Chapter II: Preface (2)

Dar'st thou, Cassius, now Leap in with me into this angry flood, And swim to yonder point?--Upon the word, Accoutred as I was, I plunged in, And bade him follow.

Act i. Sc. 2.

Ye gods, it doth amaze me, A man of such a feeble temper should So get the start of the majestic world, And bear the palm alone.

Act i. Sc. 2.

Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world, Like a Colossus, and we petty men Walk under his huge legs, and peep about To find ourselves dishonorable graves.

Act i. Sc. 2.

Let me have men about me that are fat; Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights; Yond' Cassius has a lean and hungry look; He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.

Act i. Sc. 2.

Seldom he smiles; and smiles in such a sort, As if he mocked himself, and scorned his spirit, That could be moved to smile at anything.

Act i. Sc. 2.

But, for mine own part, it was Greek to me.

Act ii. Sc. 1.

Between the acting of a dreadful thing And the first motion, all the interim is Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream.

Act ii. Sc. 1.

Yon are my true and honorable wife, As dear to me as the ruddy drops That visit my sad heart.

Act ii. Sc. 2.

Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once.

Act iii. Sc. 1.

Though last, not least, in love.

Act iii. Sc. 1.

Cry _Havoc_, and let slip the dogs of war.

Act iii. Sc. 2.

Romans, countrymen, and lovers! hear me for my cause; and be silent that you may hear.

Act iii. Sc. 2.

Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more.

Act iii. Sc. 2.

Who is here so base, that would be a bondman? If any, speak: for him have I offended.

Act iii. Sc. 2..

The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones.

Act iii. Sc. 2.

For Brutus is an honorable man; So are they all, all honorable men.

Act iii. Sc. 2.

When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept; Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.

Act iii. Sc. 2.

But yesterday, the word of Caesar might Have stood against the world; now lies he there, And none so poor to do him reverence.

Act iii. Sc. 2.

If you have years, prepare to shed them now.

Act iii. Sc. 2.

See, what a rent the envious Casca made!

Act iii. Sc. 2.

This was the most unkindest cut of all.

Act iii. Sc. 2.

Great Caesar fell. O what a fall was there, my countrymen!

Act iii. Sc. 2.

Put a tongue In every wound of Caesar, that should move The stones of Borne to rise and mutiny.

Act iv. Sc. 2.

There are no tricks in plain and simple faith.

Act iv. Sc. 3.

I had rather be a dog, and bay the moon, Than such a Roman.

Act iv. Sc. 3.

There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats For I am armed so strong in honesty, That they pass by me as the idle wind, Which I respect not.

Act iv. Sc. 3.

A friend should bear a friend's infirmities, But Brutus makes mine greater than they are.

Act iv. Sc. 3.

There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune: Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows, and in miseries.

Act v. Sc. 5.

His life was gentle, and the elements So mixed in him, that nature might stand up And say to all the world, _This was a man_!

* * * * *

ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.

Act i. Sc. 1.

There's beggary in the love that can be reckoned.

Act ii. Sc. 2.

For her own person, It beggared all description.

Act ii. Sc. 2.

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale Her infinite variety.

* * * * *

CYMBELINE.

Act ii. Sc. 3.

Hark! hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings,

Act iii. Sc. 2.

Some griefs are med'cinable.

Act iii. Sc. 6.

Weariness Can snore upon the flint, when restive sloth Finds the down pillow hard.

* * * * *

KING LEAR.

Act i. Sc. 4.

How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is, To have a thankless child.

Act i. Sc. 4.

Striving to better, oft we mar what's well.

Act ii. Sc. 4.

O, let not women's weapons, water-drops, Stain my man's cheeks.

Act iil. Sc. 2.

Blow, wind, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!

Act iii. Sc. 2.

Tremble, thou wretch, That hast within thee undivulged crimes, Unwhipped of justice.

Act iii. Sc. 2.

I am a man More sinned against than sinning.

Act iii. Sc. 4.

Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are, That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm, How shall your houseless heads, and unfed sides, Your looped and windowed raggedness, defend you From seasons such as these?

* * * * *

Take physic, pomp; Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel.

Act iii. Sc. 4.

I'll talk a word with this same learned Theban.

Act iii. Sc. 6.

The little dogs and all, Tray, Blanch, and Sweetheart, see, they bark at me.

Act iv. Sc. 6.

Ay, every inch a king.

Act. iv. Sc. 6.

Give me an ounce of civet, good apothecary, to sweeten my imagination.

Act iv. Sc. 6.

Through tattered clothes small vices do appear; Robes and furred gowns hide all.

Act v. Sc. 3.

The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices Make instruments to plague us.

Act. v. Sc. 3.

Her voice was ever soft, Gentle, and low; an excellent thing in woman.

* * * * *

ROMEO AND JULIET.

Act i. Sc. 1.

The weakest goes to the wall.

Act i. Sc. 2.

One fire burns out another's burning. One pain is lessened by another's anguish.

Act i. Sc. 5.

Too early seen unknown, and known too late,

Act ii. Sc. 2.

He jests at scars, that never felt a wound.

Act ii. Sc. 2.

See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand! O that I were a glove upon that hand, That I might touch that cheek!

Act ii. Sc. 2.

O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?

Act ii. Sc. 2.

What's in a name? that which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet.

Act ii. Sc. 2.

Alack! there lies more peril in thine eye, Than twenty of their swords.

Act ii. Sc. 2.

At lover's perjuries, They say, Jove laughs.

Act ii. Sc. 2.

O swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon, That monthly changes in her circled orb, Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.

Act ii. Sc. 2.

Good-night, good-night! parting is such sweet sorrow, That I shall say good-night till it be morrow.

Act ii. Sc. 3.

Thy old groans ring yet in my ancient ears

Act ii. Sc. 4.

Stabbed with a white wench's black eye.

Act ii. Sc. 4.

I am the very pink of courtesy.

Act ii. Sc. 4.

My man's as true as steel.

Act ii, Sc. 6.

Here comes the lady;--O, so light a foot Will ne'er wear out the everlasting flint.

Act iii. Sc, 1.

A plague o' both the houses!

Act iii. Sc. 1.

_Rom_. Courage, man I the hurt cannot be much. _Mer_. No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door; but 'tis enough.

Act iii. Sc. 3.

Adversity's sweet milk, philosophy

Act iii. Sc. 5.

Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain-tops.

Act iv. Sc. 2.

Not stopping o'er the bounds of modesty.

Act v. Sc. I.

My bosom's lord sits lightly in his throne.

Act v. Sc. 1.

A beggarly account of empty boxes.

Act v. Sc. 1.

My poverty, but not my will, consents.

Act v. Sc. 3.

Beauty's ensign yet Is crimson in thy lips, and in thy cheeks, And death's pale flag is not advanced there.

Act v. Sc. 3.

Eyes, look your last! Arms, take your last embrace!

* * * * *

HAMLET.

Act i. Sc. 1.

This bodes some strange eruption to our state.

Act i. Sc. 1.

In the most high and palmy state of Rome, A little ere the mightiest Julius fell, The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets.

Act i. Sc. 1.

And then it started like a guilty thing Upon a fearful summons.

Act i. Sc. 1.

Some say, that ever 'gainst that season comes Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated, This bird of dawning singeth all night long. And then they say no spirit dares stir abroad, The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike, No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, So hallowed and so gracious is the time.

Act i. Sc. 2.

The head is not more native to the heart.

Act i. Sc. 2.

A little more than kin, and less than kind.

Act i, Sc. 2.

Seems, madam! nay, it is; I know not seems

Act i. Sc. 2.

But I have that within which passeth show; These, but the trappings and the suits of woe.

Act i. Sc. 2.

O that this too, too solid flesh would melt, Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew! Or that the Everlasting had not fixed His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God! How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable Seem to me all the uses of this world!

* * * * *

That it should come to this! Hyperion to a satyr! so loving to my mother, That he might not beteem the winds of heaven Visit her face too roughly.

* * * * *

Why, she would hang on him, As if increase of appetite had grown By what it fed on.

* * * * *

Frailty, thy name is woman! A little month.

* * * * *

Like Niobe, all tears.

* * * * *

My father's brother; but no more like my father Than I to Hercules.

Act i. Sc. 2.

Thrift, thrift, Horatio! the funeral baked meats Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.

Act i. Sc. 2.

In my mind's eye, Horatio.

Act i. Sc. 2.

He was a man, take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again.

Act i. Sc. 2.

A countenance more In sorrow than in anger.

Act i. Sc. 3.

And in the morn and liquid dew of youth.

Act i. Sc. 3.

Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar. The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel.

* * * * *

Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice. Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, But not expressed in fancy; rich, not gaudy; For the apparel oft proclaims the man.

* * * * *

Neither a borrower nor a lender be.

Act i. Sc. 3.

Springes to catch woodcocks.

Act i. Sc. 4.

But to my mind--though I am native here, And to the manner born--it is a custom More honored in the breach than the observance.

Act i. Sc. 4.

Angels and ministers of grace, defend us!

Act i. Sc. 4.

Thou com'st in such a questionable shape, That I will speak to thee.

Act i. Sc. 4.

Let me not burst in ignorance!

Act i. Sc. 4.

I do not set my life at a pin's fee.

Act i. Sc. 4.

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

Act i. Sc. 5.

I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word Would harrow up thy soul; freeze thy young blood; Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres; Thy knotted and combined locks to part, And each particular hair to stand on end, Like quills upon the fretful Porcupine.

Act i. Sc. 5.

O my prophetic soul! my uncle!

Act i. Sc. 5.

O Hamlet, what a falling-off was there!

Act i. Sc. 5.

No reckoning made, but sent to my account With all my imperfections on my head.

Act i. Sc. 5.

The glowworm shows the matin to be near And 'gins to pale his uneffectual fire.

Act i. Sc. 5.

There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave, To tell us this.

Act i. Sc. 5.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Act i. Sc. 5.

The time is out of joint.

Act ii. Sc. 1.

This is the very ecstasy of love.

Act ii. Sc. 2.

Brevity is the soul of wit.

Act ii. Sc. 2.

That he is mad, 'tis true; 'tis true, 'tis pity; And pity 'tis, 'tis true.

Act ii. Sc. 2.

Doubt thou the stars are tire; Doubt that the sun doth move; Doubt truth to be a liar; But never doubt I love.

Act ii. Sc. 2,

Still harping on my daughter.

Act ii. Sc. 2.

Though this be madness, yet there's method in it.

Act ii. Sc. 2.

What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in action, how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a God!

Act ii. Sc. 2.

Man delights not me--nor woman neither.

Act ii. Sc. 2.

I know a hawk from a hand-saw.

Act ii. Sc. 2.

Come, give us a taste of your quality.

Act ii. Sc. 2.

'Twas caviare to the general.

Act ii. Sc. 2.

What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba?

Act ii. Sc. 2.

The play's the thing, Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.

Act iii. Sc. 1.

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 heartache, and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to--'tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished. 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.

* * * * *

The spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes; When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin. Who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death-- The undiscovered country, from whose bourne No traveler 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.

* * * * *

Nymph, in thy orisons Be all my sins remembered.

Act iii. Sc. 1.

Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thon shalt not escape calumny.

Act iii. Sc. 1.

The glass of fashion, and the mould of form, The observed of all observers!

Act iii. Sc. X.

Now see that noble and most sovereign reason, Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh.

Act iii. Sc. 2.

It out-herods Herod.

Act iii. Sc. 2.

Suit the action to the word, the word to the action.

Act iii. Sc. 2.

To hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature.

Act iii. Sc. 2.

I have thought some of nature's journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.

Act iii. Sc. 2.

No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp; And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee, Where thrift may follow fawning.

Act iii. Sc. 2.

Give me that man That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of hearts, As I do thee.

Act iii. Sc. 2.

Something too much of this.

Act iii. Sc. 2.

Here's metal more attractive.

Act iii. Sc. 2.

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

Act iii. Sc. 2.

Let the galled jade wince, our withers are un-wrung.

Act iii. Sc. 2.

Why, let the strucken deer go weep, The hart ungalled play; For some must watch, while some must sleep; Thus runs the world away.

Act iii. Sc. 2.

It will discourse most eloquent music.

Act iii. Sc. 2.

Very like a whale.

Act iii. Sc. 2.

They fool me to the top of my bent.

Act iii. Sc. 2.

'Tis now the very witching time of night, When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out Contagion to this world.

Act iii. Sc. 3.

O my offence is rank, it smells to heaven

Act iii. Sc. 4.

Look here, upon this picture, and on this; The counterfeit presentment of two brothers. See what a grace was seated on this brow! Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself; An eye like Mars, to threaten and command. A combination, and a form, indeed, Where every god did seem to set his seal, To give the world assurance of a man.

Act iii. Sc. 4.

A king Of shreds and patches.

Act iii. Sc. 4.

This is the very coinage of your brain.

Act iii. Sc. 4.

Lay not that flattering unction to your soul.

Act iii. Sc. 4.

Assume a virtue, if you have it not.

Act iii. Sc. 4.

For 'tis the sport to have the engineer Hoist with his own petard.

Act iv. Sc. 5.

When sorrows come, they come not single spies, But in battalions!

Act iv. Sc. 5.

There's such divinity doth hedge a king, That treason can but peep to what it would.

Act v. Sc. 1.

How absolute the knave is! we must speak by the card, or equivocation will undo us.

Act v. Sc. 1.

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest; of most excellent fancy.

Act v. Sc. 1.

Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar?

Act v. Sc. 1.

To what base uses we may return, Horatio!

Act v. Sc. 1.

Imperial Caesar, dead, and turned to clay, Might stop a hole to keep the wind away.

Act v. Sc. 1.

Sir, though I am not splenetive and rash, Yet have I in me something dangerous.

Act v. Sc. 1.

The cat will mew, and dog will have his day.

Act v. Sc. 2.

There's a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will.

Act v. Sc. 2.

There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow.

Act v. Sc. 2.

A hit, a very palpable hit.

* * * * *

OTHELLO.

Act i. Sc. 1.

But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve For daws to peck at.

Act i. Sc. 3.

Most potent, grave, and reverend seigniors.

Act i. Sc. 3.

The very head and front of my offending Hath this extent, no more.

Act i. Sc. 3.

I will a round, unvarnished tale deliver Of my whole course of love.

Act i. Sc. 3.

Wherein I spoke of most disastrous chances, Of moving accidents, by flood and field; Of hair-breadth 'scapes i' the imminent deadly breach.

Act i. Sc. 3.

My story being done She gave me for my pains a world of signs: She swore, In faith, 'twas strange, 'twas passing; strange; 'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful: She wished she had not heard it; yet she wished That Heaven had made her such a man.

Act i. Sc. 3.

Upon this hint I spake.

Act i. Sc. 3.

I do perceive hero a divided duty.

Act ii. Sc. 1.

For I am nothing, if not critical.

Act ii. Sc. 1.

_Iago._ To suckle fools, and chronicle small beer.

_Des_. O most lame and impotent conclusion!

Act ii. Sc. 3.

Silence that dreadful bell; it frights the isle From her propriety.

Act ii. Sc. 3.

O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee devil!

Act ii. Sc. 3.

O that men should put an enemy in their mouths, to steal away their brains!

Act iii. Sc. 3.

Perdition catch my soul, But I do love thee! and when I love thee not, Chaos is come again.

Act iii. Sc. 3.

Good name, in man and woman, dear my lord, Is the immediate jewel of their souls. Who steals my purse, steals trash; 'tis something, nothing; 'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands; But he that filches from me my good name Robs roe of that which not enriches him, And makes me poor indeed.

Act iii. Sc. 3.

O, beware, my lord, of jealousy; It is the green-eyed monster, which doth make The meat it feeds on.

Act iii. Sc. 3.

Trifles, light as air, Are, to the jealous, confirmations strong As proofs of holy writ.

Act iii. Sc. 3.

Not poppy, nor mandragora, Nor all the drowsy sirups of the world, Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep Which thou ow'dst yesterday.

Act iii. Sc. 3.

He that is robbed, not wanting what is stolen, Let him not know it, and he's not robbed at all.

Act iii. Sc. 3.

O, now, forever, Farewell the tranquil mind! farewell content! Farewell the plumed troop, and the big wars, That make ambition virtue! O farewell! Farewell the neighing steed, and the shrill trump, The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife,

* * * * *

Othello's occupation's gone!

Act iii. Sc. 3.

Give me the ocular proof.

Act iii. Sc. 3.

But this denoted a foregone conclusion.

Act iv. Sc. 1.

They laugh that win.

Act iv. Sc. 2.

Steeped me in poverty to the very lips.

Act iv. Sc. 2.

But, alas! to make me A fixed figure, for the time of scorn To point his slow, unmovin finger at.

Act iv. Sc. 2.

And put in every honest hand a whip, To lash the rascal naked through the world.

Act iv. Sc. 3.

'Tis neither here nor there.

Act v. Sc. 1.

He hath a daily beauty in his life.

Act v. Sc. 2.

I have done the state some service, and they know it.

Act v. Sc. 2.

Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate, Nor set down aught in malice. Then must you speak.

* * * * *

Of one that loved not wisely, but too well.

* * * * *

Of one, whose hand, Like the base Júdean, threw a pearl away, Richer than all his tribe.

* * * * *

Albeit unused to the melting mood.

* * * * *

THOMAS TUSSER. 1523-1580.

_Moral Reflections on the Wind_.

Except wind stands as never it stood, It is an ill wind turns none to good.

FULKE GREVILLE, LORD BROOKE. 1554-1624.

_Mustapha_. Act v. Sc. 4.

O wearisome condition of humanity!

* * * * *

Sonnet LVI.

And out of minde as soon as out of sight.

* * * * *

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE. 1565-1593.

_Hero and Leander_.

Who ever loved that loved not at first sight.

_The Passionate Shepherd to his Love_.

Come live with me, and be my love, And we will all the pleasures prove That valleys, groves, and hills, and folds, Woods, or steepy mountains, yield.

* * * * *

SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 1552-1618.

_The Nymph's Reply to the Passionate Shepherd_.

If all the world and love were young, And truth in every shepherd's tongue, These pretty pleasures might me move To live with thee, and be thy love.

_The Silent Lover_.

Silence in love betrays more love Than words, though ne'er so witty; A beggar that is dumb, you know, May challenge double pity.

* * * * *

JOSHUA SYLVESTER 1563-1618.

_The Soul's Errand_[3]

Go, Soul, the body's guest, Upon a thankless errand! Fear not to touch the best: The truth shall be thy warrant. Go, since I needs must die, And give the world the lie.

[Note 3: Sylvester is now generally regarded as the author of "The Soul's Errand," long attributed to Raleigh.]

* * * * *

RICHARD BARNFIELD.

_Address to the Nightingale_.[4]

As it fell upon a day, In the merry mouth of May, Sitting in a pleasant shade Which a grove of myrtles made.

[Note 4: This song, often attributed to Shakespeare, is now confidently assigned to Barnfield, and it is found in his collection of Poems, published between 1594 and 1598.]

EDMUND SPENSER. 1553-1597.

_Faerie Queene_.

Book i. Canto i. St. 35.

The noblest mind the best contentment has.