451 years ago today Shakespeare was born.

       But no one knew that day what glory his days on earth would bring.

       I remember doing "Is this a dagger that I see before me / The handle toward my hand?"  Macbeth, and not a half-bad job with it in college acting class.  I remember the greatest Hamlet of all time (I was sure) Lawrence Olivier's on film; and his Henry V, stunning!

       I taught the performance of the Bard's sonnets in class and sat in wonderment at them.

       I've performed both Hal and Falstaff in a reading from Henry IV, Part I, alas not that well, but the work lives on, justifiably, whether performers have killed it or made it soar.

       The sound, the rhythm, the characters, the human panoply arrayed before us, to relish, laugh at, be saddened by, and recognize, finally, as ourselves.
     
       HAPPY BIRTHDAY, you lengthily living baby born this day!

             (OK, I'M A MONTH OFF, BUT I WON'T RETRACT MY EARLY ENTHUSIASM FOR THE  BARD THIS FINE SPRING DAY.)