Shakespeare meets Lost and Delirious!

Lost and Delirious contains a remarkable number of quotes from Shakespeare’s plays. For those of you who would like to know which quotes appear in the movie, we have summarized the details. Always remember, no one can recite Shakespeare like Paulie can.

Romeo and Juliet
Act 2, Scene 2

The first Shakespeare quote to appear in Lost and Delirious is from Romeo and Juliet. It is written on the wall, above Paulie’s bed.

Juliet
My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.

Antony and Cleopatra
Act 4, Scene 15

In their Shakespeare class, the girls read Antony and Cleopatra. The first quote is only read to the class and does not appear again in the movie.

Cleopatra
                                                                O sun,

Burn the great sphere thou movest in! darkling stand
The varying shore o' the world. O Antony,

Antony, Antony!

The second quote appears twice in Lost and Delirious, once in the classroom and the second time quoted by Paulie in Vaughn’s office. Everyone who has been in love can understand its meaning.

Cleopatra                                  
                                        shall I abide
In this dull world, which in thy absence is
No better than a sty?

The third quote doesn’t appear again. It is read by Paulie in the classroom.

Cleopatra
The crown o' the earth doth melt…
And there is nothing left remarkable
Beneath the visiting moon.

Even more interesting is what Paulie says after this quote.

Liar! Liar! Liar! Liar!
You’ve all got you heads up your assholes because Love is!
It just IS! And nothing you can say can make it go away!
Because it is the point of why we are here.
It is the highest point and once you are up there,
looking down at everyone else,
you're there forever...
because if you move, right?
you fall. You fall.

The fourth quote from Antony and Cleopatra appears at the end of the movie. Before she jumps, Paulie says, “I rush into the secret house”.

Cleopatra
                                    Then is it sin
To rush into the secret house of death,
Ere death dare come to us?

Macbeth
Act 1, Scene 5

The following quote from Macbeth appears several times as well. Exactly like Lady Macbeth, Paulie wants to get up the guts. It's quite obvious that she succeeds as Jake has to discover…

Lady Macbeth
                                        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! make thick my blood;
Stop up the access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature's mischief! 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!'


Paulie and Mouse repeat some of these lines, in the woods, the night before the duel.

Twelfth Night
Act 1, Scene 5

One of the most beautiful parts of the movie takes place in the library. It may be of interest that in Shakespeare’s play, Twelfth Night, these words are spoken to one woman (Olivia) by another woman (Viola), disguised as a man.

Viola
Make me a willow cabin at your gate,
And call upon my soul within the house;
Write loyal cantons of contemned love
And sing them loud even in the dead of night;
Halloo your name to the reverberate hills
And make the babbling gossip of the air cry out 'Olivia’!
 

HAMLET

A fifth Shakespeare play, Hamlet, is referenced in Lost and Delirious, although no lines are quoted.

After Paulie throws Jake the sword in the duel scene, Jake says:

Oh, I get it. Like a stage fight. Are we gonna have a stage fight? I played Laertes in Hamlet last term. I can do this. I can have fun doing this.

At the end of that play (Hamlet, Act 5, Scene 2), Laertes fights a duel with Hamlet and is killed by him.

We hope you will have a good time gleaning Shakespeare's plays.
 

Wolfgang Gartner, 2006
revised by Ickie, 2010