We Are Such Stuff as Dreams are Made On...

Today, April 23 is traditionally considered the birthday of William Shakespeare.  Baptized on April 26, 1564.  On Garrison Keillor's blog today a short biography of him was just so amazing I have to share a bit.  

The Oxford dictionary credits him with coining 3,000 new words and sayings to the English language and has contributed more phrases and sayings to the English language than any other individual.  His idioms have woven themselves so snugly into our daily conversations that we aren't even aware of them most of the time, phrases such as "a fool's paradise," "Greek to me," "a sorry sight," "dead as a doornail," "come what may," "eaten out of house and home," "forever and a day," "heart's content," "slept a wink," "love is blind," "night owl," "wild goose chase," and "into thin air."

The article finishes with Prospero's soliloquy from The Tempest written in 1610.  A play I remember attending at an open air theater in England many years ago.  I remember being so touched hearing it and was touched again reading it....

"Our revels are now ended.
These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all
spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin
air:
And, like the baseless fabric of
this vision,
The cloud-cap'd towers, the
gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great
globe itself,
Ye all which it inherit, shall
dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial
pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We
are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and
our little life
Is rounded with a sleep."