Today is Shakespeare’s birthday.  We think.  I have spent long hours with the Bard, from the first play in grade 7 (Macbeth) to … well, I still read him from time to time.  I’m not sure how many people have favourite Shakespeare quotations.  Most people know a line or two, and some admire the plays I suppose, but I suspect that there is not too much fondness involved.  It is a pity, because there is a lot of true emotion and depth to the plays and to the sonnets.  My favourite quotation comes from As you like it, but I first really noticed it in The Broken Hearts Club:

Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;
And this our life, exempt from human haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.

The duke has been kicked out of his…duchy and is living rough in the woods.  Instead of suffering he is actually enjoying his excile.  At least, that’s how I like to think of it.  It gives me courage to recite these lines from time to time, especially when things are tough.  Tonight it’s my experiments that are not going to plan, but in tougher circumstances I repeat them a few times, like a charm.

(Perhaps I should mention that, according to folklore, some toads have a jewel hidden in their heads.  There may also be some connection with licking toads, although I think that may be a South American pastime?  And that is perhaps connected to kissing a frog to turn it into a prince?)