Something Rhymes with Purple - Hupnos

Episode Date: May 7, 2024

This week, Susie and Gyles drift off far far away to the land of sleep...  So tune in and embark on a journey through the nocturnal landscape of words. We love hearing from you, find us @SomethingRhymes on Twitter and Facebook, @SomethingRhymesWith on Instagram or you can email us on our email address here: [e-mail] Want even more purple, people? Join the Purple Plus Club by clicking the banner in Apple podcasts or head to purpleplusclub.com to listen on other platforms' Don’t forget that you can join us in person at our upcoming tour, tap the link to find tickets: www.somethingrhymeswithpurple.com  Enjoy Susie’s Trio for the week:  Nescience: An absence of knowledge; ignorance. Phobophobia: The fear of being afraid. Rasorial: Characteristically scratching the ground for food. Gyles' poem this week was 'Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed (Sonnet 27)' by William Shakespeare Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed, The dear repose for limbs with travel tired; But then begins a journey in my head, To work my mind, when body’s work’s expired: For then my thoughts, from far where I abide, Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee, And keep my drooping eyelids open wide, Looking on darkness which the blind do see: Save that my soul’s imaginary sight Presents thy shadow to my sightless view, Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night, Makes black night beauteous and her old face new.     Lo! Thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind,     For thee and for myself no quiet find. A Sony Music Entertainment production.   Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts     To bring your brand to life in this podcast, email [e-mail]  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by card and other conditions apply. Welcome to another episode of Something Rhymes with Purple, hosted by me, Giles Brandreth, and my colleague, my friend, my potpanion, Susie Dent. How are you feeling today, Susie? Well, I honestly, genuinely, and not just because we have chosen this as our theme today, I am feeling a little bit sleepy. Me too. I am whacked. I'm totally whacked. And this is for several reasons. today, I am feeling a little bit sleepy. Me too. I am whacked. I'm totally whacked. And this is for several reasons. I'm whacked because I'm not sleeping as well as I would like.

I woke at five this morning, so I couldn't get back to sleep. So I came up to the desk early. I was at the desk from 6.30 till 8.30, working away, but feeling quite good about it. And then at 8.30, I went to the television program I do on a Friday morning, which is the day we're recording this, this morning, which was great fun, met with nice people, good people. Then I had an exciting morning. That's why we began our recording a bit later than advertised, because I went to Tide Street in Chelsea in London. Now, do you know who lived in Tide Street who would be of interest to me? I should do, but I don't. Well, several interesting people lived in Tide Street, one of them the great artist John Singer Sargent. But living opposite him was Oscar Wilde. It had to be. Who lived in the house that is now numbered 34 Tide Street. And I was meeting up

there. Oscar Wilde lived there in the 1880s and up until 1895 with his fall and his arrest and his imprisonment. He lived there in this house for 10 years. And I was visiting the house, which is now actually divided into flats, because I was meeting there with a wonderful actress called Sarah Snook. Have you heard of this actress? I have. Yes, such a brilliant name. She is an Australianian she's a big star she's famous for appearing in the tv series succession but she's had a huge success in the west end of london appearing in the picture of dorian gray an adaptation of the novel written by oscar wilde at the end of the 1880s and it it's a fabulous production. It's been rave reviews.

And indeed, it won two Olivier Awards the other day in the big theatre awards, the Olivier Awards. And Sarah Snook won one of them. So rather amusingly, well, I think I might say this. I thought it was amusing. She's already got an Olivier. So I took her my biography of John Gielgud, the other great 20th century actor, Gielgud. And I said to her, you know, Sarah, you've already won an Olivier. Now I'm giving you a Gielgud, the other great 20th century actor, Gielgud. And I said to her,

you know, Sarah, you've already won an Olivier. Now I'm giving you a Gielgud. She was suitably, well, she was courteous enough to seem to be amused. But the reason that she came with her company to the house was that they've had this huge success with this play based on Oscar Wilde's story. And we wanted to give them the opportunity to actually be in the room where the story was first written. Wonderful. And I think they said it did feel special. And it's amazing to be in the room where something –

I mean, I'm sure you've been to Jane Austen's house. Yes, I have. Down in Hampshire. And you can sit at that little table where something, I mean, I'm sure you've been to Jane Austen's house. Yes, I have. Down in Hampshire. And you can sit at that little table where she, I think we know she wrote the revisions to, or at least the end of Pride and Prejudice. Yeah. And you can go to Doughty Street where Charles Dickens wrote some of his novels. Or Keats' house.

At the desk where these things happened. Amazing. It is amazing. But Charles, if I may say so, you are also looking a little bit tired. And I say to you very frequently, you need to stop. But it is our subject today. I'm going to kick off with giving you a few amazing words of some of my favorites for feeling absolutely done in.

How good. Apart from… Creuset. Ébloui. Ébloui. Absolutely. Creuset. Yeah, creuset is a brilliant one.

All of them, much nicer than knackered, which a lot of people don't like, and I don't particularly like it either. But my favourite is probably dumb fungals. Oh, good. I've heard of that. You've done that with me before. Dumb fungals. Does that actually mean knackered?

It means used up, entirely used up. So it's a great one for a Friday evening. Dumb fungals. Deepoo put it, which is a word from Scots. Say it again. up. Entirely used up. It's a great one for Friday evening. Dumb fungals. Depooperit, which is a word from Scots. Say it again. Depooperit. Depooperit. Oh, I'm right, depooperit.

And a lot of people think, oh, that must be where we get pooped from. But actually, it was originally deporperit with porper in there, as though you're completely impoverished by exhaustion. And if it's work that's causing your exhaustion, then you are entirely forswunk. Forswunk. Forswunk. F-O-R-E-S-W-U-N-K. No E in there. I reckon if you put an E in there, it would be exhausted before you even begin, which is also applicable. Ah, of course, because that for would be like in before. Yes. So, forswunk. Forswunk. F-O-R-S-W-U-N-K. Yes. Well, I will be by midnight tonight because I'm going this evening. I'm a Master of Ceremonies at a charity evening where we're trying to raise money for a statue to Dame Vera Lynn.

Oh. The famous singer who sang during, you know, We'll Meet Again during the Second World War. And this is a big event again in London that I'm the Master of Ceremonies for. So by the end of that, I will certainly be for swunk. Excellent. But what I want to do is get some sleep when I get home. Where does the word sleep come from? Okay, so yeah, let's kick off because that is our subject today. Well, it is Old English, but it is Germanic at heart and the German for sleep is schlafen. In Dutch, it's schlapen, I think. And if you take it all the way back to its very ancient roots in Proto-Indo-European, which as I always say, is the reconstructed language that is thought to be the kind of Ur-language of English and many of the languages that we know today. And there it meant to be

weakened or feeble or indeed to sleep as well, because of course, we have always slept. Do you actually enjoy sleep? Because I love it. I know that I should be unconscious during it, but it's just my favourite time of day is when I'm just drifting off. I love the beginning of sleep. I'm very good. If I have a chance today, I'm going to take a 20-minute nap before I go out to do this evening event. I do normally because I often work nights. Micronaps are really good. Yeah. And I do have a little power nap and I can go to sleep straight away. Within a couple of minutes, I'm asleep. Going to sleep in bed is not a problem. I do my evening ritual, which is to count my blessings. I go through my family, each of my children in order of age,

and then each of my grandchildren in order of age. Then I do the cat. And before, you know, I haven't got very far, and then I'm asleep. Excellent. My nightmare, oh, actually, my nightmare is having nightmares. My nightmare is waking up early. But before we get to waking up early, do you remember somebody who would come and lie on your chest or press on your chest and almost suffocate you? So it was thought to be a very kind of malevolent supernatural being that would literally sort of come and oppress you quite physically. This may explain something because, as we both know, we both have cats and we love

our cats. And Nala, our cat, is allowed to sleep on our bed. And normally, she sleeps on top of my wife. Sometimes, she clambers on top of me. And this week, she did. She slept on my chest with her little nose paintball. And actually, we hold paws. And she's very sweet. I put my hands out and she puts her paw on top of my hand, which is lovely. But for the first time in a long while, on Tuesday night, I had a nightmare. And Michelle, my wife, had to wake me up because I was sort of shouting out. Isn't that extraordinary? And maybe it was because Nala was sleeping on my chest. Maybe I'd heard you tell me that that's the origin of nightmare. And I can't remember what the night where it was about now, but how old is it? How old a word is nightmare? Oh, it's old English. So it's very old. So over a millennium old, we're talking.

So it's very old. So over a millennium old, we're talking. And dreams, is that equally old, the idea of a dream? Yes. So dream, it's very strange, the word dream, because it's got quite a complicated history. And we're not completely sure whether there were two words, dream, spelt and pronounced the same way, which meant very different things, or whether one, the one word made an incredible journey because its original meaning was joy or mirth. And as we've just discussed, not all dreams are particularly happy. We do know that in German, you've got Traum, which if you look at it, it looks very similar to dream and similar in Dutch again. But if you take that one back all the way to its origins, it might come from a root meaning to deceive or delude. I suppose that refers to maybe the fictional quality of our dreams. But in Old English, they really distinguish between different kinds. So if you hold on to

that idea of joy or mirth, they had a man dream, which was human joy. So that was the joy sourced from other people. You have a win dream, W-Y-N-N, which is almost like a joy joy, if dream means joy. It's almost tautological because win means joy or pleasure. And then my favourite was a glee dream, which is defined in the dictionary as the joy in minstrelsy. In other words, the love that comes or the happiness that comes from music. I know, it's gorgeous, isn't it? The French for dream is rêve. Yes.

And I imagine that's linked to the English word rave. And rave as well. And rave. Yes, because you rave when you're sort of delirious, almost as if you're dreaming. Oh, how interesting. Yeah. There's a kind of wandering of the mind, really, is the idea there. Explain to me, are there any English words that come from the French dormir? Well, I suppose there's dormitory, isn't there?

There's dormouse as well. So dormouse has nothing to do with doors and everything to do with the fact that it's quite sleepy. Very good. What about slumber? Oh, slumber is such a gorgeous word. And it reminds me of one of my favourites, which we don't use anymore. And that's slumy, S-L-O-O-M-Y. And slumy means slumberous, languorous, just quite sort of slow and nicely tied, I think. And slumber really is an alteration of Scots, and it actually is linked to slummy. And we added the B in slumber just to help us with pronunciation because slumber is just a little bit more difficult. So it's all about a light dose. It's a gorgeous word, slumber.

Do you sleep on your side or your back? Well, my problem is because I know you can get different pillows for different sleeping positions. My problem is I adopt every single one of them. So I'm not exclusively backside or front. But I do occasionally wake up, I'm sure I've said this to you before, with my hands, my arms crossed across my chest and lying face down into the pillow. And that is when I have the only recurrent nightmare I have, which is that I can't breathe. Oh, that is frightening. Because I literally can't. My head is in the pillow.

Oh, that is a lot. It is horrible. When I'm sleeping on my back, which I don't do much because of the risk of snoring, which we can come on to. I have two pillows when I'm on my back. But when I turn on my side, I have to put one of those pillows on the floor beside the bed because I can't cope with two pillows when I'm on my side. I think I must wiggle all night because I just seem to be pillow up, pillow down, pillow everything, which is why I could never have my cat sleep on me because it would be a nightmare for her. She wouldn't get a moment's rest. I mentioned snoring. Is the word snore, does that have an interesting etymology? Well, as you know, it's one of my favourite

words purely because in German, to snore is schnarchen, which I just absolutely love. Anyway, to snore is indeed, again, Germanic. And it's quite interesting how many words to do with noses begin with S-N, and most of them are medieval so we have the snout uh we have snoot when you cock a snoot at someone as if you're putting your thumb to some of your nose uh snooty snooty people have their noses stuck in the air snot of course snuff snuff snivel uh and snore and snort uh interchangeable for a while, actually. Snore meant a snort, and snort meant to snore. And they both imitate the sound of the action, just as schnarchen does. I have a number of times hosted the British Bed Awards, where we're saluting people who either

sell beds, make beds, import beds. And I know, therefore, there are lots of companies with interesting bed-related names. I mean, obviously, we mentioned Slumber. There is Slumberland. But there is a bedmaker, I think, called Hypnos. Yes. Now, Hypnos has got some sleep connection, hasn't it, is the word? Okay.

So, we also have Morpheus as well, but maybe we can come to Morpheus. So, Hypnos was the god of sleep, and he was the son of Nyx, N-Y-X, and that meant night. And in Greek, Hypnos, H-U-P-N-O-S, means sleep, and that's where we get hypnosis from as well, because obviously, when we're hypnotized, we are losing voluntary action, When we're hypnotized, we are losing voluntary action, and it is almost as though we are asleep and able to recover then suppressed memories and that kind of thing. And Morpheus was the son of Somnus. So we talk about something being somnificating. I think I forgot my vocabulary. But Morpheus was the god of dreams as a result, and sometimes also seen as the god of sleep, but he was in Roman mythology. Very good. Have we touched on the very

fundamental word of rest? We want rest at the end of the day. We do want rest and repose. Well, repose, obviously, straight from French, reposer. Rest has got so many different meanings. So, in the sense of stopping working or moving it actually goes back to an old english word meaning a mile or a almost a league if you like so the reference was to the distance after which a person rested and the rest that means the bit that's left over that actually goes back to the latin rest, meaning to remain or to almost stop because that gave us a rest as well. And also when people are restive, the last thing they're doing is actually resting.

They are sort of agitated, fidgety. To die, to sleep, no more. A quotation from Hamlet there, and I've been thinking about Hamlet a lot recently. I'll explain why in a moment. Of course, when we are asleep, we feel we are unconscious. I suppose we are still conscious, but we feel that we're unconscious. Where does conscious and unconscious, where do they come from? Conscious and unconscious is a really good question, actually, because once again, they have many manifestations. But if you talk about conscious in the sense of even a conscience, it is all about

knowing. So if you remember that in Latin, the verb sire, S-C-I-R-E, meant to know. So science was actually knowledge, all knowledge before it concentrated on the subjects that we know today. It also gave us conscience as well. So if you are conscious, you know. If you are unconscious, you don't know. You don't have particularly physical sensation. And then, of course, you've got the concept of the unconscious mind, which Nietzsche looked into and explored. And then you've got Freud and you've got Jung, etc., all about the unconscious and its impact on the human psyche. Do you ever get your dreams analysed? I mean, have you ever kept a dream diary? Have you ever taken an interest in what your dreams are telling you? I haven't actually, no, because I rarely remember them. How about you?

I never remember them. I mean, this being woken up by this nightmare this week, it was really quite a frightening moment. Yeah, horrible. I was calling out. And then I thought, well, what was all that about? Yeah. And I couldn't remember. Funnily enough, I then fell asleep quite quickly after having had the nightmare. I went back to sleep.

And then I woke at five, as I often do, and I lay there thinking, well, what was that nightmare about? What was the nightmare about? Do you have tricks for getting to sleep? Do you ever wake in the night or do you sleep right the way through? How many hours do you get? I wake frequently. I would say I probably wake about 10 to 20 times a night.

Really? But I go straight back to sleep. So it's a very strange thing. I kind of go up and down, up and down. And I do remember talking to Dr. Phil Hammond um who in in britain is both a comedian and a doctor actually we have a surprising number of those um adam k is another one brilliant um but some of the doctors who see me fall about laughing too but he said it may be that i'm getting normal sleep it's just where some people come up and don't quite wake up i just sort of

break through the surface and then go back down again. I thought sleep went in 90-minute cycles. Yeah. Well, maybe I wake up every hour and a half. I don't know. It feels like I wake up all the time. I think maybe we go. Because if I wake up and go to the loo, I check the clock in the bathroom.

Yeah. And it always is about 90 minutes since I was last in there. So I think I'm one of those 90-minute people. Do you wake early in the morning? Do you have, like me, is there a word for that anxiety? Yes. 5 a.m. anxiety. Oh, yes.

Do you remember this? It's one of my favorite words. It's from Old English. It's slightly difficult to pronounce, but it's something like uchtkearu. So it's U-H-T. So the U-H, the C-H there is like the the ch in loch so and then c-e-a-r-u and that is pre-dawn anxiety when everything looms large and seems disproportionately impossible yes yes oh my goodness lying awake and worrying that's essentially what it is

well why don't we take a break to give me a chance to phone my therapist to talk all this thing through, and then we can go back to sleep. Oh, I'm all for that. As you can tell, I was almost there just then. Hi, I'm Jesse Tyler Ferguson, host of the podcast Dinners on Me. I take some of my favorite people out to dinner, including, yes, my Modern Family co-stars, like Ed O'Neill, who had limited prospects outside of acting. The only thing that I had that I could have done was organize crime.

And Sofia Vergara, my very glamorous stepmom. Well, I didn't want to be comfortable. Or Julie Bowen, who had very special talents. Or my TV daughter, Aubrey Anderson-Emmons, who did her fair share of child stunts. You can listen to Dinners on Me wherever you get your podcasts. Bumble knows it's hard to start conversations. Hey. No, too basic. Hi there. Still no. What about hello, handsome?

Who knew you could give yourself the ick? That's why Bumble is changing how you start conversations. You can now make the first move or not. With opening moves, you simply choose a question to be automatically sent to your matches. Then sit back and let your matches start the chat. Download Bumble and try it for yourself. This is Something Rhymes with Purple. We've been talking about sleep, and it has made me yawn. I suppose the subject just sort of puts it into your head. Yawning. They say it's catching, I don't know whether it is. Where does the word yawn come from? Oh, yes. There is something called, I think it's echopraxis, which is that

when you unconsciously, not unconsciously, but instinctively follow someone else's bodily action. So when one person yawns, you have to do the same thing. So yawn, again, is Germanic. So in German, gehenen is to yawn, which is almost, I think, suggestive of a yawning mouth. But the reason I love this is that yawning has signaled different things over time. So when I was studying the language of emotions for one of my books, actually looking at the history of those emotions themselves and what they signified was really fascinating. So today, if we're yawning, we're sleepy or we're a bit bored possibly. But for Shakespeare's contemporaries, yawning could be astonishment. So you are open-mouthed still, but absolutely astonished. And there were many

superstitions that if you opened your mouth, you were opening yourself up to the devil. And sneezing is seen in similar ways, which is why it was said people say, bless you after you sneeze. And then French troubadours in the 12th century, in medieval times, would yawn to their beloved to demonstrate how much they were adored, which is extraordinary. It is extraordinary. Yeah. So our emotions are as fluid as we are, really, inconstant as we are anyway.

Inconstant, not inconstant. Well, if you are, my jaw drops in amazement when I see the range and quality of people who write to us from all over the world. And if you are one of those people who writes to us and you've got the surefire way of getting to sleep when you are waking with pre-dawn, that pre-dawn anxiety. What was that word again? I must remember. Uchtkearu.

Uchtkearu. Uchtkearu, yes. If you are a victim like me of uchtkearu, would you please, and you know the answer, how to get back to sleep, do please send it to us here at Something Rides With Purple, because I could do with your help. And no sarcastic messages saying, you know, of course, Susie sleeps well. She's got a clear conscience. And of course, you don't, because you haven't. So who's been in touch with us this week, Susie?

Okay, this is from Phil in Durham. Do you have one there? Hi, Susie and Giles. Being tall and large, I often find myself walking into things that are too low down or too narrow, and recently apologised for being so cumbersome. That made me think of encumbered. Can you give me any information, please, on these phrases? Is cumber a word? And if so, from what and where did it come from? Thank you, Phil from Durham. Phil from Durham. Well done. You're the best, Phil. Yes, we are very grateful for that. And yes, camber did indeed exist. It is from an old French word, encambrer, which gave us encumbrance as well, and meaning a blockage really. So encambrer is a verb meant to block up. And so it was anything that was considered to be

an obstacle. And to encamber or encumber was to cause trouble to someone again by being an obstacle or getting in the way and one of my favorite insults from a few centuries ago that i'm not sure people will get automatically so it's quite useful if you want to say something that only you will understand but have the secret revenge of saying something less than complimentary. And that's Cumberworld, which is basically a waste of space. Oh, that's a bit harsh. I know. My gosh, I don't want to overhear that being said about me.

Oh, such a Cumberworld. Say the word again so we can absorb it. It's just Cumber and then world. Cumberworld. Nothing to do with Cumberbatch, I'm sure. Benedict Cumberbatch, of course, we love. Our next letter comes from Australia. And having spent the morning with Sarah Snook and her

Australian company, who've been presenting the picture of Dorian Gray in London, I'm feeling full of Australia, love for Australia today. And all things Australian. So I'm very pleased that we've heard from Sophie from Australia. And I think she sent us a voice note. She has. Hello, team. I'm hoping you can help me understand why we don't have a phrase for something in the English language, or at least a direct translation. We're all very familiar with the phrase, bon appetit, buon appetito, guten appetit, etc. So many languages have a common phrase or a direct translation of this to say to someone

when they're about to enjoy a meal why don't we say something along the lines of good appetite in English obviously we can say something like enjoy your meal or dig in but it's not quite the same and also not something commonly said before we commence eating at least not here in Australia and not unless you are perhaps at a restaurant and your server might say this once they have given you your meal. My experience in Europe generally has been that people will wish me a good napetit or bon appetit, even if they're not actually serving my meal or even eating with me.

It's a nice thing to do, but I don't feel like it's something we do terribly much in English. And I was wondering if there was any particular reason for this. Perhaps not, but I thought it could be worth asking. Thanks, Sophie from Australia. It's certainly worth asking because I'm sure that Susie Dent has the answer. Do you? Well, sort of.

I think perhaps it's because we have always slightly looked down upon food that is produced by English speakers, shall we say. Unfairly, absolutely. But we've always looked to certainly other countries in Europe for kind of exotic cuisine, et cetera. And as I always say, the Norman conquerors were seen as being, obviously, they were resented, but equally, they were stylish and powerful and, you know, the nobility, etc. And so, their food tastes may, and indeed, their food offerings may have

encouraged us to use bon appétit, you would think. But actually, when I looked at the date for when we started to use bon appétit as a salutation before eating, It was as late as 1860. So yeah, quite late in the day. And before then, in the Middle Ages, we would sometimes say proface, P-R-O-F-A-C-E, but it's spelt like pro-face. Not a particularly nice word, but that was an expression of welcome or good wishes at a dinner. And essentially it was, may it do you good. May it be to your advantage in a way. And this does seem to have come from Norman French. And in that case, it's bon, pru, le, fasse. In other words, or bon, pru, vous fasse, may it do you good. Fasse there is the kind of imperative of faire in French. So we had that for a little while.

May it do you good. But obviously, bon appétit is much pithier. And if you do take that bon prou vous fast or pro fast, it is very similar to a drinking salutation that we have and from German, which was Prost, which is P-R-O-S-I-T. And as I say, that's used as a toast, but ultimately goes back to Latin, may it benefit you, may it be to your advantage. So those two kind of run in parallel and are very similar formulations. I don't have the exact answer as to why we turned French, but I think it was almost certainly in part because French is fashionable and cool.

And you know, when I was a boy a long time ago, English restaurants were not considered particularly good. I mean, there were some grand restaurants, but English cuisine was not noted, whereas French cuisine was considered the ultimate. Yeah. And also there were Italian restaurants. So I think it's quite understandable.

You didn't go out to an English restaurant. You went out, if you were lucky, to a French restaurant, an Italian restaurant, maybe a Spanish restaurant, or actually a Chinese or Indian restaurant. What do they say in Chinese and Indian restaurants that's equivalent to bon appétit, I wonder? Very good point. I actually don't know, but some of our Purple listeners will, I'm sure, and they can let us know. Yes. If you are in China, do feel free to let us know what people say instead of bon appétit in old Beijing. And of course, we know we have a lot of listeners in India. Well, also, I suspect we have a lot of Chinese and Indian people and Hindi speakers, etc.

And, you know, here. So please do let us know because we would love to know if it's just us who are the exceptions. Does it slightly irritate you? It shouldn't irritate me, but it does. When the server very kindly comes back and says, how are your meals? Yes. If they're just a little bit too attentive, it can be really annoying because you're just mostly mid-mouthful, aren't you?

And you can only sort of nod. It's the use of the word meals. How are your meals? Oh, meals. It's sort of, you know, how's it going? But anyway, that's just me. I'm very grateful to be fed anywhere. Yeah, we're lucky. Lovely. Now, where are the three words, the three interesting, unusual old words of the week coming from? actually to something I've already covered when we were talking about conscience and conscious and unconscious. And it's nescience, but it's spelled N-E, science. And as I say, science was

all about knowledge, and nescience is an absence of knowledge, or put slightly less kindly, ignorance. Nescience. But it sounds rather lovely. I'm not sure if I've told you about this before, but I hear that it does exist. As many people know, whenever there's a new phobia, we look to Greek to come up with a word for it. And a phobophobia is a fear. It's a fear of being afraid, essentially. A phobia of phobias. That's clever.

The phobophobia. It's a bit silly. Phobophobia. Fantastic phobophobia. I like it. And speaking of food, as we were a second ago, chickens, if you see them scurrying around and scratching at the earth for some food or for some seed, they are rasorial. R-A-S-O-R-I-A-L. And it means characteristically scratching the ground for food. Very good.

Well, three interesting words. And if ever you can't remember the words or you are puzzled about the spelling because we've rattled through them too quickly, don't forget Susie's trio can be found in the programme description blurb with each episode, along, in fact, with the title and author of my poem. Yes. And this week, I have been thinking a lot, Susie, about William Shakespeare. Of course. Marvelling about William Shakespeare. It began because I wrote this biography of Sir John

Gielgud, great 20th century actor. I was lucky enough to know him, the great English classical actor of the 20th century. And I've been thinking about him because there's a play that's just been on in London that's won awards. You can see it on NT Live in this country. I think it's going to New York, but catch it with you can, called The Motive and the Cue. It's a phrase from Shakespeare's play Hamlet. And the play is, it's a modern play, and it's about the famous 1964 production in New York of Hamlet, directed by Sir John Gielgud and starring Richard Burton.

And the play is very interesting and it's beautifully performed, particularly by Mark Gatiss, who plays John Gielgud. Oh, he's amazing, yeah. And he won the Olivier Award for it. When my new friend Sarah Snook won her award, Marla Gatiss, he won his award for playing John Gielgud.

And it's all about Hamlet. And Richard Burton played Hamlet more often. He's the most, the longest running Hamlet in the history of Broadway was performed by John Gielgud. The person who played Hamlet most in the 20th century in the UK was probably Sir John Gielgud. The person who played Hamlet most in the 20th century in the UK was probably Sir John Gielgud, because he played it at least four times. But the person who has played, who is alive, who's been in more productions of Hamlet than any other actor who is also alive, is the actor Sir Derek Jacobi, who was a wonderful Hamlet. So I've been thinking about Hamlet,

and as I think you know, Susie, a few years ago, in 2017, I appeared in a production wonderful Hamlet. So I've been thinking about Hamlet. And as I think you know, Susie, a few years ago in 2017, I appeared in a production of Hamlet. Did you come to see it? I didn't come to see it. I wish I had. It was an experimental Hamlet, which we did within our own family. I have a son who is a great authority on Shakespeare and indeed on language and on rhetoric. He's a barrister by trade, but he does some acting. And we put on a production of Hamlet, three people in it. It was a family Hamlet. We pared it down to the family relationships. And my son, Bennett, he played Hamlet, but his wife,

who is a professional actress and brilliant and quite well-known, she played the women, you know, Gertrude and Ophelia, but she also played Laertes, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern. Wow. And I played the older men, Claudius and Polonius, and the ghost of Hamlet's father. Anyway, we did this in the Park Theatre in London, and it was, you know, some people really liked it. And anyway, it was filmed. And we came across the film the other day of it. And we thought, well, it's Shakespeare's birthday on the 23rd of April. And people are talking about some of the great Hamlets. We don't pretend ours is that. But it's an interesting experiment of three people doing this production of Hamlet with some very distinguished directors, a man called Simon Evans, David Aula. They were

our directors. And so we put it out on YouTube. So I've been thinking about Hamlet and watching it again. I thought, my gosh, there's so much in Hamlet about sleep. Well, in lots of Shakespeare's plays, sleep forms a key theme element. And I thought, of course, and there's even sonnets about sleep. So since sleep has been our theme today, I picked out Sonnet 27, which is Shakespeare's great sonnet that touches upon sleep. Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed. The dear repose for limbs with travel tired. But then begins a journey in my head when body's works expired.

For then my thoughts from far where I abide intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee, and keep my drooping eyelids open wide, looking on darkness which the blind do see, save that my soul's imaginary sight presents thy shadow to my sightless view, which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night, makes black night beauteous and her old face new. Lo, thus by day my limbs, by night my mind, for thee and for myself no quiet find. Beautiful. Well, there quiet find. Beautiful.

Well, there you go. Just beautiful. A love sonnet that's also a poem about the nature of sleep. Fascinating. It is. Great man, Shakespeare. Isn't it extraordinary? Oh, my goodness.

And you know he did it all with a goose feather. Fantastic. Well, we hope that you enjoyed today, too, and that we haven't actually sent you to sleep. If you love the show, please keep following us wherever you get your podcasts. You can find us on social media at Something Rhymes on Twitter and Facebook or at Something Rhymes With on Instagram. Something Rhymes with Purple is a Sony Music Entertainment production. It was produced by Naya Dia with additional production from Jennifer Mystery, Olly Wilson. with additional production from Jennifer Mystery,

Olly Wilson, and he's back for hopefully more than one time only. It is Gully.