ONE MINUTE EDITS – TAKE YOUR PICK!
1. LADY MACBETH – ‘MACBETH’ Act1 Sc 5
Ellis edit – Approx 1 minute
Reading a letter from her husband, telling of his encounter with the Weird Sisters – often referred to as the witches
‘……they have more in
them than mortal knowledge. When I burned in desire
to question them further, they made themselves air,
into which they vanished. Whiles I stood rapt in
the wonder of it, came missives from the king, who
all-hailed me ‘Thane of Cawdor;’ by which title,
before, these weird sisters saluted me, and referred
me to the coming on of time, with ‘Hail, king that
shalt be!’ This have I thought good to deliver
thee, my dearest partner of greatness. Lay it
to thy heart, and farewell.’Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be
What thou art promised: yet do I fear thy nature;
It is too full o’ the milk of human kindness
To catch the nearest way: thou wouldst be great;
Art not without ambition, but without
The illness should attend it: wouldst not play false,
And yet wouldst wrongly win: ‘
Hie thee hither,
That I may pour my spirits in thine ear;
And chastise with the valour of my tongue
All that impedes thee from the golden round,
To have thee crown’d withal.
2. HOTSPUR from ‘Henry 1v Part 1’
Ellis edit – approx. 40 secs
My liege, I did deny no prisoners.
But I remember, when the fight was done,
Came there a certain lord, neat, and trimly dress’d,
He was perfumed like a milliner;
With many holiday and lady terms
He question’d me; he made me mad
To see him shine so brisk and smell so sweet
And talk so like a waiting-gentlewoman
Of guns and drums and wounds,–God save the mark!–
This bald unjointed chat of his, my lord,
I answer’d indirectly, as I said;
And I beseech you, let not his report
Come current for an accusation
Betwixt my love and your high majesty.
3. Juliet from ‘ROMEO AND JULIET’
Teenage passion – and anticipation
Ellis edit – Approx one minute
Enter JULIET
(Phoebus is the sun god who rides across the sky in his golden chariot. Phaethon is his son, who drives the chariot)
JULIET
Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,
Towards Phoebus’ lodging: such a wagoner
As Phaethon would whip you to the west,
And bring in cloudy night immediately.
Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night,
That runaway’s eyes may wink and Romeo
Leap to these arms, untalk’d of and unseen.
Lovers can see to do their amorous rites
By their own beauties; or, if love be blind,
It best agrees with night. Come, civil night,
Thou sober-suited matron, all in black,
And learn me how to lose a winning match,
Play’d for a pair of stainless maidenhoods:
Come, night; come, Romeo; come, thou day in night;
Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun.
O, I have bought the mansion of a love,
But not possess’d it, and, though I am sold,
Not yet enjoy’d: so tedious is this day!
4. HAMLET
Deeply depressed by his widowed mother’s marriage to his uncle – whom he suspects of murdering his late father in order to become king – Prince Hamlet is driven to contemplating suicide.
Ellis edit – Approx one minute
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,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin?
