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'Tis yet to know,

(Which, when I know that boasting is an honour,
I shall promulgate,) I fetch my life and being
From men of royal siege; and my demerits
May speak, unbonnetted, to as proud a fortune
As this that I have reach'd.

Alas, why would you heap those cares on me?
I am unfit for state and majesty :—
I do beseech you, take it not amiss;
I cannot, nor I will not, yield to you.

Heaven knows, I had no such intent;

But that necessity so bow'd the state,
That I and greatness were compell'd to kiss.

The name of Cassius honours this corruption,
And chastisement doth therefore hide his head.

Who will believe thee, Isabel ?

My unsoil'd name, the austereness of my life, My vouch against you, and my place i' the state, Will so your accusation over-weigh,

That you shall stifle in your own report,

And smell of calumny.

But I was born so high,

Our aiery buildeth in the cedar's top,

And dallies with the wind, and scorns the sun.

These signs have mark'd me extraordinary;
And all the courses of my life do show
I am not in the roll of common men.

A faulcon, tow'ring in her pride of place,
Was by a mousing owl, hawk'd at, and kill'd.

GRIEF.

Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadows.
Which show like grief itself, but are not so:
For sorrow's eye, glazed with blinding tears,
Divides one thing entire, to many objects.

When sorrows come, they come not single spies,
But in battalions.

One woe doth tread upon another's heel,
So fast they follow.

Sorrow breaks seasons, and reposing hours,
Makes the night morning, and the noon-tide night.

Some grief shews much of love;

But much of grief shews still some want of wit.

To mourn a mischief that is
past and gone,
Is the next way to draw new mischief on.

For gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite
The man that mocks at it, and sets it light.

The robb'd that smiles, steals something from the thief;
He robs himself, that spends a bootless grief.

Grief fills the room up of my absent child;
Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me;
Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,
Remembers me of all his gracious parts,
Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form;
Then, have I reason to be fond of grief.

Why, let the stricken deer go weep,
The heart ungalled play:

For some must watch, while some must sleep;
Thus runs the world away.

F

Sorrow, and grief of heart,

Make him speak fondly, like a frantic man.

The thorny point

Of bare distress hath ta'en from me the show

Of smooth civility.

O, that this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd

His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God!
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable

Seem to me all the uses of this world!

Fie on't! O fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank, and gross in nature,
Possess it merely.

It is not, nor it cannot come to, good :

But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue!

I am sick of this false world; and will love nought
But even the mere necessities upon it.

Then, Timon, presently prepare thy grave;
Lie where the light foam of the sea may beat
Thy grave stone daily.

I am the most unhappy woman living,
Shipwreck'd upon a kingdom, where no pity,
No friends, no hope; no kindred weep for me,
Almost, no grave allow'd me.

Such a want-wit sadness makes of me,
That I have much ado to know myself.

In sooth, I know not why I am so sad;
It wearies me; you say, it wearies you :
But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,
What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born,
I am to learn.

A heavier task could not have been impos'd,
Than I to speak my griefs unspeakable.

Would I could answer

This comfort with the like! But I have words,
That would be howl'd out in the desert air,
Where hearing should not latch them.

You see me here, you Gods, a poor

old man,

As full of grief as age; wretched in both!

O heaven! a beast that wants discourse, or reason,
Would have mourn'd longer.

He rais'd a sigh so piteous and profound,
As it did seem to shatter all his bulk,

And end his being.

What say you now? What comfort have we now?
By heaven, I'll hate him everlastingly,

That bids me be of comfort any more.

Had he the motive and the cue for passion,
That I have, he would drown the stage with tears,
And cleave the general ear with horrid speech;
Make mad the guilty, and appal the free,
Confound the ignorant; and amaze, indeed,
The very faculties of eyes and ears.

Most subject is the fattest soil to weeds;
And he, the noble image of my youth,
Is over-spread with them: therefore my grief
Stretches itself beyond the hour of death.

Why do you keep alone,

Of sorriest fancies your companions making?
Using those thoughts, which should indeed have dy'd
With them they think on? Things without all remedy
Should be without regard: what's done, is done.

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'Tis sweet, and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,
To give these mourning duties to your father :
But, you must know your father lost a father;
That father lost, lost his; and the survivor bound
In filial obligation, for some term

To do obsequious sorrow: But to persevere
In obstinate condolement, is a course

Of impious stubbornness; 'tis unmanly grief.

I am a man,

More sinn'd against, than sinning.

There's matter in these sighs; these profound heaves You must translate: 'tis fit we understand them.

There's something in his soul,

O'er which his melancholy sits on brood;
And, I do doubt, the hatch, and the disclose,
Will be some danger.

Nor doth the general care
Take hold on me; for my particular grief
Is of so flood-gate and o'er bearing nature,
That it engluts and swallows other sorrows,
And it is still itself.

But let not therefore my good friends be griev'd,
Nor construe any further my neglect,
Than that poor Brutus, with himself at war,
Forgets the shews of love to other men.

A heavy heart bears not an humble tongue;
Excuse me so, coming so short of thanks.

I found her, straying in the park,
Seeking to hide herself; as doth the deer,
That hath receiv'd some unrecuring wound.

Like a cloistress, she will veiled walk,
And water once a day her chamber round
With eye-offending brine.

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