First Folio! The Book that Gave Us
Shakespeare, on tour from the Folger
Shakespeare Library, is made possible in
part by a major grant from the National
Endowment for the Humanities and by
the support of Google.org, Vinton and
Sigrid Cerf, the British Council, Stuart and
Mimi Rose, and other generous donors. It
is produced in association with the
American Library Association and the
Cincinnati Museum Center.
Special Thanks to
Julie Coppens
Terry Cramer
Claire Imamura
Take a self-guided
Shakespearean walk and act out
classic scenes between the
Downtown Public Library
and the Alaska State Library
as part of your visit to
Shakespeare’s First Folio.
SCENE 7
FOLIO GO! INSTRUCTIONS
First Folio! The Book that Gave Us
Shakespeare, is a national traveling exhibit
from the Folger Shakespeare Library and part
of the Wonder of Will celebration of the 400th
anniversary of Shakespeare's death. The First
Folio will be on display at the Alaska State
Libraries, Archives and Museum’s Andrew P.
Kashevaroff building until August 24, 2016.
FolioGo! is a fun interactive way to engage
with the language of the First Folio. Find
some friends or go solo and take a self-guided
Shakespearean walk between the Downtown
Public Library and the Alaska State Library.
Experience the comedy, tragedy and history of
Shakespeare’s works. Refer to the map in the
center to find the locations along the way and
have fun acting out the corresponding scenes.
To share your street performances please
post pictures of your travelling bard to
Facebook or Instagram and tag them with
#foliogo.
Visit http://lam.alaska.gov/FirstFolioAlaska to
learn about other great programs happening
in conjunction with the First Folio exhibit. To
learn more about the First Folio visit
www.folger.edu
Location: SLAM plaza (Nimbus)
Play: The Tempest
In Act IV, Scene 1 of The Tempest, the magician Prospero—
an ousted Duke of Milan exiled to a remote island retreat—honors the engagement of his daughter, Miranda,
to the young noble Ferdinand, with a mystical entertainment featuring the benevolent spirits of Iris, Ceres, and
Juno. With this famous speech, the mage concludes the
festivities, hinting at his own mortality and perhaps (some
scholars suggest) an awareness on Shakespeare’s part that
his career as a dramatist is drawing to a close. Bravo, FolioGo actors!
PROSPERO: Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Ye all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
Scene 6 cont.
She melted into air. Affrighted much,
I did in time collect myself and thought
This was so and no slumber. Dreams are toys:
Yet for this once, yea, superstitiously,
I will be squared by this. I do believe
Hermione hath suffer’d death, and that
Apollo would, this being indeed the issue
Of King Polixenes, it should here be laid,
Either for life or death, upon the earth
Of its right father. Blossom, speed thee well!
There lie, and there thy character: there these;
Which may, if fortune please, both breed thee, pretty,
And still rest thine. The storm begins; poor wretch,
That for thy mother’s fault art thus exposed
To loss and what may follow! Weep I cannot,
But my heart bleeds; and most accursed am I
To be by oath enjoin’d to this. Farewell!
The day frowns more and more: thou’rt like to have
A lullaby too rough: I never saw
The heavens so dim by day. A savage clamour!
Well may I get aboard! This is the chase:
I am gone for ever.
SCENE 1
Location: Alaska Steam Ship Dock (parking garage mural)
Play: The Tempest
Characters: PROSPERO, a magician and ousted Duke of
Milan; MIRANDA, his daughter, innocent of life beyond
their island home; FERDINAND, a prince who washes
ashore; ALONSO, his father, the king of Naples; SEBASTIAN,
Alonso’s cowardly brother; GONZALO, the kindly elder
statesman who helped Prospero and his young daughter
escape the corrupt court twelve years ago.
In Act V, Scene 1 of The Tempest, Prospero’s long island
exile comes to an end when a ship arrives bearing the
nobles who usurped his title. A mystical storm brings the
party ashore, and a budding romance between Prospero’s
daughter Miranda and Alonso’s son Ferdinand, who
everyone thought had been lost at sea, sets the stage for
discovery and reconciliation.
ALONSO: [Seeing his son and Miranda for the first time.]
If this prove
A vision of the Island, one dear son
Shall I twice lose.
SEBASTIAN: A most high miracle!
(Exit, pursued by a bear.)
FERDINAND: Though the seas threaten, they are merciful;
I have cursed them without cause.
(Kneels)
ALONSO: Now all the blessings
Of a glad father compass thee about!
Arise, and say how thou camest here.
MIRANDA: O, wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in't!
PROSPERO: 'Tis new to thee.
ALONSO: What is this maid with whom thou wast at
play?
Scene 1 cont.
Your eld'st acquaintance cannot be three hours:
Is she the goddess that hath sever'd us,
And brought us thus together?
FERDINAND: Sir, she is mortal;
But by immortal Providence she's mine:
I chose her when I could not ask my father
For his advice, nor thought I had one. She
Is daughter to this famous Duke of Milan,
Of whom so often I have heard renown,
But never saw before; of whom I have
Received a second life; and second father
This lady makes him to me.
ALONSO: I am hers:
But, O, how oddly will it sound that I
Must ask my child forgiveness!
PROSPERO: There, sir, stop:
Let us not burthen our remembrance with
A heaviness that's gone.
GONZALO: I have inly wept,
Or should have spoke ere this. Look down, you god,
And on this couple drop a blessed crown!
For it is you that have chalk'd forth the way
Which brought us hither.
ALONSO: I say, Amen, Gonzalo!
GONZALO: Was Milan thrust from Milan, that his issue
Should become kings of Naples? O, rejoice
Beyond a common joy, and set it down
With gold on lasting pillars: In one voyage
Did Claribel her husband find at Tunis,
And Ferdinand, her brother, found a wife
Where he himself was lost, Prospero his dukedom
In a poor isle and all of us ourselves
When no man was his own.
ALONSO: [To Ferdinand and Miranda.] Give me your
hands:
Let grief and sorrow still embrace his heart
That doth not wish you joy!
GONZALO: Be it so! Amen!
SCENE 6
Location: Courthouse Square (bear statue)
Play: The Winter’s Tale
Characters: ANTIGONUS, a nobleman of the Sicilian
court; a BEAR.
In Act III, Scene 3 of The Winter’s Tale, we’re swept
away to the coastal wilds of Bohemia with the noble
Antigonus, bearing in his arms the infant Perdita,
princess of Sicilia, condemned by King Leontes because
he suspects his wife of infidelity. Ordered to abandon
the child in a desolate place, Antigonus takes pity on
her—but his good intentions are foiled by one of
Shakespeare’s most famous stage directions. Get some
friends or passers-by to provide the necessary sound
effects (the baby, the bear, the rising storm); one might
voice the ghost of the child’s mother, Queen Hermione,
quoted in this speech. And don’t worry: despite
Antigonus’s misfortune, Perdita winds up in safe hands,
and everything turns out more or less happily.
ANTIGONUS: Come, poor babe:
I have heard, but not believed,
the spirits o’ the dead
May walk again: if such thing be, thy mother
Appear’d to me last night, for ne’er was dream
So like a waking. To me comes a creature,
Sometimes her head on one side, some another;
I never saw a vessel of like sorrow,
So fill’d and so becoming: in pure white robes,
Like very sanctity, she did approach
My cabin where I lay; thrice bow’d before me,
And gasping to begin some speech, her eyes
Became two spouts: the fury spent, anon
Did this break-from her: ‘Good Antigonus,
Since fate, against thy better disposition,
Hath made thy person for the thrower-out
Of my poor babe, according to thine oath,
Places remote enough are in Bohemia,
There weep and leave it crying; and, for the babe
Is counted lost for ever, Perdita,
I prithee, call’t. For this ungentle business
Put on thee by my lord, thou ne’er shalt see
Thy wife Paulina more.’ And so, with shrieks
Scene 5 cont.
URSULA: But are you sure
That Benedick loves Beatrice so entirely?
HERO: So says the prince and my new-trothed lord.
SCENE 2
Location: Marine Park (raven mural)
Play: Ravenpaloosa featuring Macbeth and others
URSULA: And did they bid you tell her of it, madam?
HERO: They did entreat me to acquaint her of it;
But I persuaded them, if they loved Benedick,
To wish him wrestle with affection,
And never to let Beatrice know of it.
URSULA: Why did you so? Doth not the gentleman
Deserve as full as fortunate a bed
As ever Beatrice shall couch upon?
HERO: O god of love! I know he doth deserve
As much as may be yielded to a man:
But Nature never framed a woman's heart
Of prouder stuff than that of Beatrice;
Disdain and scorn ride sparkling in her eyes,
Misprising what they look on, and her wit
Values itself so highly that to her
All matter else seems weak: she cannot love,
Nor take no shape nor project of affection,
She is so self-endeared.
URSULA: Sure, I think so;
And therefore certainly it were not good
She knew his love, lest she make sport at it.
HERO: Why, you speak truth. I never yet saw man,
How wise, how noble, young, how rarely featured,
But she would spell him backward: if fair-faced,
She would swear the gentleman should be her sister;
If black, why, Nature, drawing of an antique,
Made a foul blot; if tall, a lance ill-headed;
If low, an agate very vilely cut;
If speaking, why, a vane blown with all winds;
If silent, why, a block moved with none.
So turns she every man the wrong side out
And never gives to truth and virtue that
Which simpleness and merit purchaseth.
URSULA: Sure, sure, such carping is not commendable.
We’ve got a lot of ravens here in Juneau, if you haven’t
noticed—and they’re just as ubiquitous in classic literature.
Like many other writers before and since, Shakespeare
liked to darken the mood with references to ravens and
related bird species such as crows, magpies, and rooks,
while here in Southeast Alaska, Native storytelling
traditions cast the raven in an equally significant, but more
upbeat, “trickster” role: our City Hall mural by local artist
Bill Ray depicts the Tlingit mythology of creation, in which
Raven discovers mankind in a clam shell. Have fun reciting
these ominous lines from a few of Shakespeare’s great
tragedies, and one sonnet (not published in the First Folio,
but worth repeating), amidst the ravens.
HAMLET: Begin, murderer;
pox, leave thy damnable faces, and begin. Come:
‘the croaking raven doth bellow for revenge.’
OTHELLO: By heaven, I would most gladly have forgot it.
Thou said’st, it comes o’er my memory,
As doth the raven o’er the infected house,
Boding to all—he had my handkerchief.
Sonnet 127
In the old age black was not counted fair,
Or if it were, it bore not beauty’s name;
But now is black beauty’s successive heir,
And beauty slander’d with a bastard shame:
For since each hand hath put on nature’s power,
Fairing the foul with art’s false borrow’d face,
Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy bower,
But is profan’d, if not lives in disgrace.
Therefore my mistress’ brows are raven black,
Her eyes so suited; and they mourners seem
At such who, not born fair, no beauty lack,
Slandering creation with a false esteem:
Yet so they mourn, becoming of their woe,
That every tongue says, beauty should look so.
Scene 2 cont.
Scene 5 cont.
Finally here’s a cutting from Act I, Scene 5 of Macbeth.
HERO: No, not to be so odd and from all fashions
As Beatrice is, cannot be commendable:
But who dare tell her so? If I should speak,
She would mock me into air; O, she would laugh me
Out of myself, press me to death with wit.
Therefore let Benedick, like cover'd fire,
Consume away in sighs, waste inwardly:
It were a better death than die with mocks,
Which is as bad as die with tickling.
(Enter a Messenger)
LADY MACBETH: What is your tidings?
MESSENGER: The king comes here to-night.
LADY MACBETH: Thou’rt mad to say it:
Is not thy master with him? who, were’t so,
Would have inform’d for preparation.
URSULA: Yet tell her of it: hear what she will say.
MESSENGER: So please you, it is true: our thane is
coming:
One of my fellows had the speed of him,
Who, almost dead for breath, had scarcely more
Than would make up his message.
HERO: No; rather I will go to Benedick
And counsel him to fight against his passion.
And, truly, I'll devise some honest slanders
To stain my cousin with: one doth not know
How much an ill word may empoison liking.
LADY MACBETH: Give him tending;
He brings great news.
URSULA: O, do not do your cousin such a wrong.
She cannot be so much without true judgment-Having so swift and excellent a wit
As she is prized to have--as to refuse
So rare a gentleman as Signior Benedick.
(Exit Messenger.)
The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements. Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
Of direst cruelty! ….
Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry ‘Hold, hold!’
HERO: He is the only man of Italy.
Always excepted my dear Claudio.
URSULA
She's limed, I warrant you: we have caught her, madam.
HERO
If it proves so, then loving goes by haps:
Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.
(Exeunt HERO and URSULA)
BEATRICE: [Coming forward out of hiding.]
What fire is in mine ears? Can this be true?
Stand I condemn'd for pride and scorn so much?
Contempt, farewell! and maiden pride, adieu!
No glory lives behind the back of such.
And, Benedick, love on; I will requite thee,
Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand:
If thou dost love, my kindness shall incite thee
To bind our loves up in a holy band;
For others say thou dost deserve, and I
Believe it better than reportingly.
SCENE 5
SCENE 3
Location: Bishop Kenney Garden (chess tables)
Location: The Senate building
Play: Much Ado About Nothing
Play: Julius Ceasar
Characters: HERO, the lovely young daughter of the noble
Leonato; URSULA, her waiting woman; BEATRICE, Hero’s
sharp-tongued cousin.
Characters: JULIUS CAESAR, the Roman Emperor, viewed
by some as a tyrant; METELLUS, BRUTUS, CASCA, CINNA,
conspirators against him. Later, MARC ANTONY, a general
and politician loyal to Caesar.
Everyone in Shakespeare’s comedy Much Ado About
Nothing knows that Beatrice and Benedick, the original
Bickersons, are perfect for each other—except the warring
couple themselves. So their friends devise a dangerous
game in Leonato’s garden, first “gulling” the
eavesdropping Benedick with a staged conversation in
which the guys insist Beatrice loves him; then, in this
cutting from Act III, Scene 1, the ladies set the same trap
for Beatrice.
HERO: Now, Ursula, when Beatrice doth come,
As we do trace this alley up and down,
Our talk must only be of Benedick.
When I do name him, let it be thy part
To praise him more than ever man did merit:
My talk to thee must be how Benedick
Is sick in love with Beatrice. Of this matter
Is little Cupid's crafty arrow made,
That only wounds by hearsay.
(Enter BEATRICE, behind)
Now begin;
For look where Beatrice, like a lapwing, runs
Close by the ground, to hear our conference.
URSULA: The pleasant'st angling is to see the fish
Cut with her golden oars the silver stream,
And greedily devour the treacherous bait:
So angle we for Beatrice; who even now
Is couched in the woodbine coverture.
Fear you not my part of the dialogue.
HERO: Then go we near her, that her ear lose nothing
Of the false sweet bait that we lay for it.
(Approaching the bower)
No, truly, Ursula, she is too disdainful;
I know her spirits are as coy and wild
As haggerds of the rock.
Act III of Julius Caesar takes place in the Roman Capitol,
where the Senate is seated to conduct business—but some
of the politicians have a bloody coup on their agenda. In
Scene 1, the conspirators bring up some old business
before realizing their plot and stabbing Caesar to death.
Make it dramatic, but… try not to alarm the shoppers.
CAESAR: What is now amiss
That Caesar and his senate must redress?
METELLUS: Most high, most mighty, and most puissant
Caesar,
Metellus Cimber throws before thy seat
An humble heart— [Kneeling.]
CAESAR: I must prevent thee, Cimber.
These couchings and these lowly courtesies
Might fire the blood of ordinary men,
And turn pre-ordinance and first decree
Into the law of children. Be not fond,
To think that Caesar bears such rebel blood
That will be thaw’d from the true quality
With that which melteth fools; I mean, sweet words,
Low-crooked court’sies and base spaniel-fawning.
Thy brother by decree is banished:
If thou dost bend and pray and fawn for him,
I spurn thee like a cur out of my way.
Know, Caesar doth not wrong, nor without cause
Will he be satisfied.
METELLUS: Is there no voice more worthy than my own
To sound more sweetly in great Caesar’s ear
For the repealing of my banish’d brother?
BRUTUS: I kiss thy hand, but not in flattery, Caesar;
Desiring thee that Publius Cimber may
Have an immediate freedom of repeal.
Scene 3 cont.
Scene 4 cont.
CAESAR: What, Brutus!
CASSIUS: Pardon, Caesar; Caesar, pardon:
As low as to thy foot doth Cassius fall,
To beg enfranchisement for Publius Cimber.
CAESAR: I could be well moved, if I were as you:
If I could pray to move, prayers would move me:
But I am constant as the northern star,
Of whose true-fix’d and resting quality
There is no fellow in the firmament.
The skies are painted with unnumber’d sparks,
They are all fire and every one doth shine,
But there’s but one in all doth hold his place:
So in the world; ‘tis furnish’d well with men,
And men are flesh and blood, and apprehensive;
Yet in the number I do know but one
That unassailable holds on his rank,
Unshaked of motion: and that I am he,
Let me a little show it, even in this;
That I was constant Cimber should be banish’d,
And constant do remain to keep him so.
CINNA: O Caesar,—
CAESAR: Hence! wilt thou lift up Olympus?
BRUTUS: Great Caesar,—
CAESAR: Doth not Brutus bootless kneel?
CASCA: Speak, hands for me!
(CASCA first, then the other Conspirators and BRUTUS stab
CAESAR.)
CAESAR: Et tu, Brute! [i.e., “And you, Brutus?!,” a man he
thought was on his side. Try using this Latin phrase next
time you’re about to say “Really?”] Then fall, Caesar.
(Dies.)
CINNA: Liberty! Freedom! Tyranny is dead!
Run hence, proclaim, cry it about the streets.
CASSIUS: Some to the common pulpits, and cry out
“Liberty, freedom, and enfranchisement!”
BRUTUS: People and senators, be not affrighted;
Fly not; stand stiff: ambition’s debt is paid.
JAQUES: 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.
And then the whining school-boy, 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 lined,
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 saved, 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.
SCENE 4
Scene 3 cont.
Location: Front Street and Franklin (clock)
Play: As You Like It
Shakespeare made countless references to time in his
plays—sometimes in a practical vein (“the two hours’
traffic of our stage”), sometimes more philosophically.
Here are two well-known speeches from As You Like It, Act
II, Scene 7, by JAQUES, a melancholy nobleman who can
always hear the clock ticking.
JAQUES: A fool, a fool! I met a fool i' the forest,
A motley fool; a miserable world!
As I do live by food, I met a fool
Who laid him down and bask'd him in the sun,
And rail'd on Lady Fortune in good terms,
In good set terms and yet a motley fool.
'Good morrow, fool,' quoth I. 'No, sir,' quoth he,
'Call me not fool till heaven hath sent me fortune:'
And then he drew a dial from his poke,
And, looking on it with lack-lustre eye,
Says very wisely, 'It is ten o'clock:
Thus we may see,' quoth he, 'how the world wags:
'Tis but an hour ago since it was nine,
And after one hour more 'twill be eleven;
And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe,
And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot;
And thereby hangs a tale.' When I did hear
The motley fool thus moral on the time,
My lungs began to crow like chanticleer,
That fools should be so deep-contemplative,
And I did laugh sans intermission
An hour by his dial. O noble fool!
A worthy fool! Motley's the only wear.
In Act III, Scene 2, we hear a funeral speech from the
loyalist general Marc Antony, who uses brilliant rhetoric
and escalating sarcasm to turn the public’s sentiment
against the conspirators.
ANTONY: Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your
ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answer’d it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest—
For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men-Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him?
O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.
Choose your path—and your plays!
Here are the suggested scenes for each Folio Go
location, tacked on, like so many love letters in the
Forest of Arden, to the Juneau Arts and Humanities
Council’s handy Art Walk map. Where else but here
can you perform Shakespeare while touring totem
poles and watching for whales?
Scene 3, from Julius Ceasar
Location: The Senate Mall, 175 S. Franklin St.
near the corner of West 4th Street and Main
Scene 4, from As You Like It
Location: Front Street and Franklin (historic clock)
Scene 5, from Much Ado About Nothing
Location: Bishop Kenney Memorial Peace Park
Scene 1, from The Tempest
Location: Alaska Steamship Dock (parking garage
“Ancon” mural by Dan DeRoux)
Scene 6, from The Winter’s Tale
Location: Courthouse Square (“Windfall Fisherman”
bronze bear sculpture by R.T. Wallen),
Scene 2, from Macbeth and other plays
Location: Marine Park (facing City Municipal Building
with mural “Raven Discovering Mankind in a Clam
Shell”)
Scene 7, from The Tempest
Location: Father Andrew P. Kashevaroff State Library, Archives and Museum (a.k.a. SLAM) plaza, with “Nimbus”
sculpture by Robert Murray