François Hollande got a little confused between two Shakespeares
Be not afear'd. For those of us whose competitive spirit will ignite, and probably expire, in a tussle over the TV remote from the comfort of an armchair, it's a relief to read that the London Olympics will open with, to quote our national poet, "words, words, words" inscribed on a very big bell. And not just any old words, but one of Shakespeare's most famous lines – "Be not afear'd, The isle is full of noises" – from Act III, Scene 2 of The Tempest. Couch potatoes and theatre-lovers can celebrate a boom year for the man from Stratford, from a complete performance of the canon to those snatches from his plays, the microchips of English poetry.
Even if you don't agree with Jane Austen that he's "part of an Englishman's constitution", or with Laurence Olivier that he's "the nearest thing in incarnation [sic] to the eye of God", you have to concede his words, as sound bites, are invariably winners. "Brush up your Shakespeare," as Cole Porter puts it, "and they'll all kowtow." Tout le monde? Almost, but not quite. To "wow" with Shakespeare, you have to quote the vrai chose. So spare a thought for le pauvre M François Hollande, the French socialist contender for the presidency, who dipped into the Gallic equivalent of Brewer's and pulled out… a prune.
To English ears, the sentence: "They failed because they did not begin with a dream" does not sound like Shakespeare, but apparently it is. The wrong Shakespeare. Nicholas the novelist is possibly related to William the playwright, but further comparisons are not odorous.
Charmingly, the wrong Shakespeare has searched his own oeuvre and says he can't find the mighty line that caught the eye of M Hollande's speechwriters. We, on the other hand, cannot resist the irony that the Frenchman, who hoped to play Prospero, ended up as Caliban: "You taught me language, and my profit on't is: I know how to curse."