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These high wild hills, and rough uneven ways,
Draw out our miles, and make them wearisome:
And yet your fair discourse hath been as sugar,
Making the hard way sweet and délectable.

But words are words; I never yet did hear,
That the bruis'd heart was pieced through the ear.

Why, what an ass am I? This is most brave;
That I, the son of a dear father murder'd,
Prompted to my revenge by heaven, and hell,
Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words,
And fall a cursing, like a very drab,

A scullion!

Think you, a little din can daunt mine ears ?
Have I not in my time heard lions roar?
Have I not heard great ordnance in the field,
And heaven's artillery thunder in the skies?
And do you tell me of a woman's tongue;
That gives not half so great a blow to the ear,
As will a chestnut in a farmer's fire?

A flourish, trumpets!-strike alarum, drums!
Let not the heavens hear these tell-tale women
Rail on the Lord's anointed: Strike, I say.

It was the copy of Our conference:
In bed, he slept not for my urging it;
At board, he fed not for my urging it;
Alone, it was the subject of my theme;
In company, I often glanced it;

Still did I tell him it was vile and bad.

When he speaks,
The air, a charter'd libertine, is still,

And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears,
To steal his sweet and honied sentences.

TAXATION.

By heaven, I had rather coin my heart,
And drop my blood for drachmas, than to wring
From the hard hands of peasants their vile trash,
By any indirection.

TEARS.

Trust not those cunning waters of his eyes,
For villainy is not without such rheum;
And he, long traded in it, makes it seem
Like rivers of remorse and innocency.

Let me wipe off this honourable dew,
That silverly doth progress on thy cheeks.

I am not prone to weeping, as our sex
Commonly are; the want of which vain dew,
Perchance, shall dry your pities: but I have
That honourable grief lodg'd here, which burns
Worse than tears drown.

Friends, I owe more tears, To this dead man, than you shall see me pay.

You think I'll weep;

7

No, I'll not weep. Though I have full cause of weeping, This heart shall break into a thousand flaws,

Or e'er I weep.

I did not think to shed a tear
In all my miseries; but thou hast fore'd me
Out of thy honest truth to play the woman.

My manly eyes did scorn an humble tear;
And what these sorrows could not thence exhale,
Thy beauty hath, and made them blind with weeping.

Those eyes of thine from mine have drawn salt tears,
Sham'd their aspects with store of childish drops.

What I should say, My tears gainsay: for every word I speak, Ye see, I drink the water of mine eyes.

Then fresh tears

Stood on her cheeks; as doth the honey dew
Upon a gather'd lily almost wither'd.

Patience and sorrow strove

Which should express her goodliest.-You have seen Sun-shine and rain at once: Those happy smiles That play'd on her ripe lip, seem'd not to know What guests were in her eyes; which parted thence, As pearls from diamonds dropp'd.

The pretty and sweet manner of it forc'd

Those waters from me which I would have stopp'd;
But I had not so much of man in me,

But all my mother came into my mine eyes,
And gave me up to tears.

Command these fretting waters from your eyes
With a light heart.

To weep at what I am glad of.

I am a fool,

Thy heart is big; get thee apart and weep.
Passion, I see, is catching; for mine eyes,
Seeing those beads of sorrow stand in thine,
Began to water.

Touch me with noble

anger

!

O, let not woman's weapons, water-drops,

Stain my man's cheeks!

Το weep, is to make less the depth of grief:

Tears, then, for babes; blows, and revenge for me!

TEMPEST.

I have seen tempests, when the scolding winds
Have riv'd the knotty oaks; and I have seen
The ambitious ocean swell, rage, and foam,
To be exalted with the threat'ning clouds:
But never till to-night, never till now,
Did I go through a tempest dropping fire.

The tyranny of th' open night's too rough
For nature to endure.

The southern wind

Doth play the trumpet to his

purposes;

And, by his hollow whistling in the leaves,
Foretels a tempest, and a blustering day.

This night, wherein the cub-drawn bear would couch, The lion, and the belly-pinched wolf

Keep their fur dry, unbonneted he runs,

And bids what will, take all.

Let the great Gods,

That keep this dreadful pother o'er our heads,

Find out their enemies now. Tremble, thou wretch,
That hast within thee undivulged crimes,

Unwipt off justice! Hide thee, thou bloody hand,
Thou perjur'd, and thou simular man of virtue,
That art incestuous! caitiff, to pieces shake,
That under covert and convenient seeming,
Hast practis'd on man's life!-Close pent-up guilts,
Rive your concealing continents, and cry
These dreadful summoners grace.

Blow, wind, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
You cataracts and hurricanos, spout

Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks!
You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunder-bolts,

Singe my white head! And thou all-shaking thunder,

250

TEMPEST.-THANKS.-THIEVES.

Strike flat the thick rotundity o' the world!
Crack nature's moulds, all germens spill at once,
That make ingrateful man!

I tax not you, ye elements, with unkindness,
I never gave you kingdoms, call'd you children,
You owe me no subscription; why then let fall
Your horrible pleasure; here I stand, your slave,
A poor, infirm, weak, and despis'd old man.

Alas, Sir! are you here? things that love night,
Love not such nights as these; the wrathful skies
Gallow the very wand'rers of the dark,

And make them keep their caves: since I was man,
Such sheets of fire, such bursts of horrid thunder,
Such groans of roaring wind and rain, I never
Remember to have heard.

For do but stand upon the foaming shore,
The chiding billows seem to pelt the clouds;

The wind-shak'd surge, with high, and monstrous main,
Seems to cast water on the burning bear,

And quench the guards of the ever-fixed pole:
I never did like molestation view

On the enchafed flood.

THANKS.

Thanks, to men

Of noble minds, is honourable meed.

Ever more thanks, the exchequer of the poor;
Which, till my infant fortune comes to years,
Stands for my bounty.

THIEVES.

Thieves for their robbery have authority,

When judges steal themselves.

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