Introduction

This sonnet was inspired by a list of Shakespearean insults I once came across.

Shakespearean Insult

Thou art an artless, base-court apple-john,
Beslubb'ring all whose gaze thou looks upon,
Thou bootless, beatle-headed, bladder bug,
Churlishly boil-brained, clapper-clawed old slug!
Thou art so common-kissing, canker-clawed,
Dissembling, dizzy-eyed and mealy-mawed!
Thy dankish, dismal-dreaming, clotpoled ways
Are more errant, in thy unmuzzled daze,
Than any foot-licked, flea-bit flap-dragon,
Or gleeking, half-faced, hedge-pigged jothead on
A paunchy, ill-bred, loutish miscreant -
Thou ever moldwarped, spleeny sycophant!
Were thou less blind in thy bummed, venomed spleen,
Thou wouldst know very well ... it's thee I mean!

Copyright; Mary Grace Dembeck