All's Well That Ends Well

Peter Graystone

Description

Few writers have a deeper understanding of the foibles of human nature and life’s absurdities and tragedies than William Shakespeare. This makes him a fascinating companion for the season of Lent, a traditional time for a spot of self-examination. This engaging, wise and often amusing Lent book sets quotations from Shakespeare’s characters and poems alongside biblical passages and reflects on the resonance between them – one reflection for each day of the season.
It starts with dust on Ash Wednesday (‘Golden lads and girls all must, As chimney-sweepers, come to dust’, from Cymbeline) and ends with resurrection as Easter Sunday approaches (‘It is required you do awake your faith’, from The Winter’s Tale). In between, it considers many rich spiritual themes: mercy, love, loyalty, trust, good vs evil, guilt, forgiveness, ageing, grief, death, hope and more.
Each day’s reflection opens with a quotation from Shakespeare and explores its ideas in conversation with the Bible and Christian thought.

Sujets

• Biblical Meditations
• Philosophie et théologie
• Religion

Informations

• Publié par: Hymns Ancient & Modern
• Date de parution: 30 novembre 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781786223562
• Langue: English

Extrait

All’s Well That Ends Well
In this beautiful book Peter has married the extraordinary words of Shakespeare to the extraordinary truths of the gospel, so as to touch and bless your life. Paul Bayes, Bishop of Liverpool
Peter Graystone’s book will bring pleasure and wisdom in equal measure to its readers. He selects from both the familiar and unfamiliar, and provides helpful context and summary, but the heart of this book is the way his commentaries on each piece draw out the relevance and beauty of Shakespeare’s poetry for your own spiritual journey. This book is a treasure in itself but will also send you back to the plays with renewed enthusiasm and insight. Malcolm Guite, poet and singer-songwriter
In Desert Island Discs the two books we’re invited to take to our island are the Bible and Shakespeare. Here Peter uses one to help us understand the other. His writing is accessible, informed and thought-provoking, whether you are a wannabe Laurence Olivier or you haven’t been near Hamlet since school. Kate Bottley, broadcaster
Peter loves people, the theatre and Jesus, not necessarily in that order. He has the gift of writing beautifully about them in ways which shed new light for the rest of us. This is a wonderful book. Stephen Hance, Church of England National Lead for Evangelism and Witness for the Church of England





All’s Well That Ends Well
From Dust to Resurrection – 40 Days with Shakespeare
Peter Graystone






© Peter Graystone 2021
Published in 2021 by Canterbury Press
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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, Canterbury Press.
The Author has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the Author of this Work
British Library Cataloguing in Publication data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are taken from the Geneva Bible, 1599 Edition, modernised spelling edition. Copyright © Tolle Lege Press, 2006. Permission sought.
Quotations marked ( niv ) are from the Holy Bible, New International Version Copyright © Hodder and Stoughton, 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 (inclusive language version, 2001).
Shakespeare quotations are from Open Source Shakespeare, based on the 1864 Globe edition of the complete works, in the public domain. ( www.opensourceshakespeare.org )
Photographs are by Raewynne Whiteley, with thanks to the Belvedere Trust.
978-1-78622-354-8
Typeset by Regent Typesetting
Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd





For Laura

It is required you do awake your faith.
The Winter’s Tale, Act 5, Scene 3



Contents
Day 1. Golden lads and girls all must, as chimney-sweepers, come to dust
Day 2. Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none
Day 3. When icicles hang by the wall
Day 4. The quality of mercy is not strained
Day 5. Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer
Day 6. Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?
Day 7. Lord, what fools these mortals be!
Day 8. If music be the food of love, play on
Day 9. I to the world am like a drop of water that in the ocean seeks another drop
Day 10. What need we have any friends if we should ne’er have need of ’em?
Day 11. I’ll be thy beadsman, Valentine
Day 12. O God! methinks it were a happy life to be no better than a homely swain
Day 13. Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments
Day 14. Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Day 15. Grief fills the room up of my absent child
Day 16. My dear Lady Disdain! are you yet living?
Day 17. What is honour? A word!
Day 18. Presume not that I am the thing I was
Day 19. We few, we happy few, we band of brothers
Day 20. All the world’s a stage
Day 21. That time of year thou mayst in me behold
Day 22. Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore
Day 23. Out, damned spot! Out, I say!
Day 24. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
Day 25. This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England
Day 26. As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods
Day 27. What a piece of work is a man!
Day 28. To be or not to be – that is the question
Day 29. Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety
Day 30. Remembrance of things past
Day 31. O beware, my Lord, of jealousy; it is the green-eyed monster
Day 32. When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes
Day 33. There is a world elsewhere
Day 34. Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears
Day 35. We will solicit heaven and move the gods to send down justice
Day 36. Ay, but to die and go we know not where
Day 37. We are such stuff as dreams are made on
Day 38. A peace above all earthly dignities, a still and quiet conscience
Day 39. I commend my soul into the hands of God my Creator
Day 40. It is required you do awake your faith



Day 1. Golden lads and girls all must, as chimney-sweepers, come to dust
guiderius and arviragus :
Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,
Nor the furious winter’s rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages:
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

Fear no more the frown o’ the great;
Thou art past the tyrant’s stroke;
Care no more to clothe and eat;
To thee the reed is as the oak:
The sceptre, learning, physic, must
All follow this, and come to dust.

Fear no more the lightning flash,
Nor the all-dreaded thunder stone;
Fear not slander, censure rash;
Thou hast finished joy and moan:
All lovers young, all lovers must
Consign to thee, and come to dust.

No exorciser harm thee!
Nor no witchcraft charm thee!
Ghost unlaid forbear thee!
Nothing ill come near thee!
Quiet consummation have;
And renowned be thy grave!
Cymbeline, Act 4, Scene 2
We begin with an ending.
These ravishing words are sung at a funeral in William Shakespeare’s play Cymbeline . Having said that, it turns out not to be a funeral because the young man they are mourning is not dead, but sleeping. And it isn’t actually a man, but a woman in disguise. And although they don’t realize it, she is their sister. This is, after all, Shakespeare!
Cymbeline is performed less frequently than some of his other works. No one claims that it’s a great play, but it has moments of true beauty, such as this. It comes from the end of his career when, after the rage and despair of his tragedies, the tone of Shakespeare’s plays turns towards hope. A grace floods in that is recognizably Christian to those who have eyes to see it. This is why he is such fitting company for Lent and over the next 40 days we will journey with him from dust to resurrection.
William Shakespeare lived from 1564 to 1616. It’s widely known that he was born on 23 April and died on his birthday. In fact, though, no one knows the date of his birth. What we do know is the date of his baptism. That was on Wednesday 26 April. So it’s reasonable to guess that he was born three days earlier. And to think that he might have been born and died on the same day is satisfying in a way that is somehow Shakespearian.
Actually we know relatively little about the life of the man who is routinely described as the greatest writer of all time. The first full biography came nearly three centuries after his birth. A few dozen legal documents about his business have survived – tax returns, property deeds. They tell us where he was living at various times and give a sense of how wealthy he was. There are also references to him in letters by contemporaries which give a clue about how famous he was. But most of his life is an intriguing blank.
We do, however, have a very full record of his work, some of which was published during his lifetime, and then collected into editions shortly after his death. Cymbeline was probably performed first in 1610, when theatres reopened after a long period of closure because of the plague. King Cymbeline was a historical figure and ruled south-east England about the time of Jesus. He had good relations with the Roman Empire, but his son did not, which is what caused the emperor Claudius to invade. This battle gives the play its climax, although Shakespeare was no respecter of historical accuracy in this or other plays.
The plot is, frankly, labyrinthine. One of its strands is the story of Imogen, the king’s daughter. She marries Posthumus against her parents’ will and as a result he is banished. In his adopted home in Rome he speaks devotedly of Imogen’s goodness. He is persuaded by his so-called friend Iachimo into a wager over whet