School reading and Shakespeare

As everybody knows, I read a lot (warning: this is an understatement). But literature for school this year isn't like anything I've ever read before.I'm doing Ancient History/Lit, which means reading stuff like Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, The Histories by Herodotus, and Sophocles' Antigone. As you can see, some of it actually is ancient. Which is cool, but doesn't necessarily make things easier. I've already gotten a little bit ahead and read Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw and Antigone. Both of which were very good, though infinitely different from one another, Pygmalion being an early 20th century comedy, and Antigone being a tragedy from sometime in the 4th century B.C. (I think). Pygmalion was funny and fun to read. Antigone is neat because it's so old and poetic and tragic.
I've been working my way through Antony and Cleopatra. Shakespeare is great, but it's so much easier to understand when you're watching other people do it, not reading it yourself. It's more understandable if you read it aloud, but then I have to act out every part and say every line just right. If I don't, I get frustrated and go back to reading in my head, and then it's harder to understand!! Oh pity me in my Shakespeare woes!
I DO enjoy reading Tales of Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb. In the 1700's this brother sister duo wrote several of Shakespeare's plays into short story format. It was their only successful work. It made his plays really clear to people for the first time and made him really popular. I've read a bunch of the "tales". I definitely suggest reading the version in this book before attacking the real thing. It makes the stories a lot easier to understand. Unfortunately, ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA ISN'T IN THERE!!!!! Just my luck! But I do love reading all the other ones. I've read Macbeth, A Winter's Tale, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Merchant of Venice, and one or two more. Shakespeare does repeat some of the same ideas, though. You know how the friar gives Juliet that potion to make her seem dead for 48 hours? Imogen does more or less the exact same thing in Cymbeline, except that that innocent lady didn't know what it would do. She thought it was a cure-all type thing.
Jack is nagging me, and I have more important things to do anyways. (Don't we all?) Bye!