“But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east and Juliet is the sun.”
’Twould anger him
To raise a spirit in his mistress’ circle,
Of some strange nature, letting it there stand
Till she had laid it, and conjur’d it down;
That were some spite. My invocation
Is fair and honest, and, in his mistress’ name,
I conjure only but to raise up him.
BENVOLIO.
Come, he hath hid himself among these trees
To be consorted with the humorous night.
Blind is his love, and best befits the dark.
MERCUTIO.
If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark.
Now will he sit under a medlar tree,
And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit
As maids call medlars when they laugh alone.
O Romeo, that she were, O that she were
An open-arse and thou a poperin pear!
Romeo, good night. I’ll to my truckle-bed.
This field-bed is too cold for me to sleep.
Come, shall we go?
BENVOLIO.
Go then; for ’tis in vain
To seek him here that means not to be found.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE II. Capulet’s Garden.
Enter Romeo.
ROMEO.
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.
“Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo? Deny thy father, and refuse thy name”
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.
ROMEO.
I take thee at thy word.
Call me but love, and I’ll be new baptis’d;
Henceforth I never will be Romeo.
JULIET.
What man art thou that, thus bescreen’d in night
So stumblest on my counsel?
ROMEO.
By a name
I know not how to tell thee who I am:
My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself,
Because it is an enemy to thee.
Had I it written, I would tear the word.
“These violent delights have violent ends.”
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.
“Beautys ensign yetIs crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,And deaths pale flag is not advanced there.”
If thou be merciful,
Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet.
[_Dies._]
ROMEO.
In faith, I will. Let me peruse this face.
Mercutio’s kinsman, noble County Paris!
What said my man, when my betossed soul
Did not attend him as we rode? I think
He told me Paris should have married Juliet.
Said he not so? Or did I dream it so?
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.
I’ll bury thee in a triumphant grave.
A grave? O no, a lantern, slaught’red youth,
For here lies Juliet, and her beauty makes
This vault a feasting presence full of light.
Death, lie thou there, by a dead man interr’d.
[_Laying Paris in the monument._]
How oft when men are at the point of death
Have they been merry! Which their keepers call
A lightning before death. O, how may I
Call this a lightning? O my love, my wife,
Death that hath suck’d the honey of thy breath,
Hath had 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 favour can I do to thee
Than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain
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 still will stay with thee,
And never from this palace of dim night
Depart again. Here, here will I remain
With worms that are thy chambermaids. O, here
Will I set up my everlasting rest;
And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars
From this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last.
Arms, take your last embrace! And, lips, O you
The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss
A dateless bargain to engrossing death.
Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavoury guide.
Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on
The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark.
Here’s to my love! [_Drinks._] O true apothecary!
“Things without remedy, should be without regard; what is done, is done.”
And with him
(To leave no rubs nor botches in the work)
Fleance his son, that keeps him company,
Whose absence is no less material to me
Than is his father’s, must embrace the fate
Of that dark hour. Resolve yourselves apart.
I’ll come to you anon.
BOTH MURDERERS.
We are resolv’d, my lord.
MACBETH.
I’ll call upon you straight: abide within.
[_Exeunt Murderers._]
It is concluded. Banquo, thy soul’s flight,
If it find heaven, must find it out tonight.
[_Exit._]
SCENE II. The same. Another Room in the Palace.
Enter Lady Macbeth and a Servant.
LADY MACBETH.
Is Banquo gone from court?
SERVANT.
Ay, madam, but returns again tonight.
LADY MACBETH.
Say to the King, I would attend his leisure
For a few words.
SERVANT.
Madam, I will.
[_Exit._]
LADY MACBETH.
Naught’s had, all’s spent,
Where our desire is got without content:
’Tis safer to be that which we destroy,
Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.
Enter Macbeth.
How now, my lord, why do you keep alone,
Of sorriest fancies your companions making,
Using those thoughts which should indeed have died
With them they think on? Things without all remedy
Should be without regard: what’s done is done.
MACBETH.
We have scorch’d the snake, not kill’d it.
She’ll close, and be herself; whilst our poor malice
Remains in danger of her former tooth.
But let the frame of things disjoint,
Both the worlds suffer,
Ere we will eat our meal in fear, and sleep
In the affliction of these terrible dreams
That shake us nightly. Better be with the dead,
Whom we, to gain our peace, have sent to peace,
Than on the torture of the mind to lie
In restless ecstasy. Duncan is in his grave;
After life’s fitful fever he sleeps well;
Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing
Can touch him further.
LADY MACBETH.
Come on,
Gently my lord, sleek o’er your rugged looks;
Be bright and jovial among your guests tonight.
MACBETH.
So shall I, love; and so, I pray, be you.
Let your remembrance apply to Banquo;
Present him eminence, both with eye and tongue:
Unsafe the while, that we
Must lave our honours in these flattering streams,
And make our faces vizards to our hearts,
Disguising what they are.
“My heart prays for him, though my tongue do curse.”
He meant he did me none; the more my spite.
LUCIANA.
Then swore he that he was a stranger here.
ADRIANA.
And true he swore, though yet forsworn he were.
LUCIANA.
Then pleaded I for you.
ADRIANA.
And what said he?
LUCIANA.
That love I begg’d for you he begg’d of me.
ADRIANA.
With what persuasion did he tempt thy love?
LUCIANA.
With words that in an honest suit might move.
First he did praise my beauty, then my speech.
ADRIANA.
Did’st speak him fair?
LUCIANA.
Have patience, I beseech.
ADRIANA.
I cannot, nor I will not hold me still.
My tongue, though not my heart, shall have his will.
He is deformed, crooked, old, and sere,
Ill-fac’d, worse bodied, shapeless everywhere;
Vicious, ungentle, foolish, blunt, unkind,
Stigmatical in making, worse in mind.
LUCIANA.
Who would be jealous then of such a one?
No evil lost is wail’d when it is gone.
ADRIANA.
Ah, but I think him better than I say,
And yet would herein others’ eyes were worse:
Far from her nest the lapwing cries away;
My heart prays for him, though my tongue do curse.
Enter Dromio of Syracuse.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
Here, go; the desk, the purse, sweet now, make haste.
LUCIANA.
How hast thou lost thy breath?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
By running fast.
ADRIANA.
Where is thy master, Dromio? is he well?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
No, he’s in Tartar limbo, worse than hell.
A devil in an everlasting garment hath him,
One whose hard heart is button’d up with steel;
A fiend, a fairy, pitiless and rough;
A wolf, nay worse, a fellow all in buff;
A back-friend, a shoulder-clapper, one that countermands
The passages of alleys, creeks, and narrow lands;
A hound that runs counter, and yet draws dryfoot well,
One that, before the judgement, carries poor souls to hell.
ADRIANA.
Why, man, what is the matter?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
I do not know the matter. He is ’rested on the case.
ADRIANA.
What, is he arrested? Tell me at whose suit?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
I know not at whose suit he is arrested, well;
But he’s in a suit of buff which ’rested him, that can I tell.
“Do all men kill the things they do not love?”
I’ll not answer that,
But say it is my humour. Is it answer’d?
What if my house be troubled with a rat,
And I be pleas’d to give ten thousand ducats
To have it ban’d? What, are you answer’d yet?
Some men there are love not a gaping pig;
Some that are mad if they behold a cat;
And others, when the bagpipe sings i’ the nose,
Cannot contain their urine; for affection
Mistress of passion, sways it to the mood
Of what it likes or loathes. Now, for your answer:
As there is no firm reason to be render’d
Why he cannot abide a gaping pig,
Why he a harmless necessary cat,
Why he a woollen bagpipe, but of force
Must yield to such inevitable shame
As to offend, himself being offended,
So can I give no reason, nor I will not,
More than a lodg’d hate and a certain loathing
I bear Antonio, that I follow thus
A losing suit against him. Are you answered?
BASSANIO.
This is no answer, thou unfeeling man,
To excuse the current of thy cruelty.
SHYLOCK.
I am not bound to please thee with my answer.
BASSANIO.
Do all men kill the things they do not love?
SHYLOCK.
Hates any man the thing he would not kill?
BASSANIO.
Every offence is not a hate at first.
SHYLOCK.
What, wouldst thou have a serpent sting thee twice?
ANTONIO.
I pray you, think you question with the Jew.
You may as well go stand upon the beach
And bid the main flood bate his usual height;
You may as well use question with the wolf,
Why he hath made the ewe bleat for the lamb;
You may as well forbid the mountain pines
To wag their high tops and to make no noise
When they are fretten with the gusts of heaven;
You may as well do anything most hard
As seek to soften that—than which what’s harder?—
His Jewish heart. Therefore, I do beseech you,
Make no moe offers, use no farther means,
But with all brief and plain conveniency.
Let me have judgment, and the Jew his will.
BASSANIO.
For thy three thousand ducats here is six.
SHYLOCK.
If every ducat in six thousand ducats
Were in six parts, and every part a ducat,
I would not draw them, I would have my bond.
These news, I must confess, are full of grief;
Yet, gracious madam, bear it as you may.
Warwick may lose that now hath won the day.
QUEEN ELIZABETH.
Till then, fair hope must hinder life’s decay;
And I the rather wean me from despair
For love of Edward’s offspring in my womb.
This is it that makes me bridle passion
And bear with mildness my misfortune’s cross,
Ay, ay, for this I draw in many a tear
And stop the rising of blood-sucking sighs,
Lest with my sighs or tears I blast or drown
King Edward’s fruit, true heir to th’ English crown.
RIVERS.
But, madam, where is Warwick then become?
QUEEN ELIZABETH.
I am informed that he comes towards London
To set the crown once more on Henry’s head.
Guess thou the rest: King Edward’s friends must down.
But to prevent the tyrant’s violence—
For trust not him that hath once broken faith—
I’ll hence forthwith unto the sanctuary
To save at least the heir of Edward’s right.
There shall I rest secure from force and fraud.
Come, therefore, let us fly while we may fly.
If Warwick take us, we are sure to die.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE V. A park near Middleham Castle in Yorkshire
Enter Richard (Duke of Gloucester), Lord Hastings, Sir William Stanley
and others.
RICHARD.
Now, my Lord Hastings and Sir William Stanley,
Leave off to wonder why I drew you hither
Into this chiefest thicket of the park.
Thus stands the case: you know our King, my brother,
Is prisoner to the Bishop here, at whose hands
He hath good usage and great liberty,
And often but attended with weak guard,
Comes hunting this way to disport himself.
I have advertised him by secret means
That if about this hour he make this way,
Under the colour of his usual game,
He shall here find his friends with horse and men
To set him free from his captivity.
Enter King Edward and a Huntsman with him.
HUNTSMAN.
This way, my lord, for this way lies the game.
KING EDWARD.
Nay, this way, man. See where the huntsmen stand.
Now, brother of Gloucester, Lord Hastings, and the rest,
Stand you thus close to steal the Bishop’s deer?
“It is neither good nor bad, but thinking makes it so.”
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.
“Give thy thoughts no tongue.”
Virtue itself ’scapes not calumnious strokes:
The canker galls the infants of the spring
Too oft before their buttons be disclos’d,
And in the morn and liquid dew of youth
Contagious blastments are most imminent.
Be wary then, best safety lies in fear.
Youth to itself rebels, though none else near.
OPHELIA.
I shall th’effect of this good lesson keep
As watchman to my heart. But good my brother,
Do not as some ungracious pastors do,
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven;
Whilst like a puff’d and reckless libertine
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
And recks not his own rede.
LAERTES.
O, fear me not.
I stay too long. But here my father comes.
Enter Polonius.
A double blessing is a double grace;
Occasion smiles upon a second leave.
POLONIUS.
Yet here, Laertes? Aboard, aboard, for shame.
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.
“We make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars: as if we were villains by necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion.”
I will seek him, sir, presently; convey the business as I shall
find means, and acquaint you withal.
GLOUCESTER.
These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend no good to us:
though the wisdom of Nature can reason it thus and thus, yet
nature finds itself scourged by the sequent effects. Love cools,
friendship falls off, brothers divide: in cities, mutinies; in
countries, discord; in palaces, treason; and the bond cracked
’twixt son and father. This villain of mine comes under the
prediction; there’s son against father: the King falls from
bias of nature; there’s father against child. We have seen the
best of our time. Machinations, hollowness, treachery, and all
ruinous disorders follow us disquietly to our graves. Find out
this villain, Edmund; it shall lose thee nothing; do it
carefully.—And the noble and true-hearted Kent banished! his
offence, honesty! ’Tis strange.
[_Exit._]
EDMUND.
This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are
sick in fortune, often the surfeits of our own behaviour, we
make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars; as
if we were villains on necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion;
knaves, thieves, and treachers by spherical predominance;
drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforced obedience of
planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine
thrusting on. An admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his
goatish disposition to the charge of a star. My father compounded
with my mother under the dragon’s tail, and my nativity was under
Ursa Major, so that it follows I am rough and lecherous. Fut! I
should have been that I am, had the maidenliest star in the
firmament twinkled on my bastardizing.
Enter Edgar.
Pat! he comes, like the catastrophe of the old comedy: my cue
is villainous melancholy, with a sigh like Tom o’Bedlam.—O,
these eclipses do portend these divisions! Fa, sol, la, mi.
EDGAR.
How now, brother Edmund, what serious contemplation are you in?
EDMUND.
I am thinking, brother, of a prediction I read this other day,
what should follow these eclipses.
EDGAR.
Do you busy yourself with that?
EDMUND.
I promise you, the effects he writes of succeed unhappily: as of
unnaturalness between the child and the parent; death, dearth,
dissolutions of ancient amities; divisions in state, menaces and
maledictions against King and nobles; needless diffidences,
banishment of friends, dissipation of cohorts, nuptial breaches,
and I know not what.
“Thank heaven, fasting, for a good mans love: For I must tell you friendly in your ear, - Sell when you can: you are not for all markets.”
Who might be your mother,
That you insult, exult, and all at once,
Over the wretched? What though you have no beauty—
As, by my faith, I see no more in you
Than without candle may go dark to bed—
Must you be therefore proud and pitiless?
Why, what means this? Why do you look on me?
I see no more in you than in the ordinary
Of nature’s sale-work. ’Od’s my little life,
I think she means to tangle my eyes too!
No, faith, proud mistress, hope not after it.
’Tis not your inky brows, your black silk hair,
Your bugle eyeballs, nor your cheek of cream,
That can entame my spirits to your worship.
You foolish shepherd, wherefore do you follow her,
Like foggy south, puffing with wind and rain?
You are a thousand times a properer man
Than she a woman. ’Tis such fools as you
That makes the world full of ill-favoured children.
’Tis not her glass but you that flatters her,
And out of you she sees herself more proper
Than any of her lineaments can show her.
But, mistress, know yourself; down on your knees,
And thank heaven, fasting, for a good man’s love.
For I must tell you friendly in your ear,
Sell when you can; you are not for all markets.
Cry the man mercy, love him, take his offer;
Foul is most foul, being foul to be a scoffer.
So take her to thee, shepherd. Fare you well.
PHOEBE.
Sweet youth, I pray you chide a year together!
I had rather hear you chide than this man woo.
ROSALIND.
He’s fall’n in love with your foulness, and she’ll fall in love with my
anger. If it be so, as fast as she answers thee with frowning looks,
I’ll sauce her with bitter words. Why look you so upon me?
PHOEBE.
For no ill will I bear you.
ROSALIND.
I pray you do not fall in love with me,
For I am falser than vows made in wine.
Besides, I like you not. If you will know my house,
’Tis at the tuft of olives here hard by.
Will you go, sister? Shepherd, ply her hard.
Come, sister. Shepherdess, look on him better,
And be not proud. Though all the world could see,
None could be so abused in sight as he.
Come, to our flock.
[_Exeunt Rosalind, Celia and Corin._]
PHOEBE.
Dead shepherd, now I find thy saw of might:
“Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?
“O God, that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the market-place.”
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.
BENEDICK.
Tarry, sweet Beatrice.
BEATRICE.
I am gone, though I am here: there is no love in you: nay, I
pray you, let me go.
BENEDICK.
Beatrice,—
BEATRICE.
In faith, I will go.
BENEDICK.
We’ll be friends first.
BEATRICE.
You dare easier be friends with me than fight with mine enemy.
BENEDICK.
Is Claudio thine enemy?
BEATRICE.
Is he not approved in the height a villain, that hath slandered,
scorned, dishonoured my kinswoman? O! that I were a man. What! bear her in
hand until they come to take hands, and then, with public accusation,
uncovered slander, unmitigated rancour,—O God, that I were a man! I would
eat his heart in the market-place.
BENEDICK.
Hear me, Beatrice,—
BEATRICE.
Talk with a man out at a window! a proper saying!
BENEDICK.
Nay, but Beatrice,—
BEATRICE.
Sweet Hero! she is wronged, she is slandered, she is undone.
BENEDICK.
Beat—
BEATRICE.
Princes and Counties! Surely, a princely testimony, a goodly
Count Comfect; a sweet gallant, surely! O! that I were a man for his sake,
or that I had any friend would be a man for my sake! But manhood is melted
into curtsies, valour into compliment, and men are only turned into tongue,
and trim ones too: he is now as valiant as Hercules, that only tells a lie
and swears it. I cannot be a man with wishing, therefore I will die a
woman with grieving.
BENEDICK.
Tarry, good Beatrice. By this hand, I love thee.
BEATRICE.
Use it for my love some other way than swearing by it.
BENEDICK.
Think you in your soul the Count Claudio hath wronged Hero?
BEATRICE.
Yea, as sure is I have a thought or a soul.
BENEDICK.
Enough! I am engaged, I will challenge him.
“For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause; theres the respect That makes calamity of so long life”
Read on this book,
That show of such an exercise may colour
Your loneliness.—We are oft to blame in this,
’Tis too much prov’d, that with devotion’s visage
And pious action we do sugar o’er
The devil himself.
KING.
[_Aside._] O ’tis too true!
How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience!
The harlot’s cheek, beautied with plastering art,
Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it
Than is my deed to my most painted word.
O heavy burden!
POLONIUS.
I hear him coming. Let’s withdraw, my lord.
[_Exeunt King and Polonius._]
Enter Hamlet.
HAMLET.
To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die—to sleep,
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to: ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep.
To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there’s the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of dispriz’d love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would these fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover’d country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action. Soft you now,
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember’d.
OPHELIA.
Good my lord,
How does your honour for this many a day?
HAMLET.
I humbly thank you; well, well, well.
“Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs. Being purged a fire sparkling in lovers eyes, being vexed a sea nourished with lovers tears, What is it else? A madness most discreet, A choking gall and a perserving sweet.”
Alas that love so gentle in his view,
Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof.
ROMEO.
Alas that love, whose view is muffled still,
Should, without eyes, see pathways to his will!
Where shall we dine? O me! What fray was here?
Yet tell me not, for I have heard it all.
Here’s much to do with hate, but more with love:
Why, then, O brawling love! O loving hate!
O anything, of nothing first create!
O heavy lightness! serious vanity!
Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms!
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health!
Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!
This love feel I, that feel no love in this.
Dost thou not laugh?
BENVOLIO.
No coz, I rather weep.
ROMEO.
Good heart, at what?
BENVOLIO.
At thy good heart’s oppression.
ROMEO.
Why such is love’s transgression.
Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast,
Which thou wilt propagate to have it prest
With more of thine. This love that thou hast shown
Doth add more grief to too much of mine own.
Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs;
Being purg’d, a fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes;
Being vex’d, a sea nourish’d with lovers’ tears:
What is it else? A madness most discreet,
A choking gall, and a preserving sweet.
Farewell, my coz.
[_Going._]
BENVOLIO.
Soft! I will go along:
And if you leave me so, you do me wrong.
ROMEO.
Tut! I have lost myself; I am not here.
This is not Romeo, he’s some other where.
BENVOLIO.
Tell me in sadness who is that you love?
ROMEO.
What, shall I groan and tell thee?
BENVOLIO.
Groan! Why, no; but sadly tell me who.
ROMEO.
Bid a sick man in sadness make his will,
A word ill urg’d to one that is so ill.
In sadness, cousin, I do love a woman.
BENVOLIO.
I aim’d so near when I suppos’d you lov’d.
ROMEO.
A right good markman, and she’s fair I love.
BENVOLIO.
A right fair mark, fair coz, is soonest hit.
ROMEO.
Well, in that hit you miss: she’ll not be hit
With Cupid’s arrow, she hath Dian’s wit;
And in strong proof of chastity well arm’d,
From love’s weak childish bow she lives uncharm’d.
She will not stay the siege of loving terms
Nor bide th’encounter of assailing eyes,
Nor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold:
O she’s rich in beauty, only poor
That when she dies, with beauty dies her store.
“Grief makes one hour ten”
A partial slander sought I to avoid,
And in the sentence my own life destroyed.
Alas, I looked when some of you should say
I was too strict to make mine own away;
But you gave leave to my unwilling tongue
Against my will to do myself this wrong.
KING RICHARD.
Cousin, farewell, and, uncle, bid him so.
Six years we banish him, and he shall go.
[_Flourish. Exit King Richard and Train._]
AUMERLE.
Cousin, farewell. What presence must not know,
From where you do remain let paper show.
MARSHAL.
My lord, no leave take I, for I will ride,
As far as land will let me, by your side.
GAUNT.
O, to what purpose dost thou hoard thy words,
That thou return’st no greeting to thy friends?
BOLINGBROKE.
I have too few to take my leave of you,
When the tongue’s office should be prodigal
To breathe the abundant dolour of the heart.
GAUNT.
Thy grief is but thy absence for a time.
BOLINGBROKE.
Joy absent, grief is present for that time.
GAUNT.
What is six winters? They are quickly gone.
BOLINGBROKE.
To men in joy; but grief makes one hour ten.
GAUNT.
Call it a travel that thou tak’st for pleasure.
BOLINGBROKE.
My heart will sigh when I miscall it so,
Which finds it an enforced pilgrimage.
GAUNT.
The sullen passage of thy weary steps
Esteem as foil wherein thou art to set
The precious jewel of thy home return.
BOLINGBROKE.
Nay, rather, every tedious stride I make
Will but remember me what a deal of world
I wander from the jewels that I love.
Must I not serve a long apprenticehood
To foreign passages, and in the end,
Having my freedom, boast of nothing else
But that I was a journeyman to grief?
GAUNT.
All places that the eye of heaven visits
Are to a wise man ports and happy havens.
Teach thy necessity to reason thus:
There is no virtue like necessity.
Think not the King did banish thee,
But thou the King. Woe doth the heavier sit
Where it perceives it is but faintly borne.
Go, say I sent thee forth to purchase honour,
And not the King exiled thee; or suppose
Devouring pestilence hangs in our air,
And thou art flying to a fresher clime.
“Every one can master a grief but he that has it”
DON PEDRO.
Nay, that would be as great a soil in the new gloss of your
marriage, as to show a child his new coat and forbid him to wear it. I
will only be bold with Benedick for his company; for, from the crown of
his head to the sole of his foot, he is all mirth; he hath twice or thrice
cut Cupid’s bowstring, and the little hangman dare not shoot at him.
He hath a heart as sound as a bell, and his tongue is the clapper; for
what his heart thinks, his tongue speaks.
BENEDICK.
Gallants, I am not as I have been.
LEONATO.
So say I: methinks you are sadder.
CLAUDIO.
I hope he be in love.
DON PEDRO.
Hang him, truant! there’s no true drop of blood in him
to be truly touched with love. If he be sad, he wants money.
BENEDICK.
I have the tooth-ache.
DON PEDRO.
Draw it.
BENEDICK.
Hang it.
CLAUDIO.
You must hang it first, and draw it afterwards.
DON PEDRO.
What! sigh for the tooth-ache?
LEONATO.
Where is but a humour or a worm?
BENEDICK.
Well, everyone can master a grief but he that has it.
CLAUDIO.
Yet say I, he is in love.
DON PEDRO.
There is no appearance of fancy in him, unless it be a fancy
that he hath to strange disguises; as to be a Dutchman today, a Frenchman
tomorrow; or in the shape of two countries at once, as a German from the
waist downward, all slops, and a Spaniard from the hip upward, no doublet.
Unless he have a fancy to this foolery, as it appears he hath, he is no
fool for fancy, as you would have it appear he is.
CLAUDIO.
If he be not in love with some woman, there is no believing old
signs: a’ brushes his hat a mornings; what should that bode?
DON PEDRO.
Hath any man seen him at the barber’s?
CLAUDIO.
No, but the barber’s man hath been seen with him; and the
old ornament of his cheek hath already stuffed tennis balls.
LEONATO.
Indeed he looks younger than he did, by the loss of a beard.
DON PEDRO.
Nay, a’ rubs himself with civet: can you smell him out by that?
CLAUDIO.
That’s as much as to say the sweet youth’s in love.
“Glory is like a circle in the water, Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself Till by broad spreading it disperse to naught”
PUCELLE.
I must not yield to any rites of love,
For my profession’s sacred from above.
When I have chased all thy foes from hence,
Then will I think upon a recompense.
CHARLES.
Meantime look gracious on thy prostrate thrall.
REIGNIER.
My lord, methinks, is very long in talk.
ALENÇON.
Doubtless he shrives this woman to her smock;
Else ne’er could he so long protract his speech.
REIGNIER.
Shall we disturb him, since he keeps no mean?
ALENÇON.
He may mean more than we poor men do know.
These women are shrewd tempters with their tongues.
REIGNIER.
My lord, where are you? What devise you on?
Shall we give over Orleans, or no?
PUCELLE.
Why, no, I say. Distrustful recreants!
Fight till the last gasp; I will be your guard.
CHARLES.
What she says I’ll confirm. We’ll fight it out.
PUCELLE.
Assign’d am I to be the English scourge.
This night the siege assuredly I’ll raise.
Expect Saint Martin’s summer, halcyon’s days,
Since I have entered into these wars.
Glory is like a circle in the water,
Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself
Till by broad spreading it disperse to nought.
With Henry’s death the English circle ends;
Dispersed are the glories it included.
Now am I like that proud insulting ship
Which Caesar and his fortune bare at once.
CHARLES.
Was Mahomet inspired with a dove?
Thou with an eagle art inspired then.
Helen, the mother of great Constantine,
Nor yet Saint Philip’s daughters, were like thee.
Bright star of Venus, fall’n down on the earth,
How may I reverently worship thee enough?
ALENÇON.
Leave off delays, and let us raise the siege.
REIGNIER.
Woman, do what thou canst to save our honours;
Drive them from Orleans and be immortalized.
CHARLES.
Presently we’ll try. Come, let’s away about it.
No prophet will I trust if she prove false.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE III. London. Before the Tower.
Enter the Duke of Gloucester with his Servingmen in blue coats.
GLOUCESTER.
I am come to survey the Tower this day.
Since Henry’s death, I fear, there is conveyance.
Where be these warders that they wait not here?
Open the gates; ’tis Gloucester that calls.
“If thou rememberst not the slightest folly that ever love did make thee run into, thou hast not loved.”
For my part, I had rather bear with you than bear you. Yet I should
bear no cross if I did bear you, for I think you have no money in your
purse.
ROSALIND.
Well, this is the forest of Arden.
TOUCHSTONE.
Ay, now am I in Arden, the more fool I! When I was at home I was in a
better place, but travellers must be content.
Enter Corin and Silvius.
ROSALIND.
Ay, be so, good Touchstone. Look you, who comes here? A young man and
an old in solemn talk.
CORIN.
That is the way to make her scorn you still.
SILVIUS.
O Corin, that thou knew’st how I do love her!
CORIN.
I partly guess, for I have loved ere now.
SILVIUS.
No, Corin, being old, thou canst not guess,
Though in thy youth thou wast as true a lover
As ever sighed upon a midnight pillow.
But if thy love were ever like to mine—
As sure I think did never man love so—
How many actions most ridiculous
Hast thou been drawn to by thy fantasy?
CORIN.
Into a thousand that I have forgotten.
SILVIUS.
O, thou didst then never love so heartily!
If thou rememb’rest not the slightest folly
That ever love did make thee run into,
Thou hast not loved.
Or if thou hast not sat as I do now,
Wearing thy hearer in thy mistress’ praise,
Thou hast not loved.
Or if thou hast not broke from company
Abruptly, as my passion now makes me,
Thou hast not loved.
O Phoebe, Phoebe, Phoebe!
[_Exit Silvius._]
ROSALIND.
Alas, poor shepherd, searching of thy wound,
I have by hard adventure found mine own.
TOUCHSTONE.
And I mine. I remember when I was in love I broke my sword upon a stone
and bid him take that for coming a-night to Jane Smile; and I remember
the kissing of her batlet, and the cow’s dugs that her pretty chopped
hands had milked; and I remember the wooing of a peascod instead of
her, from whom I took two cods, and, giving her them again, said with
weeping tears, “Wear these for my sake.” We that are true lovers run
into strange capers. But as all is mortal in nature, so is all nature
in love mortal in folly.
ROSALIND.
Thou speak’st wiser than thou art ware of.
TOUCHSTONE.
Nay, I shall ne’er be ware of mine own wit till I break my shins
against it.
“Eye of newt and toe of frog, Wool of bat and tongue of dog, Adders fork and blind-worms sting, Lizards leg and owlets wing, For a charm of powerful trouble, Like a hell-broth boil and bubble”
He did: and with an absolute “Sir, not I,”
The cloudy messenger turns me his back,
And hums, as who should say, “You’ll rue the time
That clogs me with this answer.”
LENNOX.
And that well might
Advise him to a caution, t’ hold what distance
His wisdom can provide. Some holy angel
Fly to the court of England, and unfold
His message ere he come, that a swift blessing
May soon return to this our suffering country
Under a hand accurs’d!
LORD.
I’ll send my prayers with him.
[_Exeunt._]
ACT IV
SCENE I. A dark Cave. In the middle, a Cauldron Boiling.
Thunder. Enter the three Witches.
FIRST WITCH.
Thrice the brinded cat hath mew’d.
SECOND WITCH.
Thrice, and once the hedge-pig whin’d.
THIRD WITCH.
Harpier cries:—’Tis time, ’tis time.
FIRST WITCH.
Round about the cauldron go;
In the poison’d entrails throw.—
Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights has thirty-one
Swelter’d venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i’ th’ charmed pot!
ALL.
Double, double, toil and trouble;
Fire, burn; and cauldron, bubble.
SECOND WITCH.
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder’s fork, and blind-worm’s sting,
Lizard’s leg, and howlet’s wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
ALL.
Double, double, toil and trouble;
Fire, burn; and cauldron, bubble.
THIRD WITCH.
Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witch’s mummy, maw and gulf
Of the ravin’d salt-sea shark,
Root of hemlock digg’d i’ th’ dark,
Liver of blaspheming Jew,
Gall of goat, and slips of yew
Sliver’d in the moon’s eclipse,
Nose of Turk, and Tartar’s lips,
Finger of birth-strangled babe
Ditch-deliver’d by a drab,
Make the gruel thick and slab:
Add thereto a tiger’s chaudron,
For th’ ingredients of our cauldron.
ALL.
Double, double, toil and trouble;
Fire, burn; and cauldron, bubble.
SECOND WITCH.
Cool it with a baboon’s blood.
Then the charm is firm and good.
Enter Hecate.
HECATE.
O, well done! I commend your pains,
And everyone shall share i’ th’ gains.
And now about the cauldron sing,
Like elves and fairies in a ring,
Enchanting all that you put in.
[_Music and a song: “Black Spirits,” &c._]
[_Exit Hecate._]
SECOND WITCH.
By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.