To Be or Not to Be: Horoscopes by Shakespeare

To be or not to be is the question Shakespeare put to the universe in 1600, and the universe has been dodging it ever since. Shakespeare left behind more than 1,700 words and phrases still circulating in daily conversation, several have been quietly governing your behavior, your decision-making, and your relationship with the drill you lent your brother-in-law for longer than you realizes. Your ruling cliché has been waiting. It is not waiting patiently.

♈ Aries (3/21 – 4/19) … “All That Glitters Is Not Gold” — The Merchant of Venice
The week opens well. A recruiter in Scottsdale slides into your LinkedIn with an opportunity described as “ground-floor,” “disruptive,” and “equity-adjacent.” The office is in a WeWork that still has the previous tenant’s motivational posters. The kombucha on tap ran out last month. Your ruling cliché has been trying to reach you about your car’s extended warranty and also ajob offer. Decline both.

♉ Taurus (4/20 – 5/20) … “To Thine Own Self Be True” — Hamlet
A wellness influencer interprets this as permission to post a forty-seven-slide deck about her “authentic self” which turns out to own four air fryers and no opinions. You are not her. Your authentic self has a position on things. This week it has a position on the noise your upstairs neighbor makes at midnight that can be summarized in fewer than forty-seven slides, most of them nonpunishable.

♊ Gemini (5/21 – 6/21) … “The Lady Doth Protest Too Much” — Hamlet
A colleague in a Zoom meeting describes himself as “not a competitive person” eleven times in forty minutes while block-scheduling the Q3 review over your vacation. He is a competitive person. You have known this since the fantasy football draft of 2019. Your ruling cliché asks only that you keep the receipts. Polonius, who coined the original observation, was stabbed through a curtain. The meeting is at two.

♋ Cancer (6/22 – 7/22) … “All the World’s a Stage” — As You Like It
That stage is in a Chili’s bar area in Chattanooga at seven-fifteen on a Tuesday night, and the players are a man narrating his fantasy team to no one in particular, a woman FaceTiming her dentist, and a bartender named Trent who has heard everything. You are not any of these people. You are the one in the corner reading Cormac McCarthy, which is its own kind of performance. Jacques noted that all seven ages end in oblivion. Trent gets off at nine.

♌ Leo (7/23 – 8/22) ,,, “Good Riddance” — Troilus and Cressida
Your ex’s new podcast he podcast is called Authentic Frequency and is released every Thursday from a walk-in closet in Burbank with quilts on the walls for acoustics. Episode forty-one is about letting go. You are mentioned in episode forty-one. You are not mentioned by name, but everyone knows. Your ruling cliché has been watching this from the beginning and would like you to note that Shakespeare coined this phrase as a dismissal, not a farewell tour.

♍ Virgo (8/23 – 9/22) … “Wild Goose Chase” — Romeo and Juliet
You spend today attempting to find the original receipt for a ceiling fan purchased during the Biden administration. The hunt takes you through four email accounts, a kitchen drawer containing rubber bands with the structural integrity of memory, and a shoe box that has its own postcode in your organizational system. Mercutio invented this phrase to mock Romeo. Romeo did not find the receipt either.

♎ Libra (9/23 – 10/23) … “Break the Ice” — The Taming of the Shrew
A networking event in Minneapolis requires you to introduce yourself to eleven strangers using a question printed on a laminated card. The card says: If you were a kitchen appliance, what would you be and why? You say a chest freezer. The room goes quiet. You meant it as a compliment to yourself. Your ruling cliché notes that Katherine broke the ice by throwing things. This remains an option.

♏ Scorpio (10/24 – 11/21) … “Foregone Conclusion” — Othello
The constellation of Poor Decisions passes through the House of Online Reviews, and you leave a one-star rating for a diner in Tulsa that has been operating since 1967. The owner’s name is Earl. Earl has survived three recessions, a tornado, and the introduction of avocado toast to the menu. Iago coined your ruling cliché while engineering a man’s psychological collapse. Earl will be fine. The eggs were fine. The tip was the problem.

♐ Sagittarius (11/22 – 12/21) … “There Is Method in the Madness” — Hamlet
A life coach explains that your chaotic sleep schedule, incompatible streaming subscriptions, and dinner consisting of crackers over a sink is actually a “flow state.” You are skeptical. Your ruling cliché was coined by Polonius, who was hiding behind a curtain at the time and was also, within the hour, stabbed. The method is unclear. The madness has a Hulu login and crackers.

♑ Capricorn (12/22 – 1/19) … “Wear Your Heart on Your Sleeve” — Othello
You do not wear your heart on your sleeve. You keep it in a document on a laptop with a password no one will ever guess because it is the street name from a town you lived in briefly in 1994 and never discussed. Iago introduced this phrase as a warning against exactly that kind of legibility. You and Iago have more in common than the compatibility charts suggest. This is a compliment. Mostly.

♒ Aquarius (1/20 – 2/18) … “Brave New World” — The Tempest
Miranda spoke this line upon seeing other human beings for the first time after years of isolation on an enchanted island. You spoke its equivalent upon discovering that your grocery store now has a self-checkout lane that requires a loyalty card, a phone number, a PIN, and permission to “personalize your experience,” which means sending you coupons for yogurt. The island had its problems. Miranda did not have a points balance.

♓ Pisces (2/19 – 3/20) … “Neither a Borrower nor a Lender Be” — Hamlet
You lent your brother-in-law a DeWalt drill in 2021. He lives in Phoenix now. You have not asked about the drill because asking about the drill makes you the person who asks about the drill. Polonius delivered this advice as wisdom. Polonius was also dead by Act II, and there is no record of whether he ever got his drill back. File the DeWalt under foregone conclusions. Scorpio has the number.

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