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Or am I mad, hearing him talk of Juliet,
'To think it was so ?-O, give me thy hand,
One writ with me in sour misfortune's book!
Romeo's last Speech over Juliet in the Vault.
O my love! my wife! [breath,
Death, that hath sucked the honey of thy
Hath no power yet upon thy beauty:
Thou art not conquer'd; beauty's ensign yet
Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,
And death's pale flag is not advanced there.
Tybalt, liest thou there in thy bloody sheet?
O, what more favor can I do to thee, [twain,
Than with that hand that cut thy youth in
To sunder his that was thine enemy?
Forgive me, cousin!-Ah, dear Juliet !
Why art thou yet so fair? shall I believe
That unsubstantial death is amorous;
And that the lean, abhorred monster keeps
Thee here in dark to be his paramour?
For fear of that, I will still stay with thee;
And never from this palace of dim night
Depart again; here, here, will I remain,

To bring manslaughter into form, set quar-
relling

Upon the head of valor; which, indeed,
When sects and factions were but newly born.
Is valor misbegot, and came into the world,
He's truly valiant, that can wisely suffer
The worst that man can breathe, and make
his wrongs
[carelessly;

His outsides; wear them, like his raiment,
And ne'er prefer his injuries to his heart,
To bring it into danger,

Without the Walls of Athens.

Timon's Execrations on the Athenians.
Let me look back upon thee, O thou wall,
That girdlest in those wolves! Dive in the
earth,
[tinent!
And fence not Athens! Matrons, turn incon-
Obedience fail in children! slaves and fools,
Pluck the grave wrinkled senate from the
bench,

And minister in their steads! to general filths
Convert o' the instant, green virginity!

fast;

With worms that are thy chambermaids-O, Do 't in your parents' eyes! Bankrupts, hold
Will I set up my everlasting rest; [here
And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars [last! Rather than render back, out with your knives,
From this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your And cut your trusters' throats! Bound ser-
Arms, take your last embrace! and lips, O you
vants, steal!
The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss
A dateless bargain to engrossing death!—
Come, bitter conduct! come, unsav'ry guide!
Thou desp'rate pilot, now at once run on
The dashing rocks thy sea-sick, weary bark!
Here's to my love! O true apothecary!
[Drinks the Poison.
Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die.
[Dies.

§ 34. TIMON OF ATHENS.

Large-handed robbers your grave masters are,
And pill by law! Maid, to thy master's bed;
Thy mistress is o' the brothel ! Son of sixteen,
Pluck the lin'd crutch from thy old limping
sire,

With it beat out his brains! Piety and fear,
Religion to the gods, peace, justice, truth,
Domestic awe, night-rest, and neighborhood,
Instruction, manners, mysteries, and trades,
Degrees, observances, customs, and laws,
Decline to your confounding contraries, [men,
And yet confusion live!-Plagues incident to
Your potent and infectious fevers heap
On Athens, ripe for stroke !-Thou cold
sciatica,
[norable Cripple our senators, that their limbs may halt
As lamely as their manners. Lust and liberty
Creep in the minds and marrows of our youth;
That 'gainst the stream of virtue they may
strive,

SHAKSPEARE. The Ingratitude of Timon's Friends. THEY answer, in a joint and corporate voice, That now they are at fall, want treasure, can

not

Do what they would; are sorry-you are ho-
But yet they could have wish'd-they know
not-but

Something hath been amiss-a noble nature
May catch a wrench-would all were well-

'tis pity

And, so, intending other serious matters,
After distasteful looks, and these hard fractions,
With certain half-caps, and cold moving nods,
They froze me into silence.

Tim. You gods reward them!-
Pr'ythee, man, look cheerly: these old fellows
Have their ingratitude in them hereditary :
Their blood is cak'd, 'tis cold, it seldom flows;
"Tis lack of kindly warmth, they are not kind;
And nature, as it grows again towards earth,
Is fashion'd for the journey, dull and heavy.

Against Duelling.

And drown themselves in riot! Itches, blains,
Sow all the Athenian bosoms; and their crop
Be general leprosy! breath infect breath;
That their society, as their friendship, may
Be merely poison! Nothing I'll bear from
But nakedness, thou detestable town! [thee,
A Friend forsaken.

As we do turn our backs
From our companion thrown into his grave,
So his familiars to his buried fortunes
Slink all away; leave their false vows with
him,

Like empty purses pick'd: and his poor self,
A dedicated beggar to the air,

Your words have took such pains, as if they With his disease of all-shunn'd poverty,

labor'd

Walks, like contempt, alone.

On Gold.

What is here ?

vens !

The gilded newt, and eyeless venom'd worm, [gods: With all the abhorred births below crisp hea

ven,

Gold? yellow, glittering, precious gold! No, [shine; I am no idle votarist. Roots, you clear hea- Whereon Hyperion's quickening fire doth [foul, fair; Yield him, who all thy human sons doth hate, Thus much of this will make black, white; From forth thy plenteous bosom, one poor root: Wrong, right; base, noble; old, young; Ensear thy fertile and conceptious womb! coward, valiant. [gods? why this Let it no more bring out ingrateful man! Ha, you gods! why this? what this, you Go great with tigers, dragons, wolves, and Will lug your priests and servants from your

bears,

[face

sides; [heads: Teem with new monsters, whom thy upward Pluck stout men's pillows from below their Hath to the marble mansion all above [curs'd; Never presented!-O, a root-dear thanks!

This yellow slave

Will knit and break religions; bless the ac-Dry up thy marrows, vines, and plough-torn
Make the hoar leprosy ador'd; place thieves,
And give them title, knee, and approbation,
With senators on the bench: this is it

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leas,
[draughts,
Whereof ingrateful man, with liquorish
And morsels unctuous, greases his pure mind,
That from it all consideration slips!

Timon's Discourse with Apemantus.
Apem. This is in thee a nature but affected:
A poor unmanly melancholy, sprung
From change of fortune. Why this spade?
this place?

This slave-like habit? and these looks of care?
Thy flatt'rers yet wear silk, drink wine, lie
soft;

Hug their diseas'd perfumes, and have forgot
That ever Timon was. Shame not these

woods,

By putting on the cunning of a carper.
Be thou a flatt'rer now, and seek to thrive
By that which hath undone thee: hinge thy
knee,

Go on here 's gold-go on ; Be as a planetary plague, when Jove Will o'er some high-vic'd city hang his poison In the sick air: let not thy sword skip one: Pity not honor'd age for his white beard; He is an usurer. Strike me the counterfeit It is her habit only that is honest, [matron; And let his very breath, whom thou'lt observe, Herself's a bawd. Let not the virgin's cheek Blow off thy cap; praise his most vicious Make soft thy trenchant sword; for those milk

strain,

paps, [eyes, And call it excellent. Thou wast told thus ; That thro' the window-bars bore at men's Thou gav'st thine ears, like tapsters, that bid Are not within the leaf of pity writ; welcome But set them down horrible traitors. Spare To knaves, and all approachers: 'tis most just not the babe, [mercy. That thou turn rascal; hadst thou wealth Whose dimpled smiles from fools exhaust their again, [likeness. Think it a bastard, whom the oracle [cut, Rascals should have 't. Do not assume my Hath doubtfully pronounc'd thy throat shall Tim. Were I like thee, I'd throw away And mince it sans remorse. Swear against myself. [like thyself, Apem. Thou hast cast away thyself, being A madman so long, now a fool what, think'st That the bleak air, thy boisterous chamberlain, Will put thy shirt on warm? will these moss'd trees,

objects;

Put armor on thine ears and on thine eyes, Whose proof, nor yells of mothers, maids, nor babes,

Nor sight of priests in holy vestments bleeding,
Shall pierce a jot. There 's gold to pay thy
soldiers:

Make large confusion; and, thy fury spent,
Confounded be thyself! speak not, begone.

Timon's Reflections on the Earth

That have outliv'd the eagle, page thy heels,
And skip when thou point'st out ?-will the
cold brook,

Candied with ice, cawdle thy morning taste,
To cure thy o'er-night's surfeit? Call the

creatures

That nature, being sick of man's unkindness, Whose naked natures live in all the spite Should yet be hungry! Common mother, Of wreakful heaven; whose bare unhoused thou, [breast To the conflicting elements expos'd, [trunks, Whose womb unmeasurable, and infinite Answer mere nature-bid them flatter thee; Teems, and feeds all; whose self-same mettle O! thou shalt findWhereof thy proud child, arrogant man, is

puft,

Engenders the black toad, and adder blue,

Tim. Thou art a slave, whom fortune's

tender arm

With favor never clasp'd; but bred a dog.

Hadst thou, like us, from our first swath, pro- | Till the high fever seeth your blood to froth,

ceeded

The sweet degrees that this brief world affords
To such as may the passive drugs of it
Freely command, thou wouldst have plung'd
thyself

In general riot; melted down thy youth
In different beds of lust; and never learn'd
The icy precepts of respect, but follow'd
The sugar'd game before thee. But myself,
Who had the world as my confectionary,
The mouths, the tongues, the eyes, and hearts
of men

And so 'scape hanging: trust not the physician;
His antidotes are poison, and he slays
More than you rob: take wealth and lives to-
gether;

Do villany, do, since you profess to do 't,
Like workmen. I'll example you with thiev-
ery:

The sun's a thief, and with his great attraction
Robs the vast sea; the moon 's an arrant thief,
And her pale fire she snatches from the sun;
The sea 's a thief, whose liquid surge resolves
The moon into salt tears; the earth's a thief,
That feeds and breeds by a composture stolen
From gen'ral excrement: each thing 's a thief;
The laws, your curb and whip, in their rough
pow'r
[away;
Have uncheck'd theft. Love not yourselves:
Rob one another. There's more gold: cut
throats;

At duty, more than I could frame employment;
That numberless upon me stuck, as leaves
Do on the oak-have with one winter's brush
Fell from their boughs, and left me open, bare,
For every storm that blows:-I, to bear this,
That never knew but better, is some burthen.
Thy nature did commence in sufferance; time
Hath made thee hard in 't. Why shouldst All that you meet are thieves: to Athens, go,
[given? Break open shops; nothing can you steal,
They never flatter'd thee. What hast thou But thieves do lose it.

thou hate men?

If thou wilt curse,-thy father, that poor rag,
Must be thy subject, who in spite put stuff
To some she-beggar, and compounded thee
Poor rogue hereditary. Hence! begone.
If thou hadst not been born the worst of men,
Thou hadst been a knave and flatterer.

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every tongue,

To every purpose! O thou touch of hearts!
Think, thy slave man rebels: and by thy virtue
Set them into confounding odds, that beasts
May have the world in empire.

Timon to the Thieves.
Why should you want? behold, the earth
hath roots!
[springs;
Within this mile break forth an hundred
The oaks bear masts, the briers scarlet hips;
The bounteous housewife, nature, on each bush
Lays her full mess before you. Want! why
[ries, water,
1 Thief. We cannot live on grass, on ber-
As beasts, and birds, and fishes.

want?

Tim. Nor on the beasts themselves, the birds, and fishes; [con, You must eat men. Yet thanks I must you That you are thieves profest; that you work

not

In holier shapes: for there is boundless theft
In limited professions. Rascal thieves, [grape,
Here's gold: go, suck the subtle blood o' the

§ 35. TITUS ANDRONICUS.

SHAKSPEARE.

An Invitation to Love.'

THE birds chant melody on every bush;
The snake lies rolled in the cheerful sun;
The green leaves quiver with the cooling wind,
And make a chequer'd shadow on the ground:
Under their sweet shade, Aaron, let us sit;
And-whilst the babbling echo mocks the
hounds,

Replying shrilly to the well-tun'd horns,
As if a double hunt were heard at once-
Let us sit down, and mark their yelling noise:
And after conflict-such as was suppos'd
The wand'ring prince and Dido once enjoy'd,
When with a happy storm they were surpris'd,
And curtain'd with a counsel-keeping cave-
We may, each wreathed in the other's arms,
Our pastimes done, possess a golden slumber!
Whiles hounds, and horns, and sweet melodi-
Be unto us as is a nurse's song [ous birds,
Of lullaby, to bring her babe asleep.
Vale, a dark and melancholy one described.

A barren detested vale, you see, it is:
The trees, tho' summer, yet forlorn and lean,
O'ercome with moss, and baleful misseltoe.
Here never shines the sun; here nothing
Unless the nightly owl, or fatal raven. [breeds,
And when they show'd me this abhorred pit,
They told me, here, at dead time of the night,
A thousand fiends, a thousand hissing snakes,
Ten thousand swelling toads, as many urchins,
Would make such fearful and confused cries,
As any mortal body, hearing it,
Should straight fall mad, or else die suddenly.

Young Lady playing on a Lute and singing.

Fair Philomela, she but lost her tongue, And in a tedious sampler sew'd her mind: But, lovely niece, that mean is cut from thee;

A craftier Tereus hast thou met withal,
And he hath cut those pretty fingers off,
That could have better sew'd than Philomel.
O, had the monster seen those lily hands
Tremble, like aspen leaves, upon a lute,
And make the silken strings delight to kiss
them;
[life:
He would not then have touch'd them for his
Or had he heard the heavenly harmony,
Which that sweet tongue hath made,
He would have dropt his knife, and fell asleep,
As Cerberus at the Thracian poet's feet.

A Lady's Tongue cut out.

J

O, that delightful engine of her thoughts, That blabb'd them with such pleasing eloquence,

Is torn from forth that pretty hollow cage; Where, like a sweet melodious bird, it sung Sweet varied notes, enchanting every ear!, A Person in Despair compared to one on a Rock, &c.

For now I stand as one upon a rock, Environ'd with a wilderness of sea; [wave, Who marks the waxing tide grow wave by Expecting ever when some envious surge Will in his brinish bowels swallow him.

Tears compared to Dew on a Lily. When I did name her brothers, then fresh

tears

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Stood on her cheeks; as doth the honey-dew Upon a gather'd lily almost wither'd.

Reflections on killing a Fly.

Mar. Alas, my lord, I have but kill'd a fly! Tit. But how, if that fly had a father and mother!

How would he hang his slender gilded wings,
And buzz lamenting doings in the air!
Poor harmless fly!

That with his pretty buzzing melody,

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O Pandarus! I tell thee, Pandarus-
When I do tell thee, there my hopes lie
drown'd,

Reply not in how many fathoms deep
They lie indrench'd. I tell thee, I am mad
In Cressid's love: Thou answer'st, she is fair,
Pour'st in the open ulcer of my heart [voice:
Her eyes, her hair, her cheek, her gait, her
Handlest in thy discourse-O, that her hand,
In whose comparison all whites are ink,
Writing their own reproach; to whose soft
seizure
The cygnet's down is harsh, and spirit of sense
Hard as the palm of ploughmen! This thou
tell'st me, -

As true thou tell'st me, when I say I love her;
But, saying thus, instead of oil and balm, [me
Thou lay'st in every gash that love hath given
The knife that made it.

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In mere oppugnancy. The bounded waters
Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores,
And make a sop of all this solid globe :
Strength should be lord of imbecility,
And the rude son should strike his father dead

Came here to make us merry; and thou hast Force should be right; or, rather, right and kill'd him!

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Lo, by thy side, where rape and murder stands;

Now give some surance that thou art revenge,
Stab them, or tear them on thy chariot wheels;
And then I'll come, and be thy waggoner,
And whirl along with thee about the globe.
Provide thee two proper palfries, black as jet,
To hale thy vengeful waggon swift away,
And find out murderers in their guilty caves :
And, when thy car is loaden with their heads,
I will dismount, and by the waggon wheel
Trot, like a servile footman, all day long;
Even from Hyperion's rising in the east,
Until his very downfall in the sea.

§ 36. TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.
SHAKSPEARE.

Love in a brave young Soldier.
CALL here my varlet, I'll unarm again :

wrong

(Between whose endless jar justice resides) Should lose their names, and so should justice

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Then every thing includes itself in power,
Power into will; will into appetite;
And appetite, a universal wolf,
So doubly seconded with will and power,
Must make perforce a universal prey,
And last eat up itself.

Adversity the Trial of Man.
-Why then, you princes,
Do you with cheeks abash'd behold our works,
And think them shames, which are indeed
nought else

But the protractive trials of great Jove,
To find persistive constancy in men ?
The fineness of which metal is not found
In fortune's love; for then, the bold and
coward,

The wise and fool, the artist and unread.

The hard and soft, seem all affin'd and kin :
But in the wind and tempest of her frown,
Distinction, with a broad and pow'rful fan,
'Puffing at all, winnows the light away;
And what hath mass, or matter, by itself,
Lies rich in virtue, and unmingled.

Achilles described by Ulysses.

The great Achilles-whom opinion crowns
The sinew and the fore-hand of our host-
Having his ear full of his airy fame,
Grows dainty of his worth, and in his tent
Lies mocking our designs with him Patro-
clus,

Upon a lazy bed, the live-long day
Breaks scurril jests;

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And with ridiculous and awkward action
(Which, slanderer! he imitation calls) [non,
He pageants us. Sometime, great Agamem-
Thy topless deputation he puts on;
And, like a strutting player-whose conceit
Lies in his hamstring, and doth think it rich
To hear the wooden dialogue and sound
"Twixt his stretch'd footing and the scaffoldage,
Such to be pitied and o'erwrested seeming
He acts thy greatness in: and when he speaks,
'Tis like a chime a-mending: with terms un-
squar'd,
[dropt,
Which, from the tongue of roaring Typhon
Would seem hyperboles. At this fusty stuff,
The large Achilles, on his prest bed lolling,
From his deep chest laughs out a loud applause;
Cries "Excellent! 'tis Agamemnon just!
Now play me Nestor-hem, and stroke thy
As he, being drest to some oration." [beard,
That's done-as near as the extremest ends
Of parallels; as like as Vulcan and his wife:
Yet good Achilles still cries-“ Excellent! ~
"Tis Nestor right! Now play him me, Patro-
Arming to answer in a night-alarm." [clus,
And then, forsooth, the faint defects of age
Must be the scene of mirth; to cough and spit,
And, with a palsy fumbling on his gorget,
Shake in and out the rivet :-and at this sport
Sir Valor dies; cries-"O! enough, Patroclus,
Or give me ribs of steel! I shall split all
In pleasure of my spleen." And, in this
fashion

All our abilities, gifts, natures, shapes,
Severals and generals of grace exact,
Achievements, plots, orders, préventions,
Excitements to the field, or speech for truce,
Success or loss, what is or is not, serves
As stuff for these two to make paradoxes,

Respect.

I ask, that I might weaken reverence, And bid the cheek be ready with a blush Modest as morning, when she coldly eyes The youthful Phœbus.

The Subtlety of Ulysses, and Stupidity of Ajax.

Ajax. I do hate a proud man, as I hate the engendering of toads.

Nest. Yet he loves himself is it not strange? [Aside.

Ulys. Achilles will not to the field to-morAga. What 's his excuse?

[row.

Ulys. He doth rely on none; But carries on the stream of his dispose, Without observance or respect of any, In will peculiar, and in self-admission. [quest, Aga. Why will he not, upon our fair reUntent his person, and share the air with us? Ulys. Things small as nothing, for request's sake only, [ness;

He makes important: possest he is with greatAnd speaks not to himself, but with a pride That quarrels at self-breath: imagin'd worth Holds in his blood such swoln and hot dis

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That bastes his arrogance with his own seam,
And never suffers matter of the world
Enter his thoughts, save such as do revolve
And ruminate himself-shall he be worshipp'd
Of that we hold an idol more than he ?
No, this thrice worthy and right valiant lord
Must not so stale his palm, nobly acquir'd;
Nor, by my will, assubjugate his merit,
As amply titled as Achilles is,
By going to Achilles :

That were to enlard his fat-already pride,
And add more coals to Cancer, when he burns
With entertaining great Hyperion.
This lord go to him! Jupiter forbid!
And say in thunder " Achilles go to him."
Nest. O, this is well; he rubs the vein of
[Aside.
Dio. And how his silence drinks up this
applause!
[Aside.

him.

Ajax. If I go to him with my armed fist I'll pash him o'er the face.

Aga. O no, you shall not go.

Ajax. An he be proud with me, I'll pheese his pride: let me go to him.

Ulys. Not for the worth that hangs upon our quarrel.

Ajax. A paltry, insolent fellow!

Nest. How he describes himself! [Aside.
Ajax. Can he not be sociable ?

Ulys. The raven chides blackness. [Aside.
Ajax. I'll let his humors blood.
Aga. He'll be the physician that should
[Aside.
Ajax. An all men were o' my mind-
Ulys. Wit would be out of fashion. [Aside.

be the patient.

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