FULL FATHOM FIVE THY FATHER LIES

FULL FATHOM FIVE THY FATHER LIES

William Shakespeare

SHAKESPEARE, William (1564-1616). English dramatist. He was born in Stratford-Avon in Warwickshire and married Anne Hathaway in about 1582. Sometime thereafter he went to London, where he pursued a career as an actor, poet, and dramatist. He probably began to write for the stage in the late 1580s; although his plays were widely performed in his lifetime, many were not printed until the First Folio of 1623. His plays are written mostly in blank verse and include comedies, such as a midsummer Night’s dream and As You Like it; historical plays, including Richard III and henry V; the Greek and roman plays, including Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra; the so-called “problem plays,” enigmatic comedies which include All’s  Well  That Ends Well and Measure  for Measure ; the great  tragedies , Hamlet, Othello, King Lear ,and Macbeth; and the group of tragicomedies  with which he  ended his career , such  as The winter’s Tale  and the Tempest .He also wrote more than 150  sonnets ,published in 1609 ,as  well  as narrative poems such as The rape of Lucrece (1594)

This poem occurs n Shakespeare’s play, The Tempest, Act I, Scene 2. The spirit Ariel sings this song to Ferdinand, Prince of Naples, who mistakenly thinks his father drowned.

Full fathom five thy father lies;

                    Of his bones are coral made;

Those are pearls that were his eyes:                 

                    Nothing of him that doth fade,

But doth suffer a sea Change

Into something g rich and strange

Sea nymphs hourly ring his knell:

Ding- dong.

Hark! Now I hear them -   Ding - dong, bell.