Granny and Shakespeare

So many memories, each one a little gem.  This one is precious to me, because when I remember it, I can still hear Granny's voice.

In the summer of 2003, I took Granny down to visit Richard and his family in Rehoboth, Massachusetts.  It was the summer that I was playing the role of Prospero in Christopher's production of "The Tempest."  As we rode down the highway, I practiced one of Prospero's speeches ("we are such stuff as dreams are made on...").  Granny listened patiently as I ran through the speech several times.

A little later on, we were sitting on Rich's deck, and Granny wistfully recalled one of several bits of Shakespeare that she had memorized in grade school.  She spoke the lines with feeling, remembering them perfectly:

In sooth, I know not why I am so sad:

It wearies me; you say it wearies you;

But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,

What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born,

I am to learn;

And such a want-wit sadness makes of me,

That I have much ado to know myself.

(The Merchant of Venice, I.i.1-7)