Oldalképek
PDF
ePub

THE TWO QUEENS-NIGHT AND
BEAUTY.

HANG there, my verse, in witness of my love :
And, thou, thrice-crowned queen of night,

survey

With thy chaste eye, from thy pale sphere above,

Thy huntress' name, that my full life doth

sway.

O Rosalind! these trees shall be my books,

And in their barks my thoughts I'll character; That every eye, which in this forest looks,

Shall see thy virtue witness'd every where.
Run, run, Orlando; carve, on every tree,
The fair, the chaste, and unexpressive she.

AS YOU LIKE IT, A. 3, s. 2.

THE TYRANT'S LAST MOMENTS.
MACBETH. Hang out our banners on the

outward walls;

The cry is still, They come! Our castle's strength Will laugh a siege to scorn: here let them lie, Till famine, and the ague, eat them up.

Were they not forc'd with those that should be

[blocks in formation]

The time has been, my senses would have cool'd

[ocr errors]

To hear a night-shriek; and my fell of hair
Would at a dismal treatise rouse, and stir
As life were in't: I have supp'd full with
horrors;

Direness, familiar to my slaught'rous thoughts, Cannot once start me.-Wherefore was that cry?

SEY. The queen, my lord, is dead.

MACB. She should have died hereafter; There would have been a time for such a word.— To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.

MACBETH, A. 5, s. 5.

THE UBIQUITY OF THE MIND. My wind, cooling my broth, Would blow me to an ague, when I thought What harm a wind too great might do at sea. I should not see the sandy hour-glass run, But I should think of shallows and of flats And see my wealthy Andrew dock'd in sand, Vailing her high-top lower than her ribs, To kiss her burial. Should I go to church, And see the holy edifice of stone,

And not bethink me straight of dangerous rocks? Which touching but my gentle vessel's side,

Would scatter all her spices on the stream;
Enrobe the roaring waters with my
silks;

And, in a word, but even now worth this,
And now worth nothing?

thought

Shall I have the

To think on this; and shall I lack the thought,

That such a thing, bechanc'd, would make me

sad?

MERCHANT Of venice, a. 1, s. 1.

TRUTH NOT ALWAYS PLEASANT.

THY truth then be thy dower:

For, by the sacred radiance of the sun;
The mysteries of Hecate, and the night;
By all the operations of the orbs,
From whom we do exist, and cease to be;
Here I disclaim all my paternal care,
Propinquity and property of blood,
And as a stranger to my heart and me
Hold thee, from this, for ever.

KING LEAR, A. 1, s. 1.

THE UNION OF NATURE AND ART.

THE barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne, Burn'd on the water: the poop was beaten gold; Purple the sails, and so perfumed, that

The winds were love-sick with them: the oars were silver;

Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made

The water, which they beat, to follow faster,

As amorous of their strokes.

person,

For her own

It beggar'd all description: she did lie
In her pavilion, (cloth of gold, of tissue,)
O'er-picturing that Venus, where we see,
The fancy out-work nature: on each side her,
Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,
With divers colour'd fans, whose wind did seem
To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,
And what they undid, did.

Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides,

So many mermaids, tended her i'the eyes,
And made their bends adornings: at the helm
A seeming mermaid steers; the silken tackle
Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands,
That yarely frame the office. From the barge
A strange invisible pérfume hits the sense
Of the adjacent wharfs. The city cast
Her people out upon her; and Antony,
Enthron'd i'the market-place, did sit alone,
Whistling to the air; which, but for vacancy,
Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too,
And made a gap in nature.

Upon her landing, Antony sent to her,
Invited her to supper: she replied,

It should be better, he became her guest;
Which she entreated: our courteous Antony,
Whom ne'er the word of No woman heard speak,
Being barber'd ten times o'er, goes to the feast;
And, for his ordinary, pays his heart,

For what his eyes eat only.

I saw her once

Hop forty paces through the publick street: And having lost her breath, she spoke, and panted,

That she did make defect, perfection,

And, breathless, power breathe forth.
Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety: Other women

Cloy th' appetites they feed; but she makes hungry,

Where most she satisfies. For vilest things
Become themselves in her.

ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA, A. 2, s. 2.

THE UNITY OF FAITH WHERE
TRUE LOVE LIVES.

WHEN Proteus cannot love where he's belov'd.
Read over Julia's heart, thy first best love,
For whose dear sake thou didst then rend thy
faith

Into a thousand oaths; and all those oaths
Descended into perjury, to love me.

Thou hast no faith left now, unless thou had'st

two,

And that's far worse than none; better have

none

Than plural faith, which is too much by one:
Thou counterfeit to thy true friend!

TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA, A. 5, s. 4.

THE UNSEASONED IN TIME OF

DANGER.

THE devil damn thee black, thou cream-fac'd loon,

Where got'st thou that goose look?

Go prick thy face, and over-red thy fear,

« ElőzőTovább »