то THE
-If the deed were ill,
Be you contented, wearing now the garland,
To have a fon fet your decrees at nought;
To pluck down juftice from your awful bench;
To trip the courfe of law, and blunt the fword
That guards the peace and fafety of your perfon
Nay, more, to fpurn at your most royal image,
And mock your workings in a second body:
Question your royal thoughts, make the cafe yours;
Be now the father, and propofe a fon;
Hear your own dignity fo much profan'd,
See your moft dreadful laws fo loosely flighted;
Behold yourself fo by a fon difdain'd;
And then imagine me taking your part,
And in your power fo filencing your fon.
Henry IV. Part II. A. 5. Sc. 2.
To be, or not to be; that is the question:-
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to fuffer
The flings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a fea of troubles,
And, by oppofing, end them? To die-to fleep-
No more ?-And, by a fleep, to say we end
The heart-ach, and the thousand natural fhocks
That flesh is heir to,-'tis a confummation
Devoutly to be wifh'd. To die; to fleep:-
To fleep! perchance to dream: aye, there's the rub;
For in that fleep of death, what dreams may come,
When we have fhuffled off this mortal coil,
Muft give us paufe. There's the respect,
That makes calamity of fo long life:
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th' oppreffor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of defpis'd love, the law's delay,
The infolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardles bear,
Το
groan and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of fomething after death,
That undiscover'd country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns-puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear thofe ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus confcience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of refolution
Is fickly'd o'er with the pale caft of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.
I know where I will wear this dagger then :
Caffius from bondage will deliver Caffius:
Therein, ye gods, you make the weak most strong;
Therein, ye gods, you tyrants do defeat.
Nor ftony tower, nor walls of beaten brass,
Nor airless dungeon, nor ftrong links of iron,
Can be retentive to the ftrength of spirit ;
But life, being weary of thofe worldly bars,
Never lacks power to dismiss itself.
If I know this-know all the world befide,
That part of tyranny, that I do bear,
I can shake off at pleasure.
Julius Cæfar, A. 1. Sc. 3.
From the four corners of the earth they come,
To kifs this fhrine, this mortal breathing faint.
Th' Hyrcanian deserts, and the vasty wilds
Of wide Arabia, are as thorough-fares now,
For princes to come view fair Portia.
The watry kingdom, whofe ambitious head
Spits in the face of heaven, is no bar
To stop the foreign fpirits; but they come,
As o'er a brook, to fee fair Portia.
The Merchant of Venice, A. 2. Sc. 7.
That when the fearching eye of heav'n is hid
Behind the globe that lights the lower world,
Then thieves and robbers range abroad unseen,
In murders, and in outrage bloody, here;
But when from under this terreftrial ball
He fires the proud tops of the eastern pines,
And darts his light through every guilty hole,
Then murders, treafons, and detefted fins,
The cloke of night being pluck'd from off their backs,
Stand bare and naked, trembling at themselves?
King Richard II. A. 3. Sc. 2.
SUPERFLUITY.
To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw a perfume on the violet,
To smooth the ice, and add another hue
Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light
To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,
Is wafteful and ridiculous excefs.
SUPPLICATION.
Whate'er you are,
That in this defert inacceffible,
Under the shade of melancholy boughs,
Lofe and neglect the creeping hours of time;
If ever you have look'd on better days,
If ever been where bells have knoll'd to church,
If ever fat at any good man's feast,
If ever from your eye-lids wip'd a tear,
And know what 'tis to pity, and be pitied;
Let gentleness my ftrong enforcement be,
In the which hope I blush, and hide my fword.
As You Like It, A. 2. Sc. 7.
Between the acting of a dreadful thing,
And the first motion, all the interim is
Like a phantafma, or a hideous dream :
The genius and the mortal inftruments
Are then in council; and the state of man,
Like to a little kingdom, fuffers then
The nature of an infurrection.
Julius Cæfar, A. 2. Sc. 1.
SWIM MIN G.
I saw him beat the furges under him,
And ride upon their backs: he trode the water;
Whose enmity he flung afide, and breasted
The furge moft fwoln that met him: his bold head
'Bove the contentious waves he kept, and oar'd
Himself with his good arms, in lufty strokes,
To th' fhore; that o'er his wave-worn bafis bow'd,
As ftooping to relieve him. The Tempeft, A. 2. Sc. .
Haft thou, that art but air, a touch, a feeling,
Of their afflictions; and fhall not myself,
One of their kind, that relifh all as sharply,
Paffion as they, be kindlier mov'd than thou art?
Tho' with their high wrongs I am ftruck to th' quick,
Yet with my nobler reason, 'gainst my fury,
Do I take part the rarer action is
In virtue than in vengeance. They being penitent,
The fole drift of my purpose doth extend
Not a frown further.
The Tempest, A. 5. Sc. t.
An honeft tale speeds beft, being plainly told.
King Richard 111. A. 4. Sc. 4.
Let me wipe off this honourable dew,
That filverly doth progrefs on thy cheeks.
My heart hath melted at a lady's tears,
Being an ordinary inundation
But this effufion of fuch manly drops,
This fhow'r, blown up by tempeft of the foul,
Startles mine eyes, and makes me more amaz'd,
Than had I feen the vaulty top of heav'n
Figur'd quite o'er with burning meteors.
Are you not mov'd when all the fway of earth
Shakes like a thing unfirm? O Cicero !
I have feen tempefts when the fcolding winds.
Have riv'd the knotty oaks; and I have feen
Th' ambitious ocean fwell, and rage, and foam,
To be exalted with the threatening clouds;
But never till to-night, never till now,
Did I go through a tempeft dropping fire.
Either there is a civil ftrife in heaven;
Or elfe the world, too faucy with the Gods,
Incenses them to send deftruction.
Julius Cæfar, A. 1. Sc. 3.
Love not fuch nights as thefe; the wrathful fkies
Gallow the very wanderers of the dark,
And make them keep their caves: Since I was man,
Such fheets of fire, fuch burfts of horrid thunder,
Such groans of roaring wind and rain, I never
Remember to have heard: Man's nature cannot carry
The affliction, nor the fear.
Lear, A. 3. Sc. 2.
Poor naked wretches, wherefoe'er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless ftorm,
How fhall your houseless heads, and unfed fides,
Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you
From feafons fuch as these? O, I have ta'en
Too little care of this! Take phyfic, Pomp;
Expofe thyfelf to feel what wretches feel,
That thou may'ft fhake the fuperflux to them,
And fhew the heavens more juft.
TEMPTATION.
Let but your honour know,
Whom I believe to be moft ftraight in virtue,
That, in the working of your own affections,
Had time coher'd with place, or place with wifhing,
Or that the refolute acting of
Could have attain'd th' effect of your own purpose ;
Whether you had not, fome time in your life,
Err'd in this point, which now you cenfure him,
And pull'd the law upon you.
Meafure for Measure, A. 2. Sc. 2.
Oftentimes, to win us to our harm,
The inftruments of darkness tell us truths;
Win us with honeft trifles, to betray us
In deepest confequence.
Oh, who can hold a fire in his hand,
By thinking on the frofty Caucafus?
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