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classicistranieri.com - The Mirrored Project Gutenberg eBook of Familiar Quotations, by Various This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net Title: Familiar Quotations Author: Various Editor: John Bartlett Release Date: September 23, 2005 [EBook #16732] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS *** Produced by Chuck Greif and Pat Saumell{1}
| PREFACE |
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| INDEX OF AUTHORS |
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| ADDENDA |
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| INDEX OF QUOTATIONS |
The object of this work is to show, to some extent, the obligations our language owes to various authors for numerous phrases and familiar quotations which have become "household words."
This Collection, originally made without any view of publication, has been considerably enlarged by additions from an English work on a similar plan, and is now sent forth with the hope that it may be found a convenient book of reference.
Though perhaps imperfect in some respects, it is believed to possess the merit of accuracy, as the quotations have been taken from the original sources.
Should this be favorably received, endeavors will be made to make it more worthy of the approbation of the public in a future edition.{7}
It is not good that the man should be alone
For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
Am I my brother's keeper?
My punishment is greater than I can bear
Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed.
His hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him.{10}
Bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave.
Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel.
Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.
He kept him as the apple of his eye.
The Philistines be upon thee, Samson.
For whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.
A man after his own heart.
Tell it not in Gath; publish it not in the streets of Ashkelon
Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided.{11}
How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle!
Very pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.
And Nathan said to David, Thou art the man.
A proverb and a by-word among all people,
How long halt ye between two opinions?
Behold, there ariseth a little cloud out of the sea, like a man's hand.
A still, small voice.
Let not him that girdeth on his harness boast himself as he that putteth it off.
There is death in the pot.
The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the
Lord.{12}
There the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary be at rest.
Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward.
Miserable comforters are ye all.
I know that my Redeemer liveth.
The price of wisdom is above-rubies.
I was eyes to the blind, and feet was I to the lame.
That mine adversary had written a book.
Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further; and here shall thy proud waves be stayed.
The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places.
Yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind.{13}
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures he leadeth me beside the still waters.
Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.
Spreading himself like a green bay tree.
Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright.
While I was musing the fire burned.
My tongue is the pen of a ready writer.
Oh, that I had wings like a dove!
His enemies shall lick the dust.
Mercy and truth are met together: righteousness and peace have kissed each other.{14}
We spend our years as a tale that is told.
They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit's end.
He giveth his beloved sleep.
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!
If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.
We hanged our harps on the willows.
For I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.
In the multitude of counsellors there is safety.
Hope deferred maksth the heart sick.{15}
Fools make a mock at sin.
The heart knoweth his own bitterness.
Righteousness exalteth a nation.
A soft answer turneth away wrath.
Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.
Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.
The hoary head is a crown of glory.
A wounded spirit who can bear?
Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old he will not depart from it.
For riches certainly make themselves wings.{16}
Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep.
Proverbs xxv. 22.
For thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head.
There is a lion in the way; a lion is in the streets.
Boast not thyself of to-morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.
The wicked flee when no man pursueth.
There is no new thing under the sun.
All is vanity and vexation of spirit.
The sleep of a laboring man is sweet.
It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting.
Be not righteous overmuch
{17}For a living dog is better than a dead lion,
Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.
The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.
Cast thy bread upon the waters; for thou shalt find it after many days.
Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth.
And the grasshopper shall be a burden.
Man goeth to his long home.
Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern.
Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was; and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.
{18}Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher; all is vanity.
Of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.
The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid.
Precept upon precept; line upon line: here a little, and there a little.
Set thine house in order.
All flesh is grass.
Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance.
A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench.
He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter.{19}
A little one shall become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation.
To give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.
We all do fade as a leaf.
Amend your ways and your doings.
Is there no balm in Gilead? is there no physician there?
Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?
The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge.
Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.
The thing is true, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not.{20}
For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.
And they shall beat their swords into plough-shares, and their spears into pruning-hooks.
But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree.
Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it.
But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings.
He that toucheth pitch shall be defiled therewith.
He will laugh thee to scorn.
We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; and we have done those things which we ought not to have done.{21}
The iron entered into his soul. Collect for the Second Sunday in Advent.
Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest.
In the midst of life we are in death. Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.
Man shall not live by bread alone.
Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savor, wherewith shall it be salted?
Ye are the light of the world. A city set upon a hill cannot be hid.
But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth.
Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.{22}
Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.
Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin.
Take therefore no thought for the morrow; for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
Neither cast ye your pearls before swine.
Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.
The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head.
The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few.
Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.{23}
But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.
The tree is known by his fruit.
Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.
A prophet is not without honor, save in his own country, and in his own house.
Be of good cheer: it is I; be not afraid.
And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.
Yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table.
Get thee behind me, Satan.
For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
It is good for us to be here.{24}
What therefore God hath joined together let not man put asunder.
It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.
Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?
For many are called, but few are chosen.
Ye blind guides! which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.
For ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones.
For wheresoever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together.
Unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.{25}
Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.
He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.
My name is Legion.
Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.
And now also the ax is laid unto the root of the trees.
Physician, heal thyself.
Go, and do thou likewise.
But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.
He that is not with me is against me.
And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast {26}much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.
Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning.
For the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.
It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea.
Remember Lot's wife.
Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee.
Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world!
Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?
Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
The wind bloweth where it listeth.{27}
He was a burning and a shining light.
Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.
Judge not according to the appearance.
For the poor always ye have with you.
Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you.
Let not your heart be troubled.
In my Father's house are many mansions.
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.
It is more blessed to give than to receive.
For there is no respect of persons with God.{28}
For the wages of sin is death.
And we know that all things work together or good to them that love God.
Be not wise in your own conceits.
Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.
Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.
The powers that be are ordained of God,
Render therefore to all their dues.
Love is the fulfilling of the law.
Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.
I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.
{29}Every man's work shall be made manifest,
Absent in body, but present in spirit.
Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?
For the fashion of this world passeth away,
I am made all things to all men.
Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.
As sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
When I was a child I spake as a child.
For now we see through a glass, darkly.
Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners.
The first man is of the earth, earthy.
{30}O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
We walk by faith, not by sight.
Behold, now is the accepted time,
By evil report and good report.
For every man shall bear his own burden,
Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath.
For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.
Touch not; taste not; handle not.
Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labor of love.
{31}Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.
Not greedy of filthy lucre.
The laborer is worthy of his reward.
Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake.
For the love of money is the root of all evil.
I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.
Unto the pure all things are pure.
Now faith is the substance of things hoped' for, the evidence of things not seen.
For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth.
Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.{32}
Blessed is the man that endureth temptation for when he is tried he shall receive the crown of life.
Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth!
Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Charity shall cover the multitude of sins.
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour.
But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night.
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear.
Be thou faithful unto death.
He shall rule them with a rod of iron.{33}
I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.
There's nothing ill can dwell in such a
temple:
If the ill spirit have so fair a house,
Good things will strive to dwell with 't.
I will be correspondent to command,
And do my spiriting gently.
A very ancient and fishlike smell.
Misery acquaints a man with strange bed-fellows.
Our revels row are ended: these our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like an insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind.
We are such stuff
As dreams are made of, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
I have no other but a woman's reason;
I think him so, because I think him so.
To make a virtue of necessity.
Is she not passing fair?
Faith, thou hast some crotchets in thy head now.
Why, then the world's mine oyster,
Which I with sword will open.
They say, there is divinity in odd numbers, either in nativity, chance, or death.
If music be the food of love, play on,
Give me excess of it; that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.—
That strain again—it had a dying fall;
O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet south,
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odor.
I am sure care's an enemy to life.
'Tis beauty truly blent, whose red and white
Nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on.
Dost thou think, because them art virtuous,
there shall be no more cakes and ale?
She never told her love,
But let concealment, like a worm in the bud,
Feed on her damask cheek: she pined in thought,
And, with a green and yellow melancholy,
She sat, like Patience on a monument,
Smiling at grief.
O, what a deal of scorn looks beautiful
In the contempt and anger of his lip!
Love sought is good, but given unsought is better.
Let there be gall enough in thy ink; though thou write with a goose-pen, no matter.
Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.
Spirits are not finely touched
But to fine issues.
Our doubts are traitors,
And make us lose the good we oft might win,
By fearing to attempt.
O, it is excellent
To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous
To use it like a giant.
But man, proud man!
Drest in a little brief authority,
Plays such fantastic tricks before high Heaven
As make the angels weep.
The miserable have no other medicine,
But only hope.
The sense of death is most in apprehension;
And the poor beetle that we tread upon
In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great
As when a giant dies.
Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;
To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot.
Take, O take those lips away,
That so sweetly were forsworn;
And those eyes, the break of day,
Lights that do mislead the morn;
But my kisses bring again,
Seals of love, but sealed in vain.[1]
He hath indeed better bettered expectation.
Friendship is constant in all other things,
Save in the office and affairs of love.
Therefore, all hearts in love use their own tongues;
Let every eye negotiate for itself,
And trust no other agent.
Silence is the perfectest herald of joy; I were but little happy, if I could say how much.
Sits the wind in that corner?
{39}When I said I should die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.
Some, Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.
Everyone can master a grief, but he that
Lath it.
Are you good men and true?
Is most tolerable, and not to be endured.
Comparisons are odorous.
O that he were here to write me down—an ass!
A fellow that had losses.
For there was never yet philosopher
That could endure the toothache patiently.
But earthly happier is the rose distilled
Than that which, withering on the virgin thorn
Grows, lives, and dies in single blessedness.
Ah me! for aught that ever I could read,
Could ever hear by tale or history,
The course of true love never did run smooth.
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.
A proper man as any one shall see in a summer's day.
In maiden meditation, fancy free.
I'll put a girdle round about the earth
In forty minutes.
I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows,
Where ox-lips and the nodding violet grows.
So we grew together,
Like to a double cherry, seeming parted.
The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven,
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shape, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
A merrier man,
Within the limit of becoming mirth,
I never spent an hour's talk withal.
He draweth the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument.
I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano;
A stage, where every man must play a part,
And mine a sad one.
Why should a man, whose blood is warm within,
Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster?{42}
I am Sir Oracle,
And when I ope my lips, let no dog bark!
Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing; more than any man in all
Venice. His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of
chaff: you shall seek all day ere you find them: and, when you have
them, they are not worth the search.
Even there, where merchants most do congregate.
The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
Sufferance is the badge of all our tribe,
Many a time, and oft, the Rialto, have you rated me.
It is a wise father that knows his own child.
All things that are,
Are with more spirits chased than enjoyed.
All that glisters is not gold.
I am a Jew: hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions?
Thus when I shun Scylla, your father, I fall into Charybdis, your mother.
What! wouldst thou have a serpent sting thee twice?
The quality of mercy is not strained;
It droppeth, as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blessed;
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes,
A Daniel come to judgment.
Is it so nominated in the bond.
I cannot find it; 'tis not in the bond?
I have thee on the hip
I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word
How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
I am never merry when I hear sweet music.
The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils.
How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
Well said: that was laid on with a trowel.
My pride fell with my fortunes.
Cel. Not a word?
Ros. Not one to throw at a dog.
O how full of briers is this working-day world!{45}
Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.
And this our life, exempt from public haunts,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.
"Poor deer," quoth he, "thou mak'st a testament,
As wordlings do, giving thy sum of more
To that which had too much."
And He that doth the ravens feed,
Yea, providently caters for the sparrow,
Be comfort to my age!
For in my youth I never did apply
Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood;
Therefore my age is as a lusty winter,
Frosty, but kindly.
And railed on lady Fortune in good terms,
In good set terms....
And looking on it with lack-luster eye,
"Thus we may see," quoth he, "how the
world wags.
And so from hour to hour we ripe and ripe,
And then from hour to hour we rot and rot,
And thereby hangs a tale."
Motley's the only wear.
If ladies be but young and fair,
They have the gift to know it.
I must have liberty
Withal, as large a charter as the wind,
To blow on whom I please.
The why is plain as way to parish church.
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
And 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 honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth And then the justice,
Full of wise saws and modern instances,
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon.
Last scene of all,
That ends this strange, eventful history,
Is second childishness, and mere oblivion.
Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude.
Hast any philosophy in thee, shepherd?
Truly, I would the gods had made thee poetical.
I had rather have a fool to make me merry, than experience to make me sad.
{48}Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love.
Pacing through the forest,
Chewing the food of sweet and bitter fancy.
How bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes!
Your If is the only peacemaker; much virtue in If.
Good wine needs no bush.
And thereby hangs a tale.
My cake is dough.
A merry heart goes all the day,
Your sad tires in a mile-a.
Daffodils,
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty; violets, dim,
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes,
Or Cytherea's breath.
When you do dance, I wish you
A wave o' the sea, that you might ever do
Nothing but that.
It were all one,
That I should love a bright, particular star,
And think to wed it, he is so above me.
Praising what is lost
Makes the remembrance dear.
They brought one Pinch, a hungry, lean-faced villain,
A mere anatomy.
When shall we three meet again,
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
Fair is foul, and foul is fair.
The earth hath bubbles, as the water has,
And these are of them.
Two truths are told,
As happy prologues to the swelling act
Of the imperial theme.
Present fears
Are less than horrible imaginings.
Come what come may,
Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.
Nothing in his life
Became him like the leaving it.
There's no art
To find the mind's construction in the face.{51}
Yet I do fear thy nature;
It is too full of the milk of human kindness
To catch the nearest way.
Your face, my thane, is as a book, where men
May read strange matters.
If it were done, when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly.
That but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all here.
This even-handed justice
Commends the ingredients of our poisoned chalice
To our own lips.
Besides, this Duncan
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of his taking off.
I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself,
And falls on the other—.
I have bought
Golden opinions from all sorts of people.
Letting I dare not wait upon I would.
Like the poor cat i' the adage.
I dare do all that may become a man;
Who dares do more, is none.
But screw your courage to the sticking-place.
Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle towards my hand?
Thou sure and firm-set earth,
Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
The very stones prate of my whereabout.
For it is a knell
That summons thee to heaven or to hell!
The attempt, and not the deed,
Confound us.
Sleep, that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care.
Infirm of purpose!
The labor we delight in, physics pain.
The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees
Is left this vault to brag of.
A falcon, towering in her pride of place,
Was by a mousing owl hawked at, and killed.
Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown,
And put a barren scepter in my gripe,
Thence to be wrenched with an unlineal hand,
No son of mine succeeding.
Mur. We are men, my liege.
Mac. Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men.
We have scotched the snake, not killed it.
{54}Duncan is in his grave!
After life's fitful fever he sleeps well.
But now, I am cabined, cribbed, confined bound in
To saucy doubts and fears.
Now good digestion wait on appetite,
And health on both!
Thou canst not say, I did it: never shake
Thy gory locks at me.
Thou hast no speculation in those eyes
Which thou dost glare with!
What man dare, I dare.
Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves
Shall never tremble.
Stand not upon the order of your going,
But go at once.
Can such things be,
And overcome us like a summer's cloud,
Without our special wonder?
Black spirits and white,
Red spirits and gray,
Mingle, mingle, mingle,
You that mingle may.[2]
By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.
A deed without a name.
I'll make assurance double sure,
And take a bond of fate.
Show his eyes, and grieve his heart!
Come like shadows, so depart.
What! will the line stretch out to the crack of doom?{56}
The flighty purpose never is o'ertook,
Unless the deed go with it.
What, all my pretty chickens, and their dam,
At one fell swoop?
I cannot but remember such things were,
That were most precious to me.
O, I could play the woman with mine eyes,
And braggart with my tongue!
My way of life
Is fallen into the sear, the yellow leaf;
And that which should accompany old age,
As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends,
I must not look to have; but, in their stead,
Curses, not loud, but deep, mouth-honor, breath,
Which the poor heart would fain deny, but dare not.
Not so sick, my lord,
As she is troubled with thick-coming fancies,
That keep her from her rest.
Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased;
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow;
Raze out the written troubles of the brain;
And, with some sweet oblivious antidote,
Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart?
Throw physic to the dogs: I'll none of it.
I would applaud thee to the very echo,
That should applaud again.
Hang out our banners on the outward walls;
The cry is still, They come.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
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.
Blow, wind! come, wrack!
At least we'll die with harness on our back.
I bear a charmed life.
That keep the word of promise to our ear,
And break it to our hope.
Lay on, Macduff;
And damned be him that first cries, Hold, enough!
For courage mounteth with occasion.
Thou slave, thou wretch, thou coward,
Thou little valiant, great in villany!
Thou ever strong upon the stronger side!
Thou fortune's champion, that dost never fight
But when her humorous ladyship is by
To teach thee safety!
Thou wear a lion's hide! Doff it for shame,
And hang a calf's skin on those recreant limbs.
Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale,
Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.
To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw a perfume on the violet,
To smooth the ice, or add another hue
Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light
To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.
Now oft the sight of means to do ill deeds
Makes deeds ill done!
Oh, who can hold a fire in his hand,
By thinking on the frosty Caucasus?
Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite,
By bare imagination of a feast?
The apprehension of the good
Gives but the greater feeling to the worse.
The ripest fruit first falls.{60}
'Tis my vocation, Hal; 'tis no sin for a man to labor in his vocation.
He will give the devil his due.
And, as the soldiers bore dead bodies by,
He called them untaught knaves, unmannerly,
To bring a slovenly, unhandsome corse
Betwixt the wind and his nobility.
By heaven, methinks it were an easy leap,
To pluck bright honor from the pale-faced moon.
I know a trick worth two of that.
Call you that backing of your friends? a plague upon such backing!
A plague of sighing and grief! it blows a man up like a bladder.
Give you a reason on compulsion! if reasons were as plenty as blackberries, I would give no man a reason upon compulsion.{61}
I was a coward on instinct.
No more of that, Hal, an thou lovest me.
Glen. I can call spirits from the vasty deep. Hot. Why, so can I, or so can any man: But will they come when you do call for them?
Tell truth and shame the devil.
I had rather be a kitten, and cry mew,
Than one of these same meter ballad-mongers.
Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn?
I could have better spared a better man.
The better part of valor is—discretion.
Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying! I grant you, I was down, and out of breath; and so was he: but we rose both at an instant, and fought a long hour by Shrewsbury clock.{62}
Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless.
So dull, so dead in look, so woebegone,
Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night,
And would have told him, half his Troy was burned.
Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news
Hath but a losing office; and his tongue
Sounds ever after as a sullen bell,
Remembered knolling a departed friend.
I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men.
He hath eaten me out of house and home.
He was, indeed, the glass
Wherein the noble youth did dress themselves.
Sleep, gentle sleep,
Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down,
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?
With all appliances and means to boot.{63}
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.
He hath a tear for pity, and a hand
Open as day for melting charity.
Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought.
Under which king, Bezonian? Speak, or die.
Consideration like an angel came,
And whipped the offending Adam out of him.
When he speaks,
The air, a chartered libertine, is still.
Base is the slave that pays.
'A babbled of green fields.
With busy hammers closing rivets up,
Give dreadful note of preparation.
Then shall our names,
Familiar in their mouths as household words—
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloster—
Be in their flowing cups freshly remembered.
She's beautiful; and therefore to be wooed:
She is a woman; therefore to be won.
Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep.
What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted?
Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just;
And he but naked, though locked up in steel,
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.
He dies and makes no sign.{65}
Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind;
The thief doth fear each bush an officer.
Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
And all the clouds that lowered upon our house,
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deformed, unfinished, Bent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up.
Why I, in this weak, piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time.
To leave this keen encounter of our wits.
Was ever woman in this humor wooed?
Was ever woman in this humor won?
O, I have passed a miserable night,
So full of fearful dreams, of ugly sights,
That, as I am a Christian faithful man,
I would not spend another such a night,
Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days.
Thou troublest me; I am not in the vein.
Let not the heavens hear these telltale women
Hail on the Lord's anointed.
An honest tale speeds best, being plainly told
Thus far into the bowels of the land
Have we marched on without impediment.
True hope is swift, and flies with swallow's wings,
Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings.
The king's name is a tower of strength.
I have set my life upon a cast,
And I will stand the hazard of the die.
A horse! a horse! My kingdom for a horse!
{67}Verily,
I swear, 'tis better to be lowly born,
And range with humble livers in content,
Than to be perked up in a glistering grief,
And wear a golden sorrow.
And then to breakfast with
What appetite you have.
Farewell, a long farewell, to all my greatness!
This is the state of man. To-day he puts forth
The tender leaves of hopes; to-morrow blossoms
And bears his blushing honors thick upon him.
O how wretched
Is that poor man that hangs on princes' favors!
There is, betwixt that smile we would aspire to
That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin,
More pangs and fears than wars or women have;
And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer,
Never to hope again.
Had I but served my God with half the zeal
I served my king, he would not in mine age
Have left me naked to mine enemies.
Men's evil manners live in brass; their virtues
We write in water.
To dance attendance on their lordship's pleasures.
One touch of nature makes the whole world kin
And, like a dewdrop from the lion's mane,
Be shook to air.
Hear you this Triton of the minnows?
Beware the Ides of March!
I cannot tell what you and other men
Think of this life; but for my single self,
I had as lief not be as live to be
In awe of such a thing as I myself.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
But, for mine own part, it was Greek to me.
{70}Between the acting of a dreadful thing
And the first motion, all the interim is
Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream.
Yon are my true and honorable wife,
As dear to me as the ruddy drops
That visit my sad heart.
Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Though last, not least, in love.
Cry Havoc, and let slip the dogs of war.
Romans, countrymen, and lovers! hear me for my cause; and be silent that you may hear.
Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more.
Who is here so base, that would be a bondman? If any, speak: for him have I offended.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones.
For Brutus is an honorable man;
So are they all, all honorable men.
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept;
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.
But yesterday, the word of Caesar might
Have stood against the world; now lies he there,
And none so poor to do him reverence.
If you have years, prepare to shed them now.
See, what a rent the envious Casca made!
This was the most unkindest cut of all.
Great Caesar fell.
O what a fall was there, my countrymen!
Put a tongue
In every wound of Caesar, that should move
The stones of Borne to rise and mutiny.
There are no tricks in plain and simple faith.
I had rather be a dog, and bay the moon,
Than such a Roman.
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.
A friend should bear a friend's infirmities,
But Brutus makes mine greater than they are.
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.
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!
There's beggary in the love that can be reckoned.{73}
For her own person,
It beggared all description.
Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety.
Hark! hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings,
Some griefs are med'cinable.
Weariness
Can snore upon the flint, when restive sloth
Finds the down pillow hard.
How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is,
To have a thankless child.
Striving to better, oft we mar what's well.
O, let not women's weapons, water-drops,
Stain my man's cheeks.
Blow, wind, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
Tremble, thou wretch,
That hast within thee undivulged crimes,
Unwhipped of justice.
I am a man
More sinned against than sinning.
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.
I'll talk a word with this same learned Theban.
The little dogs and all,
Tray, Blanch, and Sweetheart, see, they bark at me.{75}
Ay, every inch a king.
Give me an ounce of civet, good apothecary, to sweeten my imagination.
Through tattered clothes small vices do appear;
Robes and furred gowns hide all.
The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices
Make instruments to plague us.
Her voice was ever soft,
Gentle, and low; an excellent thing in woman.
The weakest goes to the wall.
One fire burns out another's burning.
One pain is lessened by another's anguish.
Too early seen unknown, and known too late,
He jests at scars, that never felt a wound.{76}
See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!
O that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek!
O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.
Alack! there lies more peril in thine eye,
Than twenty of their swords.
At lover's perjuries,
They say, Jove laughs.
O swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon,
That monthly changes in her circled orb,
Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.
Good-night, good-night! parting is such sweet sorrow,
That I shall say good-night till it be morrow.
Thy old groans ring yet in my ancient ears
{77}Stabbed with a white wench's black eye.
I am the very pink of courtesy.
My man's as true as steel.
Here comes the lady;—O, so light a foot
Will ne'er wear out the everlasting flint.
A plague o' both the houses!
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.
Adversity's sweet milk, philosophy
Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain-tops.
Not stopping o'er the bounds of modesty.
My bosom's lord sits lightly in his throne.{78}
A beggarly account of empty boxes.
My poverty, but not my will, consents.
Beauty's ensign yet
Is crimson in thy lips, and in thy cheeks,
And death's pale flag is not advanced there.
Eyes, look your last!
Arms, take your last embrace!
This bodes some strange eruption to our state.
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.
And then it started like a guilty thing
Upon a fearful summons.{79}
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.
The head is not more native to the heart.
A little more than kin, and less than kind.
Seems, madam! nay, it is; I know not seems
But I have that within which passeth show;
These, but the trappings and the suits of woe.
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!{80}
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.
Thrift, thrift, Horatio! the funeral baked meats
Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.
In my mind's eye, Horatio.
He was a man, take him for all in all,
I shall not look upon his like again.
A countenance more
In sorrow than in anger.{81}
And in the morn and liquid dew of youth.
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.
Springes to catch woodcocks.
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.
Angels and ministers of grace, defend us!
Thou com'st in such a questionable shape,
That I will speak to thee.
Let me not burst in ignorance!{82}
I do not set my life at a pin's fee.
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
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.
O my prophetic soul! my uncle!
O Hamlet, what a falling-off was there!
No reckoning made, but sent to my account
With all my imperfections on my head.
The glowworm shows the matin to be near
And 'gins to pale his uneffectual fire.
There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave,
To tell us this.{83}
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
The time is out of joint.
This is the very ecstasy of love.
Brevity is the soul of wit.
That he is mad, 'tis true; 'tis true, 'tis pity;
And pity 'tis, 'tis true.
Doubt thou the stars are tire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love.
Still harping on my daughter.
Though this be madness, yet there's method in it.
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!
{84}Man delights not me—nor woman neither.
I know a hawk from a hand-saw.
Come, give us a taste of your quality.
'Twas caviare to the general.
What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba?
The play's the thing,
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.
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—
{85}
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.
Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thon shalt not escape calumny.
The glass of fashion, and the mould of form,
The observed of all observers!{86}
Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh.
It out-herods Herod.
Suit the action to the word, the word to the action.
To hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature.
I have thought some of nature's journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.
No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp;
And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee,
Where thrift may follow fawning.
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.
Something too much of this.
Here's metal more attractive.{87}
The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
Let the galled jade wince, our withers are un-wrung.
Why, let the strucken deer go weep,
The hart ungalled play;
For some must watch, while some must sleep;
Thus runs the world away.
It will discourse most eloquent music.
Very like a whale.
They fool me to the top of my bent.
'Tis now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world.
O my offence is rank, it smells to heaven
Look here, upon this picture, and on this;
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
{88}
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.
A king Of shreds and patches.
This is the very coinage of your brain.
Lay not that flattering unction to your soul.
Assume a virtue, if you have it not.
For 'tis the sport to have the engineer
Hoist with his own petard.
When sorrows come, they come not single spies,
But in battalions!
There's such divinity doth hedge a king,
That treason can but peep to what it would.
How absolute the knave is! we must speak by the card, or equivocation will undo us.
Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest; of most excellent fancy.
Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar?
To what base uses we may return, Horatio!
Imperial Caesar, dead, and turned to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away.
Sir, though I am not splenetive and rash,
Yet have I in me something dangerous.
The cat will mew, and dog will have his day.
There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will.
There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow.{90}
A hit, a very palpable hit.
But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
For daws to peck at.
Most potent, grave, and reverend seigniors.
The very head and front of my offending
Hath this extent, no more.
I will a round, unvarnished tale deliver
Of my whole course of love.
Wherein I spoke of most disastrous chances,
Of moving accidents, by flood and field;
Of hair-breadth 'scapes i' the imminent deadly breach.
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:{91}
She wished she had not heard it; yet she
wished
That Heaven had made her such a man.
Upon this hint I spake.
I do perceive hero a divided duty.
For I am nothing, if not critical.
Iago. To suckle fools, and chronicle small beer.
Des. O most lame and impotent conclusion!
Silence that dreadful bell; it frights the isle
From her propriety.
O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee devil!
O that men should put an enemy in their mouths, to steal away their brains!
Perdition catch my soul,
But I do love thee! and when I love thee not,
Chaos is come again.{92}
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.
O, beware, my lord, of jealousy;
It is the green-eyed monster, which doth make
The meat it feeds on.
Trifles, light as air,
Are, to the jealous, confirmations strong
As proofs of holy writ.
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.
He that is robbed, not wanting what is stolen,
Let him not know it, and he's not robbed at all.{93}
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!
Give me the ocular proof.
But this denoted a foregone conclusion.
They laugh that win.
Steeped me in poverty to the very lips.
But, alas! to make me
A fixed figure, for the time of scorn
To point his slow, unmovin finger at.
And put in every honest hand a whip,
To lash the rascal naked through the world.
'Tis neither here nor there.
He hath a daily beauty in his life.
I have done the state some service, and they know it.
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.
Except wind stands as never it stood,
It is an ill wind turns none to good.
O wearisome condition of humanity!
And out of minde as soon as out of sight.
Who ever loved that loved not at first sight.
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.
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.{96}
Silence in love betrays more love
Than words, though ne'er so witty;
A beggar that is dumb, you know,
May challenge double pity.
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.
As it fell upon a day,
In the merry mouth of May,
Sitting in a pleasant shade
Which a grove of myrtles made.
The noblest mind the best contentment has.
Her angels face,
As the great eye of heaven, shyned bright,
And made a sunshine in the shady place.
That darkesome cave they enter, where they find
That cursed man, low sitting on the ground,
Musing full sadly in his sullein mind.
No daintie flowre or herbe that growes on grownd
No arborett with painted blossomes drest
And smelling sweete, but there it might be fownd
To bud out faire, and throwe her sweete smels al arownd.
Dan Chaucer, well of English undefyled.{98}
I was promised on a time
To have reason for my rhyme;
From that time unto this season,
I received nor rhyme nor reason.
For of the soul the body form doth take,
For soul is form, and doth the Body make.
Full little knowest thou that hast not tride,
What hell it is in suing long to bide;
To loose good dayes, that might be better spent
To wast long nights in pensive discontent;
To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow;
To feed on hope, to pine with feare and sorrow;
To fret thy soule with crosses and with cares;
To eate thy heart through comfortlesse dispaires;
To fawne, to crowche, to waite, to ride, to ronne,
To spend, to give, to want, to be undonne.{99}
How happy is he born and taught,
That serveth not another's will;
Whose armor is his honest thought,
And simple truth his utmost skill!
Lord of himself, though not of lands;
And having nothing, yet hath all.
You meaner beauties of the night,
That poorly satisfy our eyes
More by your number than your light!
We understood
Her by her sight; her pure and eloquent blood
Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought,
That one might almost say her body thought.
She and comparisons are odious.{100}
Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss but in the cup,
And I'll not look for wine.
Still to be neat, still to be drest
As you were going to a feast.
Give me a look, give me a face,
That makes simplicity a grace.
In small proportion we just beauties see,
And in short measures life may perfect be.
Underneath this stone doth lie
As much beauty as could die;
Which in life did harbor give
To more virtue than doth live.{101}
Underneath this sable hearse
Lies the subject of all verse,
Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother.
Death! ere thou hast slain another,
Learned and fair and good as she,
Time shall throw a dart at thee.
Soul of the age!
The applause! delight! the wonder of our stage!
My Shakespeare rise.
Small Latin, and less Greek.
He was not of an age, but for all time.
Sweet swan of Avon!
Get money; still get money, boy;
No matter by what means.
What things have we seen
Done at the Mermaid! heard words that have been
So nimble, and so full of subtile flame,
As if that every one from whence they came
Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest,
And resolved to live a fool the rest
Of his dull life.
Shall I, wasting in despair,
Dye because a woman's fair?
Or make pale my cheeks with care,
'Cause another's rosie are?
If she be not so to me,
What care I how faire she be?
Be wisely worldly, be not worldly wise.{103}
This house is to be let for life or years;
Her rent is sorrow, and her income tears,
Cupid 't has long stood void; her bills make known,
She must be dearly let, or let alone.
Sweet day, so cool, so cairn, so bright,
The bridall of the earth and skies.
Only a sweet and virtuous soul,
Like seasoned timber, never gives.
Her feet beneath her petticoat,
Like little mice, stole in and out,
As if they feared the light;
But oh! she dances such a way!
No sun upon an Easter-day
Is half so fine a sight.
Her lips were red, and one was thin,
Compared with that was next her chin,
Some bee had stung it newly.{104}
Why so pale and wan, fond lover,
Prithee, why so pale?
Will, when looking well can't move her,
Looking ill prevail?
Prithee, why so pale?
Some asked me where the Rubies grew,
And nothing I did say;
But with my finger pointed to
The lips of Julia.
Some asked how Pearls did grow, and where?
Then spoke I to my Girl,
To part her lips, and showed them there
The quarelets of Pearl.
Her pretty feet, like snails, did creep
A little out, and then,
As if they played at Bo-peep,
Did soon draw in again.{105}
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying,
And this same flower, that smiles to-day,
To-morrow will be dying.
Her eyes the glowworm lend thee,
The shooting stars attend thee;
And the elves also,
Whose little eyes glow
Like the sparks of fire, befriend thee.
Oh! could you view the melody
Of every grace,
And music of her face,
You'd drop a tear;
Seeing more harmony
In her bright eye,
Than now you hear.
I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not honor more.{106}
Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron barres a cage;
Mindes innocent, and quiet, take
That for an hermitage.
Only the actions of the just
Smell sweet and blossom in the dust.
The conscious water saw its God and blushed.[5]
A happy soul, that all the way
To heaven hath a summer's day.
And though mine arm should conquer twenty worlds,
There's a lean fellow beats all conquerors.
Honest Whore. P. ii. Act i. Sc. 2.
Th' adorning thee with so much art
Is but a barb'rous skill;
'Tis like the poisoning of a dart,
Too apt before to kill.
What shall I do to be forever known,
And make the age to come my own?
His faith, perhaps, in some nice tenets might
Be wrong; his life, I'm sure, was in the right.
God the first garden made, and the first city Cain.
O could I flow like thee, and make thy stream
My great example, as it is my theme!{108}
Though deep, yet clear; though gentle, yet not dull;
Strong without rage; without o'erflowing, full.
Actions of the last age are like Almanacs of the last year.
He that loves a rosy cheek,
Or a coral lip admires,
Or from star-like eyes doth seek
Fuel to maintain his fires;
As old Time makes these decay,
So his flames must waste away.
Then fly betimes, for only they
Conquer love, that run away.
The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed,
Lets in new light through chinks that time has made.{109}
Stronger by weakness, wiser men become,
As they draw near to their eternal home.
A narrow compass! and yet there
Dwelt all that's good, and all that's fair;
Give me but what this ribbon bound,
Take all the rest the sun goes round.
How small a part of time they share
That are so wondrous sweet and fair!
The eagle's fate and mine are one,
Which, on the shaft that made him die,
Espied a feather of his own,
Wherewith he wont to soar so high.
Or if Sion hill
Delight thee more, and Siloa's brook, that flowed
Fast by the oracle of God.{110}
What in me is dark,
Illumine; what is low, raise and support;
That to the height of this great argument
I may assert eternal Providence,
And justify the ways of God to men.
Yet from those flames
No light; but only darkness visible.
Where peace
And rest can never dwell: hope never comes,
That comes to all.
What though the field be lost?
All is not lost.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.
Here we may reign secure, and in my choice
To reign is worth ambition, though in hell:
Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.
Heard so oft
In worst extremes and on the perilous edge
Of battle.
Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks
In Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades
High over-arched imbower.
Awake, arise, or be forever fallen!
Sonorous metal blowing martial sounds.
In perfect phalanx to the Dorian mood
Of flutes and soft recorders.
Thrice he essayed, and thrice, in spite of scorn,
Tears, such as angels weep, burst forth.
From morn
To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,
A summer's day.
But all was false and hollow, though his tongue
Dropped manna; and could make the worse appear
The better reason, to perplex and dash
Maturest counsels.
With grave
Aspéct he rose, and in his rising seemed
{112}
A pillar of state; deep on his front engraven
Deliberation sat and public care.
With Atlantean shoulders, fit to bear
The weight of mightiest monarchies: his look
Drew audience and attention still as night
Or summer's noontide air.
Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute.
The other shape,
If shape it might be called that shape had none
Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb.
Whence and what art them, execrable shape?
And Death
Grinn'd horrible a ghastly smile, to hear
His famine should be filled.
With ruin upon ruin, rout on rout,
Confusion worse confounded.
Hail, holy light! offspring of Heaven first-born.
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine.{113}
Since called
The Paradise of Fools, to few unknown.
At whose sight all the stars
Hide their diminished heads.
And in the lowest deep, a lower deep,
Still threatening to devour me, opens wide,
To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven.
So farewell hope, and with hope farewell fear,
Farewell remorse; all good to me is lost:
Evil, be thou my good.
For contemplation he, and valor, formed,
For softness she, and sweet attractive grace.
His fair large front and eye sublime declared
Absolute rule; and hyacinthine locks
Bound from his parted forelock manly hung
Clustering, but not beneath his shoulders bro