Shakespearian Insults in Honor of the 400th Anniversary of His Death

To celebrate Shakespeare’s 450th birthday 2 years ago, I posted this post listing out hundreds of my favorite Shakespearian insults. Well, today is the 400th anniversary of the Bard’s death, and I figured it’d be a great day to repost this doozy of a list.  I mean, “I do desire we may become better strangers?!”, “There’s no more faith in thee than in a stewed prune”, “Thou lump of foul deformity”?!? Can you deny me this repost?! Of course not you vile pile of horse flesh and pox vomit!! Ohh, my bad. I definitely got carried away there! Hehe.

——-

I started writing this post months ago… but I started writing a Shakespearian Insult Generator page as a result.  Which I never got around to polishing sufficiently.  But even though today is NOT William Shakespeare’s 450th birthday (and I am not even close) I still would like to pay tribute to the bard all the same.

So, to celebrate the 450th year of the Bard, I’ve chosen to regale you with a menagerie of insults to spice up your vocabulary.  What better way to celebrate the bard than to take some of his lesser known insults and list them out here for your own betterment hundreds of years later?!

I personally have always been a huge Shakespearian fan boy.  Always have enjoyed his plays as well as the modern remakes of his works and even the derivatives like 10 Thing I Hate About You.  Love them all. One of the first dates I took my wife on was to see Keneth Branagh’s Much Ado About Nothing in Edinburgh.  A couple months later we then went and saw an open air version of Romeo and Juliet in Manchester that was absolutely amazing… if not a bit chilly.   I’ve seen opera versions of The Bards’ plays, local renditions, and massive productions in London.  I’ve enjoyed modern settings of lesser known plays in D.C. and very true to form versions of the great classics.  I enjoy them all.

And so to share just a little bit of Shakespeare’s greatness with you all I am choosing to celebrate in my own way with an enormous assortment of insults for you to choose from to incorporate into your every day lives!  Can we be conduct any more appropriate celebration than this?  I didn’t think so.  So, let us away without further ado.

I do desire we may be better strangers. – As You Like It 

Stigmatical in making, worse in mind.  – The Comedy of Errors 

Thou whoreson, senseless villain! The Comedy of Errors

Dissembling harlot, thou art false in all! – The Comedy of Errors

You abilities are too infant-like for doing much alone. – Coriolanus 

They lie deadly that tell you you have good faces. – Coriolanus 

You wear out a good wholesome forenoon in hearing a cause between an orange wife and a fosset-seller.  – Coriolanus

More of your conversation would infect my brain. – Coriolanus

For such things as you, I can scarce think there’s any, ye’re so slight. – Coriolanus

The tartness of his face sours ripe grapes. – Coriolanus

There is no more mercy in him than there is milk in a male tiger. – Coriolanus

Away! Thou’rt poison to my blood. – Cymbeline 

O thou vile one! – Cymbeline 

You had measured how long a fool you were upon the ground. – Cymbeline

Frailty, thy name is woman! – Hamlet

They have a plentiful lack of wit. – Hamlet

Take you me for a sponge? – Hamlet

Here, thou incestuous, murderous, damned Dane, Drink off this potion! – Hamlet

Thou hast the most unsavoury similes. – Henry IV 

This sanguine coward, this bed-presser, this horseback-breaker, this huge hill of flesh! – Henry IV

‘Sblood, you starveling, you elf-skin, you dried neat’s tongue, you bull’s pizzle, you stock-fish! O for breath to utter what is like thee! you tailor’s-yard, you sheath, you bowcase; you vile standing-tuck!  – Henry IV

There’s no more faith in thee than in a stewed prune. – Henry IV

Hang him, swaggering rascal! – Henry IV

I scorn you, scurvy companion. – Henry IV

Away, you mouldy rogue, away! – Henry IV

Away, you cut-purse rascal! you filthy bung, away! By this wine, I’ll thrust my knife in your mouldy chaps, an you play the saucy cuttle with me. Away, you bottle-ale rascal! you basket-hilt stale juggler, you! – Henry IV

O braggart vile and damned furious wight! – Henry V

Avaunt, you cullions! – Henry V

Such antics do not amount to a man. – Henry V

He is white-livered and red-faced. – Henry V

They were devils incarnate. – Henry V

They are hare-brain’d slaves. –> Henry VI

Hag of all despite! – Henry VI

Take her away; for she hath lived too long, To fill the world with vicious qualities. – Henry VI

I had rather chop this hand off at a blow, And with the other fling it at thy face. Henry VI

Thou mis-shapen dick! 3 Henry VI

Teeth hadst thou in thy head when thou wast born, To signify thou camest to bite the world. Henry VI

I can see his pride, Peep through each part of him – Henry VIII 

No man’s pie is freed, From his ambitious finger – Henry VIII

You are strangely troublesome – Henry VIII

You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things! – Julius Caesar 

A knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats; base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave; a lily-livered, action-taking knave, a whoreson, glass-gazing, super-serviceable finical rogue; one-trunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a bawd, in way of good service, and art nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pandar, and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch: one whom I will beat into clamorous whining, if thou deniest the least syllable of thy addition. – King Lear

Thou whoreson zed! thou unnecessary letter! – King Lear

Out, dunghill! – King John 

O you beast! I’ll so maul you and your toasting-iron, That you shall think the devil is come from hell. – King John

You are a tedious fool.Measure for Measure

O faithless coward! O dishonest wretch! Wilt thou be made a man out of my vice? – Measure for Measure 

Some report a sea-maid spawn’d him; some that he was begot between two stock-fishes. But it is certain that when he makes water his urine is congealed ice. – Measure for Measure

A very scurvy fellow – Measure for Measure

Thou art a Castilian King urinal! – The Merry Wives of Windsor

Vile worm, thou wast o’erlook’d even in thy birth. – The Merry Wives of Windsor

You juggler! you canker-blossom! – A Midsummer Night’s Dream

I wonder that you will still be talking. Nobody marks you. – Much Ado About Nothing

My cousin’s a fool, and thou art another. – Much Ado About Nothing

Men from children nothing differ. – Much Ado About Nothing

Heaven truly knows that thou art false as hell – Othello

Thy food is such, As hath been belch’d on by infected lungs – Pericles

Thou lump of foul deformity! – Richard III 

Thou unfit for any place but hell. – Richard III

Out of my sight! thou dost infect my eyes. – Richard III 

A knot you are of damned bloodsuckers. – Richard III 

You peasant swain! You whoreson malt-horse drudge! – The Taming of the Shrew

I shall laugh myself to death at this puppy-headed monster! – The Tempest

Why, thou deboshed fish thou…Wilt thou tell a monstrous lie, being but half a fish and half a monster?- The Tempest 

Why, this hath not a finger’s dignity. – Troilus and Cressida

Thou bitch-wolf’s son! – Troilus and Cressida 

I think thy horse will sooner con an oration than thou learn a prayer without book. – Troilus and Cressida 

Thou sodden-witted lord! thou hast no more brain than I have in mine elbows. – Troilus and Cressida 

A fusty nut with no kernel. – Troilus and Cressida 

Go hang yourself, you naughty mocking uncle! – Troilus and Cressida

Not enough Shakespearian insults for you?  What about an entire insult laden poem from the bard?  And NUTS TO YOU!  hahaha.  Happy 450th birthday of the Bard.  And make sure you lace your language with anyone of these fantastic insults.  The world will be a better place for it.

Sonnet to Banana Nose

Buzz off, Banana Nose; Relieve mine eyes
Of hateful soreness, purge mine ears of corn;
Less dear than army ants in apple pies
Art thou, old prune-face, with thy chestnuts worn,
Dropt from thy peeling lips like lousy fruit;
Like honeybees upon the perfum’d rose
They suck, and like the double-breasted suit
Are out of date; therefore, Banana Nose,
Go fly a kite, thy welcome’s overstayed;
And stem the produce of thy waspish wits:
Thy logick, like thy locks, is disarrayed;
Thy cheer, like thy complexion, is the pits.
Be off, I say; go bug somebody new,
Scram, beat it, get thee hence, and nuts to you.