Quotes by William Shakespeare

Enter with drum and colours, Macbeth, Seyton and Soldiers. MACBETH. Hang out our banners on the outward walls; The cry is still, “They come!” Our castle’s strength Will laugh a siege to scorn: here let them lie Till famine and the ague eat them up. Were they not forc’d with those that should be ours, We might have met them dareful, beard to beard, And beat them backward home. [_A cry of women within._] What is that noise? SEYTON. It is the cry of women, my good lord. [_Exit._] MACBETH. I have almost forgot the taste of fears. The time has been, my senses would have cool’d To hear a night-shriek; and my fell of hair Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir As life were in’t. I have supp’d full with horrors; Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts, Cannot once start me. Enter Seyton. Wherefore was that cry? SEYTON. The Queen, my lord, is dead. MACBETH. She should have died hereafter. There would have been a time for such a word. Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow; a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. Enter a Messenger. Thou com’st to use thy tongue; thy story quickly. MESSENGER. Gracious my lord, I should report that which I say I saw, But know not how to do’t. MACBETH. Well, say, sir. MESSENGER. As I did stand my watch upon the hill, I look’d toward Birnam, and anon, methought, The wood began to move. MACBETH. Liar, and slave! MESSENGER. Let me endure your wrath, if’t be not so. Within this three mile may you see it coming; I say, a moving grove. MACBETH. If thou speak’st false, Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive, Till famine cling thee: if thy speech be sooth, I care not if thou dost for me as much.— I pull in resolution; and begin To doubt th’ equivocation of the fiend, That lies like truth. “Fear not, till Birnam wood Do come to Dunsinane;” and now a wood Comes toward Dunsinane.—Arm, arm, and out!— If this which he avouches does appear, There is nor flying hence nor tarrying here. I ’gin to be aweary of the sun, And wish th’ estate o’ th’ world were now undone.

CALPHURNIA. Caesar, I never stood on ceremonies, Yet now they fright me. There is one within, Besides the things that we have heard and seen, Recounts most horrid sights seen by the watch. A lioness hath whelped in the streets, And graves have yawn’d, and yielded up their dead; Fierce fiery warriors fight upon the clouds In ranks and squadrons and right form of war, Which drizzled blood upon the Capitol; The noise of battle hurtled in the air, Horses did neigh, and dying men did groan, And ghosts did shriek and squeal about the streets. O Caesar, these things are beyond all use, And I do fear them! CAESAR. What can be avoided Whose end is purpos’d by the mighty gods? Yet Caesar shall go forth; for these predictions Are to the world in general as to Caesar. CALPHURNIA. When beggars die, there are no comets seen; The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes. CAESAR. Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once. Of all the wonders that I yet have heard, It seems to me most strange that men should fear, Seeing that death, a necessary end, Will come when it will come. Enter Servant. What say the augurers? SERVANT. They would not have you to stir forth today. Plucking the entrails of an offering forth, They could not find a heart within the beast. CAESAR. The gods do this in shame of cowardice: Caesar should be a beast without a heart If he should stay at home today for fear. No, Caesar shall not. Danger knows full well That Caesar is more dangerous than he. We are two lions litter’d in one day, And I the elder and more terrible, And Caesar shall go forth. CALPHURNIA. Alas, my lord, Your wisdom is consum’d in confidence. Do not go forth today: call it my fear That keeps you in the house, and not your own. We’ll send Mark Antony to the Senate-house, And he shall say you are not well today. Let me upon my knee prevail in this. CAESAR. Mark Antony shall say I am not well, And for thy humour, I will stay at home. Enter Decius. Here’s Decius Brutus, he shall tell them so. DECIUS. Caesar, all hail! Good morrow, worthy Caesar.

Well, God give them wisdom that have it; and those that are fools, let them use their talents. MARIA. Yet you will be hanged for being so long absent; or to be turned away; is not that as good as a hanging to you? CLOWN. Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage; and for turning away, let summer bear it out. MARIA. You are resolute then? CLOWN. Not so, neither, but I am resolved on two points. MARIA. That if one break, the other will hold; or if both break, your gaskins fall. CLOWN. Apt, in good faith, very apt! Well, go thy way; if Sir Toby would leave drinking, thou wert as witty a piece of Eve’s flesh as any in Illyria. MARIA. Peace, you rogue, no more o’ that. Here comes my lady: make your excuse wisely, you were best. [_Exit._] Enter Olivia with Malvolio. CLOWN. Wit, and’t be thy will, put me into good fooling! Those wits that think they have thee, do very oft prove fools; and I that am sure I lack thee, may pass for a wise man. For what says Quinapalus? Better a witty fool than a foolish wit. God bless thee, lady! OLIVIA. Take the fool away. CLOWN. Do you not hear, fellows? Take away the lady. OLIVIA. Go to, y’are a dry fool; I’ll no more of you. Besides, you grow dishonest. CLOWN. Two faults, madonna, that drink and good counsel will amend: for give the dry fool drink, then is the fool not dry; bid the dishonest man mend himself, if he mend, he is no longer dishonest; if he cannot, let the botcher mend him. Anything that’s mended is but patched; virtue that transgresses is but patched with sin, and sin that amends is but patched with virtue. If that this simple syllogism will serve, so; if it will not, what remedy? As there is no true cuckold but calamity, so beauty’s a flower. The lady bade take away the fool, therefore, I say again, take her away. OLIVIA. Sir, I bade them take away you. CLOWN. Misprision in the highest degree! Lady, _cucullus non facit monachum:_ that’s as much to say, I wear not motley in my brain. Good madonna, give me leave to prove you a fool.

In the meantime, against thou shalt awake, Shall Romeo by my letters know our drift, And hither shall he come, and he and I Will watch thy waking, and that very night Shall Romeo bear thee hence to Mantua. And this shall free thee from this present shame, If no inconstant toy nor womanish fear Abate thy valour in the acting it. JULIET. Give me, give me! O tell not me of fear! FRIAR LAWRENCE. Hold; get you gone, be strong and prosperous In this resolve. I’ll send a friar with speed To Mantua, with my letters to thy lord. JULIET. Love give me strength, and strength shall help afford. Farewell, dear father. [_Exeunt._] SCENE II. Hall in Capulet’s House. Enter Capulet, Lady Capulet, Nurse and Servants. CAPULET. So many guests invite as here are writ. [_Exit first Servant._] Sirrah, go hire me twenty cunning cooks. SECOND SERVANT. You shall have none ill, sir; for I’ll try if they can lick their fingers. CAPULET. How canst thou try them so? SECOND SERVANT. Marry, sir, ’tis an ill cook that cannot lick his own fingers; therefore he that cannot lick his fingers goes not with me. CAPULET. Go, begone. [_Exit second Servant._] We shall be much unfurnish’d for this time. What, is my daughter gone to Friar Lawrence? NURSE. Ay, forsooth. CAPULET. Well, he may chance to do some good on her. A peevish self-will’d harlotry it is. Enter Juliet. NURSE. See where she comes from shrift with merry look. CAPULET. How now, my headstrong. Where have you been gadding? JULIET. Where I have learnt me to repent the sin Of disobedient opposition To you and your behests; and am enjoin’d By holy Lawrence to fall prostrate here, To beg your pardon. Pardon, I beseech you. Henceforward I am ever rul’d by you. CAPULET. Send for the County, go tell him of this. I’ll have this knot knit up tomorrow morning. JULIET. I met the youthful lord at Lawrence’ cell, And gave him what becomed love I might, Not stepping o’er the bounds of modesty. CAPULET. Why, I am glad on’t. This is well.

As the indifferent children of the earth. GUILDENSTERN. Happy in that we are not over-happy; On Fortune’s cap we are not the very button. HAMLET. Nor the soles of her shoe? ROSENCRANTZ. Neither, my lord. HAMLET. Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of her favours? GUILDENSTERN. Faith, her privates we. HAMLET. In the secret parts of Fortune? O, most true; she is a strumpet. What’s the news? ROSENCRANTZ. None, my lord, but that the world’s grown honest. HAMLET. Then is doomsday near. But your news is not true. Let me question more in particular. What have you, my good friends, deserved at the hands of Fortune, that she sends you to prison hither? GUILDENSTERN. Prison, my lord? HAMLET. Denmark’s a prison. ROSENCRANTZ. Then is the world one. HAMLET. A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons, Denmark being one o’ th’ worst. ROSENCRANTZ. We think not so, my lord. HAMLET. Why, then ’tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so. To me it is a prison. ROSENCRANTZ. Why, then your ambition makes it one; ’tis too narrow for your mind. HAMLET. O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams. GUILDENSTERN. Which dreams, indeed, are ambition; for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream. HAMLET. A dream itself is but a shadow. ROSENCRANTZ. Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality that it is but a shadow’s shadow. HAMLET. Then are our beggars bodies, and our monarchs and outstretch’d heroes the beggars’ shadows. Shall we to th’ court? For, by my fay, I cannot reason. ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN. We’ll wait upon you. HAMLET. No such matter. I will not sort you with the rest of my servants; for, to speak to you like an honest man, I am most dreadfully attended. But, in the beaten way of friendship, what make you at Elsinore? ROSENCRANTZ. To visit you, my lord, no other occasion.

But whate’er you are That in this desert inaccessible, Under the shade of melancholy boughs, Lose and neglect the creeping hours of time, If ever you have looked on better days, If ever been where bells have knolled to church, If ever sat at any good man’s feast, If ever from your eyelids wiped a tear, And know what ’tis to pity and be pitied, Let gentleness my strong enforcement be, In the which hope I blush and hide my sword. DUKE SENIOR. True is it that we have seen better days, And have with holy bell been knolled to church, And sat at good men’s feasts, and wiped our eyes Of drops that sacred pity hath engendered. And therefore sit you down in gentleness, And take upon command what help we have That to your wanting may be ministered. ORLANDO. Then but forbear your food a little while, Whiles, like a doe, I go to find my fawn, And give it food. There is an old poor man Who after me hath many a weary step Limped in pure love. Till he be first sufficed, Oppressed with two weak evils, age and hunger, I will not touch a bit. DUKE SENIOR. Go find him out, And we will nothing waste till you return. ORLANDO. I thank ye, and be blest for your good comfort. [_Exit._] DUKE SENIOR. Thou seest we are not all alone unhappy. This wide and universal theatre Presents more woeful pageants than the scene Wherein we play in. JAQUES. All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. At first the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms; Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier, Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard, Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice, In fair round belly with good capon lined, With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, Full of wise saws and modern instances; And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slippered pantaloon, With spectacles on nose and pouch on side, His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice, Turning again toward childish treble, pipes And whistles in his sound.

Has he affections in him That thus can make him bite the law by th’ nose When he would force it? Sure it is no sin; Or of the deadly seven it is the least. ISABELLA. Which is the least? CLAUDIO. If it were damnable, he being so wise, Why would he for the momentary trick Be perdurably fined? O Isabel! ISABELLA. What says my brother? CLAUDIO. Death is a fearful thing. ISABELLA. And shamed life a hateful. CLAUDIO. 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 imprisoned in the viewless winds And blown with restless violence round about The pendent world; or to be worse than worst Of those that lawless and incertain thought Imagine howling—’tis too horrible. The weariest and most loathed worldly life That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment Can lay on nature is a paradise To what we fear of death. ISABELLA. Alas, alas! CLAUDIO. Sweet sister, let me live. What sin you do to save a brother’s life, Nature dispenses with the deed so far That it becomes a virtue. ISABELLA. O, you beast! O faithless coward! O dishonest wretch! Wilt thou be made a man out of my vice? Is’t not a kind of incest to take life From thine own sister’s shame? What should I think? Heaven shield my mother played my father fair, For such a warped slip of wilderness Ne’er issued from his blood. Take my defiance, Die, perish! Might but my bending down Reprieve thee from thy fate, it should proceed. I’ll pray a thousand prayers for thy death, No word to save thee. CLAUDIO. Nay, hear me, Isabel. ISABELLA. O fie, fie, fie! Thy sin’s not accidental, but a trade. Mercy to thee would prove itself a bawd. ’Tis best that thou diest quickly. [_Going._] CLAUDIO. O, hear me, Isabella. Enter Duke as a Friar. DUKE. Vouchsafe a word, young sister, but one word. ISABELLA. What is your will?

93 So shall I live, supposing thou art true, Like a deceived husband, so love’s face, May still seem love to me, though altered new: Thy looks with me, thy heart in other place. For there can live no hatred in thine eye, Therefore in that I cannot know thy change, In many’s looks, the false heart’s history Is writ in moods and frowns and wrinkles strange. But heaven in thy creation did decree, That in thy face sweet love should ever dwell, Whate’er thy thoughts, or thy heart’s workings be, Thy looks should nothing thence, but sweetness tell. How like Eve’s apple doth thy beauty grow, If thy sweet virtue answer not thy show. 94 They that have power to hurt, and will do none, That do not do the thing, they most do show, Who moving others, are themselves as stone, Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow: They rightly do inherit heaven’s graces, And husband nature’s riches from expense, They are the lords and owners of their faces, Others, but stewards of their excellence: The summer’s flower is to the summer sweet, Though to it self, it only live and die, But if that flower with base infection meet, The basest weed outbraves his dignity: For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds, Lilies that fester, smell far worse than weeds. 95 How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame, Which like a canker in the fragrant rose, Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name! O in what sweets dost thou thy sins enclose! That tongue that tells the story of thy days, (Making lascivious comments on thy sport) Cannot dispraise, but in a kind of praise, Naming thy name, blesses an ill report. O what a mansion have those vices got, Which for their habitation chose out thee, Where beauty’s veil doth cover every blot, And all things turns to fair, that eyes can see! Take heed (dear heart) of this large privilege, The hardest knife ill-used doth lose his edge. 96 Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness, Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport, Both grace and faults are loved of more and less: Thou mak’st faults graces, that to thee resort: As on the finger of a throned queen, The basest jewel will be well esteemed: So are those errors that in thee are seen, To truths translated, and for true things deemed.

No more o’ that, my lord, no more o’ that: you mar all with this starting. DOCTOR. Go to, go to. You have known what you should not. GENTLEWOMAN. She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of that: heaven knows what she has known. LADY MACBETH. Here’s the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh! DOCTOR. What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely charged. GENTLEWOMAN. I would not have such a heart in my bosom for the dignity of the whole body. DOCTOR. Well, well, well. GENTLEWOMAN. Pray God it be, sir. DOCTOR. This disease is beyond my practice: yet I have known those which have walked in their sleep, who have died holily in their beds. LADY MACBETH. Wash your hands, put on your nightgown; look not so pale. I tell you yet again, Banquo’s buried; he cannot come out on’s grave. DOCTOR. Even so? LADY MACBETH. To bed, to bed. There’s knocking at the gate. Come, come, come, come, give me your hand. What’s done cannot be undone. To bed, to bed, to bed. [_Exit._] DOCTOR. Will she go now to bed? GENTLEWOMAN. Directly. DOCTOR. Foul whisp’rings are abroad. Unnatural deeds Do breed unnatural troubles: infected minds To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets. More needs she the divine than the physician.— God, God, forgive us all! Look after her; Remove from her the means of all annoyance, And still keep eyes upon her. So, good night: My mind she has mated, and amaz’d my sight. I think, but dare not speak. GENTLEWOMAN. Good night, good doctor. [_Exeunt._] SCENE II. The Country near Dunsinane. Enter, with drum and colours Menteith, Caithness, Angus, Lennox and Soldiers. MENTEITH. The English power is near, led on by Malcolm, His uncle Siward, and the good Macduff. Revenges burn in them; for their dear causes Would to the bleeding and the grim alarm Excite the mortified man. ANGUS. Near Birnam wood Shall we well meet them. That way are they coming. CAITHNESS.

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.

lend me arms and aid when I required them, The which you both denied. ANTONY. Neglected, rather; And then when poisoned hours had bound me up From mine own knowledge. As nearly as I may I’ll play the penitent to you. But mine honesty Shall not make poor my greatness, nor my power Work without it. Truth is that Fulvia, To have me out of Egypt, made wars here, For which myself, the ignorant motive, do So far ask pardon as befits mine honour To stoop in such a case. LEPIDUS. ’Tis noble spoken. MAECENAS. If it might please you to enforce no further The griefs between ye; to forget them quite Were to remember that the present need Speaks to atone you. LEPIDUS. Worthily spoken, Maecenas. ENOBARBUS. Or, if you borrow one another’s love for the instant, you may, when you hear no more words of Pompey, return it again. You shall have time to wrangle in when you have nothing else to do. ANTONY. Thou art a soldier only. Speak no more. ENOBARBUS. That truth should be silent I had almost forgot. ANTONY. You wrong this presence; therefore speak no more. ENOBARBUS. Go to, then. Your considerate stone! CAESAR. I do not much dislike the matter, but The manner of his speech; for’t cannot be We shall remain in friendship, our conditions So differing in their acts. Yet if I knew What hoop should hold us staunch, from edge to edge O’ th’ world I would pursue it. AGRIPPA. Give me leave, Caesar. CAESAR. Speak, Agrippa. AGRIPPA. Thou hast a sister by the mother’s side, Admired Octavia. Great Mark Antony Is now a widower. CAESAR. Say not so, Agrippa. If Cleopatra heard you, your reproof Were well deserved of rashness. ANTONY. I am not married, Caesar. Let me hear Agrippa further speak. AGRIPPA. To hold you in perpetual amity, To make you brothers, and to knit your hearts With an unslipping knot, take Antony Octavia to his wife; whose beauty claims No worse a husband than the best of men; Whose virtue and whose general graces speak That which none else can utter.

[_Falstaff after a blow or two, and the others run away, leaving the booty behind them._] PRINCE. Got with much ease. Now merrily to horse. The thieves are all scatter’d, and possess’d with fear So strongly that they dare not meet each other; Each takes his fellow for an officer. Away, good Ned. Falstaff sweats to death, And lards the lean earth as he walks along. Were’t not for laughing, I should pity him. POINS. How the fat rogue roared! [_Exeunt._] SCENE III. Warkworth. A Room in the Castle. Enter Hotspur, reading a letter. HOTSPUR. “But, for mine own part, my lord, I could be well contented to be there, in respect of the love I bear your house.” He could be contented; why is he not, then? In respect of the love he bears our house—he shows in this, he loves his own barn better than he loves our house. Let me see some more. “The purpose you undertake is dangerous”—Why, that’s certain. ’Tis dangerous to take a cold, to sleep, to drink; but I tell you, my lord fool, out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety. “The purpose you undertake is dangerous, the friends you have named uncertain, the time itself unsorted, and your whole plot too light for the counterpoise of so great an opposition.” Say you so, say you so? I say unto you again, you are a shallow, cowardly hind, and you lie. What a lack-brain is this! By the Lord, our plot is a good plot as ever was laid, our friends true and constant: a good plot, good friends, and full of expectation; an excellent plot, very good friends. What a frosty-spirited rogue is this! Why, my Lord of York commends the plot and the general course of the action. Zounds, an I were now by this rascal, I could brain him with his lady’s fan. Is there not my father, my uncle, and myself? Lord Edmund Mortimer, my Lord of York, and Owen Glendower? Is there not besides the Douglas? Have I not all their letters to meet me in arms by the ninth of the next month, and are they not some of them set forward already? What a pagan rascal is this, an infidel! Ha!

How novelty may move, and parts with person, Alas, a kind of godly jealousy, Which, I beseech you, call a virtuous sin, Makes me afear’d. CRESSIDA. O heavens! you love me not! TROILUS. Die I a villain then! In this I do not call your faith in question So mainly as my merit. I cannot sing, Nor heel the high lavolt, nor sweeten talk, Nor play at subtle games; fair virtues all, To which the Grecians are most prompt and pregnant; But I can tell that in each grace of these There lurks a still and dumb-discoursive devil That tempts most cunningly. But be not tempted. CRESSIDA. Do you think I will? TROILUS. No. But something may be done that we will not; And sometimes we are devils to ourselves, When we will tempt the frailty of our powers, Presuming on their changeful potency. AENEAS. [_Within_.] Nay, good my lord! TROILUS. Come, kiss; and let us part. PARIS. [_Within_.] Brother Troilus! TROILUS. Good brother, come you hither; And bring Aeneas and the Grecian with you. CRESSIDA. My lord, will you be true? TROILUS. Who, I? Alas, it is my vice, my fault! Whiles others fish with craft for great opinion, I with great truth catch mere simplicity; Whilst some with cunning gild their copper crowns, With truth and plainness I do wear mine bare. Fear not my truth: the moral of my wit Is plain and true; there’s all the reach of it. Enter Aeneas, Paris, Antenor, Deiphobus and Diomedes. Welcome, Sir Diomed! Here is the lady Which for Antenor we deliver you; At the port, lord, I’ll give her to thy hand, And by the way possess thee what she is. Entreat her fair; and, by my soul, fair Greek, If e’er thou stand at mercy of my sword, Name Cressid, and thy life shall be as safe As Priam is in Ilion. DIOMEDES. Fair Lady Cressid, So please you, save the thanks this prince expects. The lustre in your eye, heaven in your cheek, Pleads your fair usage; and to Diomed You shall be mistress, and command him wholly. TROILUS. Grecian, thou dost not use me courteously To shame the zeal of my petition to thee In praising her. I tell thee, lord of Greece, She is as far high-soaring o’er thy praises As thou unworthy to be call’d her servant. I charge thee use her well, even for my charge; For, by the dreadful Pluto, if thou dost not, Though the great bulk Achilles be thy guard, I’ll cut thy throat.

This is that very Mab That plats the manes of horses in the night; And bakes the elf-locks in foul sluttish hairs, Which, once untangled, much misfortune bodes: This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs, That presses them, and learns them first to bear, Making them women of good carriage: This is she,— ROMEO. Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace, Thou talk’st of nothing. MERCUTIO. True, I talk of dreams, Which are the children of an idle brain, Begot of nothing but vain fantasy, Which is as thin of substance as the air, And more inconstant than the wind, who woos Even now the frozen bosom of the north, And, being anger’d, puffs away from thence, Turning his side to the dew-dropping south. BENVOLIO. This wind you talk of blows us from ourselves: Supper is done, and we shall come too late. ROMEO. I fear too early: for my mind misgives Some consequence yet hanging in the stars, Shall bitterly begin his fearful date With this night’s revels; and expire the term Of a despised life, clos’d in my breast By some vile forfeit of untimely death. But he that hath the steerage of my course Direct my suit. On, lusty gentlemen! BENVOLIO. Strike, drum. [_Exeunt._] SCENE V. A Hall in Capulet’s House. Musicians waiting. Enter Servants. FIRST SERVANT. Where’s Potpan, that he helps not to take away? He shift a trencher! He scrape a trencher! SECOND SERVANT. When good manners shall lie all in one or two men’s hands, and they unwash’d too, ’tis a foul thing. FIRST SERVANT. Away with the join-stools, remove the court-cupboard, look to the plate. Good thou, save me a piece of marchpane; and as thou loves me, let the porter let in Susan Grindstone and Nell. Antony and Potpan! SECOND SERVANT. Ay, boy, ready. FIRST SERVANT. You are looked for and called for, asked for and sought for, in the great chamber. SECOND SERVANT. We cannot be here and there too. Cheerly, boys. Be brisk awhile, and the longer liver take all. [_Exeunt._] Enter Capulet, &c. with the Guests and Gentlewomen to the Maskers. CAPULET. Welcome, gentlemen, ladies that have their toes Unplagu’d with corns will have a bout with you.

He hath no interest in me in the world. Enter William. Here comes the man you mean. TOUCHSTONE. It is meat and drink to me to see a clown. By my troth, we that have good wits have much to answer for. We shall be flouting; we cannot hold. WILLIAM. Good ev’n, Audrey. AUDREY. God ye good ev’n, William. WILLIAM. And good ev’n to you, sir. TOUCHSTONE. Good ev’n, gentle friend. Cover thy head, cover thy head. Nay, prithee, be covered. How old are you, friend? WILLIAM. Five-and-twenty, sir. TOUCHSTONE. A ripe age. Is thy name William? WILLIAM. William, sir. TOUCHSTONE. A fair name. Wast born i’ th’ forest here? WILLIAM. Ay, sir, I thank God. TOUCHSTONE. “Thank God.” A good answer. Art rich? WILLIAM. Faith, sir, so-so. TOUCHSTONE. “So-so” is good, very good, very excellent good. And yet it is not, it is but so-so. Art thou wise? WILLIAM. Ay, sir, I have a pretty wit. TOUCHSTONE. Why, thou sayst well. I do now remember a saying: “The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.” The heathen philosopher, when he had a desire to eat a grape, would open his lips when he put it into his mouth, meaning thereby that grapes were made to eat and lips to open. You do love this maid? WILLIAM. I do, sir. TOUCHSTONE. Give me your hand. Art thou learned? WILLIAM. No, sir. TOUCHSTONE. Then learn this of me: to have is to have. For it is a figure in rhetoric that drink, being poured out of cup into a glass, by filling the one doth empty the other. For all your writers do consent that _ipse_ is “he.” Now, you are not _ipse_, for I am he. WILLIAM. Which he, sir? TOUCHSTONE. He, sir, that must marry this woman. Therefore, you clown, abandon—which is in the vulgar, “leave”—the society—which in the boorish is “company”—of this female—which in the common is “woman”; which together is, abandon the society of this female, or, clown, thou perishest; or, to thy better understanding, diest; or, to wit, I kill thee, make thee away, translate thy life into death, thy liberty into bondage.

But mark, poor knight, What dreadful dole is here! Eyes, do you see? How can it be? O dainty duck! O dear! Thy mantle good, What, stained with blood? Approach, ye Furies fell! O Fates, come, come; Cut thread and thrum; Quail, rush, conclude, and quell! THESEUS. This passion, and the death of a dear friend, would go near to make a man look sad. HIPPOLYTA. Beshrew my heart, but I pity the man. PYRAMUS. O wherefore, Nature, didst thou lions frame, Since lion vile hath here deflower’d my dear? Which is—no, no—which was the fairest dame That liv’d, that lov’d, that lik’d, that look’d with cheer. Come, tears, confound! Out, sword, and wound The pap of Pyramus; Ay, that left pap, Where heart doth hop: Thus die I, thus, thus, thus. Now am I dead, Now am I fled; My soul is in the sky. Tongue, lose thy light! Moon, take thy flight! Now die, die, die, die, die. [_Dies. Exit Moonshine._] DEMETRIUS. No die, but an ace, for him; for he is but one. LYSANDER. Less than an ace, man; for he is dead, he is nothing. THESEUS. With the help of a surgeon he might yet recover and prove an ass. HIPPOLYTA. How chance Moonshine is gone before Thisbe comes back and finds her lover? THESEUS. She will find him by starlight. Enter Thisbe. Here she comes, and her passion ends the play. HIPPOLYTA. Methinks she should not use a long one for such a Pyramus. I hope she will be brief. DEMETRIUS. A mote will turn the balance, which Pyramus, which Thisbe, is the better: he for a man, God warrant us; she for a woman, God bless us! LYSANDER. She hath spied him already with those sweet eyes. DEMETRIUS. And thus she means, _videlicet_— THISBE. Asleep, my love? What, dead, my dove?

Then plainly know my heart’s dear love is set On the fair daughter of rich Capulet. As mine on hers, so hers is set on mine; And all combin’d, save what thou must combine By holy marriage. When, and where, and how We met, we woo’d, and made exchange of vow, I’ll tell thee as we pass; but this I pray, That thou consent to marry us today. FRIAR LAWRENCE. Holy Saint Francis! What a change is here! Is Rosaline, that thou didst love so dear, So soon forsaken? Young men’s love then lies Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes. Jesu Maria, what a deal of brine Hath wash’d thy sallow cheeks for Rosaline! How much salt water thrown away in waste, To season love, that of it doth not taste. The sun not yet thy sighs from heaven clears, Thy old groans yet ring in mine ancient ears. Lo here upon thy cheek the stain doth sit Of an old tear that is not wash’d off yet. If ere thou wast thyself, and these woes thine, Thou and these woes were all for Rosaline, And art thou chang’d? Pronounce this sentence then, Women may fall, when there’s no strength in men. ROMEO. Thou chidd’st me oft for loving Rosaline. FRIAR LAWRENCE. For doting, not for loving, pupil mine. ROMEO. And bad’st me bury love. FRIAR LAWRENCE. Not in a grave To lay one in, another out to have. ROMEO. I pray thee chide me not, her I love now Doth grace for grace and love for love allow. The other did not so. FRIAR LAWRENCE. O, she knew well Thy love did read by rote, that could not spell. But come young waverer, come go with me, In one respect I’ll thy assistant be; For this alliance may so happy prove, To turn your households’ rancour to pure love. ROMEO. O let us hence; I stand on sudden haste. FRIAR LAWRENCE. Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast. [_Exeunt._] SCENE IV. A Street. Enter Benvolio and Mercutio. MERCUTIO. Where the devil should this Romeo be? Came he not home tonight? BENVOLIO. Not to his father’s; I spoke with his man. MERCUTIO. Why, that same pale hard-hearted wench, that Rosaline, torments him so that he will sure run mad.

have. NURSE. Then hie you hence to Friar Lawrence’ cell; There stays a husband to make you a wife. Now comes the wanton blood up in your cheeks, They’ll be in scarlet straight at any news. Hie you to church. I must another way, To fetch a ladder by the which your love Must climb a bird’s nest soon when it is dark. I am the drudge, and toil in your delight; But you shall bear the burden soon at night. Go. I’ll to dinner; hie you to the cell. JULIET. Hie to high fortune! Honest Nurse, farewell. [_Exeunt._] SCENE VI. Friar Lawrence’s Cell. Enter Friar Lawrence and Romeo. FRIAR LAWRENCE. So smile the heavens upon this holy act That after-hours with sorrow chide us not. ROMEO. Amen, amen, but come what sorrow can, It cannot countervail the exchange of joy That one short minute gives me in her sight. Do thou but close our hands with holy words, Then love-devouring death do what he dare, It is enough I may but call her mine. FRIAR LAWRENCE. 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 his own deliciousness, And in the taste confounds the appetite. Therefore love moderately: long love doth so; Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow. Enter Juliet. Here comes the lady. O, so light a foot Will ne’er wear out the everlasting flint. A lover may bestride the gossamers That idles in the wanton summer air And yet not fall; so light is vanity. JULIET. Good even to my ghostly confessor. FRIAR LAWRENCE. Romeo shall thank thee, daughter, for us both. JULIET. As much to him, else is his thanks too much. ROMEO. Ah, Juliet, if the measure of thy joy Be heap’d like mine, and that thy skill be more To blazon it, then sweeten with thy breath This neighbour air, and let rich music’s tongue Unfold the imagin’d happiness that both Receive in either by this dear encounter. JULIET. Conceit more rich in matter than in words, Brags of his substance, not of ornament.

Come on, Lord Hastings, will you go with me? HASTINGS. I go, my lord. PRINCE. Good lords, make all the speedy haste you may. [_Exeunt Cardinal and Hastings._] Say, uncle Gloucester, if our brother come, Where shall we sojourn till our coronation? RICHARD. Where it seems best unto your royal self. If I may counsel you, some day or two Your Highness shall repose you at the Tower, Then where you please and shall be thought most fit For your best health and recreation. PRINCE. I do not like the Tower, of any place. Did Julius Caesar build that place, my lord? BUCKINGHAM. He did, my gracious lord, begin that place, Which, since, succeeding ages have re-edified. PRINCE. Is it upon record, or else reported Successively from age to age, he built it? BUCKINGHAM. Upon record, my gracious lord. PRINCE. But say, my lord, it were not registered, Methinks the truth should live from age to age, As ’twere retailed to all posterity, Even to the general all-ending day. RICHARD. [_Aside_.] So wise so young, they say, do never live long. PRINCE. What say you, uncle? RICHARD. I say, without characters, fame lives long. [_Aside_.] Thus, like the formal Vice, Iniquity, I moralize two meanings in one word. PRINCE. That Julius Caesar was a famous man. With what his valour did enrich his wit, His wit set down to make his valour live; Death makes no conquest of this conqueror, For now he lives in fame, though not in life. I’ll tell you what, my cousin Buckingham. BUCKINGHAM. What, my gracious lord? PRINCE. An if I live until I be a man, I’ll win our ancient right in France again, Or die a soldier, as I lived a king. RICHARD. [_Aside_.] Short summers lightly have a forward spring. Enter young Duke of York, Hastings and the Cardinal. BUCKINGHAM. Now, in good time here comes the Duke of York. PRINCE. Richard of York, how fares our loving brother? YORK. Well, my dread lord—so must I call you now. PRINCE. Ay brother, to our grief, as it is yours. Too late he died that might have kept that title, Which by his death hath lost much majesty.

Lord Hamlet! HAMLET. What noise? Who calls on Hamlet? O, here they come. Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. ROSENCRANTZ. What have you done, my lord, with the dead body? HAMLET. Compounded it with dust, whereto ’tis kin. ROSENCRANTZ. Tell us where ’tis, that we may take it thence, And bear it to the chapel. HAMLET. Do not believe it. ROSENCRANTZ. Believe what? HAMLET. That I can keep your counsel, and not mine own. Besides, to be demanded of a sponge—what replication should be made by the son of a king? ROSENCRANTZ. Take you me for a sponge, my lord? HAMLET. Ay, sir; that soaks up the King’s countenance, his rewards, his authorities. But such officers do the King best service in the end: he keeps them, like an ape, in the corner of his jaw; first mouthed, to be last swallowed: when he needs what you have gleaned, it is but squeezing you, and, sponge, you shall be dry again. ROSENCRANTZ. I understand you not, my lord. HAMLET. I am glad of it. A knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear. ROSENCRANTZ. My lord, you must tell us where the body is and go with us to the King. HAMLET. The body is with the King, but the King is not with the body. The King is a thing— GUILDENSTERN. A thing, my lord! HAMLET. Of nothing. Bring me to him. Hide fox, and all after. [_Exeunt._] SCENE III. Another room in the Castle. Enter King, attended. KING. I have sent to seek him and to find the body. How dangerous is it that this man goes loose! Yet must not we put the strong law on him: He’s lov’d of the distracted multitude, Who like not in their judgement, but their eyes; And where ’tis so, th’offender’s scourge is weigh’d, But never the offence. To bear all smooth and even, This sudden sending him away must seem Deliberate pause. Diseases desperate grown By desperate appliance are reliev’d, Or not at all. Enter Rosencrantz. How now? What hath befall’n? ROSENCRANTZ. Where the dead body is bestow’d, my lord, We cannot get from him. KING.