BOOK

Gives us free scope; only doth backward pullTM

BE

Advice.

SHAKSPEARE.

E thou blest, Bertram! and succeed thy father

In manners as in shape; thy blood and virtue Contend for empire in thee, and thy goodness Share with thy birth-right. Love all; trust a few;

Do wrong to none; be able for thine enemy Rather in power than use; and keep thy friend Under thy own life's key; be check'd for silence

But never tax'd for speech. What Heaven more will, [down, That thee may furnish, and my prayers pluck Fall on thy head!

Too ambitious Love.

I am undone; there is no living, none, If Bertram be away. It were all one, That I should love a bright particular star, And think to wed it, he is so above me! In his bright radiance and collateral light Must I be comforted, not in his sphere, Th' ambition in my love thus plagues itself: The hind that would be mated by the lion Must die for love. Twas pretty tho' a plague, To see him every hour; to sit and draw His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls, In our heart's table: heart, too capable Of every line and trick of his sweet favor! But now he's gone, and my idolatrous fancy Must sanctify his relics.

A parasitical vain Coward.

I know him a notorious liar; Think him a great way fool, solely a coward; Yet these fix'd evils sit so fit in him, That they take place, when virtue's steely bones Look bleak in the cold wind: withal, full oft

Impossible be strange attempts to those
That weigh their pain in sense, and do suppose
What hath been cannot be. Who ever strove
To show her merit, that did miss her love?
Character of a noble Courtier, by an old
Cotemporary.

King. I would I had that corporal soundness

now,

As when thy father and myself in friendship
First tried our soldiership! He did look far
Into the service of the time, and was
Discipled of the bravest. He lasted long;
But on us both did haggish age steal on,
And wore us out of act. It much repairs me
To talk of your good father. In his youth
He had the wit which I can well observe
To day in our young lords; but they may jest
Till their own scorn return to them unnoted,
Ere they can hide their levity in honor:
So like a courtier, contempt nor bitterness
Were in his pride or sharpness; if they were,
His equal had awak'd them; and his honor,
Clock to itself, knew the true minute when
Exception bid him speak; and at that time
His tongue obey'd his hand. Who were below
He us'd as creatures of another place, [him
And bow'd his imminent top to their low ranks,
Making them proud of his humility,
In their poor praise he humbled; such a man
Might be a copy to these younger times,
Which, follow'd well, would demonstrate them
But goers backward.
[now

Would I were with him!-He would always

say

(Methinks I hear him now; his plausive words He scatter'd not in ears; but grafted them To grow there, and to bear) Let me not live' -Thus his good melancholy oft began, On the catastrophe and heel of pastime, When it was out-Let me not live,' quoth he, ' After my flame lacks oil; to be the snuff Of younger spirits, whose apprehensive senses All but new things disdain; whose judge[stancies Mere fathers of their garments; whose conExpire before their fashions'-This he wish'd o o

ments are

From simple sources; and great seas have dry'd, When miracles have by the greatest been deny'd. Oft expectation fails, and most oft there Where most it promises; and oft it hits Where hope is coldest, and despair most fits. Honor due to personal Virtue, not to Birth. Strange is it, that our bloods, [together, Whose color, weight, and heat, pour'd out Would quite confound distinction, yet stand off In diff'rences 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 soFrom lowest place when virtuous things pro

ceed,

The place is dignified by the doer's deed.
Where great addition swells, and virtue none,
It is a dropsied honor; 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 honor: that is honor's scorn,
Which challenges itself as honor's born,
And is not like the sire. Honors thrive
When rather from our acts we them derive
Than our fore-goers; the mere word's a slave
Debauch'd on every tomb, on every grave;
A lying trophy, and as oft is dumb,
Where dust and damn'd oblivion is the tomb
Of honor'd bones indeed.

Self-accusation of too great Love.
Poor lord! is 't I
That chase thee from thy country, and expose
Those tender limbs of thine to the event
Of the none-sparing war? And is it I [thou
That drive thee from the sportive court, where
Wast shot at with fair eyes, to be the mark
Of smoky muskets? O you leaden messengers,
That ride upon the violent speed of fire,
Fly with false aim; move the still-piercing air,
That sings with piercing, do not touch my

lord!

Whoever shoots at him, I set him there:
Whoever charges on his forward breast,
I am the caitiff that do hold him to it:
And though I kill him not, I am the cause
His death was so effected. Better 'twere

I met the raving lion, when he roar'd
With sharp constraint of hunger, better 'twere
That all the miseries which nature owes
Were mine at once. No, cone thou home,
Rousillon,

Whence honor, but of danger wins a scar,
As oft it loses all. I will be gone:

My being here it is, that holds thee hence.
Shall I stay here to do it? No, no, although
The air of Paradise did fan the house,
And angels offic'd all: I will be gone;
That pitiful rumor may report my flight,

To consolate thine ear.

Cowardly Braggart.

Yet am I thankful: if my heart were great, "Twould burst at this. Captain I'll be no more: But I will eat, and drink, and sleep as soft As captain shall simply the thing I am Shall make me live. Who knows himself a braggart,

Let him fear this; for it will come to pass,
That every braggart shall be found an ass.
Rust, sword! cool, blushes! and Parolles, live
Safest in shame! being fool'd, by fool'ry thrive.
There's place and means for every man alive.
The Rashness of youth excused.
I beseech your majesty to make it
Natural rebellion, done in the blaze of youth,
When oil and fire, too strong for reason's force,
O'erbear it, and burn on.

What's lost most valued.
Praising what is lost,
Makes the remembrance dear.
Against Delay.

Let's take the instant by the forward top; For we are old, and on our quick'st decrees Th' inaudible and noiseless foot of time Steals, ere we can effect them.

Excuse for unreasonable Dislike.
At first
I stuck my choice upon her, ere my heart
Durst make too bold a herald of my tongue :
Where the impression of mine eye enfixing,
Contempt his scornful perspective did lend me,
Which warp'd the line of every other favor;
Scorned a fair color, or express'd it stolen;
Extended or contracted all proportions
To a most hideous object: thence it came,
That she whom all men prais'd, and whom
myself,

Since I have lost, have lov'd, was in my eye
The dust that did offend it.

Impediments stimulate.

As "all impediments in fancy's course
Are motives of mere fancy."