And never stays to greet him. "Ay," quoth Jaques,
Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens;
'Tis just the fashion. Wherefore do you look
Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there?"
Thus most invectively he pierceth through
The body of the country, city, court,
Yea, and of this our life; swearing that we
Are mere usurpers, tyrants, and, what's worse,
To fright the animals, and to kill them up,
In their assigned and native dwelling-place.
Duke S. And did you leave him in this contemplation? 2d Lord. We did, my lord, weeping and commenting Upon the sobbing deer.
Show me the place;
I love to cope him in these sullen fits,
For then he's full of matter.
All places that the eye of Heaven visits,
Are, to a wise man, ports and happy havens :
Teach thy necessity to reason thus;
There is no virtue like necessity.
Think not the king did banish thee;
But thou the king. Wo doth the heavier sit
Where it perceives it is but faintly borne.
Go, say I sent thee forth to purchase honour,
And not the king exiled thee; or suppose
Devouring pestilence hangs in our air,
And thou art flying to a fresher clime.
Look; what thy soul holds dear, imagine it
To lie that way thou goest, not whence thou comest.
Suppose the singing birds musicians;
The grass whereon thou tread'st the presence strewed;
The flowers fair ladies; and thy steps no more
Than a delightful measure or a dance;
For gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite The man that mocks at it, and sets it light. -King Richard II.
Bertram. BUT follows it, my lord, to bring me down
Must answer for your rising? I know her well;
She had her breeding at my father's charge.
A poor physician's daughter my wife! Disdain
Rather corrupt me ever!
King. Tis only title thou disdainʼst in her, the which
I can build up. Strange is it, that our bloods,
Of colour, weight, and heat, poured all together,
Would quite confound distinction, yet stand off
In differences so mighty: if she be
All that is virtuous (save what thou dislik'st,
A poor physician's daughter), thou dislik’st
Of virtue for the name: but do not so:
From lowest place when virtuous things proceed,
The place is dignified by the doer's deed:
Where great additions swell, and virtue none,
It is a dropsied honour: good alone
Is good, without a name: vileness is so:
The property by what it is should go,
Not by the title. She is young, wise, fair;
In these to nature she's immediate heir;
And these breed honour; that is honour's scorn,
Which challenges itself as honours born,
And is not like the sire. Honours best thrive,
When rather from our acts we them derive
Than our fore-goers: the mere word's a slave,
Debauched on every tomb; on every grave,
A lying trophy, and as oft is dumb,
Where dust and damned oblivion is the tomb
Of honoured bones indeed. What should be said?
If thou canst like this creature as a maid,
I can create the rest: virtue and she
Is her own dower; honour and wealth from me.
-All's Well that Ends Well.
I PRAY thee, cease thy counsel,
Which falls into mine ears as profitless
As water in a sieve: give not me counsel;
Nor let no comforter delight mine ear,
But such a one whose wrongs do suit with mine.
Bring me a father that so loved his child,
Whose joy of her is overwhelmed like mine,
And bid him speak of patience;
Measure his wo the length and breadth of mine,
And let it answer every strain for strain;
As thus for thus, and such a grief for such,
In every lineament, branch, shape, and form.
If such a one will smile, and stroke his beard;
Cry-sorrow, wag! and hem when he should groan;
Patch grief with proverbs; make misfortune drunk
With candle-wasters; bring him yet to me,
And I of him will gather patience.
But there is no such man. For, brother, men
Can counsel, and speak comfort to that grief
Which they themselves not feel; but, tasting it,
Their counsel turns to passion, which before
Would give preceptial medicine to rage,
Fetter strong madness in a silken thread,
Charm ache with air, and agony with words:
No, no; 'tis all men's office to speak patience
To those that wring under the load of sorrow;
But no man's virtue, nor sufficiency,
To be so moral, when he shall endure
The like himself: therefore give me no counsel:
My griefs cry louder than advertisement.
Antonio. I HOLD the world but as the world, Gratiano; A stage, where every man must play a part,
With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come;
And let my liver rather heat with wine,
Than my heart cool with mortifying groans.
Why should a man, whose blood is warm within,
Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster?
Sleep, when he wakes? and creep into the jaundice
By being peevish? I tell thee what, Antonio,
I love thee, and it is my love that speaks;
There are a sort of men, whose visages
Do cream and mantle, like a standing pond;
And do a wilful stillness entertain,
With purpose to be dressed in an opinion
Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit;
As who should say, "I am Sir Oracle;
And, when I ope my lips, let no dog bark!"
Oh, my Antonio, I do know of these,
That therefore only are reputed wise
For saying nothing; who, I am very sure,
If they should speak, would almost damn those ears,
Which, hearing them, would call their brothers fools.
I'll tell thee more of this another time :
But fish not, with this melancholy bait,
For this fool's gudgeon, this opinion.
FEAR OF DEATH.
Ay, but to die, and go we know not where.
To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot;
This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice;
To be imprisoned in the viewless winds,
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendent world, or to be worse than worst
Of those, that lawless and uncertain thoughts
Imagine howling! "Tis too horrible!
The weariest and most loathed worldly life
That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment
Can lay on nature, is a paradise
To what we fear of death.
-Measure for Measure.
BE absolute for death; either death or life
Shall thereby be the sweeter.
If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing
That none but fools would keep a breath thou art
(Servile to all the skiey influences),
That dost this habitation, where thou keep'st,
Hourly afflict: merely, thou art death's fool;
For him thou labour'st by thy flight to shun,
And yet run'st toward him still. Thou art not noble;
For all the accommodations that thou bear'st,
Are nursed by baseness. Thou art by no means valiant;
For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork
Of a poor worm. Thy best of rest is sleep,
And that thou oft provok'st; yet grossly fear'st
Thy death, which is no more. Thou art not thyself;
For thou exist'st on many a thousand grains
That issue out of dust. Happy thou art not:
For what thou hast not, still thou striv'st to get;
And what thou hast, forget'st. Thou art not certain;
For thy complexion shifts to strange effects,
After the moon. If thou art rich, thou art poor;
For, like an ass, whose back with ingots bows,
Thou bear'st thy heavy riches but a journey,
And death unloads thee. Friend hast thou none;
For thine own bowels, which do call thee sire,
The mere effusion of thy proper loins,
Do curse the gout, serpigo, and the rheum,
For ending thee no sooner. Thou hast nor youth nor
But, as it were, an after-dinner's sleep,
Dreaming on both: for all thy blessed youth
Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms
Of palsied eld; and when thou art old, and rich,
Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty,
To make thy riches pleasant. What's yet in this
That bears the name of life? Yet in this life
Lie hid more thousand deaths: yet death we fear
That makes these odds all even.
Angelo. We must not make a scarecrow of the law,
Setting it up to fear the birds of prey,
And let it keep one shape, till custom make it
Their perch and not their terror.
Let us be keen, and rather cut a little,
Than fall, and bruise to death. Alas! this gentleman, Whom I would save, had a most noble father.
Let but your honour know
(Whom I believe to be most strait in virtue)
That, in the working of your own affections,
Had time cohered with place, or place with wishing,
Or that the resolute acting of
Could have attained the effect of your own purpose,
Whether you had not, some time in your life,
Erred in this point which now you censure him,
And pulled the law upon you.
Ang. 'Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus;
Another thing to fall. I not deny,
The jury, passing on the prisoner's life,
May, in the sworn twelve, have a thief or two
Guiltier than him they try. What's open made to justice,
That justice seizes. What know the laws,
That thieves do pass on thieves? 'Tis very pregnant,
The jewel that we find, we stoop and take it,
Because we see it; but what we do not see,
We tread upon, and never think of it.
You may not so extenuate his offence,
For I have had such faults; but rather tell me,
When I, that censure him, do so offend,
Let mine own judgment pattern out my death,
And nothing come in partial. Sir, he must die!
Escal. Well, Heaven forgive him! and forgive us all!
Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall:
Some run from brakes of vice, and answer none;
And some condemned for a fault alone.
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