QUIZZICAL QUEENS: Who's Who?

Today, sees the start of Britain's four day Queen-fest, in celebration of Her Majesty's Diamond Jubilee! There are a great many activities for the amusement of her loyal subjects in the United Kingdom, as can be seen from the The Diamond Jubilee Official Website and the The British Monarchy Ditto Ditto.  

However...  just in case the summer ends as suddenly as it began and there's more raining than reigning; or, lest your TV unexpectedly go on the blink, the Sibley blog offers you an alternative diversion: a right royal quiz!



Here are thirty quotes about queens in history, literature and music, on stage and film. How many crowned heads can you identify?


The answers will be published on Tuesday 5 June. Meanwhile Joyous Jubilations to one and all – but especially to Her Oneness!

So... here come those quotes...

"I may have the body of a weak and feeble woman.
But I have the heart and stomach of a concrete elephant."

"The important thing is not what they think of me,
but what I think of them."

   

"I'll give thee fairies to attend on thee,

And they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep,

And sing while thou on pressed flowers dost sleep..."

"Where do you come from and where are you going? Look up, speak nicely and don't twiddle your fingers all the time."

"For six years, this year, and this, and this, and this, 

I did not love him. And then I did. Then I was his. 

I can count the days I was his in hundreds... The days we bedded.

Married. Were Happy. Bore Elizabeth. Hated. Lusted.

Bore a dead child... which condemned me... to death."

"You must learn, child, that what would be wrong for you or for any of the common people is not wrong in a great Queen such as I. The weight of the world is on our shoulders. We must be freed from all rules. Ours is a high and lonely destiny."

"The vengeance of Hell boils in my heart,

Death and despair flame about me!

If Sarastro does not through you feel

The pain of death,

Then you will be my daughter nevermore."

"I've got the stuff that you want,

I've got the thing that you need,

I've got more than enough

to make you drop to your knee..."

"You are a member of the British royal family.
We are never tired, and we all love hospitals."

 

"The shaft's twisted like a corkscrew and
there's a blade gone off the prop."

"Come on, smile and wave. That's what you get paid for.
Smile and wave."

"I was a queen, and you took away my crown;
a wife, and you killed my husband;
a mother, and you deprived me of my children.
My blood alone remains: take it, but do not make me suffer long."

"I'm sure I'll take you with pleasure! Twopence a week,
and jam every other day."

"How small and selfish is sorrow. But it bangs one about
until one is senseless."

"And she gave the king an hundred and twenty talents of gold, and of spices very great store, and precious stones: there came no more such abundance of spices as these which –––––––– gave to –––––––.

She was so beautiful and delicate, but she was of ice, of dazzling, sparkling ice; yet she lived; her eyes gazed fixedly, like two stars;
but there was neither quiet nor repose in them."

"I would rather be a beggar and single than a queen and married."

"On fire that glows

With heat intense

I turn the hose

Of common sense

And out it goes

At small expense!"

"For you and for your heirs... on one condition.
Do not fade. Do not wither. Do not grow old."

"She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes

In shape no bigger than an agate stone

On the forefinger of an alderman..."

"There are never enough hours in the days of a queen,
and her nights have too many."

"The silence at last was broken!

We flung wide our prison door.

Ev'ry joyous word of love was spoken.

And now there's twice as much grief,

Twice the strain for us;

Twice the despair,

Twice the pain for us

As we had known before."

"What family doesn't have its ups and downs?"

"Now, a formula to transform my beauty into ugliness.
Change my queenly raiment to a peddler's cloak...
Mummy dust, to make me old.
To shroud my clothes, the black of night. 
To age my voice, an old hag's cackle.
To whiten my hair, a scream of fright.
A blast of wind to fan my hate.
A thunderbolt to mix it well.
Now, begin thy magic spell."

"No, no! Sentence first – verdict afterwards."

"It is not as a woman descended from noble ancestry,
but as one of the people that I am avenging lost freedom,
my scourged body, the outraged chastity of my daughters.
If you weigh well the strength of the armies, and the causes of the war, you will see that in this battle you must conquer or die. This is a woman's resolve; as for men, they may live and be slaves."

 "I forgive you with all my heart. I thank you even. I hope this death shall put an end to all my troubles. For in my end is my beginning."

"Behold me, lovely as no woman was or is, undying and half-divine; memory haunts me from age to age, and passion leads me by the hand – evil I have done, and from age to age evil shall I do, and sorrow shall I know till my redemption comes."

"Many people

Think that 

Marmalade

Is nicer.

Would you like to try a little

Marmalade

Instead?"

"The British Constitution has always been puzzling and always will be."

Image of the Queen: Press Association