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Of one entire and perfect chrysolite*,
I'd not have sold her for it.

HIS REMORSE.

Behold! I have a weapon;

A better never did itself sustain

Upon a soldier's thigh: I have seen the day,
That, with this little arm, and this good sword,
I have made my way through more impediments
Than twenty times your stop:-But, O vain boast!
Who can control his fate? 'tis not so now.-
Be not afraid, though you do see me weapon'd;
Here is my journey's end, here is my butt,
And very sea-mark of my utmost sail.
Do you go back dismay'd? 'tis a lost fear;
Man but a rush against Othello's breast,
And he retires;-Where should Othello go?—
Now, how dost thou look now? O ill-starr'd wench!
Pale as thy smock! when we shall meet at compt
This look of thine will hurl my soul from heaven,
And fiends will snatch at it. Cold, cold, my girl?
Even like thy chastity.-

O cursed, cursed slave!-Whip me, ye devils,
From the possession of this heavenly sight!
Blow me about in winds, roast me in sulphur!-
Wash me in steep-down gulfs of liquid fire!-
O Desdemona! Desdemona! dead?

Dead? O! O! O!

HIS SPEECH BEFORE HIS DEATH.

Soft you; a word or two, before you go. [it; I have done the state some service, and they know No more of that:-I pray you, in your letters, you shall these unlucky deeds relate, * A precious stone.

When

+ Account.

Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate, [speak
Nor set down aught in malice: then must you
Of one, that lov'd not wisely, but too well;
Of one, not easily jealous, but, being wrought,
Perplex'd in the extreme; of one, whose hand,
Like the base Judean, threw a pearl away,

Richer than all his tribe; of one, whose subdu'd eyes,

Albeit unused to the melting mood,
Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees
Their medicinal
gum:-Set you down this:
And say, besides, that in Aleppo once,
Where a malignant and a turban'd Turk
Beat a Venetian, and traduc'd the state,
I took by the throat the circumcised dog,
And smote him—thus.

[Stabs himself.

ROMEO AND JULIET.

ACT I.

LOVE.

Love is a smoke rais'd with a fume of sighs;
Being purg'd, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes;
Being vex'd, a sea nourish'd with lovers' tears:
What is it else? a madness most discreet,
A choking gall, and a preserving sweet.

ON DREAMS.

O, then, I see, queen Mab hath been with you. She is the fairies' midwife; and she comes In shape no bigger than an agate-stone

On the fore-finger of an alderman,

Drawn with a team of little atomies*

Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep:
Her waggon-spokes made of long spinners' legs;
The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers;
The traces, of the smallest spider's web;
The collars, of the moonshine's wat'ry beams:
Her whip, of cricket's bone; the lash, of film:
Her waggoner, a small gray-coated gnat,
Not half so big as a round little worm
Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid:
Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut,
Made by the joiner squirrel, or old grub,
Time out of mind the fairies coach-makers.
And in this state she gallops night by night
Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love:
On courtiers' knees, that dream on court'sies
straight:

O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees:
O'er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream;
Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,
Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are.
Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,
And then dreams he of smelling out a suit†:
And sometimes comes she with a tithe-pig's tail,
Tickling a parson's nose as 'a lies asleep,
Then dreams he of another benefice:
Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,
And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,
Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,
Of healths five fathom deep; and then anon
Drums in his ear; at which he starts, and wakes;
And, being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two,
And sleeps again. This is that very Mab,
That plats the manes of horses in the night;
A place in court.

* Atoms.

And bakes the elf-locks in foul sluttish hairs, Which, once untangled, much misfortune bodes. This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs, That presses them, and learns them first to bear, Making them women of good carriage.

This, this is she

Rom.

Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace;

Thou talk'st of nothing.

Mer.

True, I talk of dreams;

Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy;

Which is as thin of substance as the air;
And more inconstant than the wind, who woos
Even now the frozen bosom of the north,
And, being anger'd, puffs away from thence,
Turning his face to the dew-dropping south.

DESCRIPTION OF A BEAUTY.

O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright! Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of night, Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's† ear: Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear! So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows, As yonder lady o'er her fellows shows.

ACT II.

THE GARDEN SCENE.

Enter ROMEO.

Rom. He jests at scars, that never felt a wound.-[JULIET appears above, at a Window. But, soft, what light thro' yonder window breaks! It is the east, and Juliet is the sun!

*i.e. Fairy locks, locks of hair clotted and tangled in the night. An Ethiopian, a black.

Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief,
That thou her maid art far more fair than she:
Be not her maid*, since she is envious;
Her vestal livery is but sick and green,
And none but fools do wear it; cast it off.
It is my lady; O, it is my love:

O, that she knew she were!

She speaks, yet she says nothing: What of that;
Her
eye discourses, I will answer it.-

I am too bold, 'tis not to me she speaks:
Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,
Having some business, do entreat her eyes
To twinkle in their spheres, till they return.
What if her eyes were there, they in her head;
The brightness of her cheek would shame those

stars,

As daylight doth a lamp; her eye in heaven
Would through the airy region stream so bright,
That birds would sing, and think it were not night.
See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!
O, that I were a glove upon that hand,

That I might touch that cheek!

Jul.

Rom.

Ah, me!

She speaks:-
O, speak again, bright angel! for thou art
As glorious to this night, being o'er my head,
As is a winged messenger of heaven

Unto the white-upturned wond'ring eyes
Of mortals, that fall back to gaze on him,
When he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds,
And sails upon the bosom of the air.

Jul. O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?

* A votary to the moon, to Diana.

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