Sourced from the Bard of Avon

key phrases selected from Shakespeare’s works [1]

The farmer gave his son (more in sorrow than in anger [2], since he was the apple of his eye [3]), his share of the inheritance, bag and baggage [4], out of the milk of human kindness [5]. Blinking idiot [6]! (Good riddance [7], some might say).

The boy soon got in a pickle [8], having decided to play fast and loose [9] with his father’s money (How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child! [10]

Not much later, he was eaten out of house and home [11] and the country suffered a famine in one fell swoop [12]; it was bad enough to beggar all description [13]. He took a job looking after pigs (thrice, and once the hedge-pig whined [14]) and longed to eat their food…for worms [15] (there was something rotten in the state [16]) but this was cold comfort [17].

Suddenly, with remembrance of things past [18] he said to himself ‘But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? [19] When possibly I can, I will return [20] and say Father, I have then sinned against [21] you; I am sham’d by that which I bring forth, And so should you, to love things nothing worth [22]. So let me enter, a Servant to [23] you.

Meanwhile his father did still stand sentinel [24] and suddenly said ‘I have watch’d so long that I’m dog-weary; but at last I spied an ancient angel coming down the hill [25] and he ran this way, and leap’d this orchard wall [26]. He took hold of his son’s face and kiss’d it [27]. He gave him his new coat and [28] gave him a ring [29] and replaced his old shoes [30]. He kills [31] the fatted [32] calf [33] in celebration of this day with shows, pageants, and sights of honour [34], inviting brothers [35], sisters [36], neighbours [37], friends, romans, countrymen [38] for salad days [39].

The father made a speech. ‘I was wreck’d upon this shore, where I have lost – How sharp the point of this remembrance is! – My dear son [40] was lost [41] but now is found [42]. My lovely boy [43] I have supposed dead; and [44] reckon that the rest is silence [45]; but he stands [46] alive [47]!’

[1] Not including his direct references to this parable: ‘you would think that I had a hundred and fifty tattered prodigals, lately come from swine-keeping, from eating draff and husks’ Henry IV(i) IV.ii.8; and ‘he that goes in the calf’s skin that was killed for the Prodigal’ Comedy of Errors IV.iii.18

[2] Hamlet I.ii.250 [3] Love’s Labours Lost V.ii.502 [4] The Winter’s Tale I.ii.246 [5] Macbeth I.v.17 [6] The Merchant of Venice II.ix.53 [7] Troilus & Cressida II.i.116

[8] The Tempest V.1.320 [9] King John III.i.247 [10] King Lear I.iv.285

[11] Henry IV(2) II.i.28 [12] Macbeth IV.iii.258 [13] Antony & Cleopatra II.ii.237 [14] Macbeth IV.i.2 [15] Henry IV(1) V.iv.93 [16] Hamlet I.iv.99 [17] Taming of the Shrew IV.i.28

[18] Sonnet XXX.2 [19] Romeo & Juliet II.ii.4 [20] Two Gentlemen of Verona II.ii.5 [21] All’s Well That Ends Well II.v.9 [22] Sonnet LXXII.13 [23] Timon of Athens III.i

[24] A Midsummer Night’s Dream II.ii.15 [25] Taming of the Shrew IV.ii.64 [26] Romeo & Juliet II.i.10 [27] Cymbeline II.iii.10 [28] Much Ado About Nothing III.ii.7 [29] Two Gentlemen of Verona II.ii.7 [30] Julius Caesar I.i.21 [31] Titus Andronicus V.iii.67 [32] Hamlet II.ii.413 [33] Much Ado About Nothing V.iv.54 [34] Henry VIII IV.i.14 [35] Richard III IV.iv.95 [36] Perecles, Prince of Tyre V.prologue.5 [37] Coriolanus IV.vi.28 [38] Julius Caesar III.ii.15 [39] Antony & Cleopatra I.v.86 


[40] The Tempest V.i.144 [41] Love’s Labours Lost V.ii.733 [42] The Winter’s Tale V.ii.5 [43] Sonnet CXXVI.1 [44] Sonnet XXXV.2 [45] Hamlet V.ii.370 [46] Merry Wives of Windsor III.iv.2 [47] Richard III II.ii.6