Your favourite Shakespeare speeches

Last week we launched a poll to find out what were WhatsOnStage readers' favourite speeches by Shakespeare.

You responded in your droves with the lines you loved from the plays you loved and the results are wonderfully varied. Hamlet has the highest number of speeches nominated (13 speeches from that one play!) with Richard II following closely behind. There were speeches chosen from 21 plays in total, including King Lear, As You Like It, Much Ado About Nothing and Othello.

We heartily approved of your choices – which were lovely to sift through. You all clearly care an awful lot about this great man we call Will Shakespeare and the words he wrote. Here are the results.

In third place was:
Henry V, Act IV scene iii: St Crispin's Day Speech. Spoken by King Henry it begins:

"What's he that wishes so?
My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin:
If we are mark'd to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour."

In second place was:
Hamlet, Act III scene i: 'To Be or Not To Be'. Here are the first few lines spoken by the sultry Danish prince:

"To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?…"

But the winner was absolutely clear. Your favourite was not from Much Ado nor from Twelfth Night nor from As You Like It but from Macbeth. A short one, infact. Here it is:

And in first place:
Macbeth, Act V scene v:

"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."

For all our Shakespeare 400 content head to our Shakespeare page