Shakespeare’s 400th death anniversary was celebrated all across the world on April 23. England, where William Shakespeare was born 400 years ago, has become the centre of reverential pilgrimage. US president Barack Obama thought it fit to intersperse his UK visit with a trip to the Shakespeare’s Globe theatre in London.

Over the years, Shakespeare’s appeal has transcended geographical boundaries. He has entranced politicians and political assassins in equal measure. Abraham Lincoln, a great fan of Shakespeare, read through Macbeth five days before his assassination while his assassin, John Wilkes, a renowned Shakespearean actor, had performed Julius Caesar five months earlier. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto quoted Shakespeare profusely in his joust with poetry-deaf judges in the courts of Pakistan. Jinnah was so besotted with Shakespeare that he contemplated a career in acting at one point.

Shakespeare has held enormous and lasting appeal for writers, poets, intellectuals and film industry. Shakespeare was one of Karl Marx’s favourite writers. The Indian film industry has constantly raided Shakespeare for its block-busters. Agha Hashar popularised Shakespeare in Urdu. Lahore once buzzed with Shakespeare plays when the likes of Patras Bukhari and other giant intellectuals dominated the city like an intellectual colossus.

Government College Lahore was known for its legendary English literature teachers and a dramatic society deeply steeped in the study and propagation of Shakespeare. In fact, many teaching legends at Government College were built on the ability to interpret and communicate Shakespeare.

Read also: 400 years of living with Shakespeare

Yet, despite the very public ownership of Shakespeare, our relationship with Shakespeare is a very private one. Each one of us has a unique private view of the bard and an equally private unique interpretation. My own fascination with Shakespeare dates to my school days. One day, out of sheer boredom, I reached for a dusty copy of Julius Caesar. For the first few days I could make neither head nor tale of the play because of its language. However, when I got into it by and by, the play began to make sense. 

Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world

Like a Colossus, and we petty men

Walk under his huge legs and peep about

To find ourselves dishonorable graves.

Men at some time are masters of their fates.

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars

But in ourselves, that we are underlings

Read also: Shakespeare’s shadow over the subcontinent

During Zia’s oppressive dictatorship, these lines hit me like a bolt from the blue. Suddenly, the enormity of his dictatorship and the feeble resistance to it came home to me in a way political leaders were unable to articulate. Though the long democratic struggle failed to pluck many feathers from Zia’s ever-growing dictatorial wings, a case of exploding mangoes did the trick at last. The play remains my favourite and I return to it, from time to time, to refresh the underlying motives under politics, power and populist oratory. The bard himself was quite conscious of the universality of the play. 

How many ages hence Shall this our lofty scene be acted over

In states unborn and accents yet unknown 

Hamlet had a different kind of impact though. It is a play about reluctance to act and otiose thinking. Besides the oft-quoted "to be or not to be" speech, there are gems of wisdom tucked inside the play. Just consider Polonius’s speech.

Give thy thoughts no tongue, Nor any unproportioned thought his act.

Be thou familiar but by no means vulgar.

Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,

Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel…

Beware Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,

Bear ’t that th’ opposèd may beware of thee.

Give every man thy ear but few thy voice.

Take each man’s censure but reserve thy judgment.

Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,

What pleasure do these lines afford every time I light upon them! Shakespeare’s tragedies remain my favourites, though I must confess that I have not dipped much into comedies. They have helped me figure out how power, jealousy and racism, ageing and perceived ingratitude pan out in all their deadly dimensions. Some of Macbeth’s unforgettable lines have stayed me all the days of my life. Here is one of the memorable and resonant line from Lady Macbeth where she fingers excess of kindness as an insuperable barrier to ambition and power. 

Yet do I fear thy nature;

It is too full o’ th’ milk of human kindness

To catch the nearest way:

And Duncan’s line about the dangers of taking things at face value

There’s no art

To find the mind’s construction in the face.

He was a gentleman on whom I built

An absolute trust

Antony and Cleopatra’s opening line about the degeneration of General Antony in the embrace of Cleopatra has been expressed in these memorable lines:

Nay, but this dotage of our general’s

Overflows the measure. Those his goodly eyes,

That o’er the files and musters of the war

Have glowed like plated Mars, now bend, now turn

The office and devotion of their view

Upon a tawny front. His captain’s heart,

Which in the scuffles of great fights hath burst

The buckles on his breast, reneges all temper

And is become the bellows and the fan

To cool a gypsy’s lust. 

Antony and Cleopatra is so full of memorable lines that each dialogue needs to be preserved in memory. Othello is another great tragedy so full of portents for our contemporary world. The play’s treatment of destructive power of jealousy and racism has a contemporary ring to it. As with other plays, Shakespeare was far ahead of time in his treatment of latent racism which suffuses the play.

Read also: "The bare fallow brings to teeming foison…"

My endless fascination with Shakespeare has taken me to many of his productions. I have found that small and amateur theatres do a very good job of interpreting Shakespeare in new innovative ways, often on shoe-string production budget.

Shakespearean acting in itself has become a genre, signifying acting perfection. The lineup of great actors that rises to the mind includes Orson Wells, John Gielgud, Laurence Olivier, Simon Callow, Derek Jacobi, Anthony Sher, Helen Mirren, Fiona Shaw and our own Zia Mohyeddin.

As predicted by the bard, most of Shakespeare’s plays are still being performed and will continue to be performed and talked about in states unborn and accents unknown with the same vigour and renewed promise of relevance and eternity. That is a measure of the bard’s greatness. No wonder each nation is enthusiastically partaking of the rich literary heritage he has left us.