“Thou, my slave,As thou report'st thyself, was then her servant,And for thou wast a spirit too delicateTo act her earthy and abhorred commands,Refusing her grand hests, she did confine thee,By help of her more potent ministersAnd in her most unmitigable rage,Into a cloven pine, within which riftImprisoned thou didst painfully remainA dozen years; within which space she diedAnd left thee there, where thou didst vent thy groansAs fast as mill wheels strike.”

English playwright, poet and actor

William Shakespeare was an English playwright, poet, and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the leading dramatist of the world stage. Often called England’s national poet and the Bard of Avon, he remains a central figure in English literature. His surviving work includes about 39 plays, 154 sonnets, and three long narrative poems, along with a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. His influence on English writing and drama has lasted for centuries, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted.