William Shakespeare

“ How God and good men hate so foul a liar.
KING RICHARD. Mowbray, impartial are our eyes and ears.
Were he my brother, nay, my kingdom's heir,
As he is but my father's brother's son,
Now by my sceptre's awe I make a vow,
Such neighbour nearness to our sacred blood
Should nothing privilege him nor partialize
The unstooping firmness of my upright soul.
He is our subject, Mowbray; so art thou:
Free speech and fearless I to thee allow.
MOWBRAY. Then, Bolingbroke, as low as to thy heart,
Through the false passage of thy throat, thou liest. ”

“ Then hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now;
Now, while the world is bent my deeds to cross,
Join with the spite of fortune, make me bow,
And do not drop in for an after-loss:
Ah! do not, when my heart hath 'scap'd this sorrow,
Come in the rearward of a conquer'd woe;
Give not a windy night a rainy morrow,
To linger out a purpos'd overthrow.
If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,
When other petty griefs have done their spite,
But in the onset come: so shall I taste
At first the very worst of fortune's might;
And other strains of woe, which now seem woe,
Compar'd with loss of thee, will not seem so. ”

“ ULYSSES. At Menelaus' tent, most princely Troilus.
There Diomed doth feast with him to-night,
Who neither looks upon the heaven nor earth,
But gives all gaze and bent of amorous view
On the fair Cressid.
TROILUS. Shall I, sweet lord, be bound to you so much,
After we part from Agamemnon's tent,
To bring me thither?
ULYSSES. You shall command me, sir.
As gentle tell me of what honour was
This Cressida in Troy? Had she no lover there
That wails her absence?
TROILUS. O, sir, to such as boasting show their scars
A mock is due. Will you walk on, my lord? ”

“ THAISA. To me he seems like diamond to glass.
PERICLES. Yon king's to me like to my father's picture, Which tells me in that glory once he was; Had princes sit, like stars, about his throne, And he the sun, for them to reverence; None that beheld him, but, like lesser lights, Did vail their crowns to his supremacy: Where now his son's like a glow-worm in the night, The which hath fire in darkness, none in light: Whereby I see that Time's the king of men, He's both their parent, and he is their grave, And gives them what he will, not what they crave. ”

“ PRINCE EDWARD.
Father, you cannot disinherit me.
If you be king, why should not I succeed?
KING HENRY.
Pardon me, Margaret; pardon me, sweet son.
The Earl of Warwick and the Duke enforced me.
QUEEN MARGARET.
Enforced thee! Art thou King, and wilt be forced?
I shame to hear thee speak. Ah, timorous wretch,
Thou hast undone thyself, thy son, and me,
And given unto the house of York such head
As thou shalt reign but by their sufferance.
To entail him and his heirs unto the crown,
What is it but to make thy sepulchre
And creep into it far before thy time? ”

“ HORATIO.
No, by no means.
HAMLET.
It will not speak; then will I follow it.
HORATIO.
Do not, my lord.
HAMLET.
Why, what should be the fear?
I do not set my life at a pin’s fee;
And for my soul, what can it do to that,
Being a thing immortal as itself?
It waves me forth again. I’ll follow it.
HORATIO.
What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord,
Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff
That beetles o’er his base into the sea,
And there assume some other horrible form
Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason,
And draw you into madness? Think of it. ”

“ LUCIUS. Bring down the devil, for he must not die
So sweet a death as hanging presently.
AARON. If there be devils, would I were a devil,
To live and burn in everlasting fire,
So I might have your company in hell
But to torment you with my bitter tongue!
LUCIUS. Sirs, stop his mouth, and let him speak no more.
Enter AEMILIUS
GOTH. My lord, there is a messenger from Rome
Desires to be admitted to your presence.
LUCIUS. Let him come near.
Welcome, Aemilius. What's the news from Rome?
AEMILIUS. Lord Lucius, and you Princes of the Goths,
The Roman Emperor greets you all by me ”

“ Bring me a constant woman to her husband,
One that ne'er dream'd a joy beyond his pleasure,
And to that woman, when she has done most,
Yet will I add an honour—a great patience.
WOLSEY. Madam, you wander from the good we aim at.
QUEEN KATHARINE. My lord, I dare not make myself so guilty,
To give up willingly that noble title
Your master wed me to: nothing but death
Shall e'er divorce my dignities.
WOLSEY. Pray hear me.
QUEEN KATHARINE. Would I had never trod this English earth,
Or felt the flatteries that grow upon it!
Ye have angels' faces, but heaven knows your hearts. ”

“ Remember, boys, I poured forth tears in vain
To save your brother from the sacrifice,
But fierce Andronicus would not relent.
Therefore away with her, and use her as you will;
The worse to her, the better loved of me.
LAVINIA.
O Tamora, be called a gentle queen,
And with thine own hands kill me in this place!
For ’tis not life that I have begged so long;
Poor I was slain when Bassianus died.
TAMORA.
What begg’st thou, then? Fond woman, let me go.
LAVINIA.
’Tis present death I beg; and one thing more
That womanhood denies my tongue to tell. ”

“ For Edward our son, that was Prince of Wales,
Die in his youth by like untimely violence.
Thyself a queen, for me that was a queen,
Outlive thy glory, like my wretched self.
Long mayst thou live to wail thy children’s death,
And see another, as I see thee now,
Decked in thy rights, as thou art stalled in mine;
Long die thy happy days before thy death,
And, after many lengthened hours of grief,
Die neither mother, wife, nor England’s Queen.
Rivers and Dorset, you were standers-by,
And so wast thou, Lord Hastings, when my son
Was stabbed with bloody daggers. ”

“ Now could I, Casca, name to thee a man
Most like this dreadful night,
That thunders, lightens, opens graves, and roars,
As doth the lion in the Capitol;
A man no mightier than thyself, or me,
In personal action; yet prodigious grown,
And fearful, as these strange eruptions are.
CASCA.
’Tis Caesar that you mean; is it not, Cassius?
CASSIUS.
Let it be who it is: for Romans now
Have thews and limbs like to their ancestors;
But, woe the while! our fathers’ minds are dead,
And we are govern’d with our mothers’ spirits;
Our yoke and sufferance show us womanish. ”

“ LUCENTIO. Here is a wonder, if you talk of a wonder.
HORTENSIO. And so it is. I wonder what it bodes.
PETRUCHIO. Marry, peace it bodes, and love, and quiet life,
An awful rule, and right supremacy;
And, to be short, what not that's sweet and happy.
BAPTISTA. Now fair befall thee, good Petruchio!
The wager thou hast won; and I will add
Unto their losses twenty thousand crowns;
Another dowry to another daughter,
For she is chang'd, as she had never been.
PETRUCHIO. Nay, I will win my wager better yet,
And show more sign of her obedience,
Her new-built virtue and obedience. ”

“ Killing that love which thou hast vow’d to cherish;
Thy wit, that ornament to shape and love,
Misshapen in the conduct of them both,
Like powder in a skilless soldier’s flask,
Is set afire by thine own ignorance,
And thou dismember’d with thine own defence.
What, rouse thee, man. Thy Juliet is alive,
For whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead.
There art thou happy. Tybalt would kill thee,
But thou slew’st Tybalt; there art thou happy.
The law that threaten’d death becomes thy friend,
And turns it to exile; there art thou happy. ”

“ ROSALIND.
I met the Duke yesterday, and had much question with him. He asked me of what parentage I was. I told him, of as good as he, so he laughed and let me go. But what talk we of fathers when there is such a man as Orlando?
CELIA.
O, that’s a brave man! He writes brave verses, speaks brave words, swears brave oaths, and breaks them bravely, quite traverse, athwart the heart of his lover, as a puny tilter, that spurs his horse but on one side, breaks his staff like a noble goose. But all’s brave that youth mounts and folly guides. Who comes here? ”

“ DORSET
Dispute not with her,—she is lunatic.
QUEEN MARGARET
Peace, master marquis, you are malapert:
Your fire-new stamp of honour is scarce current:
O, that your young nobility could judge
What 'twere to lose it, and be miserable!
They that stand high have many blasts to shake them;
And if they fall they dash themselves to pieces.
GLOSTER
Good counsel, marry:—learn it, learn it, marquis.
DORSET
It touches you, my lord, as much as me.
GLOSTER
Ay, and much more: but I was born so high,
Our aery buildeth in the cedar's top,
And dallies with the wind, and scorns the sun. ”

“ OXFORD Why, Warwick, canst thou speak against thy liege,
Whom thou obeyed'st thirty and six years,
And not bewray thy treason with a blush?
WARWICK Can Oxford, that did ever fence the right,
Now buckler falsehood with a pedigree?
For shame! leave Henry, and call Edward king.
OXFORD Call him my king by whose injurious doom
My elder brother, the Lord Aubrey Vere,
Was done to death? and more than so, my father,
Even in the downfall of his mellow'd years,
When nature brought him to the door of death?
No, Warwick, no; while life upholds this arm,
This arm upholds the house of Lancaster. ”

“ PAULINA.
Then, good my lords, bear witness to his oath.
CLEOMENES
You tempt him over-much.
PAULINA.
Unless another,
As like Hermione as is her picture,
Affront his eye.
CLEOMENES
Good madam,—
PAULINA.
I have done.
Yet, if my lord will marry,—if you will, sir,
No remedy but you will,—give me the office
To choose you a queen: she shall not be so young
As was your former, but she shall be such
As, walk’d your first queen’s ghost, it should take joy
To see her in your arms.
LEONTES.
My true Paulina,
We shall not marry till thou bid’st us. ”

“ FALSTAFF.
Why, Hal, thou knowest, as thou art but man, I dare, but as thou art prince, I fear thee as I fear the roaring of the lion’s whelp.
PRINCE.
And why not as the lion?
FALSTAFF.
The King himself is to be feared as the lion. Dost thou think I’ll fear thee as I fear thy father? Nay, an I do, I pray God my girdle break.
PRINCE.
O, if it should, how would thy guts fall about thy knees! But, sirrah, there’s no room for faith, truth, nor honesty in this bosom of thine; it is all filled up with midriff. Charge an honest woman with picking thy pocket! ”

“ ALCIBIADES What art thou there? speak.
TIMON A beast, as thou art. The canker gnaw thy heart,
For showing me again the eyes of man!
ALCIBIADES What is thy name? Is man so hateful to thee,
That art thyself a man?
TIMON I am Misanthropos, and hate mankind.
For thy part, I do wish thou wert a dog,
That I might love thee something.
ALCIBIADES I know thee well;
But in thy fortunes am unlearn'd and strange.
TIMON I know thee too; and more than that I know thee,
I not desire to know. Follow thy drum;
With man's blood paint the ground, gules, gules:
Religious canons, civil laws are cruel ”

“ RICHARD.
And if words will not, then our weapons shall.
CLIFFORD.
Why, what a brood of traitors have we here!
YORK.
Look in a glass, and call thy image so.
I am thy king, and thou a false-heart traitor.
Call hither to the stake my two brave bears,
That with the very shaking of their chains
They may astonish these fell-lurking curs.
Bid Salisbury and Warwick come to me.
Enter the Earls of Warwick and Salisbury.
CLIFFORD.
Are these thy bears? We’ll bait thy bears to death
And manacle the bearherd in their chains,
If thou dar’st bring them to the baiting-place. ”

“ BERTRAM.
I cannot love her, nor will strive to do ’t.
KING.
Thou wrong’st thyself, if thou shouldst strive to choose.
HELENA.
That you are well restor’d, my lord, I am glad.
Let the rest go.
KING.
My honour’s at the stake, which to defeat,
I must produce my power. Here, take her hand,
Proud scornful boy, unworthy this good gift,
That dost in vile misprision shackle up
My love and her desert; that canst not dream
We, poising us in her defective scale,
Shall weigh thee to the beam; that wilt not know
It is in us to plant thine honour where
We please to have it grow. ”

“ WOLSEY. If your Grace Could but be brought to know our ends are honest, You'd feel more comfort. Why should we, good lady, Upon what cause, wrong you? Alas, our places, The way of our profession is against it; We are to cure such sorrows, not to sow 'em. For goodness' sake, consider what you do; How you may hurt yourself, ay, utterly Grow from the King's acquaintance, by this carriage. The hearts of princes kiss obedience, So much they love it; but to stubborn spirits They swell and grow as terrible as storms. I know you have a gentle, noble temper, A soul as even as a calm. ”