Tag: Shakespeare

This is another one we can blame on Shakespeare, that’s ok Will, I still love you.

In Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar the soothsayer tells Caesar to “beware the Ides of March”.  For some reason this caught on and people often celebrate March 15 so I guess they’re celebrating when Julius Caesar was assassinated in the Roman Senate in 44 B.C.?

Here are some more commonly used phrases you may or may not have known came from Will S.

• Hamlet: To thine own self be true. There’s method in my madness. Own flesh and blood. Neither a borrower nor a lender be – used in song on Gilligan’s Island when performing Shakespeare to get off the island, another great plan.
• Julius Caesar: Itching palm – My Grandma always said if you had an itching palm you were going to get money, yes, most likely from her.  Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war – not a common phrase, but was used in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, so cool.
• Romeo and Juliet: Wild-goose chase. Star-crossed lovers. What’s in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Parting is such sweet sorrow.
• Macbeth: What’s done is done. A sorry sight.
• Merchant of Venice: Love is blind. All that glitters/glisters is not gold. Bated breath. In the twinkling of an eye.
• The Tempest:  In a pickle. Fair play. Such stuff as dreams are made on.
• As You Like It: Too much of a good thing. Forever and a day. As you like it. Bag and baggage. Neither rhyme nor reason.
• The Merry Wives of Windsor: A laughing stock . What the dickens – people often think this refers to Charles Dickens.
• Henry IV 1: Set your teeth on edge. Send him packing. The game is afoot – later make even more famous when used by Sherlock Holmes/Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
• Henry IV 2:  Eaten out of house and home.
• Henry VI 2: As dead as a doornail. Mum’s the word.
• Henry V: Heart of gold.
• Henry VIII: For goodness’ sake.
• Othello: Neither here nor there. Jealousy is the green-eyed monster. I will wear my heart upon my sleeve. Vanish into thin air. Pomp and circumstance.
• Taming of the Shrew: Kill with kindness. Cold comfort
• Cymbeline: Not slept one wink
• Troilus and Cressida: Good riddance
• All’s Well That Ends Well: Obviously, the title.
• King Lear: Full circle
• King John: Play fast and loose . Cold comfort.
• Twelfth Night: In stitches. Out of the jaws of death

Anyone have any more?

Strangely some phrases have had their meanings changed, the oddest one is “sweets to the sweet” (Hamlet) which is now seen as romantic, but was about death in the play.

A lot of great movies, plays, graphic novels, TV episodes, etc. about Julius Caesar, check a few out today.