Old English In A New Box

Hullo bookworms!!

I recently discovered my most favorite chapter in my English text book: Julius Caesar. It’s more like an excerpt, actually. We’ve got Julius Caesar’s murder and Marcus Brutus and Marcus Antonius’ speeches. I’ve always liked reading Shakespeare, so I was thrilled when I found out that we had a part of Julius Caesar.

The best part of the play, according to me, is Mark Antony’s speech. It’s just brilliant how he manages to sway the crowd from thinking ‘Brutus is God’ to ‘He’s a traitor! Let’s burn his house!’. Antony’s oratory skills are just spectacular.

After reading the chapter about 25 times, I discovered that I also have a fondness for Old English. Now, my favorite phrase is “et tu, Brute!”, so of course I try using it as much as possible (the et tu part, that is- I don’t know anyone called Brutus). Here are the meagre Old English words I know:

1. Thou- you
2. Thee- you
3. Thy- your
4. Whither- where
5. Wherefore- why
6. Dost- does
7. Doth– does
8. Wilt- will
9. Hath– has
10. Art– are

If you know the difference between thou and thee, please let me know in the Comments section below!

Anyways, back to my love for Shakespeare’s writing. From Macbeth to Comedy of Errors to As You Like It, I’ve read them all. Here are some of my favorite plays:

1. Macbeth
2. The Taming of The Shrew
3. Romeo and Juliet
4. Much Ado About Nothing
5. The Tempest
6. A Comedy of Errors
7. Hamlet
8. Twelfth Night
9. As You Like It
10. King Lear
11. All’s Well That Ends Well
12. Julius Caesar

Basically, all of them.

So, as soon as I finished with the tiny little excerpt in my book, I wanted to read the rest of it (obviously). Which is why I received a lovely gift from my grandmother on Thursday. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. It is a very intimidating-looking book, with 1278 pages. Yes. Whoa. Here is a picture of my prized possession, just to make your mouth water.

Yessss. Please admire it properly, everyone. This is what true beauty looks like. This fabulous book has each and every play and sonnet written by Shakespeare (as suggested by the title). I cannot wait to read the plays I haven’t read yet, and re-read the plays that I have read. All right, it’s time to go read!

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That’s it for today!! If you liked this post or have any suggestions, please comment!

The Voracious Bibliophile