Shakespeare Was A Diver
You've heard of Jacques Cousteau, Bob Soto, and Richard Hey, but did you know that Shakespeare was a diver? Really? Have you never read any of his books: All's Well That Dives Well, Julius Cousteau, King Jacques, A Midsummer Night's Dive, The Merry Divers Of Windsor, Twelfth Night-Dive, or The Merchant Of Scubapro? Here are some of the things he wrote:
Once more unto the beach, dear friends, once more. Or bring the wreck up with our English lifting-bags. In peace there's nothing so becomes a man as seawater and hydrostatic pressure. But when the blast of air blows in our dust-caps, then imitate the action of the instructor, set free the salt-water, summon up the air, deplete the cylinders with hard-favoured valves. [Henry V, III.1]
O! that we now had here, but one four hundred of those men in Stoney Cove that do no sea dives today. [Henry V, IV.3]
I am diving, Egypt, diving. [Anthony And Cleopatra, IV.13]
O! for a muse of nitrox. [Henry V, 1, Chorus]
Et tu, Cousteau? [Julius Caesar, III.1]
Not that I loved Caesar less, but I loved diving more. [Julius Caesar, III.2]
Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your scuba tanks. I come to instruct Caesar, not to praise him. The dives that men do live after them; the portholes are oft interred with their shelves. [Julius Caesar, Ib]
When shall we three dive again, in thunder, lightening, or in Stoney Cove? [Macbeth, I.1]
Is this a line-reel which I see before me, the handle toward my hand? Come, let me wind thee. [Macbeth, II.1]
And gentlemen in BSAC now a-bed shall think themselves accursed they were not here, and hold their logbooks cheap whilest any speaks that dived with us upon Saint Crispin's Day. [Henry V, Ib]
To dive or not to dive: that is a stupid question: whether 'tis safer to the mind to breathe nitrox with the slings and arrows of outrageous fill charges, or to take air against a sea of wrecks, and by opposing end them? To dive: to sleep; no more; and by a sleep to say we end the decompression stop. [Hamlet, III.1]
This above all: to thine own self belongs the porthole. [Hamlet, III.1]
A pair of star-crossed divers. [Romeo And Juliet, Prologue]
The two hours' deco of our stage-stop. [Romeo And Juliet, Ib]
O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo? I see not your bubbles! [Romeo And Juliet, Ib]
Good-night, good-night! Ascending is such sweet sorrow. [Romeo And Juliet, Ib]
The information contained within this page is intended for amusement only.
Written by Andrew Pugsley.
E-mail: diver@ukgateway.net
Featured in the Jan-Feb 1997 issue of School Diver magazine.
