In the vast tapestry of William Shakespeare’s literary universe, celestial bodies often dance across the stage, their luminous presence illuminating the human experience with metaphorical significance. Among these cosmic wanderers, comets, meteors, and shooting stars hold a particular fascination, serving as potent symbols of fate, wonder, and the caprice of fortune.
Whether casting them as omens portending doom or as shimmering beacons of hope, Shakespeare’s words resonate with timeless wisdom, inviting us to contemplate the mysteries of the cosmos and our place within it.
Comets
“When beggars die, there are no comets seen;
The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.”
Julius Caesar (Act 2, Scene 2)
“By being seldom seen, I could not stir
But like a comet I was wondered at.”
Henry IV (Part 1, Act 3)
“Comets, importing change of times and states,
Brandish your crystal tresses in the sky.”
Henry VI (Part 1: Act 1, Scene 1)
“Now shine it like a comet of revenge,
A prophet to the fall of all our foes!”
Henry VI (Part 1: Act 3, Scene 2)
Meteors
“Move in that obedient orb again
Where you did give a fair and natural light,
And be no more an exhaled meteor,
A prodigy of fear and a portent
Of broached mischief to the unborn times?”
Henry IV (Part 1: Act 5, Scene 1)
“No natural exhalation in the sky,
No scope of nature, no distemper’d day,
No common wind, no customed event,
But they will pluck away his natural cause
And call them meteors, prodigies and signs,
Abortives, presages and tongues of heaven.”
King John (Act 3, Scene 4)
“The bay-trees in our country are all withered,
And meteors fright the fixèd stars of heaven.
The pale-faced moon looks bloody on the earth,
And lean-looked prophets whisper fearful change.”
Richard II (Act 2, Scene 4)
“Yon light is not daylight, I know it, I:
It is some meteor that the sun exhales,
To be to thee this night a torch-bearer,
And light thee on thy way to Mantua:
Therefore stay yet; thou need’st not to be gone,”
Romeo and Juliet (Act 3, Scene 5)
“This shower, blown up by tempest of the soul,
Startles mine eyes, and makes me more amazed
Than had I seen the vaulty top of heaven
Figured quite o’er with burning meteors.”
King John (Act 5, Scene 2)
Shooting Stars
“I see thy glory like a shooting star
Fall to the base earth from the firmament.
Thy sun sets weeping in the lowly west,
Witnessing storms to come, woe and unrest:”
Richard II (Act 2, Scene 4)
“As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,
Disasters in the sun; and the moist star
Upon whose influence Neptune’s empire stands
Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse:”
Hamlet (Act 1, Scene 1)
“To be exalted with the threatening clouds:
But never till to-night, never till now,
Did I go through a tempest dropping fire.
Either there is a civil strife in heaven,
Or else the world, too saucy with the gods,
Incenses them to send destruction.”
Julius Caesar (Act 1, Scene 3)
“That the rude sea grew civil at her song
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres
To hear the seamaid’s music?”
A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Act 2, Scene 1)