LADY PERCY. O, my good lord, why are you
For what offence have I, this fortnight, been
A banish'd woman from my Harry's bed?
Tell me, sweet lord, what is't that takes from
thee
Thy stomach, pleasure, and thy golden sleep?
Why dost thou bend thine eyes upon the earth;
And start so often when thou sit'st alone?
Why hast thou lost the fresh blood in thy cheeks;
And given my treasures, and my rights of thee,
To thick-ey'd musing, and curs'd melancholy?
In thy faint slumbers, I by thee have watch'd,
And heard thee murmur tales of iron wars:
Speak terms of manage to thy bounding steed;
Cry, Courage!-to the field! And thou hast
talk'd
Of sallies, and retires; of trenches, tents,
Of palisadoes, frontiers, parapets;
Of basilisks, of cannon, culverin;
Of prisoners' ransome, and of soldiers slain,
And all the 'currents of a heady fight.
Thy spirit within thee hath been so at war,
And thus hath so bestir'd thee in thy sleep,
That beads of sweat have stood upon thy brow,
Like bubbles in a late disturbed stream:
And in thy face strange motions have appear'd,
Such as we see when men restrain their breath
On some great sudden haste. O, what portents
are these?
Some heavy business hath my lord in hand,
And I must know it, else he loves me not.
K. HENRY IV., PART I., A. 2, s. 3.
THE POLICY OF DEFIANCE. TURN head, and stop pursuit: for coward dogs Most spend their mouths, when what they seem to threaten,
Runs far before them. Good my sovereign,
Take up the English sort; and let them know
Of what a monarchy you are the head:
Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin
As self-neglecting.
THE POWER OF EDUCATED BEAUTY AND VIRTUE OVER
SHE Phebes me: Mark how the tyrant writes.
Art thou god to shepherd turn'd,
That a maiden's heart hath burn'd?
Why, thy godhead laid apart,
Warr'st thou with a woman's heart?
Whiles the eye of man did woo me,
That could do vengeance to me.➖➖
If the scorn of your bright eyne
Have power to raise such love in mine,
Alack, in me what strange effect
Would they work in mild aspéct ?
Whiles you chid me, I did love;
How then might your prayers move?
He, that brings this love to thee,
Little knows this love in me:
And by him seal up thy mind;
Whether that thy youth and kind
Will the faithful offer take
Of me, and all that I can make;
Or else by him my love deny,
And then I'll study how to die.
AS YOU LIKE IT, A. 4, s. 3.
THE POWER OF OBSERVATION.
By any understanding pate but thine ?
For thy conceit is soaking, will draw in
More than the common blocks :-Not noted, is't,
But of the finer natures? by some severals,
Of head-piece extraordinary? lower messes,
Perchance are to this business purblind: say.
WINTER'S TALE, a. 1. s. 2,
THE POWER OF THE IMAGINATION.
MORE strange than true. I never may believe
These antique fables, nor these fairy toys.
Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.
The lunatick, the lover and the poet,
Are of imagination all compact:
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold;
That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantick,
Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt:
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 shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation, and a name.
Such tricks hath strong imagination;
That, if it would but apprehend some joy,
It comprehends some bringer of that joy;
Or, in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush suppos'd a bear!
But all the story of the night told over,
And all their minds transfigured so together,
More witnesseth than fancy's images,
And grows to something of great constancy;
But, howsoever, strange, and admirable.
MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, A. 5, s. 1.
THE PRESCIENCE OF CONSCIENCE.
If it were done, when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly: If the assassination
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch,
With his surcease, success; that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all here,
But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,-
We'd jump the life to come.-But in these cases,
We still have judgment here; that we but teach
Bloody instructions, which being taught, return
To plague the inventor: This even-handed justice
Commends the ingredients of our poison'd chalice
To our own lips. He's here in double trust:
First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,
Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,
Who should against his murderer shut the door,
Not bear the knife myself. 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;
And pity, like a naked new-born babe,
Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, hors'd
Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
That tears shall drown the wind.—I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o'er-leaps itself,
And falls on the other.
THE PRESENT AND THE FUTURE
DEPEND ON OURSELVES.
OUR remedies oft in ourselves do lie,
Which we ascribe to heaven: the fated sky
Gives us free scope; only, doth backward pull
Our slow designs, when we ourselves are dull.
What power is it, which mounts my love so
high;
That makes me see, and cannot feed mine eye?
The mightiest space in fortune nature brings
To join like likes, and kiss like native things.
Impossible be strange attempts, to those
That weigh their pains in sense; and do suppose,
What hath been cannot be: Who ever strove
To show her merit, that did miss her love?
The king's disease-my project may deceive me.
But
my intents are fix'd, and will not leave me.
ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL, A. 1, s. 1.
THE PRINCIPLE OF GREATNESS.
RIGHTLY to be great,
Is, not to stir without great argument;
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw,
When honour's at the stake.
I have a motion much imports your good;
Whereto if you'll a willing ear incline,
|