Shakespeare 221 Passages

Thou art a Roman; be not barbarous.

Titus Andronicus

Marcus

Shall I speak for thee, shall I say 'tis so?

O, that I knew thy heart, and knew the beast,

That I might rail at him to ease my mind.

Sorrow concealèd, like an oven stopped,

Doth burn the heart to cinders where it is.

Fair Philomela, why she but lost her tongue,

And in a tedious sampler sewed her mind;

But, lovely niece, that mean is cut from thee.

A craftier Tereus, cousin, hast thou met,

And he hath cut those pretty fingers off

That could have better sewed than Philomel.

Titus Andronicus

Marcus

I can interpret all her martyred signs.

She says she drinks no other drink but tears

Brewed with her sorrow, mashed upon her cheeks.—

Speechless complainer, I will learn thy thought.

In thy dumb action will I be as perfect

As begging hermits in their holy prayers.

Thou shalt not sigh, nor hold thy stumps to heaven,

Nor wink, nor nod, nor kneel, nor make a sign,

But I of these will wrest an alphabet

And by still practice learn to know thy meaning.

Titus Andronicus

Titus

Why, lords, what wrongs are these! Was ever seen

An emperor in Rome thus overborne,

Troubled, confronted thus, and for the extent

Of equal justice, used in such contempt?

My lords, you know, as know the mightful gods,

However these disturbers of our peace

Buzz in the people's ears, there naught hath passed

But even with law against the willful sons

Of old Andronicus.

Titus Andronicus

Saturninus

But he and his shall know that justice lives

In Saturninus' health...

Titus Andronicus

Saturninus

Oft have I digged up dead men from their graves

And set them upright at their dear friends' door,

Even when their sorrows almost was forgot,

And on their skins, as on the bark of trees,

Have with my knife carvèd in Roman letters

"Let not your sorrow die, though I am dead."

But I have done a thousand dreadful things

As willingly as one would kill a fly,

And nothing grieves me heartily indeed

But that I cannot do ten thousand more.

Titus Andronicus

Aaron

Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour

Draws on apace. Four happy days bring in

Another moon. But, O, methinks how slow

This old moon wanes! She lingers my desires

Like to a stepdame or a dowager

Long withering out a young man's revenue.

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Theseus

Four days will quickly steep themselves in night;

Four nights will quickly dream away the time;

And then the moon, like to a silver bow

New-bent in heaven, shall behold the night

Of our solemnities.

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Hyppolyta

With cunning hast thou filched my daughter's heart,

Turned her obedience (which is due to me)

To stubborn harshness.—And, my gracious duke,

Be it so she will not here before your Grace

Consent to marry with Demetrius,

I beg the ancient privilege of Athens:

As she is mine, I may dispose of her,

Which shall be either to this gentleman

Or to her death, according to our law

Immediately provided in that case.

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Theseus

For you, fair Hermia, look you arm yourself

To fit your fancies to your father's will,

Or else the law of Athens yields you up

(Which by no means we may extenuate)

To death or to a vow of single life.—

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Theseus

No night is now with hymn or carol blessed.

Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,

Pale in her anger, washes all the air,

That rheumatic diseases do abound.

And thorough this distemperature we see

The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts

Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose,

And on old Hiems' thin and icy crown

An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds

Is, as in mockery, set. The spring, the summer,

The childing autumn, angry winter, change

Their wonted liveries, and the mazèd world

By their increase now knows not which is which.

And this same progeny of evils comes

From our debate, from our dissension;

We are their parents and original.

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Titania

All schooldays' friendship, childhood innocence?

We, Hermia, like two artificial gods,

Have with our needles created both one flower,

Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion,

Both warbling of one song, both in one key,

As if our hands, our sides, voices, and minds

Had been incorporate. So we grew together

Like to a double cherry, seeming parted,

But yet an union in partition,

Two lovely berries molded on one stem;

So with two seeming bodies but one heart,

Two of the first, like coats in heraldry,

Due but to one, and crownèd with one crest.

And will you rent our ancient love asunder,

To join with men in scorning your poor friend?

It is not friendly; 'tis not maidenly.

Our sex, as well as I, may chide you for it,

Though I alone do feel the injury.

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Helena

I have had a most rare

vision. I have had a dream past the wit of man to say

what dream it was. Man is but an ass if he go about

to expound this dream. Methought I was—there

is no man can tell what. Methought I was and

methought I had—but man is but a patched fool if

he will offer to say what methought I had. The eye of

man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen,

man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue to

conceive, nor his heart to report what my dream

was. I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this

dream. It shall be called "Bottom's Dream" because

it hath no bottom; and I will sing it in the

latter end of a play, before the Duke. Peradventure,

to make it the more gracious, I shall sing it at her

death.

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Bottom

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 lunatic, 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 frantic,

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.

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Theseus

A heavy sentence, my most sovereign liege,

And all unlooked-for from your Highness' mouth.

A dearer merit, not so deep a maim

As to be cast forth in the common air,

Have I deservèd at your Highness' hands.

The language I have learnt these forty years,

My native English, now I must forgo;

And now my tongue's use is to me no more

Than an unstringèd viol or a harp,

Or like a cunning instrument cased up,

Or, being open, put into his hands

That knows no touch to tune the harmony.

Within my mouth you have enjailed my tongue,

Doubly portcullised with my teeth and lips,

And dull unfeeling barren ignorance

Is made my jailor to attend on me.

Richard II

Mowbray

Uncle, even in the glasses of thine eyes

I see thy grievèd heart. Thy sad aspect

Hath from the number of his banished years

Plucked four away. To Bolingbroke. Six frozen

winters spent,

Return with welcome home from banishment.

Richard II

King Richard II

How long a time lies in one little word!

Four lagging winters and four wanton springs

End in a word; such is the breath of kings.

Richard II

Henry Bolingbroke

O, but they say the tongues of dying men

Enforce attention like deep harmony.

Where words are scarce, they are seldom spent in

vain,

For they breathe truth that breathe their words in

pain.

He that no more must say is listened more

Than they whom youth and ease have taught to

gloze.

Richard II

John of Gaunt

Methinks I am a prophet new inspired

And thus expiring do foretell of him:

His rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last,

For violent fires soon burn out themselves;

Small showers last long, but sudden storms are

short;

He tires betimes that spurs too fast betimes;

With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder;

Light vanity, insatiate cormorant,

Consuming means, soon preys upon itself.

This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle,

This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,

This other Eden, demi-paradise,

This fortress built by Nature for herself

Against infection and the hand of war,

This happy breed of men, this little world,

This precious stone set in the silver sea,

Which serves it in the office of a wall

Or as a moat defensive to a house,

Against the envy of less happier lands,

This blessèd plot, this earth, this realm, this

England,

Richard II

John of Gaunt

Dear earth, I do salute thee with my hand,

Though rebels wound thee with their horses' hoofs.

As a long-parted mother with her child

Plays fondly with her tears and smiles in meeting,

So, weeping, smiling, greet I thee, my earth,

And do thee favors with my royal hands.

Feed not thy sovereign's foe, my gentle earth,

Nor with thy sweets comfort his ravenous sense,

But let thy spiders, that suck up thy venom,

Richard II

King Richard II

Stand bare and naked, trembling at themselves.

So when this thief, this traitor Bolingbroke,

Who all this while hath reveled in the night

Whilst we were wand'ring with the Antipodes,

Shall see us rising in our throne, the east,

His treasons will sit blushing in his face,

Not able to endure the sight of day,

But self-affrighted, tremble at his sin.

Not all the water in the rough rude sea

Can wash the balm off from an anointed king.

Richard II

King Richard II

How some have been deposed, some slain in war,

Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed,

Some poisoned by their wives, some sleeping killed,

All murdered. For within the hollow crown

That rounds the mortal temples of a king

Keeps Death his court, and there the antic sits,

Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,

Allowing him a breath, a little scene,

To monarchize, be feared, and kill with looks,

Infusing him with self and vain conceit,

As if this flesh which walls about our life

Were brass impregnable; and humored thus,

Comes at the last and with a little pin

Bores through his castle wall, and farewell, king!

Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood

With solemn reverence. Throw away respect,

Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty,

For you have but mistook me all this while.

I live with bread like you, feel want,

Taste grief, need friends. Subjected thus,

How can you say to me I am a king?

Richard II

King Richard II

Give me the crown.—Here, cousin, seize the crown.

Here, cousin.

On this side my hand, on that side thine.

Now is this golden crown like a deep well

That owes two buckets, filling one another,

The emptier ever dancing in the air,

The other down, unseen, and full of water.

That bucket down and full of tears am I,

Drinking my griefs, whilst you mount up on high.

Richard II

King Richard II

I have been studying how I may compare

This prison where I live unto the world,

And for because the world is populous

And here is not a creature but myself,

I cannot do it. Yet I'll hammer it out.

My brain I'll prove the female to my soul,

Richard II

King Richard II

Thus play I in one person many people,

And none contented. Sometimes am I king.

Then treasons make me wish myself a beggar,

And so I am; then crushing penury

Persuades me I was better when a king.

Then am I kinged again, and by and by

Think that I am unkinged by Bolingbroke,

And straight am nothing. But whate'er I be,

Nor I nor any man that but man is

With nothing shall be pleased till he be eased

With being nothing.

Richard II

King Richard II

So shaken as we are, so wan with care,

Find we a time for frighted peace to pant

And breathe short-winded accents of new broils

To be commenced in strands afar remote.

No more the thirsty entrance of this soil

Shall daub her lips with her own children's blood.

No more shall trenching war channel her fields,

Nor bruise her flow'rets with the armèd hoofs

Of hostile paces.

Henry IV Part One

King Henry IV

No more shall cut his master. Therefore, friends,

As far as to the sepulcher of Christ—

Whose soldier now, under whose blessèd cross

We are impressèd and engaged to fight—

Forthwith a power of English shall we levy,

Whose arms were molded in their mothers' womb

To chase these pagans in those holy fields

Over whose acres walked those blessèd feet

Which fourteen hundred years ago were nailed

For our advantage on the bitter cross.

Henry IV Part One

King Henry IV

Yea, there thou mak'st me sad, and mak'st me sin

In envy that my Lord Northumberland

Should be the father to so blest a son,

A son who is the theme of Honor's tongue,

Amongst a grove the very straightest plant,

Who is sweet Fortune's minion and her pride;

Whilst I, by looking on the praise of him,

See riot and dishonor stain the brow

Of my young Harry. O, that it could be proved

That some night-tripping fairy had exchanged

In cradle-clothes our children where they lay,

And called mine "Percy," his "Plantagenet"!

Then would I have his Harry, and he mine.

Henry IV Part One

King Henry IV

Thou art so fat-witted with drinking of old

sack, and unbuttoning thee after supper, and

sleeping upon benches after noon, that thou hast

forgotten to demand that truly which thou wouldst

truly know. What a devil hast thou to do with

the time of the day? Unless hours were cups of

sack, and minutes capons, and clocks the tongues

of bawds, and dials the signs of leaping-houses,

and the blessed sun himself a fair hot wench in

flame-colored taffeta, I see no reason why thou

shouldst be so superfluous to demand the time

of the day.

Henry IV Part One

Prince Hal

Yet herein will I imitate the sun,

Who doth permit the base contagious clouds

To smother up his beauty from the world,

That, when he please again to be himself,

Being wanted, he may be more wondered at

By breaking through the foul and ugly mists

Of vapors that did seem to strangle him.

If all the year were playing holidays,

To sport would be as tedious as to work,

But when they seldom come, they wished-for come,

And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.

So when this loose behavior I throw off

And pay the debt I never promisèd,

By how much better than my word I am,

By so much shall I falsify men's hopes;

And, like bright metal on a sullen ground,

My reformation, glitt'ring o'er my fault,

Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes

Than that which hath no foil to set it off.

I'll so offend to make offense a skill,

Redeeming time when men think least I will.

Henry IV Part One

Prince Hal

With three or four loggerheads amongst three

or fourscore hogsheads. I have sounded the very

bass string of humility. Sirrah, I am sworn brother

to a leash of drawers, and can call them all by their

Christian names, as Tom, Dick, and Francis. They

take it already upon their salvation that though I be

but Prince of Wales, yet I am the king of courtesy,

and tell me flatly I am no proud jack, like Falstaff,

but a Corinthian, a lad of mettle, a good boy—by

the Lord, so they call me—and when I am king of

England, I shall command all the good lads in

Eastcheap. They call drinking deep "dyeing scarlet,"

and when you breathe in your watering, they

cry "Hem!" and bid you "Play it off!" To conclude, I

am so good a proficient in one quarter of an hour

that I can drink with any tinker in his own language

during my life.

Henry IV Part One

Prince Hal

There is a thing, Harry, which thou hast

often heard of, and it is known to many in our land

by the name of pitch. This pitch, as ancient writers

do report, doth defile; so doth the company thou

keepest. For, Harry, now I do not speak to thee in

drink, but in tears; not in pleasure, but in passion;

not in words only, but in woes also. And yet there is

a virtuous man whom I have often noted in thy

company, but I know not his name.

Henry IV Part One

Falstaff

I do, I will.

Henry IV Part One

Prince Hal

So common-hackneyed in the eyes of men,

So stale and cheap to vulgar company,

Opinion, that did help me to the crown,

Had still kept loyal to possession

And left me in reputeless banishment,

A fellow of no mark nor likelihood.

By being seldom seen, I could not stir

But like a comet I was wondered at,

That men would tell their children "This is he."

Others would say "Where? Which is Bolingbroke?"

And then I stole all courtesy from heaven,

And dressed myself in such humility

That I did pluck allegiance from men's hearts,

Loud shouts and salutations from their mouths,

Even in the presence of the crownèd king.

Henry IV Part One

King Henry IV

The skipping king, he ambled up and down

With shallow jesters and rash bavin wits,

Soon kindled and soon burnt; carded his state,

Mingled his royalty with cap'ring fools,

Had his great name profanèd with their scorns,

And gave his countenance, against his name,

To laugh at gibing boys and stand the push

Of every beardless vain comparative;

Grew a companion to the common streets,

Enfeoffed himself to popularity,

That, being daily swallowed by men's eyes,

They surfeited with honey and began

To loathe the taste of sweetness, whereof a little

More than a little is by much too much.

So, when he had occasion to be seen,

He was but as the cuckoo is in June,

Heard, not regarded; seen, but with such eyes

As, sick and blunted with community,

Afford no extraordinary gaze

Such as is bent on sunlike majesty

When it shines seldom in admiring eyes,

But rather drowsed and hung their eyelids down,

Slept in his face

Henry IV Part One

King Henry IV

I shall hereafter, my thrice gracious lord,

Be more myself.

Henry IV Part One

Prince Hal

Do not think so. You shall not find it so.

And God forgive them that so much have swayed

Your Majesty's good thoughts away from me.

I will redeem all this on Percy's head,

And, in the closing of some glorious day,

Be bold to tell you that I am your son,

When I will wear a garment all of blood

And stain my favors in a bloody mask,

Which, washed away, shall scour my shame with it.

And that shall be the day, whene'er it lights,

That this same child of honor and renown,

This gallant Hotspur, this all-praisèd knight,

And your unthought-of Harry chance to meet.

For every honor sitting on his helm,

Would they were multitudes, and on my head

My shames redoubled! For the time will come

That I shall make this northern youth exchange

His glorious deeds for my indignities.

Henry IV Part One

Prince Hal

'Tis not due yet. I would be loath to pay Him

before His day. What need I be so forward with

Him that calls not on me? Well, 'tis no matter.

Honor pricks me on. Yea, but how if honor prick me

off when I come on? How then? Can honor set to a

leg? No. Or an arm? No. Or take away the grief of a

wound? No. Honor hath no skill in surgery, then?

No. What is honor? A word. What is in that word

"honor"? What is that "honor"? Air. A trim reckoning.

Who hath it? He that died o' Wednesday. Doth

he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? No. 'Tis insensible,

then? Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the

living? No. Why? Detraction will not suffer it. Therefore,

I'll none of it. Honor is a mere scutcheon. And

so ends my catechism.

Henry IV Part One

Falstaff