“I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano; A stage where every man must play a part, And mine is a sad one”
SOLANIO.
Here comes Bassanio, your most noble kinsman,
Gratiano, and Lorenzo. Fare ye well.
We leave you now with better company.
SALARINO.
I would have stay’d till I had made you merry,
If worthier friends had not prevented me.
ANTONIO.
Your worth is very dear in my regard.
I take it your own business calls on you,
And you embrace th’ occasion to depart.
SALARINO.
Good morrow, my good lords.
BASSANIO.
Good signiors both, when shall we laugh? Say, when?
You grow exceeding strange. Must it be so?
SALARINO.
We’ll make our leisures to attend on yours.
[_Exeunt Salarino and Solanio._]
LORENZO.
My Lord Bassanio, since you have found Antonio,
We two will leave you, but at dinner-time
I pray you have in mind where we must meet.
BASSANIO.
I will not fail you.
GRATIANO.
You look not well, Signior Antonio,
You have too much respect upon the world.
They lose it that do buy it with much care.
Believe me, you are marvellously chang’d.
ANTONIO.
I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano,
A stage, where every man must play a part,
And mine a sad one.
GRATIANO.
Let me play the fool,
With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come,
And let my liver rather heat with wine
Than my heart cool with mortifying groans.
Why should a man whose blood is warm within
Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster?
Sleep when he wakes? And creep into the jaundice
By being peevish? I tell thee what, Antonio,
(I love thee, and ’tis my love that speaks):
There are a sort of men whose visages
Do cream and mantle like a standing pond,
And do a wilful stillness entertain,
With purpose to be dress’d in an opinion
Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit,
As who should say, “I am Sir Oracle,
And when I ope my lips, let no dog bark.”
O my Antonio, I do know of these
That therefore only are reputed wise
For saying nothing; when, I am very sure,
If they should speak, would almost damn those ears
Which, hearing them, would call their brothers fools.
I’ll tell thee more of this another time.
But fish not with this melancholy bait
For this fool gudgeon, this opinion.
“Could I come near your beauty with my nails, Id set my ten commandments in your face.”
Madam, I am Protector of the realm,
And at his pleasure will resign my place.
SUFFOLK.
Resign it then, and leave thine insolence.
Since thou wert king—as who is king but thou?—
The commonwealth hath daily run to wrack,
The Dauphin hath prevailed beyond the seas,
And all the peers and nobles of the realm
Have been as bondmen to thy sovereignty.
CARDINAL.
The commons hast thou racked; the clergy’s bags
Are lank and lean with thy extortions.
SOMERSET.
Thy sumptuous buildings and thy wife’s attire
Have cost a mass of public treasury.
BUCKINGHAM.
Thy cruelty in execution
Upon offenders hath exceeded law,
And left thee to the mercy of the law.
QUEEN MARGARET.
Thy sale of offices and towns in France,
If they were known, as the suspect is great,
Would make thee quickly hop without thy head.
[_Exit Gloucester. The Queen drops her fan._]
Give me my fan. What minion! Can ye not?
[_She gives the Duchess a box on the ear._]
I cry your mercy, madam; was it you?
ELEANOR.
Was’t I! Yea, I it was, proud Frenchwoman.
Could I come near your beauty with my nails,
I’d set my ten commandments in your face.
KING HENRY.
Sweet aunt, be quiet; ’twas against her will.
ELEANOR.
Against her will! Good King, look to ’t in time;
She’ll hamper thee and dandle thee like a baby.
Though in this place most master wear no breeches,
She shall not strike Dame Eleanor unrevenged.
[_Exit._]
BUCKINGHAM.
Lord Cardinal, I will follow Eleanor,
And listen after Humphrey, how he proceeds.
She’s tickled now; her fume needs no spurs,
She’ll gallop far enough to her destruction.
[_Exit._]
Enter Gloucester.
GLOUCESTER.
Now, lords, my choler being overblown
With walking once about the quadrangle,
I come to talk of commonwealth affairs.
As for your spiteful false objections,
Prove them, and I lie open to the law;
But God in mercy so deal with my soul
As I in duty love my king and country!
But, to the matter that we have in hand:
I say, my sovereign, York is meetest man
To be your regent in the realm of France.
SUFFOLK.
Before we make election, give me leave
To show some reason, of no little force,
That York is most unmeet of any man.
“When words are scarce they are seldom spent in vain”
If that come short,
Our substitutes at home shall have blank charters
Whereto, when they shall know what men are rich,
They shall subscribe them for large sums of gold,
And send them after to supply our wants;
For we will make for Ireland presently.
Enter Bushy.
Bushy, what news?
BUSHY.
Old John of Gaunt is grievous sick, my lord,
Suddenly taken, and hath sent posthaste
To entreat your Majesty to visit him.
KING RICHARD.
Where lies he?
BUSHY.
At Ely House.
KING RICHARD.
Now put it, God, in his physician’s mind
To help him to his grave immediately!
The lining of his coffers shall make coats
To deck our soldiers for these Irish wars.
Come, gentlemen, let’s all go visit him.
Pray God we may make haste and come too late!
ALL.
Amen!
[_Exeunt._]
ACT II
SCENE I. London. An Apartment in Ely House.
Gaunt on a couch; the Duke of York and Others standing by him.
GAUNT.
Will the King come, that I may breathe my last
In wholesome counsel to his unstaid youth?
YORK.
Vex not yourself, nor strive not with your breath,
For all in vain comes counsel to his ear.
GAUNT.
O, but they say the tongues of dying men
Enforce attention like deep harmony.
Where words are scarce, they are seldom spent in vain,
For they breathe truth that breathe their words in pain.
He that no more must say is listened more
Than they whom youth and ease have taught to glose.
More are men’s ends marked than their lives before.
The setting sun and music at the close,
As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last,
Writ in remembrance more than things long past.
Though Richard my life’s counsel would not hear,
My death’s sad tale may yet undeaf his ear.
YORK.
No, it is stopped with other flattering sounds,
As praises, of whose state the wise are fond;
Lascivious metres, to whose venom sound
The open ear of youth doth always listen;
Report of fashions in proud Italy,
Whose manners still our tardy-apish nation
Limps after in base imitation.
Where doth the world thrust forth a vanity—
So it be new, there’s no respect how vile—
That is not quickly buzzed into his ears?
Then all too late comes counsel to be heard,
Where will doth mutiny with wit’s regard.
Direct not him whose way himself will choose.
Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.
I have those
hopes of her good that her education promises her dispositions she
inherits, which makes fair gifts fairer; for where an unclean mind
carries virtuous qualities, there commendations go with pity, they are
virtues and traitors too. In her they are the better for their
simpleness; she derives her honesty, and achieves her goodness.
LAFEW.
Your commendations, madam, get from her tears.
COUNTESS.
’Tis the best brine a maiden can season her praise in. The remembrance
of her father never approaches her heart but the tyranny of her sorrows
takes all livelihood from her cheek. No more of this, Helena; go to, no
more, lest it be rather thought you affect a sorrow than to have.
HELENA.
I do affect a sorrow indeed, but I have it too.
LAFEW.
Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead; excessive grief the
enemy to the living.
COUNTESS.
If the living be enemy to the grief, the excess makes it soon mortal.
BERTRAM.
Madam, I desire your holy wishes.
LAFEW.
How understand we that?
COUNTESS.
Be thou blest, Bertram, and succeed thy father
In manners, as in shape! Thy blood and virtue
Contend for empire in thee, and thy goodness
Share with thy birthright! Love all, trust a few,
Do wrong to none. Be able for thine enemy
Rather in power than use; and keep thy friend
Under thy own life’s key. Be check’d for silence,
But never tax’d for speech. What heaven more will,
That thee may furnish and my prayers pluck down,
Fall on thy head! Farewell. My lord,
’Tis an unseason’d courtier; good my lord,
Advise him.
LAFEW.
He cannot want the best
That shall attend his love.
COUNTESS.
Heaven bless him! Farewell, Bertram.
[_Exit Countess._]
BERTRAM.
The best wishes that can be forg’d in your thoughts be servants to you!
[_To Helena._] Be comfortable to my mother, your mistress, and make
much of her.
LAFEW.
Farewell, pretty lady, you must hold the credit of your father.
[_Exeunt Bertram and Lafew._]
HELENA.
O, were that all! I think not on my father,
And these great tears grace his remembrance more
Than those I shed for him. What was he like?
I have forgot him; my imagination
Carries no favour in’t but Bertram’s.
I am undone: there is no living, none,
If Bertram be away.
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.
Helen, to you our minds we will unfold:
Tomorrow night, when Phoebe doth behold
Her silver visage in the watery glass,
Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass
(A time that lovers’ flights doth still conceal),
Through Athens’ gates have we devis’d to steal.
HERMIA.
And in the wood where often you and I
Upon faint primrose beds were wont to lie,
Emptying our bosoms of their counsel sweet,
There my Lysander and myself shall meet,
And thence from Athens turn away our eyes,
To seek new friends and stranger companies.
Farewell, sweet playfellow. Pray thou for us,
And good luck grant thee thy Demetrius!
Keep word, Lysander. We must starve our sight
From lovers’ food, till morrow deep midnight.
LYSANDER.
I will, my Hermia.
[_Exit Hermia._]
Helena, adieu.
As you on him, Demetrius dote on you!
[_Exit Lysander._]
HELENA.
How happy some o’er other some can be!
Through Athens I am thought as fair as she.
But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so;
He will not know what all but he do know.
And as he errs, doting on Hermia’s eyes,
So I, admiring of his qualities.
Things base and vile, holding no quantity,
Love can transpose to form and dignity.
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
And therefore is wing’d Cupid painted blind.
Nor hath love’s mind of any judgment taste.
Wings, and no eyes, figure unheedy haste.
And therefore is love said to be a child,
Because in choice he is so oft beguil’d.
As waggish boys in game themselves forswear,
So the boy Love is perjur’d everywhere.
For, ere Demetrius look’d on Hermia’s eyne,
He hail’d down oaths that he was only mine;
And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt,
So he dissolv’d, and showers of oaths did melt.
I will go tell him of fair Hermia’s flight.
Then to the wood will he tomorrow night
Pursue her; and for this intelligence
If I have thanks, it is a dear expense.
But herein mean I to enrich my pain,
To have his sight thither and back again.
[_Exit Helena._]
SCENE II. The Same. A Room in a Cottage
Enter Quince, Snug, Bottom, Flute, Snout and Starveling.
QUINCE.
Is all our company here?
BOTTOM.
You were best to call them generally, man by man, according to the
scrip.
QUINCE.
Here is the scroll of every man’s name, which is thought fit through
all Athens, to play in our interlude before the Duke and Duchess, on
his wedding-day at night.
This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
And you are stay’d for. There, my blessing with you.
[_Laying his hand on Laertes’s head._]
And these few precepts in thy memory
Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportion’d thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch’d, unfledg’d comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel; but being in,
Bear’t that th’opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice:
Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgement.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express’d in fancy; rich, not gaudy:
For the apparel oft proclaims the man;
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are of a most select and generous chief in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be:
For loan oft loses both itself and friend;
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine own self be true;
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell: my blessing season this in thee.
LAERTES.
Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord.
POLONIUS.
The time invites you; go, your servants tend.
LAERTES.
Farewell, Ophelia, and remember well
What I have said to you.
OPHELIA.
’Tis in my memory lock’d,
And you yourself shall keep the key of it.
LAERTES.
Farewell.
[_Exit._]
POLONIUS.
What is’t, Ophelia, he hath said to you?
OPHELIA.
So please you, something touching the Lord Hamlet.
POLONIUS.
Marry, well bethought:
’Tis told me he hath very oft of late
Given private time to you; and you yourself
Have of your audience been most free and bounteous.
If it be so,—as so ’tis put on me,
And that in way of caution,—I must tell you
You do not understand yourself so clearly
As it behoves my daughter and your honour.
What is between you? Give me up the truth.
OPHELIA.
He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders
Of his affection to me.
POLONIUS.
Affection! Pooh! You speak like a green girl,
Unsifted in such perilous circumstance.
The course of true love never did run smooth.
I must confess that I have heard so much,
And with Demetrius thought to have spoke thereof;
But, being over-full of self-affairs,
My mind did lose it.—But, Demetrius, come,
And come, Egeus; you shall go with me.
I have some private schooling for you both.—
For you, fair Hermia, look you arm yourself
To fit your fancies to your father’s will,
Or else the law of Athens yields you up
(Which by no means we may extenuate)
To death, or to a vow of single life.
Come, my Hippolyta. What cheer, my love?
Demetrius and Egeus, go along;
I must employ you in some business
Against our nuptial, and confer with you
Of something nearly that concerns yourselves.
EGEUS.
With duty and desire we follow you.
[_Exeunt all but Lysander and Hermia._]
LYSANDER.
How now, my love? Why is your cheek so pale?
How chance the roses there do fade so fast?
HERMIA.
Belike for want of rain, which I could well
Beteem them from the tempest of my eyes.
LYSANDER.
Ay me! For aught that I could ever read,
Could ever hear by tale or history,
The course of true love never did run smooth.
But either it was different in blood—
HERMIA.
O cross! Too high to be enthrall’d to low.
LYSANDER.
Or else misgraffèd in respect of years—
HERMIA.
O spite! Too old to be engag’d to young.
LYSANDER.
Or else it stood upon the choice of friends—
HERMIA.
O hell! to choose love by another’s eyes!
LYSANDER.
Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,
War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it,
Making it momentany as a sound,
Swift as a shadow, short as any dream,
Brief as the lightning in the collied night
That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,
And, ere a man hath power to say, ‘Behold!’
The jaws of darkness do devour it up:
So quick bright things come to confusion.
HERMIA.
If then true lovers have ever cross’d,
It stands as an edict in destiny.
Then let us teach our trial patience,
Because it is a customary cross,
As due to love as thoughts and dreams and sighs,
Wishes and tears, poor fancy’s followers.
LYSANDER.
A good persuasion; therefore, hear me, Hermia.
Good night, good night! parting is such sweet sorrow, That I shall say good night till it be morrow.
Bondage is hoarse and may not speak aloud,
Else would I tear the cave where Echo lies,
And make her airy tongue more hoarse than mine
With repetition of my Romeo’s name.
ROMEO.
It is my soul that calls upon my name.
How silver-sweet sound lovers’ tongues by night,
Like softest music to attending ears.
JULIET.
Romeo.
ROMEO.
My nyas?
JULIET.
What o’clock tomorrow
Shall I send to thee?
ROMEO.
By the hour of nine.
JULIET.
I will not fail. ’Tis twenty years till then.
I have forgot why I did call thee back.
ROMEO.
Let me stand here till thou remember it.
JULIET.
I shall forget, to have thee still stand there,
Remembering how I love thy company.
ROMEO.
And I’ll still stay, to have thee still forget,
Forgetting any other home but this.
JULIET.
’Tis almost morning; I would have thee gone,
And yet no farther than a wanton’s bird,
That lets it hop a little from her hand,
Like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves,
And with a silk thread plucks it back again,
So loving-jealous of his liberty.
ROMEO.
I would I were thy bird.
JULIET.
Sweet, so would I:
Yet I should kill thee with much cherishing.
Good night, good night. Parting is such sweet sorrow
That I shall say good night till it be morrow.
[_Exit._]
ROMEO.
Sleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breast.
Would I were sleep and peace, so sweet to rest.
Hence will I to my ghostly Sire’s cell,
His help to crave and my dear hap to tell.
[_Exit._]
SCENE III. Friar Lawrence’s Cell.
Enter Friar Lawrence with a basket.
FRIAR LAWRENCE.
The grey-ey’d morn smiles on the frowning night,
Chequering the eastern clouds with streaks of light;
And fleckled darkness like a drunkard reels
From forth day’s pathway, made by Titan’s fiery wheels
Now, ere the sun advance his burning eye,
The day to cheer, and night’s dank dew to dry,
I must upfill this osier cage of ours
With baleful weeds and precious-juiced flowers.
The earth that’s nature’s mother, is her tomb;
What is her burying grave, that is her womb:
And from her womb children of divers kind
We sucking on her natural bosom find.
Many for many virtues excellent,
None but for some, and yet all different.
O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies
In plants, herbs, stones, and their true qualities.
Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove. O no, it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandring barque, Whose worths unknown, although his height be taken. Loves not Times fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickles compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
make of monsters, and things indigest,
Such cherubins as your sweet self resemble,
Creating every bad a perfect best
As fast as objects to his beams assemble:
O ’tis the first, ’tis flattery in my seeing,
And my great mind most kingly drinks it up,
Mine eye well knows what with his gust is ’greeing,
And to his palate doth prepare the cup.
If it be poisoned, ’tis the lesser sin,
That mine eye loves it and doth first begin.
115
Those lines that I before have writ do lie,
Even those that said I could not love you dearer,
Yet then my judgement knew no reason why,
My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer,
But reckoning time, whose millioned accidents
Creep in ’twixt vows, and change decrees of kings,
Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp’st intents,
Divert strong minds to the course of alt’ring things:
Alas why fearing of time’s tyranny,
Might I not then say ‘Now I love you best,’
When I was certain o’er incertainty,
Crowning the present, doubting of the rest?
Love is a babe, then might I not say so
To give full growth to that which still doth grow.
116
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments, love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no, it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand’ring bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come,
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom:
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
117
Accuse me thus, that I have scanted all,
Wherein I should your great deserts repay,
Forgot upon your dearest love to call,
Whereto all bonds do tie me day by day,
That I have frequent been with unknown minds,
And given to time your own dear-purchased right,
That I have hoisted sail to all the winds
Which should transport me farthest from your sight.
Book both my wilfulness and errors down,
And on just proof surmise, accumulate,
Bring me within the level of your frown,
But shoot not at me in your wakened hate:
Since my appeal says I did strive to prove
The constancy and virtue of your love.
118
Like as to make our appetite more keen
With eager compounds we our palate urge,
As to prevent our maladies unseen,
We sicken to shun sickness when we purge.
Even so being full of your ne’er-cloying sweetness,
To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding;
And sick of welfare found a kind of meetness,
To be diseased ere that there was true needing.
Shall I compare thee to a summers day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summers lease hath all too short a date: Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines, And too often is his gold complexion dimmd: And every fair from fair sometimes declines, By chance or natures changing course untrimmd; By thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; Nor shall Death brag thou wanderst in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou growest: So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
stand you on the top of happy hours,
And many maiden gardens yet unset,
With virtuous wish would bear you living flowers,
Much liker than your painted counterfeit:
So should the lines of life that life repair
Which this (Time’s pencil) or my pupil pen
Neither in inward worth nor outward fair
Can make you live yourself in eyes of men.
To give away yourself, keeps yourself still,
And you must live drawn by your own sweet skill.
17
Who will believe my verse in time to come
If it were filled with your most high deserts?
Though yet heaven knows it is but as a tomb
Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts:
If I could write the beauty of your eyes,
And in fresh numbers number all your graces,
The age to come would say this poet lies,
Such heavenly touches ne’er touched earthly faces.
So should my papers (yellowed with their age)
Be scorned, like old men of less truth than tongue,
And your true rights be termed a poet’s rage,
And stretched metre of an antique song.
But were some child of yours alive that time,
You should live twice,—in it, and in my rhyme.
18
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimmed:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st,
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
19
Devouring Time blunt thou the lion’s paws,
And make the earth devour her own sweet brood,
Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger’s jaws,
And burn the long-lived phoenix, in her blood,
Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleet’st,
And do whate’er thou wilt swift-footed Time
To the wide world and all her fading sweets:
But I forbid thee one most heinous crime,
O carve not with thy hours my love’s fair brow,
Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen,
Him in thy course untainted do allow,
For beauty’s pattern to succeeding men.
Yet do thy worst, old Time; despite thy wrong,
My love shall in my verse ever live young.
20
A woman’s face with nature’s own hand painted,
Hast thou the master mistress of my passion,
A woman’s gentle heart but not acquainted
With shifting change as is false women’s fashion,
An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling:
Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth,
A man in hue all hues in his controlling,
Which steals men’s eyes and women’s souls amazeth.
They do not love that do not show their love.
As of a knight well-spoken, neat, and fine;
But, were I you, he never should be mine.
JULIA.
What think’st thou of the rich Mercatio?
LUCETTA.
Well of his wealth; but of himself, so-so.
JULIA.
What think’st thou of the gentle Proteus?
LUCETTA.
Lord, Lord, to see what folly reigns in us!
JULIA.
How now? What means this passion at his name?
LUCETTA.
Pardon, dear madam, ’tis a passing shame
That I, unworthy body as I am,
Should censure thus on lovely gentlemen.
JULIA.
Why not on Proteus, as of all the rest?
LUCETTA.
Then thus: of many good I think him best.
JULIA.
Your reason?
LUCETTA.
I have no other but a woman’s reason:
I think him so because I think him so.
JULIA.
And wouldst thou have me cast my love on him?
LUCETTA.
Ay, if you thought your love not cast away.
JULIA.
Why, he of all the rest hath never moved me.
LUCETTA.
Yet he of all the rest I think best loves ye.
JULIA.
His little speaking shows his love but small.
LUCETTA.
Fire that’s closest kept burns most of all.
JULIA.
They do not love that do not show their love.
LUCETTA.
O, they love least that let men know their love.
JULIA.
I would I knew his mind.
LUCETTA.
Peruse this paper, madam.
[_Gives her a letter._]
JULIA.
_To Julia_—Say, from whom?
LUCETTA.
That the contents will show.
JULIA.
Say, say, who gave it thee?
LUCETTA.
Sir Valentine’s page, and sent, I think, from Proteus.
He would have given it you, but I, being in the way,
Did in your name receive it. Pardon the fault, I pray.
JULIA.
Now, by my modesty, a goodly broker!
Dare you presume to harbour wanton lines?
To whisper and conspire against my youth?
Now trust me, ’tis an office of great worth,
And you an officer fit for the place.
There, take the paper; see it be returned,
Or else return no more into my sight.
LUCETTA.
To plead for love deserves more fee than hate.
JULIA.
Will ye be gone?
LUCETTA.
That you may ruminate.
[_Exit._]
JULIA.
And yet I would I had o’erlooked the letter.
It were a shame to call her back again
And pray her to a fault for which I chid her.
Love is not loveWhich alters when it alteration finds,Or bends with the remover to remove.O no, it is an ever-fixed markThat looks on tempests and is never shaken;It is the star to every wandring bark,Whose worths unknown, although his height be taken.
make of monsters, and things indigest,
Such cherubins as your sweet self resemble,
Creating every bad a perfect best
As fast as objects to his beams assemble:
O ’tis the first, ’tis flattery in my seeing,
And my great mind most kingly drinks it up,
Mine eye well knows what with his gust is ’greeing,
And to his palate doth prepare the cup.
If it be poisoned, ’tis the lesser sin,
That mine eye loves it and doth first begin.
115
Those lines that I before have writ do lie,
Even those that said I could not love you dearer,
Yet then my judgement knew no reason why,
My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer,
But reckoning time, whose millioned accidents
Creep in ’twixt vows, and change decrees of kings,
Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp’st intents,
Divert strong minds to the course of alt’ring things:
Alas why fearing of time’s tyranny,
Might I not then say ‘Now I love you best,’
When I was certain o’er incertainty,
Crowning the present, doubting of the rest?
Love is a babe, then might I not say so
To give full growth to that which still doth grow.
116
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments, love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no, it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand’ring bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come,
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom:
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
117
Accuse me thus, that I have scanted all,
Wherein I should your great deserts repay,
Forgot upon your dearest love to call,
Whereto all bonds do tie me day by day,
That I have frequent been with unknown minds,
And given to time your own dear-purchased right,
That I have hoisted sail to all the winds
Which should transport me farthest from your sight.
Book both my wilfulness and errors down,
And on just proof surmise, accumulate,
Bring me within the level of your frown,
But shoot not at me in your wakened hate:
Since my appeal says I did strive to prove
The constancy and virtue of your love.
118
Like as to make our appetite more keen
With eager compounds we our palate urge,
As to prevent our maladies unseen,
We sicken to shun sickness when we purge.
And yet,to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays.
But I will not stir from this place, do what they can. I
will walk up and down here, and I will sing, that they shall hear I am
not afraid.
[_Sings._]
The ousel cock, so black of hue,
With orange-tawny bill,
The throstle with his note so true,
The wren with little quill.
TITANIA.
[_Waking._] What angel wakes me from my flowery bed?
BOTTOM.
[_Sings._]
The finch, the sparrow, and the lark,
The plain-song cuckoo gray,
Whose note full many a man doth mark,
And dares not answer nay.
for, indeed, who would set his wit to so foolish a bird? Who would give
a bird the lie, though he cry ‘cuckoo’ never so?
TITANIA.
I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again.
Mine ear is much enamour’d of thy note.
So is mine eye enthrallèd to thy shape;
And thy fair virtue’s force perforce doth move me,
On the first view, to say, to swear, I love thee.
BOTTOM.
Methinks, mistress, you should have little reason for that. And yet, to
say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays.
The more the pity that some honest neighbours will not make them
friends. Nay, I can gleek upon occasion.
TITANIA.
Thou art as wise as thou art beautiful.
BOTTOM.
Not so, neither; but if I had wit enough to get out of this wood, I
have enough to serve mine own turn.
TITANIA.
Out of this wood do not desire to go.
Thou shalt remain here whether thou wilt or no.
I am a spirit of no common rate.
The summer still doth tend upon my state;
And I do love thee: therefore, go with me.
I’ll give thee fairies to attend on thee;
And they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep,
And sing, while thou on pressèd flowers dost sleep.
And I will purge thy mortal grossness so
That thou shalt like an airy spirit go.—
Peaseblossom! Cobweb! Moth! and Mustardseed!
Enter four Fairies.
PEASEBLOSSOM.
Ready.
COBWEB.
And I.
MOTH.
And I.
MUSTARDSEED.
And I.
ALL.
Where shall we go?
TITANIA.
Be kind and courteous to this gentleman;
Hop in his walks and gambol in his eyes;
Feed him with apricocks and dewberries,
With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries;
The honey-bags steal from the humble-bees,
And for night-tapers, crop their waxen thighs,
And light them at the fiery glow-worm’s eyes,
To have my love to bed and to arise;
And pluck the wings from painted butterflies,
To fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes.
I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow, than a man swear he loves me.
You have it full, Benedick: we may guess by this what you are,
being a man. Truly the lady fathers herself. Be happy, lady, for you are
like an honourable father.
BENEDICK.
If Signior Leonato be her father, she would not have his head on
her shoulders for all Messina, as like him as she is.
BEATRICE.
I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior Benedick:
nobody marks you.
BENEDICK.
What! my dear Lady Disdain, are you yet living?
BEATRICE.
Is it possible Disdain should die while she hath such meet food
to feed it as Signior Benedick? Courtesy itself must convert to disdain if
you come in her presence.
BENEDICK.
Then is courtesy a turncoat. But it is certain I am loved of all
ladies, only you excepted; and I would I could find in my heart that I had
not a hard heart; for, truly, I love none.
BEATRICE.
A dear happiness to women: they would else have been troubled
with a pernicious suitor. I thank God and my cold blood, I am of your
humour for that. I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear
he loves me.
BENEDICK.
God keep your Ladyship still in that mind; so some gentleman or
other shall scape a predestinate scratched face.
BEATRICE.
Scratching could not make it worse, and ’twere such a face
as yours were.
BENEDICK.
Well, you are a rare parrot-teacher.
BEATRICE.
A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours.
BENEDICK.
I would my horse had the speed of your tongue, and so good a
continuer. But keep your way, i’ God’s name; I have done.
BEATRICE.
You always end with a jade’s trick: I know you of old.
DON PEDRO.
That is the sum of all, Leonato: Signior Claudio, and Signior
Benedick, my dear friend Leonato hath invited you all. I tell him we shall
stay here at the least a month, and he heartly prays some occasion may
detain us longer: I dare swear he is no hypocrite, but prays from his
heart.
LEONATO.
If you swear, my lord, you shall not be forsworn. [To
Don John] Let me bid you welcome, my lord: being reconciled to
the Prince your brother, I owe you all duty.
Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,Such shaping fantasies, that apprehendMore than cool reason ever comprehends.The lunatic, the lover and the poetAre of imagination all compact:One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,Sees Helens beauty in a brow of Egypt:The poets eye, in fine frenzy rolling,Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;And as imagination bodies forthThe forms of things unknown, the poets penTurns them to shapes and gives to airy nothingA local habitation and a name.
I will tell you everything, right as it
fell out.
QUINCE.
Let us hear, sweet Bottom.
BOTTOM.
Not a word of me. All that I will tell you is, that the Duke hath
dined. Get your apparel together, good strings to your beards, new
ribbons to your pumps; meet presently at the palace; every man look
o’er his part. For the short and the long is, our play is preferred. In
any case, let Thisbe have clean linen; and let not him that plays the
lion pare his nails, for they shall hang out for the lion’s claws. And
most dear actors, eat no onions nor garlick, for we are to utter sweet
breath; and I do not doubt but to hear them say it is a sweet comedy.
No more words. Away! Go, away!
[_Exeunt._]
ACT V
SCENE I. Athens. An Apartment in the Palace of Theseus
Enter Theseus, Hippolyta, Philostrate, Lords and Attendants.
HIPPOLYTA.
’Tis strange, my Theseus, that these lovers speak of.
THESEUS.
More strange than true. I never may believe
These antique fables, nor these fairy toys.
Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.
The lunatic, the lover, and the poet
Are of imagination all compact:
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold;
That is the madman: the lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt:
The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
Such tricks hath strong imagination,
That if it would but apprehend some joy,
It comprehends some bringer of that joy.
Or in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush supposed a bear?
HIPPOLYTA.
But all the story of the night told over,
And all their minds transfigur’d so together,
More witnesseth than fancy’s images,
And grows to something of great constancy;
But, howsoever, strange and admirable.
Enter lovers: Lysander, Demetrius, Hermia and Helena.
THESEUS.
Here come the lovers, full of joy and mirth.
Joy, gentle friends, joy and fresh days of love
Accompany your hearts!
LYSANDER.
More than to us
Wait in your royal walks, your board, your bed!
THESEUS.
Come now; what masques, what dances shall we have,
To wear away this long age of three hours
Between our after-supper and bed-time?
Where is our usual manager of mirth?
What revels are in hand? Is there no play
To ease the anguish of a torturing hour?
Call Philostrate.
O serpent heart hid with a flowering face!Did ever a dragon keep so fair a cave?Beautiful tyrant, feind angelical, dove feather raven, wolvish-ravening lamb! Despised substance of devinest show, just opposite to what thou justly seemest - A dammed saint, an honourable villain!
Brief sounds determine of my weal or woe.
NURSE.
I saw the wound, I saw it with mine eyes,
God save the mark!—here on his manly breast.
A piteous corse, a bloody piteous corse;
Pale, pale as ashes, all bedaub’d in blood,
All in gore-blood. I swounded at the sight.
JULIET.
O, break, my heart. Poor bankrout, break at once.
To prison, eyes; ne’er look on liberty.
Vile earth to earth resign; end motion here,
And thou and Romeo press one heavy bier.
NURSE.
O Tybalt, Tybalt, the best friend I had.
O courteous Tybalt, honest gentleman!
That ever I should live to see thee dead.
JULIET.
What storm is this that blows so contrary?
Is Romeo slaughter’d and is Tybalt dead?
My dearest cousin, and my dearer lord?
Then dreadful trumpet sound the general doom,
For who is living, if those two are gone?
NURSE.
Tybalt is gone, and Romeo banished,
Romeo that kill’d him, he is banished.
JULIET.
O God! Did Romeo’s hand shed Tybalt’s blood?
NURSE.
It did, it did; alas the day, it did.
JULIET.
O serpent heart, hid with a flowering face!
Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?
Beautiful tyrant, fiend angelical,
Dove-feather’d raven, wolvish-ravening lamb!
Despised substance of divinest show!
Just opposite to what thou justly seem’st,
A damned saint, an honourable villain!
O nature, what hadst thou to do in hell
When thou didst bower the spirit of a fiend
In mortal paradise of such sweet flesh?
Was ever book containing such vile matter
So fairly bound? O, that deceit should dwell
In such a gorgeous palace.
NURSE.
There’s no trust,
No faith, no honesty in men. All perjur’d,
All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers.
Ah, where’s my man? Give me some aqua vitae.
These griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me old.
Shame come to Romeo.
JULIET.
Blister’d be thy tongue
For such a wish! He was not born to shame.
Upon his brow shame is asham’d to sit;
For ’tis a throne where honour may be crown’d
Sole monarch of the universal earth.
O, what a beast was I to chide at him!
NURSE.
Will you speak well of him that kill’d your cousin?
JULIET.
Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband?
Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name,
When I thy three-hours’ wife have mangled it?
But wherefore, villain, didst thou kill my cousin?
...Who could refrain, That had a heart to love, and in that heart Courage to make love known?
What is amiss?
MACBETH.
You are, and do not know’t:
The spring, the head, the fountain of your blood
Is stopp’d; the very source of it is stopp’d.
MACDUFF.
Your royal father’s murder’d.
MALCOLM.
O, by whom?
LENNOX.
Those of his chamber, as it seem’d, had done’t:
Their hands and faces were all badg’d with blood;
So were their daggers, which, unwip’d, we found
Upon their pillows. They star’d, and were distracted;
No man’s life was to be trusted with them.
MACBETH.
O, yet I do repent me of my fury,
That I did kill them.
MACDUFF.
Wherefore did you so?
MACBETH.
Who can be wise, amaz’d, temperate, and furious,
Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man:
Th’ expedition of my violent love
Outrun the pauser, reason. Here lay Duncan,
His silver skin lac’d with his golden blood;
And his gash’d stabs look’d like a breach in nature
For ruin’s wasteful entrance: there, the murderers,
Steep’d in the colours of their trade, their daggers
Unmannerly breech’d with gore. Who could refrain,
That had a heart to love, and in that heart
Courage to make’s love known?
LADY MACBETH.
Help me hence, ho!
MACDUFF.
Look to the lady.
MALCOLM.
Why do we hold our tongues,
That most may claim this argument for ours?
DONALBAIN.
What should be spoken here, where our fate,
Hid in an auger hole, may rush, and seize us?
Let’s away. Our tears are not yet brew’d.
MALCOLM.
Nor our strong sorrow
Upon the foot of motion.
BANQUO.
Look to the lady:—
[_Lady Macbeth is carried out._]
And when we have our naked frailties hid,
That suffer in exposure, let us meet,
And question this most bloody piece of work
To know it further. Fears and scruples shake us:
In the great hand of God I stand; and thence
Against the undivulg’d pretence I fight
Of treasonous malice.
MACDUFF.
And so do I.
ALL.
So all.
MACBETH.
Let’s briefly put on manly readiness,
And meet i’ th’ hall together.
ALL.
Well contented.
[_Exeunt all but Malcolm and Donalbain._]
MALCOLM.
What will you do? Let’s not consort with them:
To show an unfelt sorrow is an office
Which the false man does easy.
[_Retiring with Horatio._]
LAERTES.
What ceremony else?
HAMLET.
That is Laertes, a very noble youth. Mark.
LAERTES.
What ceremony else?
PRIEST.
Her obsequies have been as far enlarg’d
As we have warranties. Her death was doubtful;
And but that great command o’ersways the order,
She should in ground unsanctified have lodg’d
Till the last trumpet. For charitable prayers,
Shards, flints, and pebbles should be thrown on her.
Yet here she is allowed her virgin rites,
Her maiden strewments, and the bringing home
Of bell and burial.
LAERTES.
Must there no more be done?
PRIEST.
No more be done.
We should profane the service of the dead
To sing sage requiem and such rest to her
As to peace-parted souls.
LAERTES.
Lay her i’ th’earth,
And from her fair and unpolluted flesh
May violets spring. I tell thee, churlish priest,
A minist’ring angel shall my sister be
When thou liest howling.
HAMLET.
What, the fair Ophelia?
QUEEN.
[_Scattering flowers._] Sweets to the sweet. Farewell.
I hop’d thou shouldst have been my Hamlet’s wife;
I thought thy bride-bed to have deck’d, sweet maid,
And not have strew’d thy grave.
LAERTES.
O, treble woe
Fall ten times treble on that cursed head
Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense
Depriv’d thee of. Hold off the earth a while,
Till I have caught her once more in mine arms.
[_Leaps into the grave._]
Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead,
Till of this flat a mountain you have made,
To o’ertop old Pelion or the skyish head
Of blue Olympus.
HAMLET.
[_Advancing._]
What is he whose grief
Bears such an emphasis? whose phrase of sorrow
Conjures the wand’ring stars, and makes them stand
Like wonder-wounded hearers? This is I,
Hamlet the Dane.
[_Leaps into the grave._]
LAERTES.
[_Grappling with him._] The devil take thy soul!
HAMLET.
Thou pray’st not well.
I prithee take thy fingers from my throat;
For though I am not splenative and rash,
Yet have I in me something dangerous,
Which let thy wiseness fear.
See how she leans her cheek upon her hand. O, that I were a glove upon that hand That I might touch that cheek!
He jests at scars that never felt a wound.
Juliet appears above at a window.
But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun!
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 eyes 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.
JULIET.
Ay me.
ROMEO.
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 wondering eyes
Of mortals that fall back to gaze on him
When he bestrides the lazy-puffing clouds
And sails upon the bosom of the air.
JULIET.
O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name.
Or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.
ROMEO.
[_Aside._] Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?
JULIET.
’Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What’s Montague? It is nor hand nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O be some other name.
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for thy name, which is no part of thee,
Take all myself.
I do love nothing in the world so well as you- is not that strange?
Signior Leonato, let the friar advise you:
And though you know my inwardness and love
Is very much unto the Prince and Claudio,
Yet, by mine honour, I will deal in this
As secretly and justly as your soul
Should with your body.
LEONATO.
Being that I flow in grief,
The smallest twine may lead me.
FRIAR.
’Tis well consented: presently away;
For to strange sores strangely they strain the cure.
Come, lady, die to live: this wedding day
Perhaps is but prolong’d: have patience and endure.
[Exeunt Friar, Hero and Leonato.]
BENEDICK.
Lady Beatrice, have you wept all this while?
BEATRICE.
Yea, and I will weep a while longer.
BENEDICK.
I will not desire that.
BEATRICE.
You have no reason; I do it freely.
BENEDICK.
Surely I do believe your fair cousin is wronged.
BEATRICE.
Ah! how much might the man deserve of me that would right her.
BENEDICK.
Is there any way to show such friendship?
BEATRICE.
A very even way, but no such friend.
BENEDICK.
May a man do it?
BEATRICE.
It is a man’s office, but not yours.
BENEDICK.
I do love nothing in the world so well as you: is not that strange?
BEATRICE.
As strange as the thing I know not. It were as possible for
me to say I loved nothing so well as you; but believe me not, and yet
I lie not; I confess nothing, nor I deny nothing. I am sorry for my
cousin.
BENEDICK.
By my sword, Beatrice, thou lovest me.
BEATRICE.
Do not swear by it, and eat it.
BENEDICK.
I will swear by it that you love me; and I will make him eat it
that says I love not you.
BEATRICE.
Will you not eat your word?
BENEDICK.
With no sauce that can be devised to it. I protest I love thee.
BEATRICE.
Why then, God forgive me!
BENEDICK.
What offence, sweet Beatrice?
BEATRICE.
You have stayed me in a happy hour: I was about to protest I loved you.
BENEDICK.
And do it with all thy heart.
BEATRICE.
I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest.
BENEDICK.
Come, bid me do anything for thee.
BEATRICE.
Kill Claudio.
BENEDICK.
Ha! not for the wide world.
BEATRICE.
You kill me to deny it. Farewell.
