From Much Ado About Nothing:

Much Ado About Nothing

Reader Dharam shifted around the letters, and it became:

Undoing? Ooh, but a match!

Then I shifted around the letters, and it became:

Tough union had combat.

Now, shift around the letters again, and it becomes:

Duo: no hunch to a gambit.

Shift around the letters one more time, and it becomes:

Bigmouth can undo oath.

And even thence thou wilt be stol’n, I fear,
For truth proves thievish for a prize so dear.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Irreverent historian Howard Zinn offered to let vast upbeat hope touch fresh lives.

Gold were as good as twenty orators,
And will, no doubt, tempt him to any thing.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Do limit ad moneys industry gets to allot. We’re wrong to hop that bandwagon.

My gracious liege,
You won it, wore it, kept it, gave it me;
Then plain and right must my possession be:
Which I with more than with a common pain
‘Gainst all the world will rightfully maintain.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Conan is leaving the Tonight Show due to lip-wag wars with Leno. What frustrates him mightily? Someone imply to an eligibility-limit arrangement?

I watch this clip. Make up your own mind.

Traitor, if Rome have law or we have power,
Thou and thy faction shall repent this rape.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Al’s worthwhile reform appears in law one hour after a pathetic thirty have voted No.

Context here.

I say this because, even though I have not been posting, new visitor Dharam has been busy creating entertaining anagrams for us. First she did the Shakespeare anagram challenge from February. Then she started to anagram the Thursday Morning Riddle. You can see her efforts here, here, here, here, and here. In each case, her anagram is a riff on the riddle’s answer, and scores high on the Anagram Hallmarks. Her later anagrams even rhyme!

Well, at least someone around here is producing. Dharam, you have shamed me into returning to the blog. Thanks for that.

Ay, no; no, ay; for I must nothing be;
Therefore no no, for I resign to thee.
Now mark me how I will undo myself:
I give this heavy weight from off my head,
And this unwieldy sceptre from my hand,
The pride of kingly sway from out my heart;
With mine own tears I wash away my balm,
With mine own hands I give away my crown,
With mine own tongue deny my sacred state,
With mine own breath release all duteous rites:
All pomp and majesty I do forswear;
My manors, rents, revenues, I forego;
My acts, decrees, and statutes I deny:
God pardon all oaths that are broke to me!
God keep all vows unbroke are made to thee!
Make me, that nothing have, with nothing griev’d,
And thou with all pleas’d, that hast all achiev’d!

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Sarah Palin idly leaving as Governor of newly-widowed green Alaska for no apparent reason makes little sense. If she runs for President, it won’t win votes, and this tough woman has more ambition than that.

What was the real reason? To save face over impending ethics idiocy? Did an enemy’s muddy-eyed blackmail jimmy her out? Do the kids want their mommy more? Or was she moved over the Letterman thing more than it seemed? Why would a “my way or the highway” leader modify to go for the highway?

My augury: maybe we will find her the host of a hip new talk show on that right-wing cable news network. Running a state must be a dull toy compared to the fame and fortune of television.

Where’s the cook? is supper ready, the house trimmed, rushes strewed, cobwebs swept; the serving-men in their new fustian, their white stockings, and every officer his wedding-garment on? Be the jacks fair within, the jills fair without, the carpets laid, and every thing in order?

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

The wry new Jib-Jab video sketch, featuring President Obama, is rife with insightful humor. We elected this shrewder president on his refreshing superhero identity charge. Now, his nerves of steel must contend with many divergent dire tasks.

Watch it here. Pirates! Ka-chow!

Desdemona

Switch around the letters, and it becomes:

So dead.

Men!

Go with me to a notary, seal me there
Your single bond; and, in a merry sport,
If you repay me not on such a day,
In such a place, such sum or sums as are
Express’d in the condition, let the forfeit
Be nominated for an equal pound
Of your fair flesh, to be cut off and taken
In what part of your body pleaseth me.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Obama’s Cardholder’s Bill of Rights may hamper undue predatory lending.

It won’t cap interest rates, but may end each hidden fee or a funny (or unfunny!) practice to rake your income.

And less opaque info may open the noose of those who offer money at usurious rates.

But it’s still a hoax. Pay them off.

Let not my love be call’d idolatry,
Nor my beloved as an idol show,
Since all alike my songs and praises be
To one, of one, still such, and ever so.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

If Danny and Allison got less poll votes, Adam Lambert or Kris Allen will also be doomed by a nil vote. So, cynics, you deserve the chosen one.

From The Tempest:

But this rough magic
I here abjure; and, when I have requir’d
Some heavenly music,—which even now I do,—
To work mine end upon their senses that
This airy charm is for, I’ll break my staff,
Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,
And, deeper than did ever plummet sound,
I’ll drown my book.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

It’s been fun. I’ve written quirky plays and we’ve had much mirth – even a kind of rebirth.

But I’m done. Rough-hewn London is hectic and grim. The trickier ajar rhythms rear up too much burden. I feel hemmed in by the dramas.

Whatever. As soon as this play is done, I am so out of here.

Will

There is a sickness
Which puts some of us in distemper, but
I cannot name the disease; and it is caught
Of you that yet are well.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Methinks today’s pandemic is not the fiercest I set, because in my era we had the plague.

Swine flu is not as harsh, so cut it out.

The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

There is a dearth of depth to this hit online platform.

Do trendy photos without hugs please?

What sin you do to save a brother’s life,
Nature dispenses with the deed so far
That it becomes a virtue.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Obama, with no hesitation, waives the defeated Bush’s evil order to stop test research in future days.

For the anagram challenge, I’ve chosen a passage from Henry IV, Part Two. The dying King Henry IV is giving advice to his son Hal, who will soon become King Henry V. He suggests that Hal take his nation to war in a foreign country to distract them from the illegitimacy of his rule.

From Henry IV, Part Two:

Therefore, my Harry,
Be it thy course to busy giddy minds
With foreign quarrels; that action, hence borne out,
May waste the memory of the former days.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes…?

Entries should use all of the letters in the original quote without adding any. Punctuation may be changed freely, but you may not add numerals or use any punctuation that needs to be pronounced (such as & or @). The best anagrams have some thematic resonance with the original quote. See earlier anagrams for samples.  You may find this a useful tool along the way, and you can check your final anagram here before posting.

Entries are due by March 10, and a winner will be chosen after that time.

And thorough this distemperature we see
The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts
Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose,
And on old Hiems’ thin and icy crown
An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds
Is, as in mockery, set. The spring, the summer,
The childing autumn, angry winter, change
Their wonted liveries, and the mazed world,
By their increase, now knows not which is which.
And this same progeny of evil comes
From our debate, from our dissension:
We are their parents and original.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

A sharp column in the Washington Post this month, wherein faded global warming is reframed in some depth as a hidden security issue, hit home.

In this column, he described three harsh ways that these few overwhelming horrors can render war: rampant scarcity from hotter, drier lands; renewed open-handed abundance; and fresh issues of common sovereignty, making two geopolitical zones of tension.

We should take this solemn threat to our security seriously, or we’re finished.

O mistress mine, where are you roaming?
O, stay and hear; your true love’s coming,
That can sing both high and low:
Trip no further, pretty sweeting;
Journeys end in lovers meeting,
Every wise man’s son doth know.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Emerging wireless ads strut hotshot-emeritus Guido Daniele’s groovy hand-painting art from nations yon where you enjoy non-normative service, whether Egypt’s low runes or China’s worthy embankment.

More hand-painting ads here!

Back do I toss these treasons to thy head

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Knotty shoe side-shots acerbated a host.

Let me tell you, Cassius, you yourself
Are much condemn’d to have an itching palm;
To sell and mart your offices for gold
To undeservers.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Once a scandal fully surrounds some Democratic governor, the other side could smugly flaunt it every time one of them plays as foul.