Sunday, May 03, 2009

sunday post: what does christopher marlowe, ian mckellen, richard iii, and stacey kent, have in common?

well a poem of christopher marlowe titled "the passionate shepherd to his love" or called "come live with me and be my love". watch the video.


marlowe of course was a contemporary of william shakespeare, so it was no surprise that ian mckellen and collaborators of his 1995 movie adaptation of shakespeare's richard the third used it as lyrics for a song sung by jazz singer stacey kent.

btw i love that adaptation, even though imo it rather unnecessarily cut good portion of admittedly long text of the play, because of its innovative wit in fitting 1930s britain into the text. who could forget, among other things, how the line "my kingdom for a horse" was adapted.

i got to shakespeare through richard iii. when i was a teenager my curiosity was aroused while reading robert louis stevenson's the black arrow (which like shakespeare is historically inaccurate about richard and openly admits to it). so began to read shakespeare's richard iii and then other plays. anyway i think teenage boys will like that route to shakespeare. lot of gore that way :-) .

and i love stacey kent as followers of my twitter will know. i first got to know her singing through this movie.

here is the full text of the poem "the passionate shepherd to his love" by christopher marlowe

Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of th purest gold;

A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me and be my love.

The shepherds' swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my love.

you may find
text of richard iii here
screenplay of the film here
a interactive conversation with ian mckellen about film and play here


6 comments:

Anonymous said...

You have a nice blog. Love Richard III movie.

ashanthi2 said...

hello - what have you been up to ? How come you aren't berating everyone about Peaceniks and then jumping up and down about Prabharan while you insist that the GOSL is the best thing since sliced bread???

Also ... I heard that you might be in Australia??? I suppose I shouldn't be surprised you didn't call :-)

sittingnut said...

anon at 5/03/2009 3:55 pm
thanks :-)

ashanthi2:
are you the same ashanthi? if so glad to see you!!!

i am fine and hope you are too

i would be berating peaceniks, and attacking terrorists ltte sson enough same as few days ago. only i don't and never did it all the time. only when i write about poltics and morality because that is the most ethical thing to do .. hope you will agree with me now given what ltte has done which even you can not be blind to now.


no am not in australia. in sl.

Sunil Santha nut said...

You are right. NGO Peacenicks backlicker pussys will not understand this music. so great. like indi/padashow and sanjana hattotuwa and their ltte-underlings peacenicks like jehan perera, pakiyasothy who is against humanrights, justice. etc. etc. and indi's father political appointment.
only music for real sri lankans.

sittingnut said...

sunil santha nut :.
you sound exactly like indi or one of indi padashow's suckerboys trying hard to make( or rather repeat) a joke. anyone can recognize you a mile way . what a pathetic creature!

obviously what i said about you elsewhere had really touched a nerve ( as it should given its truth ) . so this distorted response in typical fashion . lol

next time find a better joke. instead of a joke that results in even more lol@indi 's anger at me .

ashanthi2 said...

hey you ... now please I've just had a major operation and I am off work for another 4 weeks, don't start giving me grief about the so called ltte ... what all 20 of them left??? Anyway yes it's me and are you glad to have me back? I'm very fragile and I expect you to treat me with kid gloves.
Whats all this stuff about padashow. Indi of course I know - gosh he is such a hypocrite. Nothing worse in my opinion than a bloody polite racist. Did you read his article about his visit up north! What's he doing now promoting War Tourism ... bloody sicko.\!