Despair of Pardon.

But, O thou tyrant!

Do not repent these things; for they are heavier
Than all thy woes can stir: therefore betake thee,
To nothing but despair. A thousand knees.
Ten thousand years together, naked, fasting,
Upon a barren mountain, and still winter
In storm perpetual, could not move the gods
To look that way thou wert.

Poor wretch,

Infant exposed.

That, for thy mother's fault, art thus exposed
To loss, and what may follow!-Weep I cannot,
But my heart bleeds and most accursed am I,
To be by oath enjoin'd to this.—Farewell!

The day frowns more and more; thou art like to have
A lullaby too rough.

A Rustic's Description of a Shipwreck.

you

I would did but see how it chafes, how it rages, how it takes up the shore! but that's not to the point. O, the most piteous cry of the poor souls! sometimes to see 'em, and not to see 'em; now the ship boring the moon with her main-mast; and anon swallowed with yest and froth, as you'd thrust a cork into a hogshead. And then for the land service,-To see how the bear tore out his shoulder-bone; how he cried to me for help, and said his name was Antigonus, a nobleman. But to make an end of the ship: to see how the sea flap-dragoned it :-but, first, how the poor souls roared, and the sea mocked them ;-and how the * Engulphed.

*

poor gentleman roared, and the bear mocked him, both roaring louder than the sea or weather.

ACT IV.

True Love.

He says, he loves my daughter;

I think so too; for never gazed the moon
Upon the water, as he'll stand, and read

As 't were, my daughter's eyes: and, to be plain,
I think there is not half a kiss to choose

Who loves another best.

A Father the best Guest at his Son's Nuptials.

POLIXENES. Methinks, a father

Is, at the nuptial of his son, a guest

That best becomes the table.

Pray you, once more

Is not your father grown incapable

Of reasonable affairs? is he not stupid

With age, and altering rheums? can he speak ? hear? Know man from man? dispute his own estate?

Lies he not bed-rid? and again does nothing,

But what he did being childish?

FLORIZEL.

No, good sir:

He has his health, and ampler strength, indeed,

Than most have of his age.

POLIXENES.

By my white beard,

You offer him, if this be so, a wrong

Something unfilial. Reason, my son,

Should choose himself a wife; but as good reason,

The father (all whose joy is nothing else

But fair posterity), should hold some counsel
In such a business.

Rural Simplicity.

I was not much afeard: for once or twice 1 was about to speak; and tell him plainly, The self-same sun, that shines upon his court, Hides not his visage from our cottage, but Looks on alike.

Love cemented by Prosperity, but loosened by Adversity.
Prosperity's the very bond of love;

Whose fresh complexion and whose heart together
Affliction alters.

ACT V.

A Statue.

LEONTES. What was he that did make it ?-See, my lord,

Would you not deem it breath'd?—and that those veins Did verily bear blood?

POLIXENES.

Masterly done:

The very life seems warm upon her lip.

LEONTES. The fixure of her eye hath motion in't As we are mock'd with art.

Claudius, the reigning king of Denmark, has killed his brother, the former king, and placed himself on the throne, marrying

* As if.

at the same time the widow of the murdered monarch, whose ghost appears to his son Hamlet, urging him to avenge his death. In order the better to effect this object, Hamlet feigns madness, and causes a play to be acted before the king and queen which represents a scene similar to the murder of his father. The agitation of the king and queen at witnessing this representation, convinces Hamlet of their guilt, and he eventually avenges his father's death by killing the guilty Claudius; the queen drinks poison which is intended by the king for Hamlet, who, in a fencing bout with Laertes, son of Polonius, a foolish old lord, is wounded by a rapier anointed with poison and dies. Ophelia, the daughter of Polonius, goes mad, and drowns herself in a distraught state, whilst Polonius himself is stabbed by Hamlet. The play, perhaps more than any other of Shakspere's, abounds in tragic incidents. "If," says Dr. Johnson, speaking of this play, "the dramas of Shakspere were to be characterized each by the particular excellence which distinguishes it from the rest, we must allow to the tragedy of Hamlet the praise of variety; the incidents are so numerous that the argument of the play would make a long tale."

Аст I.

Ghosts vanish at the Crowing of a Cock.

BERNARDO. It was about to speak when the cock

crew.

HORATIO. And then it started, like a guilty thing.
Upon a fearful summons. I have heard,
The cock, that is the trumpet of the morn,
Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat
Awake the god of day; and, at his warning,
Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,
The extravagant and erring spirit hies
To his confine.

The Reverence paid to Christmas Time.
It faded on the crowing of the cock.
Some
say, that ever 'gainst that season comes

Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
This bird of dawning singeth all night long :
And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.

Morning.

But, look, the morn, in russet mantle clad, Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill.

Real Grief.

'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, Nor customary suits of solemn black,

Nor windy suspiration of forced breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected 'haviour of the visage,
Together with all forms, modes, shows of grief,
That can denote me truly; these, indeed, seem,
For they are actions that a man might play:
But I have that within, which passeth show;
These, but the trappings and the suits of woe.

Immoderate Grief reproved.

'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 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;
It shows a will most incorrect to heaven;
A heart unfortified, or mind impatient;