Page 20 - Exotic | March 2025

William Shakespeare. The legend. The im- mortal bard. Writer of those plays you had to read in high school. His works endured from the 16th century and linger well into the modern age, with Shakespearean ac- tors being vaunted as the best that you can be as an actor or actress, with such notable people among them as Sir Patrick Stewart of Star Trek fame, Sir Lawrence Olivier of, well, Hamlet fame, Dame Judi Dench of the fame of "M" in the Pierce Brosnan James Bond films, Ian McDiarmid of being the fucking Emperor in Star Wars, Sir Ian McKellen of Gandalf fame, and Sir Christopher Lee of...doing a bunch of shit for like 7 decades fame, also being in Star Wars as Count Dooku and playing Dracu- la for like 50 years, then starting a metal band at age 90.
It is prestigious! Shakespeare was known for his ability to write plays for both the learned aristocrats, who were well-spoken and educated, as well as the "cheap seats" peasants, who just wanted to have fun on their one day off a week. Those folks were known as "groundlings" because they had to stand on the ground right in front of the stage and not be afforded seats like the rich people. To think, what we pay for pit tickets at modern shows when that was the cheap stuff hundreds of years ago. Anyhow, Ol' Shakey, as he was likely not ever known, always threw in ribald and, for the time, dirty jokes to relate with the groundlings, who did indeed pay for tickets and wanted to be entertained.
He was a master of coarse insults that would catch the ear and make laugh the tongue of those up front and even get a suppressed giggle out of the rich folks, who were thinking themselves above crude humor. Given the time between
now and then, his insults and jests have become less impactful. We do not speak in the way they did then and might let what would have been a seriously grave barb of the tongue become a "Huh? What does that mean?" I, however, have done my research and will show you what Shakespeare meant by his insults and translate it into the modern language we speak in the good ol' US of A, so you can translate them should you watch a play or movie of one of his works. Let's go!
Insults
• “A most notable coward, an infinite and endless liar, an hourly promise breaker, the owner of no one good quality.”
From All's Well That Ends Well
• “Away, you three-inch fool!“ From The Taming of the Shrew
You might think this is about the size of his dick, but that's not what was meant. He meant that the guy is so unworthy of consideration that he might as well be three inches tall. It also might be about his dick just for good measure (bad mea- sure?), but this is not explicit.
• “Go, prick thy face, and over-red thy fear, Thou lily-liver’d boy.”
From Macbeth
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Translation: "This guy is a fucking pussy; he lies all the time, he's never good to his word, even if he just gave it to you, and there's not a single good thing about his ass or the rest of him."
"Go fucking stab yourself in the face, and that'll get you some color because you're all pale with fear, you coward."
• “His wit’s as thick as a Tewkesbury mus- tard.”
From Henry IV, Part 2
Tewkesbury is a town in England. They