When I moved to a one room closet, the book collection had to be pruned. There were some easy cast-offs. The anthologies that had not been cracked since Flock of Seagulls ruled MTV. All that lit-crit verbiage. History books purchased for projects that died in mid stream. When I came to Shakespeare’s play’s I piled them up and stared for a good 15 minutes before deciding they had to go.

Wish I could say I was a Shakespearean scholar or that his lines fell of my tongue with ease and grace. Yet even an unlettered knave can appreciate the beauty the Bard put in the mouths of his characters. Here is Othello, a man whose heart was twisted beyond recognition.

Soft you; a word or two before you go.
I have done the state some service, and they know’t.
No more of that. I pray you, in your letters,
When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,
Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice: then must you speak
Of one that loved not wisely but too well;
Of one not easily jealous, but being wrought
Perplex’d in the extreme; of one whose hand,
Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away
Richer than all his tribe; of one whose subdued eyes,
Albeit unused to the melting mood,
Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees
Their medicinal gum. Set you down this;
And say besides, that in Aleppo once,
Where a malignant and a turban’d Turk
Beat a Venetian and traduced the state,
I took by the throat the circumcised dog,
And smote him, thus.

Looks like the image we have of the Bard is in for a makeover. Stanley Wells, the chairman of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, announced this week the discovery of a Shakespeare portrait that was done when Will was alive. It’s easy to imagine this William being cruised hard on Friday night (or any other night), although he does look like he’s tired of sitting for his picture. And give the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust people credit for not denying the sexuality questions the painting engenders.

“This Shakespeare is handsome and glamorous, so how does this change the way we think about him?” was a question in a handout Birthplace Trust organizers gave to reporters. “And do the painting and provenance tell us more about his sexuality, and possibly about the person to whom the sonnets are addressed?”

This being Shakespeare means some doubt the authenticity of the painting. And that’s the way it should be. Sure we can debate the details of the man’s life, but it’s all about the words.