Horatio

“ Needs must he go that the devils drive.
Exit.
KING. What accident hath happ'd to Hieronimo?
I have not seen him to demean him so.
LOR. My gracious lord, he is with extreme pride
Conceiv'd of young Horatio, his son,
And covetous of having himself
The ransom of the young prince, Balthazar,
Distract, and in a manner lunatic.
KING. Believe me, nephew, we are sorry for 't;
This is the love that fathers bear their sons.
But, gentle brother, go give to him this gold,
The prince's ransom; let him have his due;
For what he hath, Horatio shall not want.
Haply Hieronimo hath need thereof. ”

“ When the wretched Horatio found himself so extremely fast bound that he could not stir, he soon perceived the danger which threatened him, and, hoping to soften his rival’s anger, he confessed his crime, and implored his mercy in terms the most pathetic that his fear of death could inspire him with. ”

“ Cries out Horatio, where is my Horatio?
[Pg 116] So that with extreme grief and cutting sorrow
There is not left in him one inch of man:
See, here he comes.
Enter Hieronimo.
Hieronimo.
I pry through every crevice of each wall,
Look at each tree, and search through every brake,
Beat on the bushes, stamp our grand-dame earth,
Dive in the water, and stare up to heaven:
Yet cannot I behold my son Horatio.
How now, who's there? Sprights, sprights!
Pedro.
We are your servants that attend you, sir.
Hieronimo.
[Pg 117]
What make you with your torches in the dark? ”

“ The words acted on Horatio like a shock of electricity. He straightened up with a snort that caused the crowd to fall back, knocking each other over like dominos. Then he made a bound into the open space and stood on his head. Then with a spring backward he landed on his feet, and waved a bow to the Justice! Another bound and he was walking on his hands and then, after another bow to the Court, he turned a series of somersaults so rapidly that he looked like a great wheel! ”

“ I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kiss’d I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning? Quite chop-fallen? Now get you to my lady’s chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come. ”

“ For the lust of blood, it was entered into his bones.
11 Moreover, he did take a damsel unto him to wife.
12 ¶ Now Horatio, being the scribe of the new apocrypha, he refrained not from writing concerning Horatio, and concerning the things that Horatio, he would do.
13 And on an occasion he spake unto the people in a loud voice, saying unto them, Hearken unto my voice, ye men of En, and pay heed to the words of my mouth. For who shall be keeper of the victuals? And who the chief larderer of En?
14 Verily, there is such a man that be fit for to undertake it. ”

“ I think Horatio be my destin'd plague:
First, in his hand he brandished a sword,
And with that sword he fiercely waged war,
And in that war he gave me dangerous wounds,
And by those wounds he forced me to yield,
And by my yielding I became his slave;
Now, in his mouth he carries pleasing words,
Which pleasing words do harbour sweet conceits,
Which sweet conceits are lim'd with sly deceits,
Which sly deceits smooth Bel-imperia's ears,
And through her ears dive down into her heart,
And in her heart set him, where I should stand. ”

“ This sight so amazed Horatio, that he had not the power of speaking one word;--till Mullern, who happened to be the person that was fastened upon the rack, cried out to him,--Be not lost in consideration, Horatio, said he; are we not in the hands of Muscovites, from whom nothing that is human can be expected?--rather prepare yourself to disappoint their cruelty, by bravely suffering all they dare inflict. ”

“ BEL. Alas, my lord! These are but words of course,
And but devis'd to drive me from this place.
She, going in, lets fall her glove, which
HORATIO, coming out, takes up.
HOR. Madame, your glove.
BEL. Thanks, good Horatio; take it for thy pains.
[BEL-IMPERIA exits.]
BAL. Signior Horatio stoop'd in happy time!
HOR. I reap'd more grace that I deserv'd or hop'd.
LOR. My lord, be not dismay'd for what is past;
You know that women oft are humorous:
These clouds will overblow with little wind ”

“ When she spoke it was an explosion.
"Horatio! are you crazy? Don't you understand? There isn't a servant in this house. There's no one to cook our luncheon, and, if there were, there is no one to serve it, no one to do anything, and you stand there and talk about aeroplanes!"
There was a quiet about Horatio that, exasperating as it was, somehow disconcerted Harriet. She watched him silently, resentfully, as he picked up the cushion on which Martin Luther was reposing and deposited it carefully on the floor without waking the cat. ”

“ Horatio is not exactly a genius: there is nothing of that wild eccentricity of thought and action which betokens the vivid flights of imagination, or the meteoric brightness of inspiration; his actions are distinguished by coolness, intrepidity, and good sense. He does not pretend to second sight, or a knowledge of futurity; but on the present and the past there are few who can reason with more cogency of remark, or with more classic elegance of diction: with such a concentration of qualities, it is not wonderful that his influence extends through every gradation of the juvenile band. ”

“ What body celestial might he wear? If she could only catch one glimpse of his pure radiance, she would not be afraid. She would not act like the Little Red Leaf, to lock the door against a ghost even though she believed that Penaycee was safe in the lodge of the reindeer. She knew that in seeing Horatio’s body, with brown throat bare to the winds and head thrown back to snuff the breeze, she had seen but the least part of Horatio. ”

“ Day and night, sunlight and starlight, were embraced in his affluent nature. He laid his hand on the quivering pulses of the world, and, recognizing that life was often in itself both pleasant and good, he yet knew, and knew it without pain, that death was better still. Look only at the character of Horatio, the very type of the blithe, sturdy, and somewhat commonplace young student, to whom enjoyment seems a birthright,—
"A man that fortune's buffets and rewards
Hast ta'en with equal thanks." ”

“ He had no hold upon integral truth, but snatched here a fragment and there a fragment. Always distrust that man, Horatio, that talks forever of planes, and stand-points, and step-by-step processes, and deems it necessary to inform you each day where he stands. ”

“ It was Horatio, our knight-marshall's son.
AMBASS. Between us there's a price already pitch'd,
And shall be sentwith all convenient speed.
KING. Then once again farewell, my lord!
AMBASS. Farwell, my lord of Castile, and the rest!
Exit.
KING. Now, brother, you must make some little pains
To win fair Bel-imperia from her will;
Young virgins must be ruled by their friends.
The prince is amiable, and loves her well;
If she neglect him and forgo his love,
She both will wrong her own estate and ours. ”

“ Oh, my sonne, my sonne! oh, my sonne Horatio! But mine or thine, Bazulto, be content; Heere, take my hand-kercher and wipe thine eies, Whiles wretched I in thy mishaps may see The liuely portraict of my dying selfe. He draweth out a bloudie napkin. O, no; not this! Horatio, this was thine! And when I dyde it in thy deerest blood, This was a token twixt thy soule and me That of thy death reuenged I should be. But heere: take this, and this! what? my purse? I, this and that and all of them are thine; For all as one are our extremeties. I CIT. Oh, see the kindenes of Hieronimo! ”

“ Where are they, I ask, who thus oblige Horatio to introduce his nomination of Rome—thus nakedly—and prosaically? Every hackneyer of this phrase—state—as every man alive hackneys it—is a nine-fold Murderer. He murders the Phrase—he murders the Speech—he murders Horatio—he murders the Ghost—he murders the Scene—he murders the Play—he murders Rome—he murders Shakspeare—and he murders Me. ”

“ She
affected no longer to understand the civilities of others; whilst she
inclined so attentive an ear to every compliment of Horatio, that she
often smiled even when it was too delicate for her comprehension.
"Pray, madam," says Adams, "who was this squire Horatio?"
Horatio, says the lady, was a young gentleman of a good family, bred to
the law, and had been some few years called to the degree of a
barrister. His face and person were such as the generality allowed
handsome; but he had a dignity in his air very rarely to be seen. ”

“ Even the just and cool-tempered Horatio, who takes fortune's buffets and rewards with equal thanks, is astounded and ter rified at the underground voice, which provokes but mocking retorts from the Prince. ”

“ The door closed with a subdued but ominous after-click. Horatio stood listening until the sound of his wife's footsteps had died away, then, tiptoeing quietly across the floor, he turned the knob cautiously and pulled. Alas! There was no mistake. Harriet had locked him in. He was a prisoner in his own room. ”

“ I give it now without shame.
"My husband," said I, fumbling for my penny, "has been very ill—a long while."
"Well, now, I'm sorry!" said Horatio gravely, and without the least wonder, apparently, why this should have been proffered.
"And the doctors think," I stumbled on, digging in my purse, "there's no likelihood in the world at all he will be out of his bed before the summer."
"Ah, that's very hard for a man if he's active," said Horatio, speaking with full sympathy, as of one who knew. ”

“ This the baron did not fail to communicate immediately to Horatio, who, charm'd with the generosity both of the one and the other, broke out into the utmost encomiums of that nation:--sure, said he, the French are a people born to inspire and instruct virtue and benevolence to all the kingdoms in the world! After the first raptures of his gratitude were over, being pressed by the baron to let him know which of the prince's offers he would chuse to accept; alas! ”

“ The little pickaninny who, in spite of his fright, had slept all night in the corner, was there, too, and the men with axes and other weapons had entered with Bo. There was not a second to be lost.
"Wait!" screamed Bo; "wait!" And tearing through the astonished crowd he thrust the violin into Horatio's hands.
"Play!" he shouted. "Play for your worthless life!"
Horatio did not need to be told again. He reached for the violin and bow, and sitting in the now solid sugar struck the strings wildly. ”

“ HIERO. Now, sir, perhaps I come to see the king,
The king sees me, and fain would hear my suit:
Why, is this not a strange and seld-seen thing
That standers-by with toys should strike me mute?
Go to, I see their shifts, and say no more;
Hieronimo, 'tis time for thee to trudge!
Down by the dale that flows with purple gore
Standeth a fiery tower; there sits a judge
Upon a seat of steel and molten brass,
And 'twixt his teeth he holds a fire-brand,
That leads unto the lake where he doth stand.
Away, Hieronimo; to him be gone:
He'll do thee justice for Horatio's death. ”

“ Now mayst thou read, that life in passion dies.
[Pg 54]
Horatio.
O, stay a while, and I will die with thee,
So shalt thou yield, and yet have conquer'd me.
Bell'-Imperia.
Who's there? Pedringano? we are betray'd!
Enter Lorenzo, Balthazar, Cerberine, and Pedringano disguised.
Lorenzo.
My lord, away with her, take her aside. [122]
O sir, forbear: your valour is already tried.
Quickly despatch, my masters.
[They hang him in the arbour.
Horatio.
What, will ye murder me?
[Pg 55] Lorenzo.
Ay, thus and thus; these are the fruits of love. ”

“ On the other hand, a man of right sense has all the essentials of good breeding, although he may be wanting in the forms of it. Horatio has spent most of his time at Oxford: he has a great deal of learning, an agreeable wit, and as much modesty as may serve to adorn, without concealing, his other good qualities. In that retired way of living, he seems to have formed a notion of human nature, as he has found it described in the writings of the greatest men, not as he is likely to meet with it in the common course of life. ”

“ As dear to me was Horatio
As yours, or yours, my lord, to you.
My guiltless son was by Lorenzo slain;
And by Lorenzo and that Balthazar
Am I at last revenged thoroughly,—
Upon whose souls may Heav'n be yet aveng'd
With greater far than these afflictions!
CAS. But who were thy confederates in this?
VICE. That was thy daughter Bel-imperia;
For by her hand my Balthazar was slain,—
I saw her stab him.
KING. Why speak'st thou not?
HIERO. What lesser liberty can kings afford
Than harmless silence? Then afford it me! ”

“ We can guess at the tragic intensity of human sorrow from the difference between the simple-minded little Marshal who acts as Master of the Revels in arranging a 'show' and illustrates his reason for preferring Horatio's claim to be Balthazar's captor by quaint parallels from some old fable, and the arch-deceiver who can converse easily with the Duke of Castile as he fixes up the curtain that is to conceal Horatio's corpse and be the background to the murder of the duke's only son and daughter. ”

“ He could not sit in Bel-imperia's thoughts.
But how can love find harbour in my breast,
Till I revenge the death of my belov'd?
Yes, second love shall further my revenge:
I'll love Horatio, my Andrea's friend,
The more to spite the prince that wrought his end;
And, where Don Balthazar, that slew my love,
Himself now pleads for favor at my hands,
He shall, in rigour of my just disdain,
Reap long repentance for his murderous deed,—
For what was't else but murderous cowardice,
So many to oppress one valiant knight,
Without respect of honour in the fight? ”