Enter ARTHUR on the walls. Arth. The wall is high; and yet will I leap down⚫ Good ground, be pitiful, and hurt me not! There's few, or none, do know me; if they did, If I get down, and do not break my limbs, (Leaps down.) O me! my uncle's spirit is in these stones:- (Dies.) Enter PEMBROKE. SALISBURY, and the BASTARD. Sal. This is the prison: What is he lies here? (Seeing Arthur.) Pem. O death, made proud with pure and princely beauty! The earth hath not a hole to hide this deed. Sal. Sir Richard, what think you? Have you beheld, Or have you read, or heard? or could you think? Or do you almost think, although you see, That you do see could thought, without this object, Form such another? This is the very top, The height, the crest, or crest unto the crest, Of murder's arms: this is the bloodiest shame, The wildest savagery, the vilest stroke, That ever wall-eyed wrath, or staring rage, Presented to the tears of soft remorse. Pem. All murders past do stand excused in this: And this, so sole, and so unmatchable, Shall give a holiness, a purity, To the yet unhegotten sin of time; And prove a deadly bloodshed but a jest, Bast. It is a bloody work; The graceless action of a heavy hand, Sal. If that it be the work of any hand? Nor conversant with ease and idleness, Enter HUBERT. Bast. Knew you of this fair work? Hub. Do but hear me, sir. Bast. Ha! I'll tell thee what; Thou art damned as black-nay, nothing is so black; Thou art more deep damned than prince Lucifer: There is not yet so ugly a fiend of hell, As thou shalt be, if thou didst kill this child. Hub. Upon my soul, – Bast. If thou didst but consent To this most cruel act, do but despair, And, if thou want'st a cord, the smallest thread That ever spider twisted from her womb, Will serve to strangle thee; a rush will oe A beam to hang thee on; or, wouldst thou drown thyself, And it shall be as all the ocean, Hub. If I in act, consent, or sin of thought, Bast. Go, bear him in thine arms.— I am amazed, methinks; and lose my way How easy dost thou take all England up! [Exeunt. The next series of extracts is from HAMLET, Prince of Denmark. This is one of the most celebrated of Shakspeare's Plays. The extracts are so arranged as to make a connected story. Where they are not sufficiently continuous, a few words of explanation are inserted. Enter KING, QUEEN, and HAMLET. Queen. Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off, And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark. Do not for ever, with thy veiléd lids Seek for thy noble father in the dust: Thou knowest 't is common; all, that live, must die, Hamlet. Ay, madam, it is common. Queen. Why seems it so particular with thee? If it be, Ham. Seems, madam! nay, it is; I know not seems. Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, Nor customary suits of solemn black, Nor windy suspiration of forced breath, These, but the trappings and the suits of woe. 9 King. 'Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet, To give these mourning duties to your father: But you must know, your father lost a father; That father lost, lost his; and the survivor bound In filial obligation, for some term To do obsequious sorrow: But to perséver In obstinate condolement, is a course Of impious stubbornness; 't is unmanly grief; A heart unfortified, or mind impatient; Take it to heart? Fy! 't is a fault to heaven, From the first corse, till he that died to-day, [Exeunt King and Queen. Ham. O, that this too, too solid flesh would melt, Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew! Or that the Everlasting had not fixed His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God! Fy on 't! O fy! 't is an unweeded garden, That grows to seed; things rank, and gross in nature, By what it fed on: And yet within a month,— A little month; or ere those shoes were old, Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears |