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Weather and Arts

The Elders Speak

Shakespearean Weather

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The following quotations are taken from the works of William Shalkespeare, the Bard of Avon (ca. 1564 to ca. 1616).

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?.
Sonnet 18

Now is the winter of our discontent,
Made glorious summer by this sun of York
And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
Richard III

To stand up against the deep dread-bolted thunder
In the most terrible and nimble stroke
Of quick, cross lightning?
King Lear

Lightning Strikes

Lightning Strike
Photo Courtesy US National Weather Service

It is too rash, too unadvis'd, too sudden;
Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be
Ere one can say it lightens.
Romeo and Juliet

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May.
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sonnet 18

The climate’s delicate, the air most sweet.
The Winter’s Tale

.. the spring, the summer,
The chilling autumn, angry winter, change
Their wonted liveries; and the mazed world
By their increase, now knows not which is which.
A Midsummer Night's Dream

Who's there, besides foul weather?
King Lear

Many can brook [endure] the weather that love not the wind.
Love's Labour 's Lost

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks!
You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,
Strike flat the thick rotundity o' the world!
Crack nature's moulds, all germens spill at once,
That make ingrateful man!
King Lear


King Lear and the Fool in the Storm by William Dyce, 1851

Rumble thy bellyful! Spit, fire! spout, rain!
Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire are my daughters:
King Lear

Love not such nights as these; the wrathful skies
Gallow the very wanderers of the dark,
And make them keep their caves; since I was man,
Such sheets of fire, such bursts of horrid thunder,
Such groans of roaring wind and rain I never
Remember to have heard: man's nature cannot carry
Th' affliction nor the fear.
King Lear

Tempests themselves, high seas, and howling winds,
The gutter'd rocks and congregated sands--
Traitors ensteep'd to clog the guiltless keel,--
As having sense of beauty, do omit
Their mortal natures…
Othello

If after every tempest come such calms,
May the winds blow till they have waken'd death!
Othello

...now on the beak,
Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin,
I flam'd amazement: sometime I'd divide,
And burn in many places; on the topmast,
The yards and boresprit, would I flame distinctly,
Then meet and join.
The Tempest


Miranda, The Tempest : by John William Waterhouse,1916

Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind,
As man's ingratitude;
Amiens As You Like It

I have seen tempests, when the scolding winds
Have riv’d the knotty oaks; and I have seen
The ambitious ocean swell and rage with foam,
To be exalted with the threatening clouds;
Julius Caesar

Men judge by the complexion of the sky
The state and inclination of the day . . .
Richard II

Give not a windy night a rainy morrow
Sonnet 90

Most like this dreadful night,
That thunders, lightens, opens graves, and roars
As doth the lion in the Capitol,
Julius Caesar

When shall we three meet again
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
Macbeth

Fair is foul, and foul is fair:
Hover through the fog and filthy air.
Macbeth

A plague upon this howling! they are louder than
the weather or our office
The Tempest


The Tempest wrecks the ship of King Alonso:
An engraving based off of a painting by George Romney. 1797

And thorough this distemperature we see
The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts
Far in the fresh lap of the crimson rose,
A Midsummer Night's Dream

If after every tempest come such calms,
May the winds blow till they have waken'd death!
Othello

The seasons' difference, as the icy fang
And churlish chiding of the winter's wind,
Which, when it bites and blows upon my body,
Even till I shrink with cold,…
As You Like It

Blow, blow, thou winter wind,/Thou art not so unkind/As man's ingratitude;.. Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,/That dost not bite so nigh...As You Like It

You and you are sure together,
As the winter to foul weather
As You Like It

Let the sky rain potatoes; let it thunder to the tune of Greensleeves, hail kissing-comfits [breath fresheners] and snow eringoes [candied roots of sea-holly, considered a potent aphrodisiac].
The Merry Wives of Windsor

Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,
And make me travel forth without my cloak,
To let base clouds o'ertake me in my way,
Hiding thy bravery in their rotten smoke?
'Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break,
To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,…
Sonnet 34

O happiness enjoy'd but of a few!
And, if possess'd, as soon decay'd and done
As is the morning's silver-melting dew
Against the golden splendor of the sun!
The Rape of Lucrece

Even as the sun with purple-coloured face
Had ta'en his last leave of the weeping morn, …
Venus and Adonis

You and you are sure together,
As the winter to foul weather
As You Like It

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The Elders Speak: Shakespearean Weather ©2011, Keith C. Heidorn, PhD. All Rights Reserved.
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