"Circus"

While re-reading The Merchant of Venice recently, I found a passage that seems to be quoted (or at least referred to) in the lines "In the circus / Each must play a part" in Argent's "Circus."  In Act One, Scene One (lines 77-78), Antonio says, "I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano: / A stage where every man must play a part."

"Are You Lonesome Tonight?"

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For my Collection Audit project, I'm listening to The Essential Elvis Presley.  In the spoken part in "Are You Lonesome Tonight?," there's a reference to Shakespeare's "All the world's a stage" from As You Like It:  "You know, someone said that the world's a stage and each must play a part."

This reminded me that there are references to that same line in "A Moment in Time" from the Zombies' Breathe Out, Breathe In and "Circus" from Argent's Circus.

"Are You Lonesome Tonight?" is from 1960, so it's after the Elvis period that Rod Argent really likes (he said that in the first three years, Elvis' voice was "transcendent").  (I think one of the Beatles said that after Elvis was in the army, his music wasn't as good, which seems to be the same position that Argent takes.)  It's unlikely then that this Shakespeare reference inspired the same Shakespeare reference in these Argent-related songs, but I still think it's interesting that - despite how "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" is after that revered Elvis period - it has that same reference in common.

"Circus"

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[link to original on tumblr]

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A few days ago, I read this epigram by Palladas in my literary anthology:

This life a theater we well may call,
Where every actor must perform with art;
Or laugh it though and make a farce of all,
Or learn to bear with grace his tragic part.

At first, I just thought that it was possible that this was the origin of Shakespeare's "All the world's a stage..." because he took a lot of stuff from the Greeks.  But then I became aware of the similarity between this ("All the world's a stage / And all the men and women merely players") and some lines in the first verse of Argent's "Circus":  "In the circus / Each must play a part."

I'd thought that I'd written about "All the world's a stage..." before, but not about "Circus," so I went looking through my old posts and found this one that mentions "All the world's a stage..." and "A Moment in Time" (and its "Life is a stage where / We all just act a part") from Breathe Out, Breathe In.

Those lines from "Circus" don't seem as strong a reference to Shakespeare as those in "A Moment in Time," but they do still seem to be one.  So now there are two Zombies/Argent songs that reference those Shakespeare lines.