Bardisms (21 page)

SHAKESPEARE ON WEDDING VOWS

My heart unto yours is knit

So that but one heart we can make of it;

Two bosoms interchainèd with an oath;

So then two bosoms and a single troth.

—L
YSANDER
,
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
, 2.2. 53–56

It’s hard to think of a single wedding I’ve attended in which the vows taken by bride and groom conformed to the standard formula of “to have and to hold until death do us part.” Most couples whose unions I’ve been fortunate to witness have preferred to depart from the tried and true and have incorporated into their vows music, poetry, their own writings and observations, and in one memorable case interpretive dance.

As always, Shakespeare’s at the ready with a rich vein of material for the most special moment of your most special day.

WITH THIS RING, I THEE WED

Here’s a simple Shakespearean statement for bride and groom to repeat to each other at the big moment when the gold bands make their appearance.

When this ring / Parts from this finger, then parts life from hence.

—B
ASSANIO
,
The Merchant of Venice
, 3.2.183–84

Some details:

Should anyone at your wedding be churlish enough to mention that this line in
The Merchant of Venice
foreshadows the horrible moment when Portia’s ring does indeed part from Bassanio’s finger, precipitating one of the nastiest spats between any couple in Shakespeare, simply remind them that (a) it works out fine in the end, and (b) nobody likes a smarty-pants.

FROM THIS TIME FORTH AND FOREVERMORE

Two of my friends offered this Bardism to each other at their gorgeous wedding in a small chapel in the woods of Martha’s Vineyard. I include it here in tribute to their long and happy marriage.

To you I give myself, for I am yours.

—R
OSALIND
, O
RLANDO
,
As You Like It
, 5.4.106

How to say it:

Some editions of
As You Like It
separate
myself
into two words:
my self
. Though a little pedantic for my taste, this choice at least points to the wonderful doubleness of so much Shakespearean poetry. Rosalind and Orlando give
themselves
to each other—that is, all of what they have, everything they are—but they also give their
selves
—their inmost parts, their secret hearts, the essences that make them who they are. Either way you say the line, it expresses the magnificent idea that takes both Rosalind and Orlando five acts of Shakespeare and all sorts of extraordinary challenges to learn: that love is above all an act of profound generosity, unparalleled self-revelation, and trusting surrender.

ENDLESS LOVE

Here is a Bardism I consider one of Shakespeare’s finest hyperbolic hours, a perfect image of wedding-day love, a love so great it’s infinite.

My bounty is as boundless as the sea,

My love as deep. The more I give to thee

The more I have, for both are infinite.

—J
ULIET
,
Romeo and Juliet
, 2.2.175–77

How to say it:

Try to wring all you can out of the important antithesis between
give
and
have
.

This speech shows how Shakespeare uses the sound of his language to help communicate meaning. First, the vowels. Listen to the echoing
ow
sounds in
boundless
and
bounty
, the repeated
ee
in
bounty
,
sea
,
deep
, and
thee
, and the recurring diphthong
eye
in
my
,
my
,
I
, and
I
. Next, the consonants. Watch how the
v
bounces from
love
to
give
to
have
and how the
b
migrates from
bounty
to
boundless
to
both
. Finally, the alternation between mono- and polysyllables. The final line employs one of Shakespeare’s favorite rhythmic tricks: a monosyllabic line with a polysyllabic word at the end.
The. More. I. Have. For. Both. Are.
go along slowly and emphatically, until
Infinite
springs into the ether, made special not only by its placement at the end of the line, but also by the bold relief that pops out its cluster of three syllables from what comes before. This is Shakespeare at his Mozartian best, a composer of word music as virtuosic as any set out in notes and staves.

Some details:

A crucial aspect of this speech is that it’s built on paradox. Juliet feels a love that’s not only infinite but also continues to grow: the more she gives away, the more she has. Shakespeare loves stuff like this. He’s addicted to riddles. You can’t get through a dozen lines in
Macbeth
without finding weather that’s “both foul and fair,” or a prediction that “cannot be ill, cannot be good”; Troilus puzzles at his girlfriend’s behavior and concludes that she simultaneously “is and is not Cressid”; Hamlet and Ophelia engage in a long debate about the paradoxical relationship of beauty and honesty; and all those cross-dressing heroines can’t take so much as a step in pants without someone making a crack about hermaphrodism. These are just the tip of the iceberg of Shakespeare’s obsession with impossibility, indeterminacy, simultaneity, and oxymoron.

He wasn’t alone in loving such dizzying intellectual puzzles. Shakespeare’s period, for all its social upheavals, political and religious turmoil, and military crises, was distinguished by its great capacity for giddy awe and a real sense of wonder. It’s not called the English Renaissance for nothing; the pace of innovation in science, economics, geographical discovery, and art was extraordinary, and as each new idea arrived in Britain, it met with its share of curiosity, amusement, or astonishment. Early modern Englishmen were addicted to optical illusions, astronomical prodigies, and biological oddities, and Shakespeare writes about them all.
Twelfth Night
dwells at length on the distorting effects of mirrors and lenses;
Henry VI, Part I
opens with a comet, and meteor storms break out at least a half dozen times in the tragedies; there are no fewer than three sets of identical twins in Shakespeare’s canon, and the mysteries of birth are a constant preoccupation.

Indeed, Shakespeare’s contribution to the English attraction to paradox is so prolific that it’s hard to know if he was reflecting public taste or shaping it. What’s clear is that he brings something new to the table, which we see in the Juliet speech above. Shakespeare finds paradox in
human situations
, in relationships between people, in emotions. After all, he seems to ask, what’s more of a curiosity: a newly discovered species of snake that often, when it eats, devours its own tail, or a person whose own appetites prove his horrible undoing? The latter, of course. That’s Shakespeare’s subject: the wonders, both joyous and terrifying, of being human. And love, the most wondrous of all human experiences, is the ultimate puzzle, the most dizzying trick of the light, and the greatest paradox of all.

BOTTOMLESS LOVE

Juliet’s reference to oceanic love isn’t the only deep-water moment in Shakespeare. Here’s another, perhaps even better suited to the wedding vow.

My affection hath an unknown bottom, like the Bay of Portugal.

—R
OSALIND
,
As You Like It
, 4.1.177–78

How to use it:

This nuptial Bardism helped establish my reputation among my circle of friends as the go-to guy for occasion-appropriate Bardophilic quotations. I offered it at the warm and splendid Beverly Hills wedding of my dear friends Karen and Ben, who asked some of their closest pals to read passages on certain themes during their marriage ceremony. My assigned topic was love, so I knew Shakespeare would figure in somehow.
The Bay of Portugal was the body of water believed in Shakespeare’s day to be the deepest on earth. Bridegroom Ben had just published a novel whose hero was a records verifier for a
Guinness Book of World Records
–type volume, so I thought he’d appreciate a way to think about married love in terms of what is (to my knowledge) the only world record in the Bard’s canon. Introducing the line, I explained that a modern paraphrase might read, “My love is as deep as the Marianas Trench,” the location off Japan now known to be the deepest in any ocean, but that
the Bay of Portugal
sounded much more romantic and exotic, and besides,
bottomless
is a far more mysterious and enticing description of love than “36,201 feet deep.” I went on to talk about how surprising and specific details like this one are what make Shakespeare’s writing so unique, and, similarly, how the idiosyncratic, day-to-day details we learn about each other are what make us love as deeply as we do. The assembled crowd, and Ben and Karen, were moved. Feel free to borrow my introductory gambit if you decide to use the line in describing a marrying couple, or explain the line in retrospect at a toast during the reception if you incorporate it into your vows.