"Exit, pursued by a bear" is a stage direction from Shakespeare’s "The Winter’s Tale" that is infamous for its hilarity and difficulty to stage. It's one of the best literary inside jokes (welcome to the club!). 

Generally, Shakespeare limited his stage directions to the most basic instructions - [Exit Hamlet], [Enter Ophelia], [Dies] - simple enough. But in this particular direction, a lot of things happen at once without any warning or supporting dialogue. Antigonus has been tasked with abandoning the baby Perdita in a desolate place, but he's having second thoughts. Suddenly a storm wrecks his ship, and then… he "exits, pursued by a bear." 

Wait WHAT? So, apparently there’s a bear in the woods, and it has entered. Hungry. Without so much as an “O help!” he is chased off stage and dispatched. How can this sudden deluge of violence and fur not be funny? How do you stage it without destroying the tone of the scene? Do you embrace the surprise and have a little fun? 

We went with “a little fun” and for this illustration, a bear materializes out of the woods without warning and "just because."

Wait, we can explain. It began when we asked our super-smart-Shakespeare-scholar friend what her favorite quotation was. We promised to illustrate it no matter what. Apparently, she took it as a challenge. Her answer?:  "What, you egg!" [Stabs him]. 

Challenge accepted. 

We could tell you how pivotal this line is to the progression of Macbeth. We could go on about how brilliant all of the bird metaphors are leading up to the moment when Macduff's son is stabbed by Macbeth's super-evil henchmen. We could wax poetic about all the deep symbolism and stuff. But sorry Will, nothing - NOTHING - can undo the accidental comedy of calling someone an egg, and then stabbing them.

For this illustration, we represent Macbeth's domination of Scotland with a crowned medieval helmet placed on top of the country's map. The map is colored with the tartan plaid of clan Macduff.

BUT WAIT! The helmet and map double as a fork and fried egg.

In Shakespeare’s plays, the rich and powerful are sometimes clueless, and the penniless “fools” are often the smartest guys in the room. Sound familiar? 

In our illustration we used a king and jester to represent the wise and foolish respectively. We then used text as a device to represent the quality of their thinking.

In contrast to his outward appearance, the fools’ thoughts are rich and dense, forming an elaborate jeweled crown. Likewise, the king’s are sparse and simplistic, forming a jester’s hat. 

The idea of the "witty fool" reminds us of Socrates' famous quotation "I know that I know nothing." Wisdom begins with knowing you're a fool, and we see this quotation as a challenge to engage the world with real curiosity, humility, and openness. As far as the arrogance and self confidence of the "foolish wit" - well let's just do our best to avoid that stuff, shall we? 

If you want to enjoy yourself, you’ve got to go big or go home! Seriously, it’s the law now.

Although little is known of the historical figure Jack Cade, Shakespeare had fun bringing him to life in the Henry VI trilogy. As he depicts it, Cade’s bumbling rebellion against the king in 1450 is chock full of political tropes that sadly still resonate today. 

Cade is a man of the people, yet he pontificates about his royal lineage. He promises to foster universal brotherhood, yet aspires to be worshipped as “lord.” And he’s all for worker’s rights, so long as they work for free. But when it comes to prosperity by fiat decree, nothing he says compares to the lunacy of outlawing small beers.

Sadly he never wins the throne, so we’ll never know what utopian dreams may come - where one is compelled to consume more alcohol, read less, and kill all the lawyers (we’ll save that last one for another day).

In our illustration, we combine a hefty pint of the strong stuff with the full legal force of “the law” - in this case a judge’s gavel which has smashed an inadequately sized drink. 

This line belongs to Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. 

One of Shakespeare's most popular troublemakers, Puck lures unsuspecting characters into the woods by imitating the voices of their lovers. Spells are cast, chaos ensues, and none of the characters are ever aware they are being toyed with.  

We spent some time brainstorming the things that make fools of us all, and boy was that a long list. But ultimately nothing can compete with the allure of our glowing screens. What a farce it is to stare at our phones, caress the glass, and mistake it for good company. 

Puck was able to trick a lover or two, but even he would marvel at technology's ability to make mischief at scale. 

In this illustration, windows reveal two isolated figures trapped in tiny, glowing rectangles, all composed of isolated smart phones. The ground level phones invite you to enter the complex where humans check in but they don’t check out.

This knee-slapper is spoken by conman/rogue/all-around-ne'er-do-well Autolycus in The Winter's Tale. Despite its age, it feels perpetually fresh, and we love how it reminds us of some certain politicians (hell, most of them).

But while the speaker and the sentiment are pretty cynical, there's a humbling lesson in it as well: that even compulsive liars sometimes speak the truth, which is what makes them so high maintenance.  

In our illustration, we went with that familiar deception-machine, the broken watch, which manages to tell the truth twice a day (maybe even thrice when Daylight Savings ends!).

Politicians everywhere should be thoroughly impressed with such impressive levels of truth-telling.