Yoga With the Bard - For the Serious Actor!

Shakespeare Monologues: *Please be familiar with and have these printed off before class! 

Hamlet - "Look here upon this picture..."

Look here upon th's picture, and on this, 
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
See what a grace was seated on this brow;
Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself;
An eye like Mars, to threaten and command;
A station like the herald Mercury 
New lighted on a heaven-kissing hill:
A combination and a form indeed
Where every god did seem to set his seal
To give the world assurance of a man.
This was your husband. Look you now what follows.
Here is your husband, like a mildew'd ear
Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes?
Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,
And batten on this moor? Ha! have you eyes
You cannot call it love; for at your age
The heyday in the blood is tame, it's humble,
And waits upon the judgment; and what judgment
Would step from this to this?
O shame! where is thy blush? 

Trinculo - "Here's neither bush nor shrub..."

Here's neither bush nor shrub, to bear off any weather at all, 
and another storm brewing; I hear it sing i' the wind: 
yond same black cloud, yond huge one, looks like a foul bombard that would shed his liquor.
If it should thunder as it did before, I know not where to hide my head: 
yond same cloud cannot choose but fall by pailfuls. What have we here? a man or a fish? dead or alive? 
A fish: he smells like a fish; a very ancient and fish-like smell; a kind of not of the newest Poor-John. 
A strange fish! Were I in England now, as once I was, and had but this fish painted, 
not a holiday fool there but would give a piece of silver: there would this monster make a man; 
any strange beast there makes a man: when they will not give a doit to relieve a lame beggar, 
they will lazy out ten to see a dead Indian. Legged like a man and his fins like arms! 
Warm o' my troth! I do now let loose my opinion; hold it no longer: this is no fish, 
but an islander, that hath lately suffered by a thunderbolt. [Thunder] 
Alas, the storm is come again! my best way is to creep under his gaberdine; 
there is no other shelter hereabouts: misery acquaints a man with strange bed-fellows. 
I will here shroud till the dregs of the storm be past.

Lady Macbeth - "Out damned spot..."

Out, damned spot! out, I say!--One: two: why,
then, 'tis time to do't.--Hell is murky!--Fie, my	40
lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? What need we
fear who knows it, when none can call our power to
account?--Yet who would have thought the old man
to have had so much blood in him.
The thane of Fife had a wife: where is she now?--
What, will these hands ne'er be clean?
Wash your hands, put on your nightgown; look not so
pale.--I tell you yet again, Banquo's buried; he	
cannot come out on's grave.
To bed, to bed! there's knocking at the gate:
come, come, come, come, give me your hand. What's
done cannot be undone.--To bed, to bed, to bed!

Malvolio - "Madam, you have done me wrong..."

Malvolio. Madam, you have done me wrong,
Notorious wrong.
Lady, you have. Pray you, peruse that letter.
You must not now deny it is your hand:
Write from it, if you can, in hand or phrase;
Or say 'tis not your seal, nor your invention:
You can say none of this: well, grant it then
And tell me, in the modesty of honour,
Why you have given me such clear lights of favour,
Bade me come smiling and cross-garter'd to you,
To put on yellow stockings and to frown 
Upon Sir Toby and the lighter people;
And, acting this in an obedient hope,
Why have you suffer'd me to be imprison'd,
Kept in a dark house, visited by the priest,
And made the most notorious geck and gull 
That e'er invention play'd on? tell me why.

Henry V - "This day is called..."

This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home, 
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars. 
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.' 
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here, 
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks 
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.