Project Shakespeare and Co (AI+I)

Day 11

Day 11 – Shakespeare & Montaigne

Shakespeare: Sonnet 73

“That time of year thou mayst in me behold”

Context:
In this sonnet, Shakespeare meditates on aging and mortality, using images of autumn, twilight, and dying fire. It is both a lament and a tender invitation: love deepens when one sees how fleeting life is.

Extract (full sonnet):

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see’st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west;
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Consum’d with that which it was nourish’d by.
This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

Reflection prompts:

Copy the line “Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.”
Which image strikes you most — autumn trees, twilight, or fading fire?
Compare with Macbeth’s “Out, out, brief candle!” — both speak of mortality, but one is bitter, the other tender.

Montaigne: Essays, Book I, Chapter 20

“That to Study Philosophy is to Learn to Die”

Context:
In one of his most famous essays, Montaigne reflects on how philosophy teaches us to face death calmly. He draws on ancient wisdom (especially Cicero) but gives it his own humane, personal tone.

Extract (~6 paragraphs, Cotton translation, public domain):

“Let us rid death of its strangeness, let us frequent it, let us get used to it. Let us have nothing so often in mind as death. At every instant, let us consider: here is one step nearer. For among all the benefits of philosophy, the one most important is that it prepares us to die.

“To philosophize is to learn how to die. Whoever has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave. Knowing how to die delivers us from all subjection and constraint. There is no evil in life for him who has rightly understood that the privation of life is no evil.

“What do we fear in death? That we shall be no more? But if we are not, what have we to fear? Things will concern us no more than when we were not yet born.

“We trouble life by the care of death, and death by the care of life. One torments us, the other frightens us. It is not against death that we prepare ourselves — it is against ourselves. Death is only a moment; a very short one.

“Let us learn to stand firm. Let us plant our feet upon the truth. Let us look on death with a steady gaze, and we shall find that it is only a part of the order of nature, and not the most grievous. Why should we not go out of life as we came into it? We wept, we knew not why; we shall die, we know not why.

“Life should be to us as a continual training, and our greatest study should be to compose ourselves to it. The end of our race is death, and ’tis the necessary object of our aim. If it affrights us, how is it possible to go a step further without trembling?”

Reflection prompts:

Copy the phrase “To philosophize is to learn how to die.”
Compare Montaigne’s calm tone with Lear’s howl and Macbeth’s despair. Which way of facing death feels more human to you?
Shakespeare’s sonnet says mortality makes love stronger; Montaigne says it makes life freer. Do you feel these as complementary?

✨ Today’s resonance:
Shakespeare in autumn: twilight and fire fading, yet love deepened. Montaigne in prose: philosophy as training for death, yet life steadied by that thought. Both offer gentleness after the storms.

Day 10

Day 10 – Shakespeare & Plato

Shakespeare: King Lear, Act V, Scene 3

Lear’s lament over Cordelia

Context:
In the final scene of King Lear, the old king enters carrying the body of Cordelia. Having lost everything — crown, sanity, daughters — he howls in anguish. This is Shakespeare at his most raw, where language itself seems to fracture under grief.

Extract (~40 lines):

Howl, howl, howl, howl! O, you are men of stones:
Had I your tongues and eyes, I’d use them so
That heaven’s vault should crack. She’s gone for ever!
I know when one is dead, and when one lives;
She’s dead as earth. Lend me a looking glass;
If that her breath will mist or stain the stone,
Why, then she lives.

…

Cordelia, Cordelia! stay a little. Ha!
What is’t thou say’st? Her voice was ever soft,
Gentle, and low, an excellent thing in woman.
I kill’d the slave that was a-hanging thee.

…

And my poor fool is hang’d! No, no, no life!
Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life,
And thou no breath at all? O, thou wilt come no more,
Never, never, never, never, never!
Pray you, undo this button: thank you, sir.
Do you see this? Look on her, look, her lips,
Look there, look there!

[He dies.]

Reflection prompts:

Copy the line “Never, never, never, never, never!” — let the repetition beat like a hammer.
Notice how Lear clings to small signs (a misted mirror, the lips moving) — the human desperation to deny death.
Compare with Macbeth’s “Out, out, brief candle!” — despair there was emptiness, here it is loss. Which feels closer to your own response to death?

Plato: Phaedrus

The Charioteer Allegory, complete

Context:
Yesterday we began the image: the soul as a charioteer with two horses, one noble, one unruly. Today, the full arc: the struggle of love, the pull between reason and passion, and the way divine madness lifts the soul back toward its wings.

Extract (~6 long paragraphs, Jowett translation, public domain):

“The human soul, then, has the following nature. She is a charioteer and a pair of winged horses. One of the horses is noble and of noble breed; the other ignoble and of opposite breed. The driving, as might be expected, is no easy matter.

“When the charioteer beholds the beloved and grows warm through recollection, the stream of beauty enters through the eyes and warms the soul. Then the horses are all in a ferment; the obedient one, restrained by shame, holds himself back; but the other, hardly yielding to the goad and whip, leaps violently forward. The charioteer is pulled in opposite directions, in pain and sweat, dragged one way by violence, the other by modesty.

“When he is drawn toward the beloved, and gazes upon the vision of beauty, he is refreshed and warmed, and his soul is filled with the greatest joy. At the sight, he is reminded of true beauty and grows wings again. Then he would fain fly upward, but he is weighed down by the violence of the bad horse.

“The struggle within the soul is fierce. When the worse horse is overcome, led away by reason and shame, the whole soul follows with reverence toward the beloved. Thus the lover reveres him as a god; he refrains from outrage, and yields to the better horse. If both live a life of philosophy and self-control, then they are happy here below, masters of themselves and orderly. And when life is ended, they have wings and pass hence together, the soul of the beloved following in the train of the lover.

“But if they surrender to the worse horse and live a life of indulgence, they reap the harvest of shame, and their wings wither. In their next life they will be weighted down and wander, until self-mastery restores them.

“Thus, the madness of love, given by the gods, is the best. For by it the soul remembers her wings, and in company with her beloved she ascends once more to the place of the gods. Let no one fear such madness; for in it is our greatest blessing.”

Reflection prompts:

Copy the phrase “By love the soul remembers her wings.”
Do you see this as allegory of every human passion, or as something specific to erotic love?
Place it beside Lear’s howl. One voice rages at death’s finality; the other dreams of the soul’s upward flight. How do they speak to each other?

✨ Today’s resonance:
Lear, bent and broken, cannot release Cordelia to the beyond. Socrates, by the Ilissus, imagines love itself as the force that recalls the soul to its divine origin. Between howl and hymn lies the whole spectrum of grief and transcendence.

Day 9

Day 9 – Shakespeare & Plato

Shakespeare: Macbeth, Act V, Scene 5

“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow”

Context:
Macbeth hears of Lady Macbeth’s death. His response is not grief but a weary nihilism: life as meaningless repetition, “a tale told by an idiot.” Few speeches in Shakespeare are darker, or more haunting.

Extract (~20 lines):

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Reflection prompts:

Copy the phrase “Out, out, brief candle!” and sit with its brevity.
Compare with Jaques’ “seven ages of man.” Both frame life as theatre — but Jaques gives a cycle, Macbeth gives emptiness.
Does this ring as despair, or as clarity?

Plato: Phaedrus

Socrates’ second speech — divine madness and the soul as charioteer

Context:
Having mocked love in his first speech, Socrates suddenly stops, declares himself guilty of impiety, and reverses course. He now praises love as a divine madness, a gift of the gods, that can lift the soul toward truth. He introduces the great allegory: the soul as a charioteer driving two horses — one noble, one unruly.

Long extract (~6 paragraphs, Jowett translation, public domain):

“The greatest of blessings come to us through madness, when it is sent by the gods. The prophetess at Delphi and the priestesses at Dodona, when out of their senses, have conferred great benefits on Hellas, both in private and public life; but when in their senses few or none. And in proof of this, if we were to collect the ancient traditions, we should find that in all cases the greatest blessings have come by divine madness.

“There are in fact four kinds of divine madness: the madness of the prophet, the madness of the poet, the madness of the mystic, and the madness of love. Of these, the last is the best; for he who is inspired by love is touched by the god of love, and is carried out of himself toward the vision of true beauty.

“Now let me describe the condition of the soul. Of her nature, she is like a pair of winged horses and a charioteer. The horses and charioteers of the gods are all good and of good descent, but those of other beings are mixed: in us, one of the horses is noble and good, the other the opposite, and the driving of them necessarily gives great trouble to the charioteer.

“When the soul is perfect and fully winged, she soars upward and is carried to the divine, where she is nourished by truth, beauty, and goodness. But when she loses her wings, she falls down and takes an earthly body, and then, through successive lives, may regain her wings by seeking what is true and beautiful.

“Of all these visions, none is so great as that which the soul beholds when she sees the beloved, who is herself an image of beauty divine. Then the soul remembers the wings which she had before, and she longs to fly upward; but she is weighed down by the two horses, one obedient, the other disobedient. The obedient horse is modest, lover of honour and reason; the other is insolent, companion of wantonness and pride. The charioteer is pulled first one way, then another, in pain and struggle.

“At last, when he beholds the face of the beloved, the obedient horse restrains himself, and the charioteer is drawn by reverence. But the unruly horse, maddened by desire, drags them all toward pleasure. The struggle is fearful, but if at last the better elements of the soul prevail, then she follows the beloved in reverence, and is led to true happiness. Such is the victory of divine madness over mortal reason.”

Reflection prompts:

Copy the phrase “The soul is like a pair of winged horses and a charioteer.”
Compare with Macbeth’s “walking shadow.” Both grapple with what drives us — but Plato imagines upward wings, Macbeth imagines emptiness.
Do you recognize the “two horses” in yourself — one noble, one unruly? How does the charioteer (reason) fare?

✨ Today’s resonance:
Macbeth’s despair sees life as shadow, noise, nothing. Socrates’ vision sees struggle, but also upward flight through divine madness. Between them lies the whole range of human meaning.

Sonnet 2

Sonnet 2

When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field,
Thy youth’s proud livery, so gazed on now,
Will be a tatter’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 an all-eating shame, and thriftless praise.
How much more praise deserv’d thy beauty’s use,
If thou couldst answer ‘This fair child of mine
Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse,’
Proving his beauty by succession thine!
This were to be new made when thou art old,
And see thy blood warm when thou feel’st it cold.

Note
The poet warns the youth that age will lay waste to his beauty, and the only defense against time’s siege is to leave behind living proof — a child. The sonnet continues the theme of beauty as treasure that must not be hoarded but invested, lest age render it worthless.

Resonance Prompt
Where in your life do you sense “time’s siege,” and how might you respond not with clinging but with an act of renewal — passing something on, shaping a gift that outlives the moment?

Sonnet 1

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, mak’st waste in niggarding.
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world’s due, by the grave and thee.

Note
This opening sonnet urges the fair youth not to hoard his beauty but to pass it on, otherwise he becomes both enemy and devourer of his own gifts. It captures the tension between self-regard and legacy, between beauty enjoyed in the present and beauty entrusted to time.

Reflection
I find myself wondering: what does it mean today to “increase” beauty — is it only about children, or also about multiplying generosity, ideas, art? And what happens when we bury our gifts “within our own bud”?

Day 8

Excellent 🌿 Let’s continue. Today’s pairing sets fiery young passion against Socrates’ ironic coolness — Romeo and Juliet’s balcony scene beside Socrates’ first (mocking) speech in the Phaedrus.

Day 8 – Shakespeare & Plato

Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene 2

The balcony scene — Juliet speaks of love

Context:
Romeo has slipped into the Capulet orchard. Juliet, not knowing he is there, speaks aloud her thoughts about him, about names, and about love that defies family feud. This is the play’s most famous exchange, trembling with youthful passion and daring.

Extract (~55 lines, abridged to flow as one scene):

Juliet: O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.

Romeo: [Aside] Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?

Juliet: ’Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What’s Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name which is no part of thee
Take all myself.

Romeo: I take thee at thy word:
Call me but love, and I’ll be new baptiz’d;
Henceforth I never will be Romeo.

Juliet: What man art thou that, thus bescreen’d in night,
So stumblest on my counsel?

Romeo: By a name
I know not how to tell thee who I am:
My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself,
Because it is an enemy to thee;
Had I it written, I would tear the word.

Juliet: My ears have yet not drunk a hundred words
Of that tongue’s utterance, yet I know the sound:
Art thou not Romeo and a Montague?

Romeo: Neither, fair maid, if either thee dislike.

Juliet: How cam’st thou hither, tell me, and wherefore?
The orchard walls are high and hard to climb;
And the place death, considering who thou art,
If any of my kinsmen find thee here.

Romeo: With love’s light wings did I o’er-perch these walls;
For stony limits cannot hold love out,
And what love can do that dares love attempt;
Therefore thy kinsmen are no stop to me.

Juliet: If they do see thee, they will murder thee.

Romeo: Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye
Than twenty of their swords: look thou but sweet,
And I am proof against their enmity.

Reflection prompts:

Copy the line “What’s in a name? that which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet.”
Notice how love redefines identity here — names, families, dangers dissolve in passion.
Compare with Othello’s last speech: both make love the measure of self, but one in fresh fire, the other in tragic ashes.

Plato: Phaedrus

Socrates’ first (mocking) speech — better to love a non-lover

Context:
After hearing Lysias’ written piece, Socrates, half-ironically, offers his own speech making the same case: that non-lovers are better than lovers. He does this in a tone of parody, full of exaggeration, before later retracting it and praising divine madness.

Extract (~3–4 paragraphs, Jowett translation):

“He who is in love is in a state of madness; he is like one who has caught a disease. And madness is by no means a blessing, but brings the greatest evils both upon the lover himself and upon the beloved. For the lover is enslaved to pleasure, and envies all who share in the beloved’s company. He is jealous, suspicious, quarrelsome, and thus he brings endless troubles upon the one whom he professes to love.

“Further, he flatters in order to obtain his desires, and after he has succeeded he becomes faithless. He makes promises which he cannot keep, and when his passion ceases, he deserts the beloved. But the non-lover, being free from this madness, lives in calm friendship, untroubled by jealousy, and so is more trustworthy.

“Therefore, if one is to choose wisely, he ought to prefer the non-lover, who has command of himself, to the lover who is carried away by passion. For all men should desire to live in peace and freedom, not in servitude to another’s irrational desire. This is the sum of my discourse.”

Reflection prompts:

Copy the phrase “He who is in love is in a state of madness.”
How does this parody sit beside Juliet’s balcony speech — where love is madness, but life-giving?
Socrates here pretends to be sober and “reasonable.” Do you feel the irony?

✨ Today’s resonance:
Juliet exalts love’s passion as freedom from name, family, and death. Socrates, tongue in cheek, calls passion a sickness and prefers the calm of reason. Tomorrow, he will reverse himself — praising divine madness as a gift of the gods.

Day 7

Day 7 – Shakespeare & Plato

Shakespeare: As You Like It, Act II, Scene 7

“All the world’s a stage” — Jaques’ meditation on the seven ages of man

Context:
In the Forest of Arden, the melancholy Jaques delivers this famous speech. Though from a comedy, it carries the weight of tragedy: human life reduced to seven acts, from infant to old age. It’s a rare moment of philosophical reflection within Shakespeare’s comedies.

Extract (~35 lines):

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lin’d,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well sav’d, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

Reflection prompts:

Copy the phrase “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”
Do you hear this as cynical (life reduced to roles) or tender (each age acknowledged)?
Compare with Othello’s farewell yesterday: both frame life as performance, but one at the end, one surveying the whole.

Plato: Phaedrus

The first speech: Lysias on why the non-lover is preferable

Context:
Phaedrus begins by repeating Lysias’ written speech. It argues — somewhat tongue-in-cheek — that one should favor a rational, non-lover over a passionate lover. Why? Because lovers are unstable, jealous, and irrational. Non-lovers are steadier, calmer, and more reliable. Socrates listens, amused.

Extract (~3–4 paragraphs, Jowett translation, public domain):

“I say that the non-lover ought to be preferred to the lover. For the lover is led by passion and is not of sound mind, while the non-lover is master of himself and is guided by reason. And passion, being a kind of madness, brings harm both to itself and to others.

“Further, the lover values you less when his desire has cooled, but the non-lover remains constant, because he acts from judgment, not from impulse. And the lover envies those who are dear to you, and is the cause of great enmities; but the non-lover lives in friendship, untroubled by jealousy.

“Moreover, the lover flatters you to excess, while the non-lover is frank and speaks the truth. The lover, wishing to please, is often driven to concealment, while the non-lover, having nothing to conceal, lives in simplicity.

“Therefore, in choosing between a lover and a non-lover, one should choose the non-lover, for he is more likely to confer benefits and less likely to bring harm. Such is my discourse, which I hope you will remember.”

Reflection prompts:

Copy the phrase “The lover is led by passion and is not of sound mind.”
Do you find this satire convincing, or is it deliberately one-sided?
Compare with Jaques’ “seven ages”: both are reductive sketches of human life and love. What’s gained, what’s lost in such broad portraits?

✨ Today’s resonance:
Jaques flattens life into a sequence of roles; Lysias flattens love into a choice between passion and reason. Both speak with irony, both beg to be challenged. Tomorrow, Socrates will do just that — with his own playful yet profound reply.