Shakespeare's Birthday Insults Poem (first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 PM April 22)

Dear William

450 years to the good, do we see

In celebration thereof, have I offerings for thee.

Insults have I plucked from thy poems and plays

For use by tweeters, in these digital days.



"Thou cream faced loon"

"There’s no more faith in thee than in a stewed prune"

"Thou art baser than a cutpurse"

"We know each other well. We do, and long to know each other worse. "

"Thou thing of no bowels thou." "Pied ninny!" "Scurvy patch!"

"Thou clay-brained guts, thou knotty-pated fool, thou whoreson obscene greasy tallow-catch."

"Thou poisonous slave"

"Filthy worsted-stocking knave"

"Damn’d and luxurious mountain-goat"

'The gold I give thee will I melt and pour down thy ill-uttering throat."

"Thou art nothing better than a disease"

"His breath stinks with toasted cheese"

"Slanderous tongues"

"The food is such as hath been belched on by infected lungs"

"Braggart vile"

"Thy tongue outvenoms all the worms of Nile"

"O you beast, o faithless coward, o dishonest wretch,

Wilt thou be made a man out of my vice?"

"It is certain that when he makes water, his urine is congealed ice."

"Go rot"

"Get thee glass eyes; and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see the things, thou dost not."



William’s works will live on where’er he doth rove

In spite of, methinks, not because of Mr Gove.