(Members applaud and murmur “aye, aye”)
LADY MACBETH: (looking about) Juliet, do I see you wish to speak?
JULIET: Madam President, Romeo says the plaintain leaf is most excellent for healing bruises, why not grow that? And Friar Lawrence knows many precious juic-ed flowers that kill the poisons of baleful weeds. Such weeds as the mandrake that shrieks like living mortals when torn from the earth. And surely we must have a pomegranate tree, for Romeo and I both know that the nightingale loves to sing in the branches, and the nightingale sings far sweeter than the lark.
JESSICA: Oh you romantic child, still thinking of your honeymoon.
LADY MACBETH: Ladies, your approval? (Applause and “ayes”)
OPHELIA: (very timidly) Madam President?
KATHERINE: (aside) Have we to listen to Ophelia? Everyone knows she hath bats in her belfry.
ROSALIND: Hush, Kate, Hamlet hath changed her mind since they were wed, she’s sane enough now.
KATHERINE: Hamlet and Petrucio must be of the same kin, Petrucio made me change some, forsooth.
OPHELIA: (in louder tones) Madam President.