365 Days of Shakespeare.

Of course it turns out that it won’t quite be 365 days of Shakespeare, because I took the weekend off to ride my horse and watch the racing. A year of Shakespeare, then, which is not too dusty.
Almost the moment I start reading, I find this glittering gem –
Lafeu:Fare you well, my lord; and believe thisof me, there can be no kernel in this light nut; thesoul of this man is his clothes. Trust him not inmatter of heavy consequence; I have kept of themtame, and know their natures. Farewell, monsieur:I have spoken better of you than you have or will todeserve at my hand; but we must do good against evil.
I think the insults in this play are very splendid indeed. The soul of this man is his clothes is a crusher indeed.
I absolutely love the Lords. This is the First Lord, with a tremendous universal truth:The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good andill together: our virtues would be proud, if ourfaults whipped them not; and our crimes woulddespair, if they were not cherished by our virtues.
And here is another roaringly good insult, this time from Parolles, who rather reminds me of Malvolio: I knew the young count to bea dangerous and lascivious boy, who is a whale tovirginity and devours up all the fry it finds.
A whale to virginity, devouring up all the fry, is a conceit of absolute brilliance, although rather disgusting. I wonder whether Shakespeare sat in his room after he wrote that line and laughed and laughed. I think I might have done.
And one more magnificent, unbridled set of insults before I go, from Lafeu:
No, no, no, your son was misled with a snipt-taffetafellow there, whose villanous saffron would havemade all the unbaked and doughy youth of a nation inhis colour: your daughter-in-law had been alive atthis hour, and your son here at home, more advancedby the king than by that red-tailed humble-bee I speak of.

I have absolutely no idea what a snipt-taffeta fellow is, but I know it cannot be good. And a red-tailed humble-bee sounds very dodgy indeed. I think Shakespeare had more fun that he could shake a stick at when he was writing this. I am certainly having a lot of fun reading it, although it is quite nonsensical in many ways. But that does not matter; one is carried along on a tide of language and brio.