Anthony verses The Sonnets with Melinda Hall

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

Download Episode 8 – Sonnet 138 Sonnet Slam Edition

Anthony and Melinda discuss Sonnet 2.

When forty winters shall beseige thy brow,

Download Episode 7 – Sonnet 2

Anthony and Melinda discuss Sonnet 45 (and 44) and pigeons on your feet.

The other two, slight air and purging fire,

Download Episode 6 – Sonnet 45

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 thought can jump both sea and land 
As soon as think the place where he would be. 
But ah! thought kills me that I am not thought, 
To leap large lengths of miles when thou art gone,
But that so much of earth and water wrought 
I must attend time`s leisure with my moan, 
Receiving nought by elements so slow 
But heavy tears, badges of either`s woe.

Download Episode 5 – Sonnet 44

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, 
Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.
Thou that art now the world`s fresh ornament 
And only herald to the gaudy spring, 
Within thine own bud buriest thy content 
And, tender churl, makest waste in niggarding. 
    Pity the world, or else this glutton be, 
    To eat the world`s due, by the grave and thee.

Download Episode 4 – Sonnet 1

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 bid your servant once adieu; 
Nor dare I question with my jealous thought 
Where you may be, or your affairs suppose, 
But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought
Save, where you are how happy you make those.
   So true a fool is love that in your will,
   Though you do any thing, he thinks no ill.

Download Episode 3 – Sonnet 57

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 make the taker mad;
Mad in pursuit and in possession so;
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
   All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
   To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell. 

Download Episode 1 Sonnet 129

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 cheeks; 
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
   And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
   As any she belied with false compare.

Download Episode 1 Sonnet 130