Shakespeare's Syntax

This year is the four-hundredth anniversary of William Shakespeare's death, so this set of exercises includes a few tributes to the greatest wordsmith the English language has ever known. Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, and Much Ado About Nothing are works that I read or watch at least once a year. There's a lot to be learned from a writer who has only been outsold by Agatha Christie and the Bible. And most importantly, I love the way he writes.One trick that Shakespeare uses, to great effect, is to fit words into a syntax they were not intended for. For example, Hamlet's famous speech includes the line, "And thus the native hue of resolution / is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought." Sicklied, as Shakespeare uses it, means "made sick." There was no such word in English when Shakespeare wrote the line. The line almost does not work. But the audience understands, and so it does work. This new word is a delight for the brain, and part of what makes Shakespeare's language so compelling.Today, write a speech that uses Shakespeare's syntax.***On the papered bed in the sun-starved room the herald comes and prophesies that asthe moon wanes so will I. He stethescopes my cavernous chest and frowns to showhow serious the ordeal will be. Health was made a stranger by mutinous cells, butmy time has not yet come.Poison dances through my veins and steals my hair and eyes and breath.I video game to eye the devil back away from my sicklied throne.Retch fills the trash can. Still I knowmy time has not yet come.The nurse angels toward me, syringe dripping with joy, and I float awaybeyond earth's edge, toward the final bout, and it echoes in my formless mind:my time has not yet come.Dreams of scalpeled lungs and latexed hands digging through the darkMy son wakes to my outcrymy time has not yet come.Shuttled to my home by my childhood sweet, my reason, my hope, my sky,Deathless I lay and warm her bedMy time has not yet comePassion wrenches through me and I pull her close to the boneI whisper, "You must always saymy time has not yet come."***The piece turned into more of a poem than dialogue, but I wrote what I felt. A better use of dialogue here might be humor. Turning adjectives into nouns or nouns into verbs could be quite funny.***Getting Started: 4Character: 4Point of View and Tone: 4Plot and Narrative: 4Dialogue and Voice: 4Descriptive Language and Setting: 3Revision: 3Overall: 3*Level 3*