice) — Macbeth, II.ii

What changes The voice cries a universal prohibition first; Macbeth's own curse comes second. Short quotation skips the cosmic judgement and keeps only the personal.
"Methinks the lady doth protest too much."

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks."

Gertrude — Hamlet, III.ii

What changes Word order carries weight in iambic pentameter. Moving "methinks" to the front changes a hedged observation into a presumptuous one.
"My kingdom for a horse!"

"A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!"

Richard III — Richard III, V.iv

What changes The repetition is the drama. Richard cries out three times — the fourth repetition is the bargain. Shortened quotation loses the urgency of a king on a battlefield without a mount.
"Never, never, never again."

"Never, never, never, never, never."

Lear — King Lear, V.iii

What changes Lear says "never" five times over Cordelia's corpse — one for each beat of iambic pentameter. Paraphrase reduces the repetition to three and adds "again," softening the finality.
"Nothing will come of nothing."

"Nothing will come of nothing. Speak again."

Lear — King Lear, I.i

What changes The three-word demand "Speak again" is the line's force. Lear is threatening Cordelia — flatter me or lose your inheritance. Quoting the maxim alone removes the tyranny.
"Now is the winter of our discontent. (standalone, meaning "times are bad")"

"Now is the winter of our discontent / Made glorious summer by this sun of York."

Richard — Richard III, I.i

What changes Quoted alone, the line means the opposite of what Richard says. The full sentence announces the END of the winter — a glorious summer has arrived.
"O brave new world!"

"O brave new world, / That has such people in't!"

Miranda — The Tempest, V.i

What changes Miranda is innocent; Prospero immediately mutters "'Tis new to thee." The line is bitterly ironic — Huxley's novel doubled the irony; pop use takes it sincerely.
"O, I have lost my reputation!"

"Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost my reputation!"

Cassio — Othello, II.iii

What changes Cassio repeats "reputation" three times — the tripling is the drama. Quoting only the sentence that follows drops the drunken anguish that sells the line.
"Once more into the breach, dear friends."

"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more."

King Henry V — Henry V, III.i

What changes "Unto," not "into" — the preposition is archaic and the difference is small, but the second "once more" is the emphatic kicker popular quotation drops.
"Our revels now are ended."

"Our revels now are ended. These our actors, / As I foretold you, were all spirits and / Are melted into air, into thin air."

Prospero — The Tempest, IV.i

What changes The four-word opening is famous; the "into thin air" that comes next is actually Shakespeare's coinage. Truncated quotation gets the drama, loses the phrase that entered the language.
"Out, damn spot!"

"Out, damned spot! Out, I say!"

Lady Macbeth — Macbeth, V.i

What changes "Damned" (two syllables in Elizabethan pronunciation) is the past participle doing real work — Lady Macbeth sees the blood as cursed, not just stubborn.
"Parting is such sweet sorrow."

"Good night, good night! parting is such sweet sorrow, / That I shall say good night till it be morrow."

Juliet — Romeo and Juliet, II.ii

What changes The famous line is part of a couplet — the rhyme "sorrow/morrow" completes it. Orphaning the first half makes it sound declarative rather than lovestruck.
"Past is prologue."

"What's past is prologue."

Antonio — The Tempest, II.i

What changes Inscribed on the US National Archives building without the "what's" — a stone misquotation. Shakespeare's contraction is not optional; dropping it changes the rhythm.
"Put out the light."

"Put out the light, and then put out the light."

Othello — Othello, V.ii

What changes Othello says it twice — first the candle, then Desdemona. Single quotation loses the pivot: the first "light" is literal, the second is metaphorical.
"Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything."

"Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything."

Jaques — As You Like It, II.vii

What changes Correctly quoted; but misquoted as a standalone epigram when it is the tail of Jaques's Seven Ages of Man — the closing description of the final age, not a general maxim on decline.
"Screw your courage to the sticking point."

"But screw your courage to the sticking-place, / And we'll not fail."

Lady Macbeth — Macbeth, I.vii

What changes "Sticking-place," not "sticking point" — the tuning peg on a crossbow. Modern ears hear a business-meeting cliché; Elizabethan ears heard a weapon being wound taut.
"Shuffled off this mortal coil."

"When we have shuffled off this mortal coil."

Hamlet — Hamlet, III.i

What changes The fragment survives as a euphemism for dying. In the soliloquy it is conditional — "when" — part of Hamlet weighing whether death is an improvement.
"Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them."

"Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em."

Malvolio (reading) — Twelfth Night, II.v

What changes Quoted correctly, routinely mis-sourced to "greatness" aphorism collections. Malvolio is reading a forged letter — the whole passage is a prank.
"Something evil this way comes."

"By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes."

Second Witch — Macbeth, IV.i

What changes The full couplet is a prophecy; cropping it loses the "pricking of my thumbs" superstition that signals it. Ray Bradbury's novel fixed the short form in pop memory.
"Stars, hide your fires. Let not light see my dark desires."

"Stars, hide your fires; / Let not light see my black and deep desires."

Macbeth — Macbeth, I.iv

What changes "Black and deep," not "dark" — two adjectives stacked for weight. The paraphrase compresses the colour and depth into one softer word.
"Sweets for the sweet."

"Sweets to the sweet: farewell!"

Gertrude — Hamlet, V.i

What changes "To the sweet," not "for the sweet." Gertrude is scattering flowers into Ophelia's grave — a funerary offering, not a Valentine's card, which is how the paraphrase now reads.
"The be-all and end-all."

"That but this blow / Might be the be-all and the end-all here."

Macbeth — Macbeth, I.vii

What changes Shakespeare's coinage — in the original, the hyphens are in specific positions. Modern compounds drop the second "the," turning a hypothetical into a cliché.
"The course of true love never runs smooth."

"The course of true love never did run smooth."

Lysander — A Midsummer Night's Dream, I.i

What changes Present tense for past: the eternal truism is Shakespeare's specific past-tense observation generalised. Small shift, big change in register.
"The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars but in ourselves."

"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, / But in ourselves, that we are underlings."

Cassius — Julius Caesar, I.ii

What changes Shakespeare wrote "is," not "lies" — a verb swap seeded by centuries of paraphrase. The "underlings" is almost always dropped, which turns an argument for action into a bromide.
"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers."

"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers."

Dick the Butcher — Henry VI, Part 2, IV.ii

What changes Correctly quoted, routinely mis-attributed. Dick is a rebel planning tyranny — lawyers are the defenders of law. The line is a compliment, not a critique.
"The lady doth protest too much."

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks."

Gertrude — Hamlet, III.ii

What changes "Methinks" frames the whole line as cautious opinion. Drop it and a hedged observation becomes a flat accusation.
"The lunatic, the lover, and the poet are of imagination all compact."

"The lunatic, the lover and the poet / Are of imagination all compact."

Theseus — A Midsummer Night's Dream, V.i

What changes Correctly quoted; routinely claimed for lovers and poets alone. Theseus groups them with lunatics on purpose — the speech is an argument against trusting imagination.
"The milk of human kindness."

"Yet do I fear thy nature; / It is too full o' the milk of human kindness / To catch the nearest way."

Lady Macbeth — Macbeth, I.v

What changes Lady Macbeth is complaining — the milk-of-kindness is a flaw, not a virtue. Popular use inverts her meaning by praising what she was criticising.
"The play's the thing."

"The play's the thing / Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King."

Hamlet — Hamlet, II.ii

What changes Shortened, the line reads as a theatre truism. In context Hamlet is planning entrapment — the couplet is a scheme, not an appreciation of drama.
"The quality of mercy is not strained."

"The quality of mercy is not strain'd, / It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven / Upon the place beneath."

Portia — The Merchant of Venice, IV.i

What changes Portia's speech is a 20-line argument for clemency. Quoting one line makes it sound aphoristic; in context, it is a legal appeal disguised as poetry.
"The rest is silence."

"The rest is silence. [Dies.]"

Hamlet — Hamlet, V.ii

What changes Correctly quoted; the stage direction is the point. The line is Hamlet's death, not a life-philosophy.
"The undiscovered country from which no traveler returns."

"The undiscover'd country from whose bourn / No traveller returns."

Hamlet — Hamlet, III.i

What changes "Bourn" means boundary. Hamlet's metaphor is a border country, not a blank map. The popular paraphrase loses the specific geography and softens the word.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in our philosophy."

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

Hamlet — Hamlet, I.v

What changes "Your," not "our." Hamlet is ribbing Horatio's Wittenberg-bred scepticism, not speaking for the human race. The universalised version misses the jab.
"There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so."

"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."

Hamlet — Hamlet, II.ii

What changes Correctly quoted — but frequently repackaged as life advice. Hamlet is deflecting an accusation from Rosencrantz, using sophistry, not dispensing a maxim.
"There's a method to the madness."

"Though this be madness, yet there is method in't."

Polonius — Hamlet, II.ii

What changes The common idiom inverts the preposition (to the madness vs. in the madness) and drops Polonius entirely. The line is his observation of a pretended madness he has badly misread.
"There's something rotten in the state of Denmark."

"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark."

Marcellus — Hamlet, I.iv

What changes Adding "there's" softens the line into casual observation. Shakespeare's phrasing is cleaner — a flat pronouncement, not a hedge.
"This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England."

"This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England, / This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings."

John of Gaunt — Richard II, II.i

What changes The quoted list is the first half of a much longer catalogue. Gaunt's speech is 30 lines of England-praise; its first breath is all most people ever meet.
"This sceptered isle."

"This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle."

John of Gaunt — Richard II, II.i

What changes The "sceptred isle" phrase is Shakespeare's; it is almost always cut loose from the "royal throne of kings" half. Together, they set up the whole anthem.
"This was the noblest Roman of them all."

"This was the noblest Roman of them all: / All the conspirators, save only he, / Did that they did in envy of great Caesar."

Mark Antony — Julius Caesar, V.v

What changes Antony is eulogising Brutus — the man who killed Caesar. Quoting the line alone flattens the political nuance: nobility is being granted to an assassin on the grounds of motive.
"Though this be madness, yet there is method in it."

"Though this be madness, yet there is method in't."

Polonius — Hamlet, II.ii

What changes Elizabethan "in't" (= "in it") elides for meter. Expanding it breaks the pentameter and gives the line a modern, aphoristic feel Shakespeare did not write.
"To be, or not to be — that is the question."

"To be, or not to be, that is the question: / Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer / The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune…"

Hamlet — Hamlet, III.i

What changes The short form is correctly quoted — but the popular read is wrong. "The question" isn't whether to exist; it's whether to endure or to fight.
"To take arms against a sea of troubles."

"Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, / And by opposing end them."

Hamlet — Hamlet, III.i

What changes The mixed metaphor — fighting a sea — is famous and often mocked. The second line resolves it ("by opposing end them"): the arms, not the sea, are the real target.
"To thine own self be true."

"This above all: to thine own self be true, / And it must follow, as the night the day, / Thou canst not then be false to any man."

Polonius — Hamlet, I.iii

What changes The quoted fragment sounds profound. The full passage is Polonius — a character Shakespeare uses for pompous platitudes. Context inverts the meaning.
"To thine own self be true."

"This above all: to thine own self be true."

Polonius — Hamlet, I.iii

What changes Polonius is giving advice to his son Laertes. "This above all" frames the line as the culmination of a list of fatherly dos and don'ts — all of it generic.
"Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow."

"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, / Creeps in this petty pace from day to day."

Macbeth — Macbeth, V.v

What changes The triple "tomorrow" is a refrain, not a thesis. Macbeth's speech runs on to "signifying nothing" — quoting the opening alone skips the despair that gives it weight.
"Too much of a good thing."

"Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing?"

Rosalind — As You Like It, IV.i

What changes Shakespeare wrote it as a rhetorical question — Rosalind is teasing Orlando. Reduced to a flat idiom, the line loses the wink: she is inviting him to say yes.
"Two star-crossed lovers."

"A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life."

Chorus — Romeo and Juliet, Prologue

What changes Shakespeare coined "star-cross'd" in the Prologue. "Two star-crossed lovers" is the paraphrase-from-memory; "a pair of" is the original and it scans differently.
"Unsex me!"

"Come, you spirits / That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here."

Lady Macbeth — Macbeth, I.v

What changes Out of context the two-word imperative sounds like a transgender anthem; in place, it is a spell summoning demons to strip her of the conscience Elizabethans coded female.
"Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself."

"I have no spur / To prick the sides of my intent, but only / Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself / And falls on the other."

Macbeth — Macbeth, I.vii

What changes The image only completes with the fall on the other side — a horse that jumps too hard and lands wrong. Without that, "vaulting ambition" sounds aspirational.
"We are such stuff as dreams are made of."

"We are such stuff / As dreams are made on."

Prospero — The Tempest, IV.i

What changes "On," not "of." "Made on" is an Elizabethan construction — like "made of" but with the preposition shifted. Modern paraphrase changes the grammar and flattens the line.