Quote in Context
  
  Nay, 'tis most certain, Iras: saucy lictors  
 Will catch at us, like strumpets; and scald rhymers  
 Ballad us out o' tune: the quick comedians  
 Extemporally will stage us, and present  
 Our Alexandrian revels; Antony  
 Shall be brought drunken forth, and I shall see  
 Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness  
 I' the posture of a whore.  
Antony and Cleopatra (5.2), Cleopatra
  
In Shakespeare's time, and for nearly a century thereafter, women were not allowed on the English stage. Boys whose voices had not changed were dressed in drag and forced to battle the challenging lines spoken by Shakespeare's great heroines. It seems unfathomable to us, and Shakespeare no doubt found it very frustrating at times, as we see in the above passage. But more often than not Shakespeare makes fun of the ridiculous practice, as in A Midsummer Night's Dream, when Flute cries, "let me not play a woman; I have a beard coming." Read on...
  
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