10 Important Lessons That I Learned From Shakespeare

Why did your teachers make you read Shakespeare in school? Contrary to popular belief, it wasn’t to torture you, or bore you to death. Shakespeare actually had some pretty damn good stories to tell about love, friendship, infidelity, scandal, and murders most foul, often injected with raunchy comedy, or sometimes even with what some scholars claim to be homoerotic subtext. Sounds like a perfect formula for one of today’s  prime-time television dramas. (OK, well some scholars think Shakespeare didn’t write a lot of them by himself, but that’s a different story.) But, unlike those television shows that so often lack substance, there’s a lot to learn from The Bard’s expertly penned plays, such as “Don’t make friends with anyone named Brutus,” or “Pretending to be dead is a bad idea.” While they’re not exactly Aesop’s Fables, the knowledge we can take away from them is equally priceless, and despite the fact that the plays were written hundreds of years ago, they’re still just as relevant to the pressing issues that are faced by the youth of today. Here are 10 of the most valuable things that Shakespeare taught me. Taking notes is optional.

1. Don’t judge a book by its cover. (Henry V)

Yes, I know. You’re all probably tired of hearing this cliché. But that doesn’t make it any less valuable. For example, Henry V was once a wild party boy who cared about nothing but booze and bitches. Nobody, not even his father, really thought that anything would come out of the heir to England’s throne and regarded him as a lost cause. Well, what do you know! Lo and behold, Henry ended up being a charismatic and pretty damn awesome king, maybe even more awesome than his naysaying father. Plus, he led a successful campaign in France and married a smoking hot princess. See who got the last laugh? Well, before he died from dysentery and his son turned out to be a not-so-awesome king and managed to screw up all of his hard work, that is…

2. Drink responsibly. (Othello)

Too bad nobody told that to Cassio. He knew his alcohol limits, yet he chose to ignore them and instead succumbed to peer pressure, another big no-no. And of course, he inevitably gets pished – drunk, shit-faced, wasted, however you want to say it. Which results in an unattractive drunken brawl that gets him demoted from the position that he just got promoted to. Pretty embarrassing, eh? Boy, am I glad I read Othello before I began my explorations in the wild world of university parties.

3. Being the bad guy doesn’t pay off. (Richard III)

Sometimes your life sucks. Maybe you’ve got a sibling who’s in a better position than you, and maybe you’ve not got much in the looks department and you will probably stay single forever. Well, no matter how bleak the winter of our discontent may be, it won’t kill you to try being nice. And it’s certainly not OK to murder someone and then try to seduce their widow – that’s just uncool on way too many levels. Just remember that karma has a way of coming around and biting you in the rear end at the worst possible times. So think again next time you decide to try to prove a villain.

4. If your boyfriend makes a douchey bet about you with his bros, dump him. Preferably before he tries to kill you. (Cymbeline)

Unfortunately, our heroine Imogen had to learn this the hard way. Her man Posthumus makes an idiotic bet with a bloke named Iachimo, when Iachimo claims he’d have no problem seducing Imogen. Imogen rebuffs Iachimo like she ought to, but boys are boys, and you know how much they hate losing. When Imogen falls asleep, Iachimo steals Imogen’s bracelet, which was a present from Posthumus, and stares at her while she’s naked and sleeping. That’s pretty creepy, if you ask me. Of course, blockhead Posthumus believes that Iachimo did indeed seduce Imogen, and he reacts in a perfectly rational way by plotting to kill her. Imogen and Posthumus eventually have a happy ending, since Iachimo decides to fess up. But what if he hadn’t? That couldn’t have ended very  well at all. I still maintain that Imogen should have dumped Posthumus as soon as she found out he’d be willing to kill her. That doesn’t sound like a man I’d want to hang around with.

5. Don’t kiss on first dates. Or plan on getting the married right away. You might end up killing yourself. (Romeo and Juliet)

Everyone knows the story of Romeo and Juliet, arguably the most famous lovers in literary history. But not everyone realises that the events of the story all transpired in less than 5 days. Two pre-teens, Romeo and Juliet, meet at a party, and decide to get married a few hours after. By Friday morning, both are dead. Now I don’t know about you, but this all seems very odd. I don’t know any guy who doesn’t run for the hills when his girl starts talking about marriage just a wee while after their first date. But to be safe, it’s probably better to take things nice and slow the next time you meet a good-looking boy/girl at a nightclub.

6. Bros Before Hoes isn’t always the best approach. (The Merchant of Venice)

Despite what hundreds of “Man Cave” placards proclaim, the concept of “Bros Before Hoes” can sometimes get you into some deep shit. So this guy named Bassanio has a ring that his wife, Portia, made him promise to never part with. While disguised as a male lawyer, Portia decides to test Bassanio and demands that he give her the ring as payment for defending his BFF Antonio in a trial. Despite his promise, Bassanio is cajoled into handing over the ring by good ol’ Antonio. You’d think Bassanio would be able to recognise his wife of all people, even if  she was dressed like a man, but he doesn’t (big surprise), and Portia gets quite some satisfaction out of trolling her man. Although, I can’t imagine that she was very pleased by the fact that Bassanio so willingly gave up that ring under his bro’s insistence. And your girlfriend certainly won’t be, either.

7. Gentlemen, grow some balls. Don’t let yourselves become your wife’s bitch. (Macbeth)

For men, there’s probably nothing more embarrassing or emasculating than being bullied by one’s wife or girlfriend. Macbeth should have followed his gut and decided against murdering Duncan, the King of Scotland, but was urged into doing it anyway after his wife accused him of being unmanly. If I was a gentleman, I’d probably prefer to be “unmanly” by deciding not to kill someone, as opposed to being pushed around by my wife. (That being said, make sure to treat your wife well. Neither of you should be controlling the other.)

8. Playing hard to get is actually not a good idea. (Much Ado About Nothing)

Why beat around the bush? Why risk ruining what could have been a beautiful relationship? Why lead some poor person on a not-so-merry chase? In the case of Beatrice and Benedick, both parties are guilty. They swear they’ll never marry and go at each other’s throats at any chance they get, claiming they don’t have any feelings at all for one another. Well, big surprise – they actually do. And if it wasn’t for the intervention of others, they would probably never have gotten together because they were determined to be so damn evasive. If you want the happy ending, don’t play hard to get. Chances are that nobody’s going to appreciate it, not even yourself.

9. Try not to be a gullible sucker. (Othello)

We all have that friend who’ll believe anything you tell them. It might even be ourselves – but of course we don’t realise it. If that’s the case, then we’d best smarten up fast. The realisation happened a wee bit too late for poor Othello. He had this “friend” named Iago, who was actually really nasty and hell-bent on screwing up his life. Othello was an awesome story teller, had an impressive position in the army, and married a super-hot girl, but unfortunately, he was also the biggest sucker in literary history. For some reason, he took Iago’s word as gospel and after easily believing a string of lies, was eventually tricked into murdering his wife. When he finally realised how gullible he’d been, he killed himself. So much for being an awesome story teller, having an impressive position in the army, and marrying a super-hot girl, eh?

10. Don’t talk to ghosts. And don’t talk to yourself. Because everyone will think you’re crazy. AND EVERYONE WILL DIE. (Hamlet)

For most of us, if we were to see a ghost, we’d probably run away screaming bloody murder. That would certainly be the smart thing to do. Young Hamlet does the exact opposite.  He hangs around and talks to the ghost of his dead father. And talks to himself quite a lot, too. Even though it makes for some of the most beautifully written soliloquies in the English language (“To be, or not to be? That is the question…”), no matter how eloquent they may be, you’ve got to admit that it’s a wee bit creepy when people start delivering long speeches to themselves. So you can’t really blame anyone for thinking he’d lost his marbles. As if that wasn’t bad enough, his father’s ghost talks him into killing the current king, Claudius. And this story, like most stories involving ghosts, ends with a lot of people dying. There’s plenty of important morals that come out of Hamlet’s story, some of which you have to read between the lines to see. But the most valuable moral of them all clearly is that next time you see a ghost, GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE.

♬ Song of the Day: Good Days Bad Days by Kaiser Chiefs