Anthony returns with Melinda Hall and Will Amato to talk about the 5th Annual Shakespeare’s Birthday Sonnet Slam in Central Park! When my love swears that she is made of truth I do believe her, though I know she lies, That she might think me some untutor’d youth, Unlearned in the world’s false subtleties. Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me you…

Anthony and Melinda discuss Sonnet 2. When forty winters shall beseige thy brow, And dig deep trenches in thy beauty`s field, Thy youth`s proud livery, so gazed on now, Will be a totter`d weed, of small worth held: Then being ask`d where all thy beauty lies, Where all the treasure of thy lusty days; To say, within thine own deep-sunken eyes, Were a…

Anthony and Melinda discuss Sonnet 45 (and 44) and pigeons on your feet. The other two, slight air and purging fire, Are both with thee, wherever I abide; The first my thought, the other my desire, These present-absent with swift motion slide. For when these quicker elements are gone In tender embassy of love to thee, My life, being made of four, w…

Anthony and Melinda discuss Anthony`s favorite sonnet so far. Sonnet 44 If the dull substance of my flesh were thought, Injurious distance should not stop my way; For then despite of space I would be brought, From limits far remote where thou dost stay. No matter then although my foot did stand Upon the farthest earth removed from thee; For nimble …

Anthony and Melinda discuss Sonnet 1. From fairest creatures we desire increase, That thereby beauty`s rose might never die, But as the riper should by time decease, His tender heir might bear his memory: But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes, Feed`st thy light`s flame with self-substantial fuel, Making a famine where abundance lies, Thysel…

Anthony and Melinda discuss Sonnet 57. Being your slave, what should I do but tend Upon the hours and times of your desire? I have no precious time at all to spend, Nor services to do, till you require. Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you, Nor think the bitterness of absence sour When you have…

Anthony and Melinda discuss Sonnet 129. The expense of spirit in a waste of shame Is lust in action; and till action, lust Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame, Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust, Enjoy`d no sooner but despised straight, Past reason hunted, and no sooner had Past reason hated, as a swallow`d bait On purpose laid to…

In which Anthony and Melinda discuss Sonnet 130. My mistress eyes are nothing like the sun. My mistress` eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red than her lips` red; If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. I have seen roses damask`d, red and white, But no such roses see I in her c…