Bad Shakespeare...

I recently came across an old(e) copy of Reader's Digest that had a small sideline on some of Shakespeare's more colorful, I mean colourful, insults.

Such as?

"I never see thy face lest I think upon hell-fire,"

...and "Thou art a very ragged worm."

..or this one, "You fustilarian, I'll tickle your catastrophe!"

...and I love this, "Thou damned tripe-visaged rascal."

Alas, some of my faverite bardian put-downs were missing.

This passage, spoken by Trinculo in Act 3, scene 2 of The Tempest just kills: "Thou liest, most ignorant monster: I am in case tojustle a constable. Why, thou deboshed fish thou,was there ever man a coward that hath drunk so muchsack as I to-day? Wilt thou tell a monstrous lie, being but half a fish and half a monster?"

...And this, from Caliban, later in the same scene, "Thou liest, thou jesting monkey, thou: I would my valiant master would destroy thee!"

The Tempest is replete with such.

But my all time favorite from the Avonian is one of the few Shakespearian passages I know by heart:

"Thou liest, thou shag-hair'd villain!"

I use it often.

It was said by young MacDuff just before he is murdered in Act 4, scene 2 of MacBeth.

As the murderer is stabbing the lad, he calls him an "egg" and a "young fry of treachery".

Egads, man!