Shakespeare could soon be taking the place of spam text messages on your mobile phone.

A small British company has launched a service for lovers of the Bard that will send them a pithy quote from Shakespeare's works every day in return for a small fee.

The Shake-Me text service could make a welcome change from the slick, marketing messages many people are regularly receiving on their handset.

Subscribers can sign up for a day, a week or a month.

Word play

The Shakespeare-by-text service was originally supposed to be launched in mid-2002 but has been delayed while the company developed allied services, said Dahlan Lassale, founder of the Text-Me company.

I speak amazedly; and it becomes my marvel and my message The Winter's Tale

Subscribers can choose to receive amazing facts, riddles, superstitions or even have affectionate poems sent to a person of their choosing.

Anyone signing up to the Shake-Me service gets a short quote from a sonnet, poem or play of Shakespeare sent via text message to their mobile phone every working day.

The Shake-Me text service costs �1 for one day, �3 for one week and �6 for one month.

In 2001 Text-Me launched the Poem-Me service which sent text-message-sized verses from published poet Fredrik Lloyd to subscribers.

Poet and riddle maker Emmanuel Williams has also been signed up to provide verses and conundrums for Text-Me.