Shakespeare Monologues – Women

Character: Helena

Age: Teens-20s

Play: A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

Scene: Act II Scene 2

Brief Synopsis: Helena loves Demetrius, but Demetrius loves Hermia. Hermia loves Lysander who loves her in return, so they flee Athens to elope- but not without telling Helena first (who is Hermia’s life-long friend). Trying to work this to her advantage, Helena tells Demetrius of Hermia and Lysander’s flight, but Demetrius follows them into the woods in pursuit of Hermia, and Helena follows in pursuit of Demetrius.

Speech:

O, I am out of breath in this fond chase!

The more my prayer, the lesser is my grace.

Happy is Hermia, wheresoe’er she lies;

For she hath blessed and attractive eyes.

How came her eyes so bright? Not with salt tears:

If so, my eyes are oftener wash’d than hers.

No, no, I am as ugly as a bear;

For beasts that meet me run away for fear:

Therefore no marvel though Demetrius

Do, as a monster fly my presence thus.

What wicked and dissembling glass of mine

Made me compare with Hermia’s sphery eyne?

But who is here? Lysander! on the ground!

Dead? or asleep? I see no blood, no wound.

Lysander if you live, good sir, awake.

 

Character: Helena

Age: Teens-20s

Play: MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

Scene: Act III Scene 2

Brief Synopsis:  Helena loves Demetrius, but Demetrius loves Hermia. Hermia loves Lysander who loves her in return, so they flee Athens to elope- but not without telling Helena first (who is Hermia’s life-long friend). Trying to work this to her advantage, Helena tells Demetrius of Hermia and Lysander’s flight, but Demetrius follows them into the woods in pursuit of Hermia, and Helena follows in pursuit of Demetrius. And if this love triangle isn’t confusing enough- add some fairy magic which has accidentally been used on the wrong person, causing both Lysander and Demetrius to fall desperately in love with Helena instead!

Speech:

Lo, she is one of this confederacy!

Now I perceive they have conjoin’d all three

To fashion this false sport, in spite of me.

Injurious Hermia! most ungrateful maid!

Have you conspired, have you with these contrived

To bait me with this foul derision?

Is all the counsel that we two have shared,

The sisters’ vows, the hours that we have spent,

When we have chid the hasty-footed time

For parting us,—O, is it all forgot?

All school-days’ friendship, childhood innocence?

We, Hermia, like two artificial gods,

Have with our needles created both one flower,

Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion,

Both warbling of one song, both in one key,

As if our hands, our sides, voices and minds,

Had been incorporate. So we grow together,

Like to a double cherry, seeming parted,

But yet an union in partition;

Two lovely berries moulded on one stem;

So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart;

Two of the first, like coats in heraldry,

Due but to one and crowned with one crest.

And will you rent our ancient love asunder,

To join with men in scorning your poor friend?

It is not friendly, ’tis not maidenly:

Our sex, as well as I, may chide you for it,

Though I alone do feel the injury.

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Character: Julia (beloved of Proteus)

Age: Teens-late 20s

Scene: Act I Scene 2

Play: TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA

Brief Synopsis: 

Two Gentlemen of Verona is a comedy about two youthful men, Valentine and Proteus, and their adventurous love-mishaps during their time in Milan. After a turn of events, both fall in love with Silvia, the duke’s daughter. Proteus had already sworn his love to Julia before setting eyes on Silvia, and Julia disguises herself as a page boy to pursue Proteus in Milan, only to find him wooing Silvia. This scene takes place at the start where Julia tries to convince Lucetta that she doesn’t care about love letters, so rips it up before opening it. As soon as Lucetta leaves, she starts examining the torn pieces of the letter.

Speech:

Nay, would I were so anger’d with the same!

O hateful hands, to tear such loving words!

Injurious wasps, to feed on such sweet honey

And kill the bees that yield it with your stings!

I’ll kiss each several paper for amends.

Look, here is writ ‘kind Julia.’ Unkind Julia!

As in revenge of thy ingratitude,

I throw thy name against the bruising stones,

Trampling contemptuously on thy disdain.

And here is writ ‘love-wounded Proteus.’

Poor wounded name! my bosom as a bed

Shall lodge thee till thy wound be thoroughly heal’d;

And thus I search it with a sovereign kiss.

But twice or thrice was ‘Proteus’ written down.

Be calm, good wind, blow not a word away

Till I have found each letter in the letter,

Except mine own name: that some whirlwind bear

Unto a ragged fearful-hanging rock

And throw it thence into the raging sea!

Lo, here in one line is his name twice writ,

‘Poor forlorn Proteus, passionate Proteus,

To the sweet Julia:’ that I’ll tear away.

And yet I will not, sith so prettily

He couples it to his complaining names.

Thus will I fold them one on another:

Now kiss, embrace, contend, do what you will.

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Character: Viola

Age: Late teens-30s

Play: TWELFTH NIGHT

Scene: Act II Scene 2

Brief Synopsis: A shipwreck causes two cousins, Viola and Sebastian, to separate, each thinking the other has drowned. Washed up on the shore of a foreign country, Viola disguises herself as a boy so she can be safer on these shores, and goes to work for the Duke of the region. He employs her (thinking she is a boy called Cesario) to woo the Countess Olivia on his behalf. Viola does so, but in this speech, Viola realises, ‘his’ wooing may have been a bit too successful!

Speech:

I left no ring with her: what means this lady?

Fortune forbid my outside have not charmed her!

She made good view of me, indeed so much,

That methought her eyes had lost her tongue,

For she did speak in starts distractedly.

She loves me, sure; the cunning of her passion

Invites me in this churlish messenger.

None of my lord’s ring? Why, he sent her none.

I am the man: if it be so, as ’tis,

Poor lady, she were better love a dream.

Disguise, I see thou art a wickedness,

Wherein the pregnant enemy does much.

How easy is it for the proper-false

In women’s waxen hearts to set their forms!

Alas, our frailty is the cause, not we,

For such as we are made of, such we be.

How will this fadge? My master loves her dearly,

And I, poor monster, fond as much on him,

And she, mistaken, seems to dote on me:

What will become of this? As I am man,

My state is desperate for my master’s love:

As I am woman (now alas the day!)

What thriftless sighs shall poor Olivia breathe?

O time, thou must untangle this, not I,

It is too hard a knot for me t’untie.

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Character: Phoebe (a Shepherdess)

Age: Teens-30s

Play: AS YOU LIKE IT

Scene: Act III Scene 5

Brief Synopsis: At the start of the play, Orlando wrestles against Charles outside the court, and Rosalind and Orlando instantly fall in love at first sight. Rosalind is suddenly banished by her uncle, Duke Frederick, but her cousin, Celia, vows to go with her in banishment so she is not alone. They dress up in disguise- Celia as a shepherdess called ‘Aliena’, and Rosalind as a boy called ‘Ganymede’ and they pretend they are brother and sister as they flee to the forest of Arden. Whilst there, Rosalind rebukes a shepherdess who despises her lover, but in so doing, the shepherdess falls in love with the disguised Rosalind. 

Speech

Think not I love him, though I ask for him;

‘Tis but a peevish boy; yet he talks well.

But what care I for words? Yet words do well

When he that speaks them pleases those that hear.

It is a pretty youth- not very pretty;

But, sure, he’s proud; and yet his pride becomes him.

He’ll make a proper man. The best thing in him

Is his complexion; and faster than his tongue

Did make offence, his eye did heal it up.

He is not very tall; yet for his years he’s tall;

His leg is but so-so; and yet ’tis well.

There was a pretty redness in his lip,

A little riper and more lusty red

Than that mix’d in his cheek; ’twas just the difference

Betwixt the constant red and mingled damask.

There be some women, Silvius, had they mark’d him

In parcels as I did, would have gone near

To fall in love with him; but, for my part,

I love him not, nor hate him not; and yet

I have more cause to hate him than to love him;

For what had he to do to chide at me?

He said mine eyes were black, and my hair black,

And, now I am rememb’red, scorn’d at me.

I marvel why I answer’d not again;

But that’s all one: omittance is no quittance.

I’ll write to him a very taunting letter,

And thou shalt bear it; wilt thou, Silvius?

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Character: Rosalind

Age: Teens-30s

Play: AS YOU LIKE IT

Scene: Act III Scene 2

Brief Synopsis: At the start of the play, Orlando wrestles against Charles outside the court, and Rosalind and Orlando instantly fall in love at first sight. Rosalind is suddenly banished by her uncle, Duke Frederick, but her cousin, Celia, vows to go with her in banishment so she is not alone. They dress up in disguise- Celia as a shepherdess called ‘Aliena’, and Rosalind as a boy called ‘Ganymede’ and they pretend they are brother and sister as they flee to the forest of Arden. In the forest, they come across Orlando, and Rosalind- in disguise- offers to help Orlando cure his lovesick heart as he pines for Rosalind. In this speech, Orlando has just asked Ganymede (Rosalind in disguise) whether he’d cured anyone of lovesickness before. 

Speech:

Yes, one; and in this manner. He was to imagine me his

love, his mistress; and I set him every day to woo me; at which

time would I, being but a moonish youth, grieve, be effeminate,

changeable, longing and liking, proud, fantastical, apish,

shallow, inconstant, full of tears, full of smiles; for every

passion something and for no passion truly anything, as boys and

women are for the most part cattle of this colour; would now like

him, now loathe him; then entertain him, then forswear him; now

weep for him, then spit at him; that I drave my suitor from his

mad humour of love to a living humour of madness; which was, to

forswear the full stream of the world and to live in a nook

merely monastic. And thus I cur’d him; and this way will I take

upon me to wash your liver as clean as a sound sheep’s heart,

that there shall not be one spot of love in ‘t.

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Character: Rosalind

Age: Teens-30s

Play: AS YOU LIKE IT

Scene: Act 4 Scene 4

Brief Synopsis: At the start of the play, Orlando wrestles against Charles outside the court, and Rosalind and Orlando instantly fall in love at first sight. Rosalind is suddenly banished by her uncle, Duke Frederick, but her cousin, Celia, vows to go with her in banishment so she is not alone. They dress up in disguise- Celia as a shepherdess called ‘Aliena’, and Rosalind as a boy called ‘Ganymede’ and they pretend they are brother and sister as they flee to the forest of Arden. There they come across many folk in the forest, including Orlando, and by the end of the play, all ends well, as Rosalind throws off her disguise and marries Orlando and Celia marries Orlando’s brother Oliver.

Speech

It is not the fashion to see the lady the epilogue; but

it is no more unhandsome than to see the lord the prologue. If it

be true that good wine needs no bush, ’tis true that a good play

needs no epilogue. Yet to good wine they do use good bushes; and

good plays prove the better by the help of good epilogues. What a

case am I in then, that am neither a good epilogue, nor cannot

insinuate with you in the behalf of a good play! I am not

furnish’d like a beggar; therefore to beg will not become me. My

way is to conjure you; and I’ll begin with the women. I charge

you, O women, for the love you bear to men, to like as much of

this play as please you; and I charge you, O men, for the love

you bear to women- as I perceive by your simp’ring none of you

hates them- that between you and the women the play may please.

If I were a woman, I would kiss as many of you as had beards that

pleas’d me, complexions that lik’d me, and breaths that I defied

not; and, I am sure, as many as have good beards, or good faces,

or sweet breaths, will, for my kind offer, when I make curtsy,

bid me farewell.

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Character: Imogen

Age: Teens-30s

Play: CYMBELINE -Note, the play itself is a tragedy, but this scene can be played as comical.

Scene: Act III Scene 6

Brief Synopsis: Imogen, the daughter of the British King Cymbeline, marries her childhood friend of low rank called Posthumus. Cymbeline therefore sends Posthumus into exile, as the new Queen, Imogen’s stepmother, tries to force Imogen to marry her son Cloten. Meanwhile, in Italy, Posthumus strikes a deal with Iachimo, who bets that Imogen won’t stay faithful and so Posthumus allows Iachimo to test her as he is sure his wife (Imogen) is and always will be faithful. Iachimo tricks Posthumus by sneaking into Imogen’s bedchamber while she’s sleeping and steals the bracelet Posthumus gave her, saying that she willingly gave it to him. Posthumus, now furious, asks his servant, Pisano, to kill Imogen. But Pisano instead convinces Imogen to disguise herself as a boy and search for her husband- but Imogen soon becomes lost in Wales..

Speech

I see a man’s life is a tedious one:

I have tired myself, and for two nights together

Have made the ground my bed. I should be sick,

But that my resolution helps me. Milford,

When from the mountain-top Pisanio show’d thee,

Thou wast within a ken: O Jove! I think

Foundations fly the wretched; such, I mean,

Where they should be relieved. Two beggars told me

I could not miss my way: will poor folks lie,

That have afflictions on them, knowing ’tis

A punishment or trial? Yes; no wonder,

When rich ones scarce tell true. To lapse in fulness

Is sorer than to lie for need, and falsehood

Is worse in kings than beggars. My dear lord!

Thou art one o’ the false ones. Now I think on thee,

My hunger’s gone; but even before, I was

At point to sink for food. But what is this?

Here is a path to’t: ’tis some savage hold:

I were best not to call; I dare not call:

yet famine,

Ere clean it o’erthrow nature, makes it valiant,

Plenty and peace breeds cowards: hardness ever

Of hardiness is mother. Ho! who’s here?

If any thing that’s civil, speak; if savage,

Take or lend. Ho! No answer? Then I’ll enter.

Best draw my sword: and if mine enemy

But fear the sword like me, he’ll scarcely look on’t.

Such a foe, good heavens!

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Character: Luciana

Age: Late teens-30s

Play: THE COMEDY OF ERRORS

Scene: Act III Scene 2

Brief Synopsis:  A pair of long-lost identical twins, both named Antipholus, and their slaves, also a pair of long-lost twins, both called Dromio, find themselves in the same place at the same time…Comedy ensues as the locals, and even Antipholus of Ephesus’ wife and sister-in-law continually mistake one twin for the other. 

Speech:

And may it be that you have quite forgot

A husband’s office? shall, Antipholus.

Even in the spring of love, thy love-springs rot?

Shall love, in building, grow so ruinous?

If you did wed my sister for her wealth,

Then for her wealth’s sake use her with more kindness:

Or if you like elsewhere, do it by stealth;

Muffle your false love with some show of blindness:

Let not my sister read it in your eye;

Be not thy tongue thy own shame’s orator;

Look sweet, be fair, become disloyalty;

Apparel vice like virtue’s harbinger;

Bear a fair presence, though your heart be tainted;

Teach sin the carriage of a holy saint;

Be secret-false: what need she be acquainted?

What simple thief brags of his own attaint?

‘Tis double wrong, to truant with your bed

And let her read it in thy looks at board:

Shame hath a bastard fame, well managed;

Ill deeds are doubled with an evil word.

Alas, poor women! make us but believe,

Being compact of credit, that you love us;

Though others have the arm, show us the sleeve;

We in your motion turn and you may move us.

Then, gentle brother, get you in again;

Comfort my sister, cheer her, call her wife:

‘Tis holy sport to be a little vain,

When the sweet breath of flattery conquers strife.

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Character: Kate

Age: Late teens-30s

Play: TAMING OF THE SHREW

Scene: Act IV Scene 3

Brief Synopsis: Katherina (Kate), the vocal older sister of Bianca, despises men. Yet when Lucentio strikes a deal with Petruchio to wed Kate so that Bianca is free to marry, Petritio embarks on a mission to ‘tame’ Kate into being his submissive wife.

Speech:

The more my wrong, the more his spite appears.

What, did he marry me to famish me?

Beggars that come unto my father’s door

Upon entreaty have a present alms;

If not, elsewhere they meet with charity;

But I, who never knew how to entreat,

Nor never needed that I should entreat,

Am starv’d for meat, giddy for lack of sleep;

With oaths kept waking, and with brawling fed;

And that which spites me more than all these wants-

He does it under name of perfect love;

As who should say, if I should sleep or eat,

‘Twere deadly sickness or else present death.

I prithee go and get me some repast;

I care not what, so it be wholesome food.

 

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Character: Mistress Page

Age: 40s+

Play: THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR

Scene: Act II Scene 1

Brief Synopsis: Sir John Falstaff, an older gluttonous comic Knight and scoundrel, has come to the town’s middle-aged wives. Yet, the wives are cleverer than the men suppose, hatching plots and executing hilarious pranks to humiliate Falstaff as he attempts to woo these women.

Speech:

What, have I scaped love-letters in the holiday- time of my beauty, and am I now a subject for them? Let me see.

[Reads]

‘Ask me no reason why I love you; for though Love use Reason for his physician, he admits him not for his counsellor. You are not young, no more am I; go to then, there’s sympathy: you are merry, so am I; ha, ha! then there’s more sympathy: you love sack, and so do I; would you desire better sympathy? Let it suffice thee, Mistress Page,—at the least, if the love of soldier can suffice,— that I love thee. I will not say, pity me; ’tis not a soldier-like phrase: but I say, love me. By me,

Thine own true knight,

By day or night,

Or any kind of light,

With all his might

For thee to fight, 

JOHN FALSTAFF’

What a Herod of Jewry is this! O wicked world! One that is well-nigh worn to pieces with

age to show himself a young gallant! What an unweighed behavior hath this Flemish drunkard picked—with the devil’s name!—out of my conversation, that he dares in this manner assay me? Why, he hath not been thrice in my company! What should I say to him? I was then frugal of my mirth: Heaven forgive me! Why, I’ll exhibit a bill in the parliament for the putting down of men. How shall I be revenged on him? for revenged I will be, as sure as his guts are made of puddings.

 

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Character: Emilia/Aemilia (an Abbess)

Age: 50+

Play: THE COMEDY OF ERRORS

Scene: Act V Scene 1

Brief Synopsis: A pair of long-lost identical twins, both named Antipholus, and their slaves, also a pair of long-lost twins, both called Dromio, find themselves in the same place at the same time…Comedy ensues as the locals, and even Antipholus of Ephesus’ wife and sister-in-law continually mistake one twin for the other, resulting in Antipholus of Ephesus being arrested for debt and declared mad, while Antipholus of Syracuse hides from his brother’s wife in a Priory, where the abbess turns out to be his long-lost mother. 

Speech:

And thereof came it that the man was mad.

The venom clamours of a jealous woman

Poisons more deadly than a mad dog’s tooth.

It seems his sleeps were hinder’d by thy railing,

And therefore comes it that his head is light.

Thou say’st his meat was sauced with thy upbraidings:

Unquiet meals make ill digestions;

Thereof the raging fire of fever bred;

And what’s a fever but a fit of madness?

Thou say’st his sports were hinderd by thy brawls:

Sweet recreation barr’d, what doth ensue

But moody and dull melancholy,

Kinsman to grim and comfortless despair,

And at her heels a huge infectious troop

Of pale distemperatures and foes to life?

In food, in sport and life-preserving rest

To be disturb’d, would mad or man or beast:

The consequence is then thy jealous fits

Have scared thy husband from the use of wits.

 

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Character: Lady Percy (wife of Henry Percy aka Hotspur)

Age: Teens-30s

Play: HENRY IV PART I

Scene: Act II Scene 3

Brief Synopsis: The newly crowned Henry IV faces growing opposition from some of the nobles who helped him ascend the throne, while his son (Prince Harry/Hal) is living a care-free life in taverns with his friends and the notorious Sir John Falstaff. Henry Percy (Hotspur) leads an open rebellion against the king, supporting his brother-in-law (Edmund Mortimer) in his claim to the throne. The rebellion brings Hal back to his father and the kings army defeats the rebels (battle of Shrewsbury) and Hal kills Hotspur.

Speech:

O, my good lord, why are you thus alone?

For what offence have I this fortnight been

A banish’d woman from my Harry’s bed?

Tell me, sweet lord, what is’t that takes from thee

Thy stomach, pleasure and thy golden sleep?

Why dost thou bend thine eyes upon the earth,

And start so often when thou sit’st alone?

Why hast thou lost the fresh blood in thy cheeks;

And given my treasures and my rights of thee

To thick-eyed musing and cursed melancholy?

In thy faint slumbers I by thee have watch’d,

And heard thee murmur tales of iron wars;

Speak terms of manage to thy bounding steed;

Cry ‘Courage! to the field!’ And thou hast talk’d

Of sallies and retires, of trenches, tents,

Of palisadoes, frontiers, parapets,

Of basilisks, of cannon, culverin,

Of prisoners’ ransom and of soldiers slain,

And all the currents of a heady fight.

Thy spirit within thee hath been so at war

And thus hath so bestirr’d thee in thy sleep,

That beads of sweat have stood upon thy brow

Like bubbles in a late-disturbed stream;

And in thy face strange motions have appear’d,

Such as we see when men restrain their breath

On some great sudden hest. O, what portents are these?

Some heavy business hath my lord in hand,

And I must know it, else he loves me not.

Character: Lady Percy (Recent widow of Henry Percy aka Hotspur, and daughter-in-law to Earl of Northumberland) 

Age: 20s-30s

Play: HENRY IV PART II

Scene: Act II Scene 3

Brief Synopsis: The Earl of Northumberland tries to avenge his son’s death by supporting a second rebellion. With civil war looming, King Henry IV grows sick, while his son (Hal) continues drinking and living a reckless life with his friends (including Sir John Falstaff). The prince and king reconcile on the king’s deathbed, and Prince Hal ascends the throne as a more mature Henry V. 
In this scene, Lady Percy reminds Northumberland that his son–her husband–is dead largely because Northumberland refused to send his troops to help him at Shrewsbury, and argues that there is little point in going back to war now. 

Speech:

O, yet, for God’s sake, go not to these wars!

The time was, father, that you broke your word,

When you were more endear’d to it than now;

When your own Percy, when my heart’s dear Harry,

Threw many a northward look to see his father

Bring up his powers; but he did long in vain.

Who then persuaded you to stay at home?

There were two honours lost, yours and your son’s.

For yours, the God of heaven brighten it!

For his, it stuck upon him as the sun

In the grey vault of heaven; and by his light

Did all the chivalry of England move

To do brave acts. He was indeed the glass

Wherein the noble youth did dress themselves.

He had no legs that practis’d not his gait;

And speaking thick, which nature made his blemish,

Became the accents of the valiant;

For those who could speak low and tardily

Would turn their own perfection to abuse

To seem like him: so that in speech, in gait,

In diet, in affections of delight,

In military rules, humours of blood,

He was the mark and glass, copy and book,

That fashion’d others. And him—O wondrous him!

O miracle of men!—him did you leave—

Second to none, unseconded by you—

To look upon the hideous god of war

In disadvantage, to abide a field

Where nothing but the sound of Hotspur’s name

Did seem defensible. So you left him.

Never, O never, do his ghost the wrong

To hold your honour more precise and nice

With others than with him! Let them alone.

The Marshal and the Archbishop are strong.

Had my sweet Harry had but half their numbers,

To-day might I, hanging on Hotspur’s neck,

Have talk’d of Monmouth’s grave.

Character: Joan la Pucelle (aka Joan of Arc)

Age: 20s- 30s

Play: HENRY VI PART I

Scene: Act I Scene 2

Brief Synopsis: After the death of Henry V, the young Henry VI becomes King under the protection of his uncles Duke of Gloucester and Exeter. Richard Planteginent also establishes a claim to the throne through the Mortimer family line. Supporters are divided, wearing a white rose emblem for York supporters and red rose for Lancaseter supporters. Meanwhile, battles are happening in France and Charles the Dauphin fortifices his alliances with the mysterious Joan la Pucelle (Joan of Arc) and they dominate the battles in France. 

Speech:

Dauphin, I am by birth a shepherd’s daughter,

My wit untrain’d in any kind of art.

Heaven and our Lady gracious hath it pleased

To shine on my contemptible estate:

Lo, whilst I waited on my tender lambs,

And to sun’s parching heat display’d my cheeks,

God’s mother deigned to appear to me

And in a vision full of majesty

Will’d me to leave my base vocation

And free my country from calamity:

Her aid she promised and assured success:

In complete glory she reveal’d herself;

And, whereas I was black and swart before,

With those clear rays which she infused on me

That beauty am I bless’d with which you see.

Ask me what question thou canst possible,

And I will answer unpremeditated:

My courage try by combat, if thou darest,

And thou shalt find that I exceed my sex.

Resolve on this, thou shalt be fortunate,

If thou receive me for thy warlike mate.

Character: Joan la Pucelle (aka Joan of Arc)

Age: 20s- 30s

Play: HENRY VI PART I

Scene: Act I Scene 2

Brief Synopsis: After the death of Henry V, the young Henry VI becomes King under the protection of his uncles Duke of Gloucester and Exeter. Richard Planteginent also establishes a claim to the throne through the Mortimer family line. Supporters are divided, wearing a white rose emblem for York supporters and red rose for Lancaseter supporters. Meanwhile, battles are happening in France and Charles the Dauphin fortifices his alliances with the mysterious Joan la Pucelle (Joan of Arc) and they dominate the battles in France. 

Speech:

Dauphin, I am by birth a shepherd’s daughter,

My wit untrain’d in any kind of art.

Heaven and our Lady gracious hath it pleased

To shine on my contemptible estate:

Lo, whilst I waited on my tender lambs,

And to sun’s parching heat display’d my cheeks,

God’s mother deigned to appear to me

And in a vision full of majesty

Will’d me to leave my base vocation

And free my country from calamity:

Her aid she promised and assured success:

In complete glory she reveal’d herself;

And, whereas I was black and swart before,

With those clear rays which she infused on me

That beauty am I bless’d with which you see.

Ask me what question thou canst possible,

And I will answer unpremeditated:

My courage try by combat, if thou darest,

And thou shalt find that I exceed my sex.

Resolve on this, thou shalt be fortunate,

If thou receive me for thy warlike mate.

Character: Queen Margaret

Age: 20s-30s

Play: HENRY VI PART II

Scene: Act III Scene 2

Brief Synopsis: With the king Henry still young, Gloucester is protector of England until the king is old enough to rule. English noblemen then unite to get rid of Gloucester and his power as protector. His wife, Elanor, ambitious for the crown, is tricked into consulting a witch about these ambitions and is subsequently caught, trailed and banished for this act. Suffolk, York, Winchester and Margaret plan to kill Gloucester. In this scene, Gloucester has just been murdered, and Margaret asks King Henry why he is cruel to Suffolk who weeps at Gloucester’s death. She is full of self-pity, asking what rumours will be spread about her after Gloucester’s death.

Speech:

Be woe for me, more wretched than he is.

What, dost thou turn away and hide thy face?

I am no loathsome leper; look on me.

What! art thou, like the adder, waxen deaf?

Be poisonous too and kill thy forlorn queen.

Is all thy comfort shut in Gloucester’s tomb?

Why, then, dame Margaret was ne’er thy joy.

Erect his statue and worship it,

And make my image but an alehouse sign.

Was I for this nigh wreck’d upon the sea

And twice by awkward wind from England’s bank

Drove back again unto my native clime?

What boded this, but well forewarning wind

Did seem to say ‘Seek not a scorpion’s nest,

Nor set no footing on this unkind shore’?

What did I then, but cursed the gentle gusts

And he that loosed them forth their brazen caves:

And bid them blow towards England’s blessed shore,

Or turn our stern upon a dreadful rock

Yet Aeolus would not be a murderer,

But left that hateful office unto thee:

The pretty-vaulting sea refused to drown me,

Knowing that thou wouldst have me drown’d on shore,

With tears as salt as sea, through thy unkindness:

The splitting rocks cower’d in the sinking sands

And would not dash me with their ragged sides,

Because thy flinty heart, more hard than they,

Might in thy palace perish Margaret.

As far as I could ken thy chalky cliffs,

When from thy shore the tempest beat us back,

I stood upon the hatches in the storm,

And when the dusky sky began to rob

My earnest-gaping sight of thy land’s view,

I took a costly jewel from my neck,

A heart it was, bound in with diamonds,

And threw it towards thy land: the sea received it,

And so I wish’d thy body might my heart:

And even with this I lost fair England’s view

And bid mine eyes be packing with my heart

And call’d them blind and dusky spectacles,

For losing ken of Albion’s wished coast.

How often have I tempted Suffolk’s tongue,

The agent of thy foul inconstancy,

To sit and witch me, as Ascanius did

When he to madding Dido would unfold

His father’s acts commenced in burning Troy!

Am I not witch’d like her? or thou not false like him?

Ay me, I can no more! die, Margaret!

For Henry weeps that thou dost live so long.

Character: Emilia (attendant to Desdemona)

Age: Any

Play: OTHELLO

Scene: Act IV Scene 3

Brief Synopsis: Othello, a Christain Moor, has been promoted to general and sent to Cyprus to command the armies there. His second-in-command, Iago, is jealous of this promotion and works out a cunning revenge throughout the play. Before leaving for Cyprus, Othello had won the heart of Desdemona, the beautiful daughter of a Venetian senator, and married her. Both she and her attendant- Iago’s wife (Emilia), come with Othello and Iago to Cyprus. Iago then plans ways to plant jealous suspicion in the mind of Othello, making him believe Desdemona is an adulteress, leading Othello to kill his own wife.

Speech:

Yes, a dozen; and as many to the vantage as would

store the world they played for.

But I do think it is their husbands’ faults

If wives do fall: say that they slack their duties,

And pour our treasures into foreign laps,

Or else break out in peevish jealousies,

Throwing restraint upon us; or say they strike us,

Or scant our former having in despite;

Why, we have galls, and though we have some grace,

Yet have we some revenge. Let husbands know

Their wives have sense like them: they see and smell

And have their palates both for sweet and sour,

As husbands have. What is it that they do

When they change us for others? Is it sport?

I think it is: and doth affection breed it?

I think it doth: is’t frailty that thus errs?

It is so too: and have not we affections,

Desires for sport, and frailty, as men have?

Then let them use us well: else let them know,

The ills we do, their ills instruct us so.

 

Character: Juliet

Age: Teenager

Play: ROMEO & JULIET

Scene: Act III Scene II

Brief Synopsis: Two young lovers, Romeo & Juliet,  from households who have fought long against each other, fall in love and secretly marry. Yet on the night of the wedding, Juliet’s cousin, Tybalt, duels against Romeo and accidentally kills Romeo’s best friend. In a fit of revenge, Romeo kills tybalt, and is consequently banished. In this scene, Juliet, who has been waiting for her husband to come to her chamber, instead hears this tragic news from her nurse.

Speech:

Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband?

Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name,

When I, thy three-hours wife, have mangled it?

But, wherefore, villain, didst thou kill my cousin?

That villain cousin would have kill’d my husband:

Back, foolish tears, back to your native spring;

Your tributary drops belong to woe,

Which you, mistaking, offer up to joy.

My husband lives, that Tybalt would have slain;

And Tybalt’s dead, that would have slain my husband:

All this is comfort; wherefore weep I then?

Some word there was, worser than Tybalt’s death,

That murder’d me: I would forget it fain;

But, O, it presses to my memory,

Like damned guilty deeds to sinners’ minds:

‘Tybalt is dead, and Romeo—banished;’

That ‘banished,’ that one word ‘banished,’

Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts. Tybalt’s death

Was woe enough, if it had ended there:

Or, if sour woe delights in fellowship

And needly will be rank’d with other griefs,

Why follow’d not, when she said ‘Tybalt’s dead,’

Thy father, or thy mother, nay, or both,

Which modern lamentations might have moved?

But with a rear-ward following Tybalt’s death,

‘Romeo is banished,’ to speak that word,

Is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet,

All slain, all dead. ‘Romeo is banished!’

There is no end, no limit, measure, bound,

In that word’s death; no words can that woe sound.

Where is my father, and my mother, nurse?

Character: Cressida

Age: Late teens-20s

Play: TROILUS AND CRESSIDA

Scene: Act III Scene 2

Brief Synopsis: War between the Greeks and Trojans over Helen of Troy has reached a stalemate. Cressida, the daughter of Calchas, a Trojan priest who defected to the Greek camp, is left in the Trojan camp by her father. Troilus, the brother of Hector (the Trojan war champion) falls deeply in love with Cressida and in this scene they are left alone to embrace and declare their love for each other, pledging to be faithful, but Cressida doubts what she is doing. 

Speech:

Hard to seem won: but I was won, my lord,

With the first glance that ever—pardon me—

If I confess much, you will play the tyrant.

I love you now; but not, till now, so much

But I might master it: in faith, I lie;

My thoughts were like unbridled children, grown

Too headstrong for their mother. See, we fools!

Why have I blabb’d? who shall be true to us,

When we are so unsecret to ourselves?

But, though I loved you well, I woo’d you not;

And yet, good faith, I wish’d myself a man,

Or that we women had men’s privilege

Of speaking first. Sweet, bid me hold my tongue,

For in this rapture I shall surely speak

The thing I shall repent. See, see, your silence,

Cunning in dumbness, from my weakness draws

My very soul of counsel! stop my mouth.

Character: Hermione (Queen of Sicilia)

Age: Late 20s-40s

Play: THE WINTER’S TALE – Note- the play itself is a comedy, but this speech is tragedy.

Scene: Act III Scene 2

Brief Synopsis: Polixenes, friend of Leontes King of Sicilia, has come to visit Leontes, his child (Mamillius) and his pregnant wife (Hermione) at their home. Leontes tries to convince Polixenes to stay longer, but he declines, so Leontes asks Hermione to persuade Polixenes to stay and he does so. A wave of jealousy ensues as Leontes suddenly believes that Hermione has had an affair with Polixenes. He imprisons her, and she prematurely gives birth, but Leontes bids the baby be destroyed (convinced it is a bastard). Still fresh from giving birth, Hermione is put on public trial with her husband as the judge of her case.

 

Speech:

Sir, spare your threats:

The bug which you would fright me with I seek.

To me can life be no commodity:

The crown and comfort of my life, your favour,

I do give lost; for I do feel it gone,

But know not how it went. My second joy

And first-fruits of my body, from his presence

I am barr’d, like one infectious. My third comfort

Starr’d most unluckily, is from my breast,

The innocent milk in its most innocent mouth,

Haled out to murder: myself on every post

Proclaimed a strumpet: with immodest hatred

The child-bed privilege denied, which ‘longs

To women of all fashion; lastly, hurried

Here to this place, i’ the open air, before

I have got strength of limit. Now, my liege,

Tell me what blessings I have here alive,

That I should fear to die? Therefore proceed.

But yet hear this: mistake me not; no life,

I prize it not a straw, but for mine honour,

Which I would free, if I shall be condemn’d

Upon surmises, all proofs sleeping else

But what your jealousies awake, I tell you

‘Tis rigor and not law. Your honours all,

I do refer me to the oracle:

Apollo be my judge!

Character: Portia (Brutus’s wife; the daughter of a noble Roman who took sides against Caesar.)

Age: late 20s-40s

Play: JULIUS CAESAR

Scene: Act II Scene I

Brief Synopsis:

Speech:

Is Brutus sick? and is it physical

To walk unbraced and suck up the humours

Of the dank morning? What, is Brutus sick,

And will he steal out of his wholesome bed,

To dare the vile contagion of the night

And tempt the rheumy and unpurged air

To add unto his sickness? No, my Brutus;

You have some sick offence within your mind,

Which, by the right and virtue of my place,

I ought to know of: and, upon my knees,

I charm you, by my once-commended beauty,

By all your vows of love and that great vow

Which did incorporate and make us one,

That you unfold to me, yourself, your half,

Why you are heavy, and what men to-night

Have had to resort to you: for here have been

Some six or seven, who did hide their faces

Even from darkness.

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