Methinks the word doth rhyme with "woe"

"For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo."

For this special theme round, Crambo proposes that all the guesses entail some connection to William Shakespeare, the sweet swan of Avon. The connection could involve quotations, characters, plot elements, Shakespeare's own life, and so on. Of course, that means Crambo's word can be clued in a Shakespearean context (in multiple ways, forsooth!), hence thinking like the Bard will be helpful.

So to quote Henry V, "The game's afoot!"

The Duke of Milan,
master of Caliban?

I'll _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ _ no longer, make we hence amain!

2 - Though Miranda's father self-disarms,
He'd best retain some magic charms;
"For I hope" his Latin spells will show
A punning name for Prospero.

3 - Clarence pledges laurels to his men,
Olympian in scope; but even then,
A vict'ry toast would be quite fine.
Perhaps he'd like some Malmsey wine?

4 - Although the hoopoe isn't mentioned,
Surely Shakespeare's well-intentioned;
If that's the wisest, the owl's demeaned
As a "foul precurrer of the fiend."

NOT: fore-slow, hoopoe, Prospero

"So is the time that keeps you as my chest,
Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide,
To make some special instant special blest,
By new unfolding his imprisoned pride."
I take his words it only goes to show,
There is a reason, and I'll make it shine,
With such good fit, I'm sure that it will glow.
And in such season find these words as mine.
Such are the rhymes which some may well have guessed,
The Bard may well have been Dionysus' bride.
But yet most students today have confessed,
That probably yet such love was untried.
"For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings."

//I've just come back and read this after an hour or so. Even I can't see the two words I was trying to hint at! Good luck then!//

'Tis Shakespeare's fate, as darling of the pen,
That every word should have such focus on it;
A wardrobe, or a closet? Maids, or men?
Such meaning sought in every line and sonnet.
The moderns hold up Shakespeare as a mirror,
In which they see their own preoccupations;
But does that truly make him any clearer,
Or just reflect their own evaluations?
Perhaps we know him less with every year,
Interred beneath the essays of each theorist,
From Bloom to Butler, classical to queer;
Who skip the footnotes might see him the clearest.
He's flayed by Derrida and whipped by po-mo;
And yet, he's but a man. Hence, ecce homo.

NOT: fore-slow, homo, hoopoe, Prospero

//Two words? I was bashful about the above guess but became confident from lines 9-12 of your delightful sonnet, and critics' theories about his Sonnet 52 from which you quote. Now I'm back to being unsure, and apologies in advance if I'm wrong.//

Aye, words in pairs I pray that you will find.
And one you have; with homo it doth rhyme.
The other is of quite another mind,
Gives his broad name to a love sublime.

A pair indeed, like Venus and Adonis,
And homo was the first to dawn upon us;
To you my gratitude I'd better owe
For cluing me its partner, hetero.

NOT: fore-slow, hetero, homo, hoopoe, Prospero

Such a love between Adam and his Eve!
How could it be so very different
Were it to be twixt Adam and his Steve?,
But this 'broad' man, and William Davenant
Forced us to think of some thoughts that would cleave
Love from its sex and its sweat and its grunt!

My Apology! The Laws of thought are vain
But your kind dialogue has sparked my brain;
For love can be quite pure yet all-consumin'.
I guessed it wrong. No myth: to Er is human.
To miss the "broad" and witty clues you gave
For sure I must be living in a cave.

NOT: fore-slow, hetero, homo, hoopoe, Plato, Prospero

This game has come unstuck, I do perceive.
My lips do pout, my forehead crease,
I harvest thorns, and then I'll take my leave.

That such a short word should now demand my art!
Tarry not upon the manner of your leaving, just depart!

You put me in agonies, your heartless command
The wild sea of my conscience, does demand
Pale trembling coward, there I cast my gage
And let the ruffian Antipodean enrage.

12 - When Dick the shepherd blows his nail, his lips
Do pout. And Farmer Tom doth stand with hands on hips
And furrowed brow, each furrow of his field
Beset by tares. Some secret sin revealed?
The prophet Jeremiah sternly warns
That sinners who sow wheat will harvest thorns.

13 - If brevity is the soul of wit,
Then surely none could do much better
Than your guess, a brief two-letter
Word to make a go of it;
Alas, I thought that not, the more's my woe,
And words without thoughts never to heaven go.

NOT: blow, fore-slow, furrow, go, hetero, homo, hoopoe, Plato, Prospero, sow

14 - The throes of Crambo, such sweet sorrow!
I see you throw the gauntlet, so I'll borrow
Laertes' sword, and you can ask his fellow
Danish prince for one; unless you're yellow?
No switching swords allowed, of course--for shame!
Don't look so sallow, pale; 'tis just a game.

NOT: blow, fore-slow, furrow, go, hetero, homo, hoopoe, Plato, Prospero, sallow, sow, throe, throw, yellow

This proper name could , in Law, mean somebody
Both sides agree not to name. Whut he
Or she was named at birth might, if used, create
Prejudices. Matter of principles that you can state,
Not personalities. In real life there was a Liberian Army
Sergeant named Sam __ __ __. From all the harm he
Did there were many who wished his (real) name had never
Entered the Current Events Contests. Could you ever
Believe his meteoric rise, going from "Sarge"
To "Dictator", causing trouble while at large?!

There are more things in heaven and earth, Crambo, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy!

Marry, this is miching Crambo; it means mischief.

17 - Though Chiron might hunt not, with horse nor hound,
But hope to pluck a dainty doe to ground;
I'd beg him show some hart with all his pluck,
Though he may hunt the doe, please spare the buck.

18 - Our Hamlet's irked that Gertrude doesn't mourn
His father with the grief he'd say she owe;
'Tis hardly wondrous strange he feels forlorn,
Condoling with his friend, Horatio.

19 - He wears the trappings and the suits of woe,
For he's seen fatal mischief slay his sire;
Malhecho, with its Spanish tragic glow,
Foretells "don't Kyd a kidder"--it's too dire.

NOT: blow, doe, fore-slow, furrow, go, hetero, homo, hoopoe, Horatio, malhecho, Plato, Prospero, sallow, sow, throe, throw, yellow

As writing verse in Shakespeare's style is hard,
Were I to live three times the normal span,
I still would never hope to match the Bard
Nor boast of any likeness to that man.

#12 Your intuitions have great heft and weight,
And yet the word I sought was not so great
A briefer lighter word - a grimace
and seeks to also keep the grass in place.

O, what a sympathy of woe is this, As far from help as Crambo is from bliss!

12 - Gorillas who can help out in the yard?
A modern reader might not be too scarred
By Caliban's complaint that Prospero
Had conjured horrid beasts, "like apes that mow."

22 - When Dromio of Syracuse proclaims
This place is worse than hell, his word defames
The infants and pre-Christians who reside
In limbo for the blameless way they died.

NOT: blow, doe, fore-slow, furrow, go, hetero, homo, hoopoe, Horatio, limbo, malhecho, mow, Plato, Prospero, sallow, sow, throe, throw, yellow

Crambo! Just add one R!
In your word in a line
And shoot it very far!
Good shot! My Valentine!

__ __ __ __ your luggage, if youʻre on a ship or plane.
And live in __ __ __ __, Vermont, if youʻre a sane
New Englander, like me. Although Iʻve rated
Hawaiʻi locations higher; havenʻt really hated
Either environemnt:
They both beat, say, Trent-
on, New Jersey
(meaning no de-
rogatory meaning for that cap-
-ital or any place. "ʻT would be a bad rap. )

24 - When Isabelle of France, the Queen, chagrins,
"My wretchedness unto a row of pins,"
Her ill-starred fate was looming even then;
A bride at seven, widowèd at ten.

Fair Romeo, whom love's keen arrow smote,
For Rosaline doth pine and cry a river.
What now? So fast, on Juliet he'll dote?
Blind Cupid sure will need a bigger quiver.

25 - Our Dane's no fool in deeds felonious;
He "safely stow'd" the dead Polonius.
But not too safely, he himself declares,
For in a month 'twill stink beneath the stairs.

NOT: arrow, blow, doe, fore-slow, furrow, go, hetero, homo, hoopoe, Horatio, limbo, malhecho, mow, Plato, Prospero, row, sallow, sow, stow, throe, throw, yellow

The hero of The Big Sleep and The Long Goodbye
is close, but not quite the right guy.
Perhaps the spying, brawling, heretic of
contemperaneous Canterbury is closer to the truth.

27 - Of all pretenders to the Bard's renown
To Marlowe's claim alone I give some weight:
His well-timed death, his spying for the Crown,
And genius seen in Tamburlaine the Great.

NOT: arrow, blow, doe, fore-slow, furrow, go, hetero, homo, hoopoe, Horatio, limbo, malhecho, Marlowe, mow, Plato, Prospero, row, sallow, sow, stow, throe, throw, yellow

"I believe. . .", "I pledge .. ." in archaic
English, is "I __ __ __ __"; --fake-
-Sounding or not, it appeared in the mus-
-ical Kiss me, Kate, but (which might confuse
The viewer) it was made to rhyme
with "thou" not with "woe", that time.

29 - From Taming of the Shrew to Kiss Me Kate,
I trow its sound was changed, as you relate;
Cole Porter should have skipped a curtain call
To brush up on his Shakespeare after all.

NOT: arrow, blow, doe, fore-slow, furrow, go, hetero, homo, hoopoe, Horatio, limbo, malhecho, Marlowe, mow, Plato, Prospero, row, sallow, sow, stow, throe, throw, trow, yellow

Although his fellow playwrights left their mark
And, on their own, wrote sweetly as the lark,
Compared to Will, 'tis hard, one must admit,
To lay a claim to one groat's worth of wit.

The Merchant of Venice - of his flesh Shylock claims
a pound, the brother of Leonato has the same
appelation as the brother of Prospero
and a murderer of Alonzo and Gonzalo.

I think young Will was too jolly a fellow
To focus on the season starts today;
But if a character of his'n were to do so,
Then from some earthly pleasure he'd abstain.

(free verse, worth every cent)

32 - A stage, where every man must play his part,
And yet five parts are similarly kenned.
The sire of Proteus; Sebastian's friend;
Antonio seems dear to Shakespeare's heart.

33 - That time of year thou may'st thyself withhold
From compound sweet, forgoing simple savour,
Be glad our jolly Will was not so bold
To yield his earthly pen for sacred favour.

NOT: Antonio, arrow, blow, doe, fore-slow, forgo, furrow, go, hetero, homo, hoopoe, Horatio, limbo, malhecho, Marlowe, mow, Plato, Prospero, row, sallow, sow, stow, throe, throw, trow, yellow

I should advise that clues were hid in fun
In one, and twenty-one, and thirty-one;
And here's one more to help you win the game:
Our Crambo's word is not a proper name.

The Greene-eyed monster prompts the allegation
The upstart bard is acting above his station.
His black bird also greets the day,
The jemmy helps the prisoner get away.

35 - (Flourish of trumpets.)
The Swan of Avon had Benvolio
Say, "I will make thee think thy swan a crow."
The first surviving record to emerge
That mentions Shakespeare as a dramaturge
Was Greene's Groatsworth of Wit, a vicious blow
That likened Shakespeare to an "upstart crow."
'Tis thought that Portia answered that remark:
"The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark."
The Phoenix and the Turtle kept the theme,
Its "treble-dated crow" the critics deem
The Bard himself. Now centuries have gone;
That upstart crow is our immortal swan.

- = - = - = - = - = - = - = -

If we shadows have offended,
Think but this: the round has ended.
Goodfellow Buck, that merry sprite,
Salutes you all, and bids good night.

//Congratulations to Rodney on his well-earned victory, and thank you to everyone for getting into the spirit and making this a special round, full of Shakespearean erudition and poetic whimsy.//

The game rolls on - do not fear!
Crambo's next challenge starts here.

Oh, such a game that ends with "crow",
And open clues, did but we know,
That Greene and Portia did bestow
Such hints. Bravo, bravo!