Than the soft myrtle-0, but man, proud man!
Drest in a little brief authority;
Most ignorant of what he's most assurd,
His glassy essence,-like an angry ape,
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven,
As make the angels weep: who, with our spleens,
Would all themselves laugh mortal.
THE PRIVILEGE OF AUTHORITY.
Great men may jest with saints: 'tis wit in them,
But, in the less, foul profanation.
That in the captain's but a choleric word,
Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.
HONEST BRIBERY. Hark, how I'll bribe you. Ang. How! bribe me? Isab. Ay, with such gifts, that heaven shall share Lucio. You had marr'd all else.
Isab. Not with fond shekels of the tested* gold, Or stones, whose rates are either rich, or poor, As fancy values them: but with true prayers, That shall be up at heaven, and enter there. Ere sun-rise; prayers from preservedt souls, From fasting maids, whose minds are dedicate To nothing temporal.
THE POWER OF VIRTUOUS DUTY. Is this her fault, or mine? The tempter, or the tempted, who sins most? Ha Not she; nor doth she tempt: but it is I, That lying by the violet, in the sun, Do, as the carrion does, not as the flower, Corrupt with virtuous season. Can it be, That modesty may more betray our sense T'han woman's lightness? Having waste ground
enough,
Shall we desire to raze the sanctuary,
And pitch our cvils there?: 0, fy, fy, fy!
* Attested, stamped.
† Preserved from the corruption of the world.
* See 2 Kings, X. 27.
What dost thou? or what art thou, Angelo?
Dost thou desire her foully, for those things
That make her good? 0, let her brother live.
Thieves for their robbery have authority,
When judges steal themselves. What? do I love her
That I desire to hear her speak again,
And seast upon her eyes? What is't I dream on
O cunning enemy, that, to catch a saint,
With saints dost bait thy hook! Most dangerous
Is that temptation, that doth goad us on
To sin in loving virtue: never could the strumpet,
With all her double vigour, art, and nature,
Once stir my temper; but this virtuous maid
Subdues me quite.
LOVE IN A GRAVE SEVERE GOVERNOR.
When I would pray and think, I think and pray
'To several subjects: heaven hath my empty words;
Whilst my invention hearing not my tongue,
Anchors on Isabel: Heaven in my mouth,
As if I did but only chew his name;
And in my heart, the strong and swelling evil
Of my conception: The state, whereon I studied,
Is like a good thing, being often read,
Grown fear'd and tedious; yea, my gravity,
Wherein (let no man hear me) I take pride,
Could I, with boot,* change for an idle plume,
Which the air beats for vain. O place! O form!
How often dost thou with thy case, thy habit,
Wrench awe from fools, and tie the wiser souls
To thy false seeming?
FORNICATION AND MURDER EQUALLED. It were as good To pardon him, that hath from nature stolen A man already made, as to remit Their saucy sweetness, that do coin heaven's ima In stamps that are forbid: 'tis all as easy Falsely to take away a life true made, As to put mettle in restrained means, To make a false one * Profit.
+ Outside.
Let me be ignorant, and in nothing good, But graciously to know I am no better.
Ang. Thus wisdom wishes to appear most bright When it doth tax itself.
TEMPORAL FAR BETTER THAN ETERNAL DEATH.
Better it were, a brother died at once, Than that a sister by redeeming him, Should die for ever.
WOMEN'S FRAILTY. Nay, women are frail too. Isah. Ay, as the glasses where they view them
selves; Which are as easy broke as they make forms. Women-Help heaven! men their creation mar In profiting by then. Nay call us ten times frail For we are soft as our complexions are, And credulous to false prints.*
HOPE.
The miserable have no other medicine,
But only hope.
REFLECTIONS ON THE VANITY OF LIFE.
Reason thus with life,
If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing
l'hat none but fools would keep;
a breath thou art,
(Servile to all the skiey influences,)
That dost this habitation, where thou keep'st,
Hourly aMict: merely, thou art death's fool;
For him thou labour'st by thy flight to shun,
And vet run'st toward him still: Thou art not noble;
For all the accommodations that thou bear'st,
Are nurs'd by baseness: thou art by no means
valiant; For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork of a poor worm: Thy best of rest is sleep,
* Impressions.
And that thou oft provok’st: yet grossly fearst
Thy death, which is no more. Thou art not thyself;
For thou exist'st on many a thousand grains,
That issue out of Hust: Happy thou art not:
For what thou hast not, still thou striv'st to get
And what thou hast, forget'st: Thou art not certain:
For thy complexion shifts to strange effects,*
After the moon: if thou art rich, thou art poor;
For, like an ass, whose back with ingots bows,
Thou bear'st thy heavy riches but a journey,
And death unloads thee: Friend hast thou none;
For thine own bowels, which do call thee sire,
The mere effusion of thy proper loins,
Do curse the gout, serpigo,t and the rheum,
For ending thee no sooner: Thou hast nor youth,
nor age:
But, as it were, an after-dinner's sleep,
Dreaming on both: for all thy blessed youth
Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms
Of palsied eld;t and when thou art old, and rich,
Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty.
To make thy riches pleasant. What's yet in this,
That bears the name of life? yet in this life
Lie hid more thousand deaths: yet death we fear;
That makes these odds all even.
THE TERRORS OF DEATH MOST IN APPREHENSION
0, I do fear thee, Claudio; anı I quake,
Lest thou a ferverous life should'st entertain,
And six or seven winters more respect
Than a perpetual honour. Dar'st thou die?
The sense of death is most in apprehension;
And the poor beetle, that we tread upon,
In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great
As when a giant dies.
RESOLUTION FROM A SENSE OF HONOUR,
Why,give you me this shame?
Think
you
I can a resolution fetch
From ffowery tenderness? If I must die,
*Affects, affections. + Leprous eruptions
I will encounter darkness 25 m
bride, And hug it in mine arms.
THE HYPOCRISY OF ANGELO.
There my father's grave
Did utter forth a voice! Yes, thou must die:
Thou art too noble to conserve a life
In base appliances. This outward-sainted deputy,-
Whose settled visage and deliberate word
Nips youth i'the head, and follies doth enmew,
As falcon doth the fowl,-is yet a devil;*
His filth within being cast, he would appear
A pond as deep as hell.
THE TERRORS OF DEATH
Death is a fearful thing.
Isab. And shamed life a hateful.
Claud. Ay, but to die, and go we know not where
To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot:
This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice;
To be imprison'd in the viewlesst winds,
And blown with restless violence about
The pendent world; or to be worse than worst
or those, that lawless and incertain thoughts
Imagine howling !--'tis too horrible!
The weariest and most loathed worldly life,
That age, ach, penury, and imprisonment
Can lay on nature, is a paradise
To what we fear of death.
Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful
A BAWD.
The evil that thou causest to be done,
That is thy means to live: Do thou but thirs
What 'tis to cram a maw, or clothe a back,
From such a filthy vice: say to thyself,
+ Invisible.
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