DEFORMITY.

Why, love forswore me in my mother's womb:
And, for I should not deal in her soft laws,
She did corrupt frail nature with a bribe
To shrink mine arm up like a wither'd shrub;
To make an envious mountain on my back,
Where sits deformity to mock my body;
To shape my legs of an unequal size;
To disproportion me in every part;
Like to a chaos, or an unlick'd bear-whelp,
That carries no impression like the dam.
And am I then a man to be belov'd?

O, monstrous fault to harbour such a thought!

H. VI. PT. III. iii. 2.

But I,—that am not shap'd for sportive tricks,
Nor made to court an amorous looking glass;
I that am rudely stampt, and want love's majesty,
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;
I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deform'd, unfinish'd, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable,
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them :-
Why I, in this weak piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun,
And descant on mine own deformity.

But, O, how vile an idol proves this god!

Thou hast, Sebastian, done good feature shame.
In nature there's no blemish but the mind;
None can be call'd deform'd but the unkind:
Virtue is beauty; but the beauteous evil

R. III. i. 1.

Are empty trunks, o'er-flourish'd by the devil. T. N. iii. 4. DEGENERACY.

But, woe the while! our fathers' minds are dead,
And we are govern'd by our mothers' spirits;
Our yoke and sufferance show us womanish.

O, that a mighty man of such descent,
Of such possessions, and so high esteem,
Should be infused with so foul a spirit!

What a falling off was there!

But now 'tis odds beyond arithmetic ;
And manhood is call'd foolery, when it stands
Against a falling fabric.

J.C. i. 3.

T. S. IND. 2.

H. i. 5.

C. iii. 1

DEGENERACY,-continued.

For in the fatness of these pursy times,
Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg.

H. iii. 4.

'Twas never merry world, since, of two usuries, the mer-
riest was put down, and the worser allowed, by order of
law, a furred gown to keep him warm; and furred with fox
and lambskins too, to signify that craft, being richer than
innocency, stands for the facing.
M.M. iii. 2.

Shall it, for shame, be spoken in these days,
Or fill up chronicles in time to come,
That men of your nobility and power,
Did 'gage them both in an unjust behalf,-
As both of you, God pardon it! have done?

The world is grown so bad,

H.IV. PT. I. i. 3.

That wrens may prey where eagles dare not perch;
Since every Jack became a gentleman,

There's many a gentle person made a Jack.
DEGRADATION.

Now I must

To the young man send humble treaties, dodge
And palter in the shifts of lowness.

DEGREES.

So man and man should be;

R. III. i. 3.

A. C. iii. 9.

But clay and clay differs in dignity
Whose dust is both alike.

Omission to do what is necessary

DELAY (See also IRRESOLUTION, OPPORTUNITY).

Seals a commission to a blank of danger;
And danger, like an ague, subtly taints
Ev'n then when we sit idly in the sun.

Sir, in delay

Cym. iv. 2.

T.C. iii. 3.

We waste our lights in vain, like lamps by day. R. J. i. 4.
Come,-I have learn'd that fearful commenting

Is leaden servitor to dull delay;

Delay leads impotent and snail-pac'd beggary.

R. III. iv. 3.

Let's be revenged on him; let's appoint him a meeting; give him a show of comfort in his suit; and lead him on with a fine-baited delay.

O, my good lord, that comfort comes too late;
"Tis like a pardon after execution;

That gentle physic, given in time, had cur'd me;
But now I'm past all comfort here, but prayers.

M. W. ii. 1.

H. VIII. iv. 2.

DELICACY OF IDLENESS.

The hand of little employment hath the daintier sense.

DELIGHTS.

All delights are vain; but that most vain,

H. v. 1.

Which, with pain purchas'd, doth inherit pain. L. L. 1. 1.
These violent delights have violent ends,

And in their triumph die; like fire and powder,

Which, as they kiss, consume; the sweetest honey

Is loathsome in its own deliciousness,

And in the taste confounds the appetite:

Therefore, love moderately; long love doth so;
Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.

DELIRIUM OF THE DYING.

O vanity of sickness! fierce extremes,

R. J. ii. 6.

In their continuance will not feel themselves.
Death, having prey'd upon the outward parts,
Leaves them insensible; and his siege is now
Against the mind, the which he pricks and wounds
With many legions of strange fantasies;

Which, in their throng and press to that last hold,
Confound themselves. 'Tis strange that death should sing.

I am the cygnet to this pale-fac'd swan,

Who chaunts a doleful hymn to his own death;

And, from the organ-pipe of frailty, sings

His soul and body to their lasting rest.

DELUSION (See also ILLUSION).

'Twas but a bolt of nothing, shot at nothing,
Which the brain makes of fumes: our very eyes
Are sometimes like our judgments, blind.
Oftentimes, to win us to our harm,

The instruments of darkness tell us truths;
Win us with honest trifles, to betray us

K. J. v. 7.

Cym. iv. 2.

In deepest consequence.

M. i. 3.

And be these juggling fiends no more believ❜d,

That palter with us in a double sense;

That keep the word of promise to our ear,

And break it to our hope.

M. v. 7.

Why, thou hast put him in such a dream, that, when the

image of it leaves him, he must run mad.

Thus may poor fools believe false teachers.

This is the very coinage of your brain;
This bodiless creation extacy

Is very cunning in.

T. N. ii. 5.

Cym. iii. 4.

H. iii. 4.

DELUSION,-continued.
Alas, how is't with you?

That you do bend your eyes on vacancy,
And with the incorporal air do hold discourse?
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place;
Whiles rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unseen.

Indeed, it is a strange disposed time:
But men may construe things after their fashion,
Clean from the purpose of the things themselves.

DENIAL OF JUSTICE (See also JUDGMENT, JUSTICE).
And is this all?

Then, oh, you blessed ministers above,

Keep me in patience; and, with ripen'd time,
Unfold the evil which is here wrapp'd up
In countenance !

DEPRAVITY, YOUTHFUL.

You're a fair viol, and your sense the strings;

Who, finger'd to make man his lawful music,

H. iii. 4.

H. iii. 4.

J.C. i. 3.

M. M. v. 1.

Would draw heaven down, and all the gods to hearken;
But, being play'd upon before your time,
Hell only danceth at so harsh a chime.

DEPRIVATION OF THINGS DISCLOSES THEeir Value.
What our contempts do often hurl from us,
We wish it ours again.

DEPUTY.

A substitute shines brightly as a king,
Until a king be by; and then his state
Empties itself, as doth an inland brook
Into the main of waters.

P.P. i. 1.

A. C. i. 2.

M. V. v. 1.

In our remove, be thou at full ourself;
Mortality and mercy in Vienna

Live in thy tongue and heart.

M. M. i. 1.

DERANGEMENT, MENTAL (See also DESPONDENCY, MADNESS).

A sight most pitiful in the meanest wretch;

Past speaking of in a king.

K. L. iv. 6.

DESCRIPTION.

I have cried her almost to the number of her hairs; I

have drawn her picture with my voice.

O, he hath drawn my picture in his letter!

DESDEMONA.

A maid

That paragons description, and wild fame;

P. P. iv. 3.

L. L. v. 2.

DESDEMONA,—continued.

One that excels the quirks of blazoning pens,
And in the essential vesture of creation,
Does bear all excellency.

Tempests themselves, high seas, and howling winds,
The gutter'd rocks, and congregated sands,-
Traitors ensteep'd to clog the guiltless keel,-
As having sense of beauty, do omit

Their mortal natures, letting go safely by
The divine Desdemona.

DESERT.

O. ii. 1.

O. ii. 1.

Use every man according to his desert, and who shall escape whipping? use them after your own honour and dignity: the less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty.

O, your desert speaks loud; and I should wrong it,
To lock it in the wards of covert bosom,
When it deserves, with characters of brass,
A forted residence, 'gainst the tooth of time,
And razure of oblivion.

But let desert in pure election shine.

DESERTION.

H. ii. 2.

M. M. v. 1. Tit. And. i. 1.

That tub both fill'd and running) ravening first
The lamb, longs after for the garbage.

Cym. i. 7.

Happy! but most miserable

Is the desire that's glorious. Blessed be those,
How mean soe'er, that have their honest wills
Which seasons comfort.

Cym. 1.7.

DESOLATION.

I, an old turtle,

Will wing me to some wither'd bough; and there

My mate, that's never to be found again,

Lament till I am lost.

Then was I as a tree

W.T. v. 3.

Whose boughs did bend with fruit; but in one night,
A storm, or robbery, call it what you will,