Favorite Lines from the Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare

f Favorite Lines From the Plays and Poems of

William Shakespeare

f A Collection by Neil Michelsen

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f Dedication

To my family

2015

Neil Michelsen

2013

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f Preface

The Inspiration for this Book: I’ve always been aesthetically and intellectually fascinated with the way words can be assembled into beautifully sounding passages that have poetic or proverb-like meanings through metaphors or the imagery they convey − and Shakespeare was a master of that.

The Collection Process: In reading a play by Shakespeare in school, I was more impressed with the way he crafted his lines than the play itself and promised myself that someday I’d read all his 38 plays and various poems and make a collection of my favorites. So about 10 years ago I began that process which resulted in a collection totaling the approximately 3,700 quotes in this volume. Readers of course, will have their own favorites. During the collection process a small number were slightly modified to make them better understood in modern English.

Book Contents: In addition to the quotes, this book contains some brief biographical information about Shakespeare’s life, synopses of all his plays and other bits of related information.

Use of this Book: This book can be used for both casual reading as well as for use in describing something, making a point or just adding interest to what you are saying. Also because it is comprehensive, yet easy to peruse, it can be both an “on-shelf” book as well as one for the coffee table.

Quoting Shakespeare − a Few Examples: Although written more than 400 year ago Shakespeare’s quotes are still in use today. The following come directly from Shakespeare:  There is a method to his madness  Discretion if the better part of valor  Give the devil his due  He’s eating me out of house and home  He’s the devil incarnate  He’s just a shadow of himself  The whole world’s a stage  Parting is such sweet sorrow  As plain as the nose on your face While the above are in common use, other quotes can be used to fit various situations as shown in the following two examples: A friend of yours is going on and on to the point of being boring and repetitious trying to find the right words to express his annoyance at a group of people. After a while you offer this to him, “As Shakespeare once said, ‘Hell is empty, and all the devils are here!’”

This simple and succinct line captures it all.

Another example involves a parent trying to explain how hurt he is about his son not being appreciative of all he’s done for him. The parent too is going on and on without effectively making his or her point. Here you offer, “As Shakespeare once said, ‘Sharper than a viper’s tooth is that of an ungrateful child.’” Again, that simple quote makes the point perfectly and eloquently.

In quoting Shakespeare you needn’t be a purest – if the old English doesn’t quite fit, tweak it a little so that so that it works for you.

The following are some other examples of how a Shakespearean quote can be used to make a point or succinctly describe a situation.

Making up for the past: “A brave death outweighs a bad life.”

Seeing the deceit in someone: “Now I see the bottom of your purpose.”

Describing a brave and loyal person: “He is a soldier fit to stand with Caesar.”

Observing anger in your boss: “The king is put in anger.”

Advising caution before acting: “Hazard not the place you have not studied.”

Describing a bad person: “He is not fit for any place but Hell!”

Caveats: The material in this book has not been professionally edited or reviewed so I apologize for any inaccuracies and or any grammatical, typographical or spelling errors. Further, I have not provided the name of the character or the scene in the play to which the quote applies feeling that more benefit would be derived from simplicity than the marginal value that might be attained by their inclusion.

In Closing: It is my hope that through this book the reader will both enjoy and use the genius of Shakespeare. It is also my hope that this book, along with my other personal works, will serve as a little mark in my life and one element of the personal inheritance I leave to my family. *****

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f Table of Contents # Description Preface Lines from Plays: 1. All’s Well That Ends Well 2. Antony and Cleopatra 3. As You Like It 4. The Comedy of Errors 5. The Tragedy of Coriolanus 6. The Tragedy of Cymbeline 7. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark 8. Henry IV Part One 9. Henry IV Part Two 10. Henry V 11. Henry VI Part One 12. Henry VI Part Two 13. Henry VI Part Three 14. The Life of King Henry VIII 15. The Tragedy of Julius Caesar 16. King John 17. The Tragedy of King Lear 18. Love's Labor Lost 19. Macbeth 20. Measure for Measure 21. The Merchant of Venice 22. The Merry Wives of Windsor 23. A Midsummer's Night Dream 24. Much Ado About Nothing 25. Othello 26. Pericles, Prince of Tyre 27. King Richard II 28. Richard III

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Romeo and Juliet The Taming of the Shrew The Tempest The Life of Timon of Athens The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus Troilus and Cressida Twelfth Night Two Gentlemen from Verona The Two Noble Kinsmen * The Winter's Tale Lines from Poems: Venus and Adonis The Rape of Lucrece The Passionate Pilgrim A Lover’s Complaint The Phoenix and the Turtle Sonnets Other Information: Synopsis of Shakespeare’s Life Index and Summaries of Plays Index of Plays (By Type and Date Performed) Reigning Monarchs during Shakespeare’s Time This play may have been written by John Fletcher, who succeeded Shakespeare as the chief dramatist for the “King’s Men” the successor to “The Chamberlain’s Men”, Shakespeare’s Acting Company.

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Favorite Lines from Shakespeare’s Plays and Poems Collected by

Neil Michelsen

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y Lines from Shakespeare ( * Indicates a favorite of mine)

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1. All's Well That Ends Well: His skill was almost as great as his honesty; had it stretched so far, it would have made nature immortal.

The remembrance of her father never approaches her heart.

The tyranny of her own sorrows takes all livelihood from her cheek.

Do wrong to none; and give thine enemy your power, rather than apply it hard against them.

It is the show and seal of nature's truth, where love's strong passion is impressed in youth. O remember days foregone!

Now I see the mystery of your loneliness.

If I were but two hours younger, I'd beat thee.

Thou shalt have all my leave and love and all my means and attendants, and all the loving greetings of my court.

Death and danger dog the heels of worth.

He is too good and fair for death and me.

Ah, what sharp stings are in, even the mildest of her words!

He weighs too light in value.

My heart is heavy and thus so very weak.

If she had partaken of my flesh, and cost me the dearest groans of a mother, I could not have owed her a more rooted love.

Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead; excessive grief, the enemy of the living.

The uncertainties of life and the sureness of death.

Do not plunge thyself too far in danger, lest thou hasten your demise.

The devil is thy master.

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I have sinned against his experience and transgressed against his valor; and my state is dangerous in that I cannot yet find it in my heart to repent.

The soul of this man is in his clothes. Trust him not in matters of heavy consequence.

This woman is an easy glove, my lord; she goes off and on at my pleasure.

When mine eyes smell onions, and I weep anon.

The hind (deer) that would be mated by the lion must die for love.

These fixed evils sit so fit in him.

You have some strain of soldier in you.

Man is an enemy to virginity.

I am from only a humble name, but he from such an honored one.

My friends are poor but honest and so is my love; therefore be not so offended.

My duty shall pay me for my pains.

I will no more enforce mine office on you.

He lays down his wanton siege before her beauty.

Briers shall have leaves as well as thorns, and night must bear your spirit low.

Virginity, by being once lost, may be ten times found; but by being ever kept, it is ever lost.

Virginity breeds mites, much like cheese; it consumes itself and so dies with feeding on its own stomach.

Your dates (years of age) are better in your pie than on your cheek.

Your old virginity is like a French withered pear.

When thou hast leisure, say thy prayers; when thou hast none, remember thy friends.

Greek expression: Count no man happy until he be counted dead.

Get thee a good husband, and use him as he uses thee.

France is a dog-hole, and no more merits the tread of a man's foot; to the wars!

My lord, I am a man whom fortune hath cruelly scratched.

Let me not live after my flame lacks oil, or before it is snuffed out by younger spirits.

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I fill a place.

Nature and sickness debate at their leisure.

I say we must not stain our judgment, corrupt our hope or prostitute our past.

From the lowest places virtuous things proceed.

Good is good, without a name; vileness is also, and so needs no name as well.

May good fortune and the favor of the King smile upon this contract.

Though my revenges were high bent upon him and watched for the time to shoot, I have since forgiven and forgotten all such things.

A remorseful pardon slowly carried, becomes a sour offense and an unappreciated gift.

Although it is not so well that I am poor, many of the rich are damned.

I have only holy reasons for what I do.

To wear the surplice of humility over the black gown of a big heart.

He shows himself highly fed and lowly taught.

I love as an old man loves money-with no stomach.

He is the prince of the world.

It is the most bitter touch of sorrow that I have ever heard.

Our hearts receive your warnings.

I'm off to Tuscan wars so never will I bed with her.

I'll send her to my house, and acquaint my mother with my hate of her.

Where noble fellows strike.

War is no strife to one who has a dark house and a detested wife.

Sir, it is a charge too heavy for strength; but yet, we'll strive to bear it for your worthy sake to the extreme edge of hazard.

The honor of a maid is in her name. No legacy is so rich as honesty.

Poor lady! 'Tis a hard bondage to become the wife of a detesting lord.

When you give us roses, you leave the thorns to prick ourselves.

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"Tis not the many oaths that make the truth, but, the plain * and single vow that's vowed in truth.

Mine honor is my ring; and my chastity's the jewel of our dear house, bequeathed down from many ancestors.

She is armed for him, and keeps her guard in full defense. * Now I see the bottom of your purpose.

He's the most notable coward, an infinite and endless liar, an hourly promise-breaker, the owner of no one good quality worthy your lord-ship's entertainment.

For your sake, I'll keep him dark, and safely locked away.

Our remedies oft lie within ourselves, which we ascribe to Heaven.

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2. Antony and Cleopatra: Let the wide arch of the empire fall! Kingdoms are but merely made of clay.

Excellent falsehood! He married, but he did not love.

The nature of bad news infects the teller.

There’s a great spirit gone!

What horrid things our contempts doth often hurl from us.

Passions are made of nothing but the finest part of pure love.

Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have immortal longings in me.

He hath given his empire his empire up to a whore.

We cannot call her sighs and tears the winds and waters of love; they are so much greater − they are storms and tempests more than almanacs can report.

You shall find there a man who is the abstract of all faults that all men follow.

A morsel for a monarch.

There he would anchor his aspect, and die with looking on his life.

His speech sticks in my heart.

Let witchcraft join with beauty, and lust with both!

Lesser enmities may give way to greater.

They have cause enough to draw their swords.

The fear of us may cement their divisions and bind up their

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petty differences.

But small matters must give way to greater matters, but not if the small come first.

Your speech is full of passion; but still you stir no embers up.

There can be murder in healing wounds.

You touch the sourest points with the sweetest terms.

You have broken the article of your oath.

This will make you brothers, and knit your hearts with an unslipping knot.

From this hour on the hearts of brothers will govern in our loves and sway our great designs.

I’ll unhair thy head!

Thou shalt be whipped with wire and stewed in brine!

Oft’ innocents cannot escape the thunderbolt.

Even kindly creatures can turn into serpents!

Your hostages I have; so have you mine; so we shall talk before we fight.

This hath made me rig my navy, at whose burden the angered ocean foams.

I know not what harsh fortune will cast upon my face.

She never came to make my heart her vassal.

There is never a fair woman that had a true face.

A great war is raised between him, between his desires and his discretion.

Fare thee well. May the elements be kind to thee and make thy spirits all of comfort. Fare thee well.

April’s in her eyes; it is love, and these spring showers bring it on. Be cheerful.

Her tongue will not obey her heart, nor can her heart inform her tongue.

The swan’s-down feathers will stand the swell at the full of tide.

He has a cloud in his face.

* Let all the number of the stars give light to thy fair way!

He could not but pay me terms of honor.

Cold and sickly he vented. * If I lose mine honor, I lose myself.

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War between you two is so great, as though the world will cleave and that only slain men will solder up the rift.

The wife of Antony should have an army for an usher, and the neighs of horses to tell of her approach.

I have eyes upon him, and his affairs come to me on the wind.

Celerity is never more admired than by the negligent.

Mine eyes did sicken at the sight, and could not endure a further view.

* Our fortune out of breath, sinks most lamentably.

Hark! The land bids me tread no more upon it.

I have lost my way for ever. * My letters to some friends will sweep the way for you.

O, whither hast thou led me, Egypt? See how I convey my shame by looking back at what I have left behind destroyed in dishonor.

Most kind messenger, say to great Caesar this: in deputation * I will kiss his conquering hand.

Tis better playing with a lion’s whelp (cub) than with an old * one dying.

Whip him, fellows, ‘till, like a boy, you see him cringe his face * and whine aloud for mercy.

They lie graveless, till the flies and gnats of the Nile have * buried them for prey!

Call to me all my sad captains. Fill our bowls once more. Let’s mock the midnight bell.

Now, he’ll even outstare lightning. To be furious is to be frightened out of fear. And, in that mood, the dove will peck * the estridge (ostrich).

Tis one of those odd tricks which sorrow shoots out of the mind.

Death and honour. Let us go to supper and drown * consideration of them.

O sovereign mistress of true melancholy.

May the poisonous damp of night disponge (rain) upon me; that life, a very rebel to my will, hang no longer on me.

Throw my heart against the flint and hardness of my fault.

Our strength is all gone into heaviness.

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Is it a sin to rush into the secret house of death ere (before) death dare come to us?

He's become a man gone that’s mad.

I say, O Caesar, Antony is dead.

The breaking of so great a thing should make a greater crack.

This round world will crack and shake the lions into civil streets, and citizens into their dens.

You laugh when boys or women tell their dreams.

Make not your thoughts your prisons.

We intend so to dispose you and ask you to give us counsel.

Feed and sleep.

The bright day is done, and we are for the dark.

Die beggar, die!

You praise yourself by laying defects of judgment to me; but patch yourself up with your own excuses.

Sweep on you fat and greasy citizens!

As you like it.

In civility thou seemest so empty.

Is his head worth a hat? Or his chin a beard?

Let's meet as little as we can.

I do desire that we be strangers.

To cast away honesty upon a foul slut is to put good meat into an unclean dish.

Tis such fools as you that make the world full of ill-favored children.

Sell when you can, as you are not for all markets.

You are falser than vows made in wine.

3. As You Like It: Becoming an "old dog� is my reward? I have lost my teeth in * your majesty's service. * To break a neck as though it were a finger.

I assure thee, and almost with tears in my eyes I speak it, there is not one so young and so villainous this day living.

I hope I shall see the end of him.

He was never schooled, and yet very learned.

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My soul, yet I know not why, hates nothing more than he.

He is full of noble devices.

With him is like being under an old oak whose boughs are mossed with age.

Unmuzzle your wisdom.

Not one to throw at a dog.

O, how full of briers is this working-day world!

These burrs are in my heart and can't shake them off as easily as if they were on my coat.

Treason is not inherited; we derive it from our friends.

Beauty provoketh thieves more and sooner than gold.

With a gallant curtle-ax upon my thigh, and a boar-spear in my hand, I'll fight my fears.

Now go we in content to liberty and not to banishment.

Blow, blow, thou winter wind. Thou art not so unkind as man's ingratitude.

A woman's fear lies hidden in my heart, as many other mannish cowards.

Searching for thy wound, I have by hard adventure found mine own.

As it is with the earliest fruit, you’ll be rotten before you're half ripe.

Is he of God’s making? Is his head worth a hat? Or his chin worth a beard?

I pray you do not fall in love with me for I am falser than vows made in wine.

By my faith, you have great reason to be sad.

I fear you have sold your own lands to see the lands of others.

Then to have seen much and to have nothing is to have rich eyes and poor hands.

Men are April when they woo, but December when they wed.

Maids are May when they are maids, but the whole sky changes when they are wives.

A blind rascally boy abuses every one’s eyes because his own are out.

Let him judge how deep I am in love. * I’ll go and find a shadow and sigh, until my true love comes.

Patience herself would startle at this and play the swaggerer. * Your spirits are too bold for your years. * You have seen cruel proof of this man’s strength.

We pray you for your own sake to embrace your own safety * and give over this attempt.

If you saw yourself with your eyes or knew yourself with your judgment, the fear of your adventure would counsel you to a more safe and equal enterprise.

Thy words are too precious to be cast away upon curs; come, throw some of them at me; come, lame me with the weight of those precious words of reason.

They are but burrs, cousin, thrown upon thee in holiday foolery.

If we walk not in the trodden paths, our petticoats will catch the briers.

O, a good wish upon you! * Try again in time, despite a fall.

Let's turn these jests out of service, and let us talk in good earnest.

Pronounce that sentence on me, my liege (feudal superior).

I cannot live out of her company.

I’ll put myself in poor and mean attire and have an umber smirch upon my face; the like do you; so we can pass along and never stir assailants. * I beseech you, punish me not with your hard thoughts. * Let your fair eyes and gentle wishes go with me to my trial. * What passion hangs these weights upon my tongue?

I cannot speak to her, yet she urges conference.

The constant service of the antique world. * Thou art not for the fashion of these times.

Poor old man, thou prunest a rotten tree that cannot so much as yield one blossom in lieu of all thy pains and husbandry.

There is an old poor man who hath limped, many a weary step after me in pure love.

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* He is oppressed with two great evils: age and hunger.

These woods are more free from peril than this envious * court?

The icy fang and churlish chiding of the winter’s wind.

And this, in our new life, exempt from public haunts, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in * stones and good in everything.

Happy is the person who can translate the stubbornness of * fortune into so quiet and so sweet a style.

Upon the brook that brawls.

Augmenting a swift brook with tears. * The flux of company. * They found the bed untresaured of his mistress.

When I was at home, I was in a better place, but travelers * must be content. * We that are true lovers run into strange capers.

All is mortal in nature, so is all of nature.

I shall ne’er be aware of mine own wit till I break my shins * against it.

The sweetest nut hath the sourest rind; such a nut is you. * He that finds the sweetest rose will find love’s prick.

The fool doth think that he is wise, but the wise man knows he’s a fool.

Rich honesty dwells, like a miser, in a poor house, as a pearl * in a foul oyster.

Though in thy youth, thou was’t as true a lover as ever sighed upon a midnight pillow.

When you meet in some fresh cheek the power of fancy, then shall you know the wounds invisible that love’s keen * arrows make. * Wherever sorrow is, relief will be there too.

So holy and so perfect is my love.

I am in such a poverty of grace.

And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe, and then, from * hour to hour, we rot and rot; and thereby hangs a tale.

His brain is as dry as the remainder biscuit after a long * voyage.

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He hath crammed strange places with observation which he now vents.

You should weed your better judgments of all opinion that grow rank in them.

The squand’ring glances of the fool.

Give me leave to speak my mind, and I will, through and through, cleanse the foul body of the infected world, if they will patiently receive my medicine.

All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players; they have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts.

Here comes a pair of very strange beasts which in all tongues are called fools.

Can you nominate in order the degrees of the lie?

The property of rain is to wet, and fire to burn.

Good pastures makes fat sheep.

Those that are of good manners in the court are as ridiculous in the country, just as the behavior of the country is most mockable at the court.

You will see a pageant truly played between the pale complexion of true love and the red glow of scorn and proud disdain.

Scratch thee with a pin and there remains some scar of it.

Now show me as well, the wound mine eye hath made on thee.

Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?

The best thing in him is his complexion.

Faster than his tongue did make offense.

4. The Comedy of Errors: I, to the world, am like a drop of water to the ocean that * seeks another drop. * Headstrong liberty is lashed with woe.

There’s nothing situated under heaven’s eye that is not * bound in earth, in sea, and sky.

When the sun shines let foolish gnats make sport.

There's many a man that hath more hair than wit.

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Thou art sensible to nothing but blows; and so is an ass.

Muffle your false love with some show of blindness: let not my sister read it in your eye.

Bear a fair presence, though your heart be tainted; teach sin the carriage of a holy saint.

Ill deeds are doubled when an evil word is added.

Tis holy sport to be a little vain.

Ay me, poor man, how pale and wan he looks!

They can be meek that have no other cause.

We bid a wretched soul, bruis’d with adversity, to be quiet when we hear it cry; but were we burdened with like weight of pain we would ourselves complain.

I will fasten me on this sleeve of thine: Thou art an elm, my husband, and I a vine.

No longer will I be a fool, to put my finger in my eye and weep, whilst man and master laugh and scorn my woes.

Was there ever any man beaten out of season, or with neither rime nor reason?

Ay, when fowls have no feathers, and fish have no fins.

You must have a long spoon when you eat with the devil.

Fie! Now you run this humor out of breath.

Both man and master are possessed; I know it by their pale and deadly looks. They must be bound and laid in some dark room.

The fiend is strong within him.

O, grief hath changed me since you saw me last. Careful hours, with Time’s deformed hand, have written strange defeatures in my face: But tell me yet, dost thou not know my voice?

5. The Tragedy of Coriolanus: The gods know I speak this in hunger for bread, not in thirst * for revenge.

They say poor suitors have strong breaths; they shall know we have strong arms too.

Make edicts for usury, to support usurers.

But make you ready your stiff bats and clubs: Rome and her * rats are at the point of battle.

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* Rubbing the poor itch of your opinion, makes scabs on you.

We have ever your good word.

He that will give good words to thee will flatter.

You are no surer than fire upon the ice, or hailstones in the * sun.

It is a sick man’s appetite, who desires most that would * increase his evil.

The gods keep you in awe of each other, lest you'd feed on * one another.

They’ll sit by the fire, and presume to know what’s done in the Capitol: who’s like to rise, who thrives, and who declines.

Five tribunes to defend their vulgar wisdoms. * This rabble will unroof the city. * Get you home, you fragments!

I would not be sane to revolt and make my wars with him: * for he is a lion.

Such a nature, tickled with good success, disdains the shadow which he treads on at noon. * Deeds like hatching things will show themselves.

The gods assist you and keep your honors safe!

It was no better than picture-like to hang by the wall.

He’ll beat him’: head below his knee and tread upon his neck.

He had rather see the swords and hear the drum than look * upon his schoolmaster.

We with smoking swords will march from hence to help our fielded friends!

They do disdain us much beyond our thoughts, which makes me sweat with wrath.

You shames of Rome! You herd of boils and plagues where one infects another!

You souls of geese, that bear the shapes of men, how have you run from slaves that apes would beat!

He is a man, busied with decrees: condemning some to death, and some to exile; ransoming one or pitying the other. * A brave death outweighs a bad life.

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I do hate thee, worse than a promise-breaker.

Rome must know the value of her own.

A concealment is often worse than a theft.

No less than a traducement (malicious lie) to hide your doing.

When steel grows soft as the parasite’s silk, let us make an overture for war!

Wash my fierce hand in his heart.

He converses more with the buttock of the night than with the forehead of the morning.

I spend my malice in my breath.

I had rather be their servant in my own way.

He has been bred in war.

Though I have a heart with fire less than yours, I have a brain that leads my use of anger to better vantage.

I think he will serve well, if he can frame his spirit.

Do not take his rougher accents for malicious sounds.

My friends of noble touch, bid me farewell, and smile.

While I remain above the ground you shall hear from me still.

With their great enemy gone, they now stand in their ancient strength.

I cannot judge the filthiness of his worth so much as I can of those mysteries which heaven will not have earth to know.

Anger’s my meat; I sup upon myself, and so with such feeding I shall starve.

The fittest time to corrupt man’s wife is when she’s fallen out with her husband.

Prepare thy brow to frown.

Have all forsaken me and devoured all the rest?

Each word thou hast spoke hath weeded from my heart a root of ancient envy.

The leading of thine own revenges.

Thou knowest thy country’s strength and weakness.

We shall have a stirring world again.

This peace is nothing but to rust iron, increase tailors, and breed ballad-makers.

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Vows of revenge, as spacious as between the youngest and oldest thing.

He is their god: he leads them and they follow as boys pursuing summer butterflies, or as, butchers killing flies.

You are they that made the air unwholesome, when you cast your stinking greasy caps in hooting celebration at his exile. ‘Tis no matter; if he could burn us all into one coal − we have deserved it.

Avoid that which will break his neck or hazard mine.

All places yield to him 'ere he sits down.

The sovereignty of nature.

One fire drives out one fire; one nail, one nail; rights by rights falter; strengths by strengths do fail.

Mine ears against your suits are stronger than your gates against my force.

He that hath a will to die by himself, fears it not from another.

Your misery increases with your age.

The benefit which thou shalt reap in repetition of his name will be dogged with curses.

Measureless liar. Thou hast made my heart too great for anything to contain it.

He that depends on your favors swarm with fins of lead and hews down oaks with little rushes (strokes from a little ax).

Any more of your conversation will infect my brain.

He's a disease that must be cut away.

Cut me to pieces, men and lads; stain all your edges on me.

6. The Tragedy of Cymbeline: * Her beauty and her brain go not together.

Leave us to ourselves.

Make yourself some comfort out of your own best advice * Let it die as it was born.

I will lay you ten thousand ducats to your ring, this gives me no more advantage than the opportunity of a second conference.

I am no further your enemy. * She is not worth our debate.

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She has strange lingering poisons.

Trust not one of her malices.

He cannot return, nor continue where he is.

Think on my words.

To exchange one misery with another.

My supreme crown of grief!

Boldness be my friend! Arm me, audacity, from head to foot!

O, To bathe my lips upon her cheek!

Doubting that things will go ill, often hurts more than to be sure they will; One touch of her hand will force my soul to an everlasting oath of loyalty. Her beauty takes prisoner of the wild motion of mine eye.

Hourly coining plots.

He is a worthy fellow, albeit he comes with angry purpose now.

I shall unfold equal discourtesy.

I'll not to leave you in your madness.

If you’ll be patient, I’ll no more be mad; and that will cure us both.

Go, let's search for the jewel that I too casually let go.

If you can make it apparent that you have tasted her in bed, my hand and ring is yours.

The government of patience!

He has all the faults that may be named, and all that hell does know.

The very devils cannot plague them better.

If Caesar can hide the sun from us with a blanket, or put the moon in his pocket, we will pay him tribute for the light; else, sir, no more tribute.

Lovers and men in dangerous bonds pray not alike.

The gates of monarchs are arch’d so high that giants may jet through them and keep their impious turbans on.

And you may then tell the tales I've told you – the tales of courts, princes and tricks of war.

Stiff with age.

What should we speak of when we are old as you?

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When we hear the rain and wind beat down in dark December, how, in our pinching cave, shall we discourse the freezing hours away?

We are beastly, subtle as the fox for prey; warlike as the wolf for what we eat; our valor is to chase what flies; our cage we make a choir, as doth the prison’d bird, and sing our bondage freely.

The world can read me as my body’s marked with Roman swords.

His boughs do bend with fruit.

Why shall I need to draw my sword? The paper hath cut her throat already.

False to his bed!

Men’s vows are women’s traitors!

The innocent mansion of my love.

My heart is empty of all things but grief.

Some villain, singular in his art, hath done you this cursed injury.

As fearsome as a siege.

You wear a mind as dark as is your fortune now.

You must forget to be a woman.

The gods will diet me with.

Though I received it as a friend; from this time forth I wear it as your enemy.

A thing more made of malice than of duty.

Forbear sharp speeches to her; she’s a lady so tender of rebukes that words are strokes, and strokes are death to her.

When my lust hath dined.

To lay down in fullness is sorer than to lie down for need: and falsehood is worse in kings than beggars.

Plenty and peace breed cowards.

I should be sick, but my resolution helps me go on.

You worship dirty gods.

He had no apprehensions of roaring terrors, only fears − a defect in judgment is oft the cause of fear.

From one bad thing to worse.

On good ground we fear, for in this body the tail is more perilous than the head.

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Noblemen have invisible instincts that fame them to royalty unlearn’d, honor untaught, civility not seen from others, and valor that wildly grows in them: They have yields, as crops, as if they had been sowed.

O those sore-shaming, rich-left heirs that let their fathers lie without a monument.

Fear no more the heat of the sun nor the furious winter’s rages.

Fear no more the frown from the great, as thou art past the tyrant’s stroke.

‘Fear no more the lightning-flash.

I thought I was a cave-keeper and a cook to honest creatures.

Our very eyes are sometimes like our judgments, blind.

My sins abuse my divination.

The rosary has a century of prayers on it.

Some falls are the means to a happier rising.

Upon a desperate bed, and in a time when fearful wars point at me.

Fearful enemies have landed on our coast.

Though perplex’d be it all: the heavens still work.

Wherein I am false, I am honest; where not true, I am true.

These present wars shall find some good, and find that I love my country.

Noise and turmoil is all around about us.

Let me make men know more valor in me than my habits show.

They grin like lions upon the pikes o’ the hunters.

They found the back door of my heart open and unguarded!

How they wound; these mortal bugs o’ the field!

He hides in fresh cups, soft beds and sweet words.

Great is the slaughter here against which we must someday answer.

We hath more ministers than soldiers in the war.

Most welcome, bondage! For thou art a way, I think, to liberty.

My conscience is more fettered than my shanks and wrists: you good gods, give me the penitent instrument to pick that bolt.

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He'd rather groan in perpetuity than be cured by the sure physician, death.

Don't taint your noble heart and brain with needless jealousy.

What fairies haunt this ground?

Come, sir, are you ready for death?

Both purse and brain are empty.

I am merrier to die than thou art to live.

Indeed, sir, he that sleeps feels not the toothache.

She grew shameless and desperate.

Despite heaven and men.

She repented the evils she hatch’d and died so despairing.

O! give me cord, or knife, or poison, or some upright justice judge).

Breathe not where princes are.

The gods throw stones of sulphur on me.

Hang there like fruit, my soul, till the tree dies!

Let his arms alone; they were not born for bondage.

And she, like harmless lightning, throws her eye on him.

Kneel not to me: the power that I have on you is only to spare you; the malice towards you is to forgive you.

Life, deal with others better than you had with me.

Let’s quit this ground and smoke the temple without sacrifices.

The fingers of the powers above do tune the harmony of this peace.

Laud we the gods; and let our crooked smokes climb to their nostrils from our blessed altars.

He's a thing too bad for bad reports.

My father, like the tyrannous breathing of the north, shakes all our buds from growing.

She's rustling in unpaid-for silk.

His tongue outvenoms all the worms of the Nile.

Thy words I grant are bigger: for I wear not my dagger in my mouth.

7. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark: Sweets to the sweet.

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* There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow.

Leave her to heaven.

One may smile, and smile but be a villain.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are * dreamt of in your philosophy.

The time is out of joint.

Brevity is the soul of wit. * More matter with less art. * Though this be madness, there is a method in it.

There is nothing either good or bad, only thinking makes it * so.

Though I may be mad, I know a hawk from a handsaw. * None shall escape a whipping.

O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I! * The devil hath power to assume a pleasing shape.

The play’s the thing.

The glass of fashion and the mold of form, the observed of all observers.

Suit the action to the word, and the word to the action. * Methinks the lady doth protest too much.

A king of shreds and patches.

All occasions do inform against me.

Such divinity doth hedge a king.

Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay.

What a piece of work is man!

My words fly up, but my thoughts remain below. Words without thought never go to heaven.

O villain, villain, smiling damned villain!

Get thee to a nunnery.

To sleep, perchance to dream − and there's the rub.

The play's the thing. * For this relief, much thanks. * This is a prologue to the omen coming on.

The morn in russet mantle clad. * A little more than kin and less than kind.

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O, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt.

Frailty, thy name is woman!

In my mind’s eye.

A countenance more in sorrow than in anger.

The primrose path of dalliance.

This above all: to thine own self be true.

This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

At its best, it is a murder most foul.

Let four captains bear Hamlet like a soldier to the stage.

He has proved most royal.

The soldier’s music and the rite of war speak loudly for him.

With sorrow I embrace my fortune.

The ears are senseless that should give us hearing.

Good night, sweet prince, let flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

It breaks, my heart, that I must hold my tongue.

To trouble the mind’s eye.

Stars with trains of fire and dews of blood: spare graves stood tenantless and ready; The sheeted dead did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets: These are the harbingers preceding the fates and prologues to the omens coming on.

In the most high and palmy state of Rome, the mightiest Caesar fell.

This bodes some strange eruption to our state.

It harrows me with fear and wonder.

It is a poison tempered by himself.

Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet.

I make vows to the blackest devil and put conscience and grace into the profoundest pit! I dare damnation!

My thoughts and wishes bend again toward France. I bow my thoughts to your gracious leave and pardon.

Let my disclaiming from a purposed evil find refuge in your most generous thoughts.

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I have shot my arrow o’er the house and hurt my brother.

We defy augury.

Don't let this canker of our nature come in further evil.

There is a divinity that shapes our ends; rough-hew them how we will.

Forty thousand brothers could not with all their quantity of love make up my sum.

We will find quarrel in a straw when honor is at the stake.

It's not where he eats, but where he has eaten.

We fat ourselves for maggots.

He keeps them like an apple in the corner of his jaw, first mouthed, but to be swallowed last.

A knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear.

Like the owner of a foul disease, to keep it from divulging, will let it feed even on the pith of life.

When in one line two crafts directly meet.

This man shall set me packing.

Repent what’s past, avoid what is to come, and do not spread the compost on the weeds to make them ranker.

O, throw away the worser part of it.

Assume a virtue if you have none now.

Use can almost change the stamp of nature.

I must be cruel only to be kind.

Bad begins, and worse remains behind.

Look you, how pale he glares.

A vice of kings, a cutpurse of the empire and the rule, that from a shelf the precious diadem was stolen and put into his pocket.

He is stewed in corruption.

Trip him, so that his heels may kick at heaven, and that his soul may be as damned and black as hell.

O bosom black as death! O limed soul, struggling to be free.

‘Tis now the very witching time of night, when churchyards yawn out of hell itself.

You would pluck out the heart of my mystery, and sound me out of my lowest note.

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There is no sequel at the heels of this mother’s admiration.

Leave thy damnable faces and begin your evil work.

The croaking raven doth bellow for revenge.

Let the stricken deer go weep.

There’s hope a great man’s memory may outlive his life half a year.

If thou wilt need to marry, marry a fool, for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them.

God hath given you one face, but you make yourselves another.

Why are such fellows as us crawling between earth and heaven?

Let the doors be shut upon him.

Play the fool nowhere but in your own house.

If thou dost marry, I’ll give thee a plague for thy dowry: be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny.

Who would fardels (bundles) bear, to grunt and sweat under a weary life, but for the dread of something after death.

Conscience makes for cowards.

To be or not to be – that is the question: Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and, by opposing, end them.

In that sleep of death, what dreams may come.

I, prompted to my revenge by both heaven and by hell, must, * like a whore, unpack my heart with curses. * He could force his soul so to his own conceit.

Make mad the guilty, and appall the free.

But I am pigeon-livered and lack the gall to make oppression bitter.

It is better have a bad epitaph than an ill report whilst you * live. * Come, give us a taste of your quality.

As the sun breeds maggots in a dead dog, evil thoughts do * you in. * I was born to set it right!

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Oh if only this too, too sullied flesh would melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a dew.

How stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world.

Frailty, thy name is woman.

One woe doth tread upon another’s heel – how fast they follow.

Mad as the sea and wind when both contend as to who's the mightier.

O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain!

Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper sprinkle cool patience!

Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight, ears without hands or eyes and smelling without all.

O shame, rebellious hell where is thy blush?

To flaming youth let virtue be as wax and melt so easily in her own fire.

Thou turnest my eyes into my very soul.

Gallows are built stronger than churches are.

Are you like the painting of a sorrow, a face without a heart?

Break not your sleep for that.

Does your rebellion look so giant-like?

The bark (ship) is ready, and the wind's in help.

My soul is full of discord and dismay.

His liberty is full of threats to all.

My offense is rank, and smells to heaven.

Madness in great ones are in each other’s company.

Brevity is the soul of wit, and tediousness are the limbs and outward flourishes; I therefore will be brief.

Stubbornness is unmanly grief and shows a will most incorrect to heaven.

Throw to earth this unprevailing woe.

We beseech you to remain here in the cheer and comfort of our eye.

How is it that the clouds still hang on you?

If thou hast any sound or use of voice, speak to me.

* * * *

We know what we are but know not what we may be.

God be at your table.

O, what a noble mind is here overthrown!

Pious action we do sugar over.

As if he had been loosed out of hell to speak of horrors, he * comes before me.

I shall keep the effect of this good lesson. * O, step between her and her fighting soul. * Conceit in the weakest bodies works the strongest.

The serpent that did sting thy father’s life now wears his * crown. * Lend thy serious hearing to what I shall unfold.

I am thy father’s spirit, doomed for a certain term to walk the night and for the day confined to fast in fires till the foul crimes done in my days of nature are burnt and purged * away. * Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.

The single and peculiar life is bound with all the strength and * armor of the mind.

Your behavior hath struck her into amazement and * admiration. * * * * * * * * * *

Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing.

Confine him where your wisdom thinks best.

Admit no messengers, receive no tokens.

You must not put another scandal on him.

The flash and outbreak of a fiery mind.

Do not, as some ungracious pastors do, show me the steep and thorny way to heaven.

Give thy thoughts no tongue.

Be familiar, but by no means vulgar.

Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.

Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment.

The apparel oft proclaims the man.

His will is not his own.

He himself is subject to his birth.

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* Unvalued persons do carve for themselves.

With this choice depends the safety and the health of this whole state. * Weigh what loss your honor may sustain.

The chariest (reluctant) maid is prodigal enough if she * unmasks her beauty to the moon. * The canker galls the infants of the spring.

Watch the minutes of this night for that apparition to cross our eyes again.

And let us once again assail your ears that are so fortified * against our story.

More matter with less art.

I will speak daggers to her. * Such bugs and goblins in my life!

I am benetted round with villainies.

Dost thou know this waterfly? * Tis a vice to even know him.

His purse is empty already − all's golden words are spent.

* * *

* *

8. Henry IV Part One: He hath brought us smooth and welcome news.

You tread upon my patience.

Get thee gone, for I do see it now.

On the barren mountains let him starve!

I know not whether God will have it so.

I believe that thou art only marked for the hot vengeance and the rod of heaven to punish my mistreadings.

I stole all courtesy from heaven.

I dressed myself in such humility.

I did pluck allegiance from men’s hearts.

Shall I blind myself with foolish tenderness?

Not, by my scepter, and my soul to boot.

He hath no more worthy interest to a successor to the state than thou.

* My skin hangs about me like an old lady’s loose grown.

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‘Tis not well that you and I should meet upon such terms as now we meet.

You have deceived our trust and made us doff our easy robes of peace and crush our old limbs with ungentle steel.

Let not us, squires of the night, be called thieves of the day’s sweet beauty.

Thou art indeed able to corrupt a saint.

Before I knew thee I knew nothing.

Thou hast done much harm upon me.

Now I am little better than one of the wicked.

O if men could be saved by merit.

This is a most omnipotent villain.

What hole in hell is hot enough for him?

By the lord, I’ll be a traitor then, when thou art king.

Weep not, sweet queen, for trickling tears are vain.

* Honor is a mere scutcheon (medallion).

And so ends my catechism.

All his offenses live upon my head. * The better part of valor is discretion. * Thou sayest well, and it holds well too.

The fortune of us that are the moon’s men doth ebb and flow like the sea, being governed, as the sea is, by the moon.

I see a good amendment (change) of your life from praying to purse-taking. * The devil shall have his bargain. * He was never yet a breaker of proverbs. * He will give the devil his due. * Throw off this loose behavior.

He will pay the debt I never promised. * My reformation glitters against my faults. * I have sounded the very bass string of humility.

I am not yet of his mind, he that kills some six or seven dozen Scots at a breakfast, washes his hands, and says to his wife, * “Fie (damn it), a curse upon this quiet life!

The long-grown wounds of my intemperance.

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I will die a hundred thousand deaths rather than break the * smallest parcel of this vow. * Thou owest God a death. * His insulting hand is over you.

His hand will help speed you to your end as all the poisonous potions in the world.

For worms, brave Percy.

Adieu, and take thy praise with thee to heaven!

Thy ignominy sleep with thee in the grave, but not remembered in thy epitaph! * Thou art damned for keeping thy word with the devil.

If you will go, I will stuff your purses full of crowns; if you will not, and tarry more at home, you will be hanged.

I will ease my heart, albeit I make a hazard of my head.

I’ll empty all these veins, and shed my dear blood drop by * drop in the dust.

This proud king, studies day and night to answer all the debt he owes to you. * The blood more stirs to rouse a lion than to start a hare!

By heaven, methinks it's easier to leap and pluck bright honor from the pale-faced moon, or dive into the bottom of the deep, where fathom line could never touch the ground, and pluck up drowned honor by the locks, than to erase this * sin.

This half-faced fellowship!

I am whipped and scourged with rods, nettled and stung with pismires (ants).

He shows in this, he loves his own barn better than he loves * our house.

There is danger, as we pluck this flower.

The purpose you undertake is dangerous, the friends you have named uncertain, the time itself unsorted, and your whole plot too light for the counterpoise of so great an opposition.

What a lackbrain is this!

In my heart’s love, I have no man other than yourself.

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* Task me to my word.

Sick in the world’s regard, wretched and low.

A poor unminded outlaw sneaking home, my father gave him welcome to the shore.

With tears of innocence and terms of zeal.

In kind heart and pity, swore him assistance, and performed it too. * He disgraced me in my happy victories. * He sought to entrap me by his intelligence. * He broke oath on oath and committed wrong upon wrong.

O gentlemen, the time of life is short! To spend that * shortness basely is a sin. * Sound all the lofty instruments of war!

Stay and pause awhile. * I will unclasp a secret book.

Oftentimes it doth present harsh rage and defect of manners.

Haughtiness, opinion and disdain loseth men’s hearts and leaves behind a stain upon the beauty of all surrounding parts.

For mine own part, I am well content.

There is no seeming mercy in the King.

I told him gently of our grievances. * What I have done my safety urged me to.

I embrace this fortune patiently, since unavoidably it falls on me.

In thy faint slumbers I have watched thee closely.

Thy spirit within thee hath been so at war.

Beads of sweat have stood upon thy brow. * Some heavy business hath my lord in hand. * I say the earth did shake when I was born. * These signs have marked me extraordinary.

All the courses of my life do show that I am not in the role of * common men.

I made the tongue a helpful ornament, a virtue that was * never seen in you.

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I warrant you that no man is alive who might have so tempted him as you have done.

The taste of danger and reproof.

The hour before the heavenly-harnessed team begins his golden progress in the east.

You do not counsel well. You speak it out of fear and cold heart.

I fear his power is too weak to wage an instant trial with the King.

So shaken as we are, so wan (pale) with care (worry).

Thy quips and thy quiddities.

I have gotten so far as my coin would stretch, and where it would not, I have used my credit.

O thou hast the damnable iteration and art able to corrupt a saint.

Now am I, if a man could speak truly, little better than one of the wicked. ‘Tis no sin for a man to labor in his vocation.

There’s neither honesty, manhood, nor good fellowship in thee.

If all the year were playing holidays, sport would be as tedious as to work.

To put down Richard, that sweet lovely rose, and plant this thorn, this canker, Bolingbroke.

* Being down, have you any levers to lift me up again?

Go hang thyself in thine own heir-apparent garters!

Young men must live.

He sweats to death and lards the lean earth as he walks along. * Out of this nettle and danger, we pluck this flower, to safety.

This is no world to play with mammets (dolls). * A plague of cowards!

There is nothing but roguery to be found in villainous man. * Watch tonight, pray tomorrow.

What event brings you out of his bed at midnight? * You may buy land now as cheap as stinking mackerel.

Him keep, the rest banish.

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Why dost thou converse with that trunk of humors, that bolting-hutch of beastliness…that reverend Vice, that gray Iniquity, that father ruffian, that vanity in years?

If to be fat is to be hated, then Pharaoh’s lean kine (kind) are to be loved. * Tell the truth and shame the devil.

I have more flesh than another man and therefore more frailty.

What is "honor"? Just a word. What is in that word “honor”?

What is that “honor”?

Air. A grim reckoning! * Honor comes unlooked for. * Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying!

You tread upon my patience.

On the barren mountains let him starve!

* * *

*

9. Henry IV Part Two: The acts commenced on this ball of earth.

Upon my tongue continual slander rides.

Stuffing the ears of men with false reports.

I speak of peace while covert enmity, under the smile of safety, wounds the world.

The blunt monster with uncounted heads-a still-discordant and wavering multitude, can do such immeasurable harm.

What no action? Every minute now should be the father of some strategy.

The times are wild.

Contention, like a horse full of high feeding, madly hath broke loose and bears down all before him.

Keep the wild flood confined!

Let order die.

Let this world no longer be a stage to feed contention in a lingering act.

Let one spirit of the firstborn Cain, reign in all bosoms.

Each heart is set on bloody courses − let darkness be the burier of the dead!

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I am in hope that this rude scene may soon end.

Give way unto my rough affairs. * Hateful death put on his ugly mask to fright our party. * Divorce not wisdom from your honor.

Rebellion did divide the action of their bodies from their souls and they did fight with queasiness, constrained, as men * drink potions, their weapons only seemed on our side. * It had froze them up as fish are in a pond.

This strained passion doth you wrong, my lord.

This apoplexy, is a kind of lethargy, a kind of sleeping in the blood, a whoreson tingling.

For my voice, I have lost it with hallooing and singing of anthems.

It was always yet the trick of our English nation, if they have * a good thing, to make it too common. * So the sun of the female is the shadow of the male.

This half-faced fellow is but a shadow; and presents no mark * to the enemy. * Lord, Lord, how subject we old men are to this vice of lying!

I have him already tempering between my finger and my thumb. * Your means are very slender, but your waste is great.

But since all is well, keep it so. * Wake not a sleeping wolf. * You are as a candle, with the better part burnt out. * What foolish master taught you these manners?

I have given over and I will speak no more. * Do what you will; but let your wisdom be your guide.

To do brave acts.

He was indeed the glass mirror wherein the noble youth did dress themselves.

For those that could speak low and tardily would turn their own perfection to abuse.

Is it not strange that desire can, so many years, outlive * performance?

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* * * * * * *

Why, thou globe of sinful continents, what a life dost thou lead!

Thou wilt no more weigh my eyelids down and steep my senses in forgetfulness.

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

Blunt not his love, nor lose the good advantage of his grace.

When his headstrong riot hath no curb, when rage and hot blood are his counselors, when means and lavish manners meet together, there is danger.

Thou art a summer bird, which ever in the haunch of winter sings the lifting up of day.

Should this good news make me sick?

Will fortune never come with both hands full? Will fortune write her fair words still in foulest letters?

To have a stomach but have no food- such are the poor, in health; or to have a feast but have no stomach- such are the rich.

This part of his conjoins with my disease and helps to end me.

See, sons, what things you are!

How quickly Nature falls into revolt.

Their sleep is broke with thoughts, their brains with care, their bones with industry.

He is like the bee, tolling from every flower its virtuous sweets.

I stay too long by thee and so, I weary thee.

Dost thou so hunger for mine empty chair O foolish youth.

Thou seekest the greatness that will overwhelm thee.

* My cloud of dignity is held from falling with so weak a wind. * Thou hidest a thousand daggers in thy thoughts. * Get thee gone, I'll dig my grave thyself.

Bid the merry bells ring to thine ear that thou art crowned, not that I am dead.

Give that which gave thee life unto the worms.

Pluck down my officers, and break my decrees, for now the time is come to mock at form.

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* The oldest sins come in the newest kind of ways.

O, old inhabitants! All wilt be a wilderness again and peopled with wolves. * Thou art not firm enough, and thy griefs are green. * Be it thy course to busy giddy minds with foreign quarrels.

Action, hence borne out, may waste the memory of the former days.

Health, and youthful wings have flown from this bare and withered trunk.

You shall be as a father to my youth. * A man can die but once. * We owe God a death.

I’ll ne’er bear a base mind.

Your attempts may overlive the hazard and fearful meeting of their opposite.

We are all diseased, and with our surfeiting and wanton * hours have brought ourselves into a burning fever.

I have in equal balance justly weighed what wrongs our arms have done, what wrongs we suffer, and find our griefs are * heavier than our offenses. * He cannot so precisely weed this land. * You act with great imagination proper to madmen.

He hath eaten me out of house and home, he hath put all my substance into that fat belly of his.

I am well acquainted with your manner of stretching the true cause the false way.

Wilt thou make as many holes in an enemy's battle as thou * hast done in a women's petticoat.

Thou wilt be valiant as the wrathful dove, or most magnanimous mouse.

Thou art a good scab.

His passions, like a whale on ground, confound themselves with working.

His foes are so enrooted with his friends that, plucking to * unfix an enemy, he doth unfast and shake a friend.

This land is like an offensive wife that hath enraged him on to offer strokes.

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* *

* * * * * *

* * * *

* * * * * *

The hopes we have in him touch ground and dash themselves to pieces.

How did you so ill translate yourself.

How did it come about that you turned the speech of peace that bears such grace into the harsh and boisterous tongue of war; turning your books to graves, your ink to blood, your pens to lances, and your tongue divine to a loud trumpet and a point of war?

The King hath wasted all his rods on late offenders.

He turns words to swords and life to death.

He rules with the counterfeited zeal of God. He studies his companions like a strange tongue so that he may gain the language.

It is wise to turn past evils into advantages.

My heaven keep yourself from enemies, but when they stand against you, may they fall before you.

The seasons change their manners.

The year had found some months asleep and time leapt them over.

He was altered much upon his hearing of it.

A friend in the court is better than a penny in the purse.

10. Henry V: A kingdom for a stage, princes to act, and monarchs to behold the swelling scene!

Leashed in like hounds, should famine, sword, and fire crouch for their employment.

They were devils incarnate.

Your villainy goes against my weak stomach, and therefore I must cast it up.

He has no more direction than a puppy dog.

He'll drop his heart into the sink of fear.

They that ride so, fall into bogs.

If their heads had any intellectual armour, they could never wear such heavy head-pieces.

Foolish cur! That run winking into the mouth of a Russian bear and have their heads crushed like rotten apples.

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* He whipped the offending Adam out of him.

Turn him to any cause of policy.

He will unloose the Gordian knot. * They steal his sweet and honeyed sentences.

God and his angels guard your sacred throne. * Forage in the blood of French nobility.

We are blessed with the change. * The sweet strawberry grows underneath the nettle.

Wholesome berries thrive and ripen best when neighbored * by fruit of baser quality.

The Prince obscured his true nature under the veil of * wildness.

He grew like the summer grass, fastest by night, unseeded * and wildest at night.

They know your Grace hath cause, and means, and might.

England is empty of defense.

If little faults shall not be winked at, how shall we handle our eye when capital crimes, chewed, swallowed, and digested, * appear before us?

The mercy that was quick in us is late and killed suppressed * in you. * You must not dare, for shame, to talk of mercy. * They turn against our bosoms, as dogs upon their masters.

Treason and murder are always ever kept together, as two * yoke-devils sworn to either’s purpose. * To wait on treason and on murder. * He hath the voice of hell.

All devils attempt to avoid damnation with patches, colors, and with forms and glistering semblances of piety.

God quit you in his mercy!

Hear your sentence, as you have conspired against our royal person and joined with an enemy proclaimed.

Lend the eye a terrible aspect: Let it pry through the portage * of the head like a brass cannon.

Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide, hold hard * your breath, and bend up your spirit to its fullest height.

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The gates of mercy shall be all shut up, and the fleshed soldier, rough and hard of heart, in liberty of bloody hand, shall range with conscience wide as hell, and mow down like grass your fresh fair virgins and your flowering infants.

Look and see the blind and bloody soldier with foul hand defile the locks of your shrill-shrieking daughters.

Your naked infants are spitted upon pikes, while the mad mothers howl confused.

Do break the clouds.

Forgive me, God, that I do brag thus!

This, the air of France, hath blown that vice in me.

My ransom is this frail and worthless trunk, my army but a weak and sickly guard.

And when the mind is quickened, the organs, though defunct and dead before, break up their drowsy grave and newly move again with fresh legerity (spirit).

Howsoever you speak, feel other men’s minds.

Now, if these men have defeated the law and outrun native punishment, and they have outstripped all men, they have no wings to fly from God. Every subject’s duty is the King's; but every subject’s soul is his own.

Subject to the breath of every fool.

What infinite heartsease must kings neglect that private men enjoy!

Poisoned flattery?

Not all these who lay in bed majestically, can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave who, with a body filled and vacant mind, and never see a horrid night or the child of hell.

The slave has same advantage of a king, winding up days with toil and nights with sleep. The slave, a member of the country’s peace.

If we are marked to die, we are enough to do our country loss.

But if it be a sin to covet honor, I am the most offending soul alive.

This story shall the good man teach his son.

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* He today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.

He never was so ever vile.

Crouch down in fear and yield.

They sit like fixed candlesticks.

I did never know so full a voice issue from so empty a heart: but the saying is true, "The empty vessel makes the greatest sound."

Reproach and everlasting shame sits mocking in your plumes.

Eat my leek. * Here he comes, swelling like a turkey-cock.

Art thou bedlam.

This day shall gentle his condition. * All things are ready, if our minds be so.

When we die in battle many of our bodies shall no doubt find * native graves, but many only foreign graves.

We'll leave our earthly parts to choke your clime the smell of which shall breed a plague in France.

O God, thy arm was here!

The dead are, with charity, enclosed in clay Wherever the eagle, England, is hunting for her prey, to her unguarded nest the weasel Scot comes sneaking and sucks her princely eggs, playing the mouse in absence of the cat.

Now all the youth of England are on fire. * They sell the pasture now to buy the horse.

Charm the narrow seas to give you safe and gentle pass.

When creeping murmur and the poring dark fills the wide vessel of the universe. * Through the foul womb of night we must pass. * Fire answers fire.

Look to my chattels and my movables. * Let senses rule.

Trust none, for oaths are straws, and men’s faiths are wafer * cakes. * Touch her soft mouth goodbye, and march off to your duty.

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* He hath a killing tongue and a quiet sword. * He will steal anything and call it purchase.

With all swift dispatch, line and new-repair our towns for war with men of courage to defend them.

Waters rush to the sucking of a gulf. * Fear may teach us, out of late examples.

He is bred out of that bloody strain. * This is a stem of victorious stock.

A night is but a tiny breath and little pause to answer matters * of this consequence. * It rushes on him, as doth the melted snow upon the valley.

Let us do it with no show of fear.

Mount them and make incision in their hides, so that their hot blood may spin in English eyes. * In fierce tempest is he coming, in thunder and in earthquake.

Oh pity the poor souls for whom this hungry war opens his * vasty jaws. * I would give all my fame for a pot of ale and safety. * “The empty vessel makes the greatest sound.�

I was not so much a man as all my mother came into mine * eyes and gave me up to tears.

The town is beseeched, and the trumpet calls us to the breach, where we talk, but do nothing! ‘Tis shame for us all. 'Tis a shame to stand still, as there are * throats to be cut, and works to be done.

To raise so great a siege.

I do perceive he is not the man that he would gladly show to * the world. * If I find a hole in his coat, I will tell him my mind. * A most contagious treason has come to light.

Let his neck answer for it, if there is any martial law in the * world.

But I will be so bold as to wear it in my cap till I see him once again, and then I will tell him a little piece of my desires. * Advantage is a better soldier than rashness. * We thought not good to bruise an injury till it were full ripe.

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I come to thee for charitable license.

We come to wander o’er this bloody field to book our dead and then to bury them, to sort our nobles from our common men.

Give the devil his due.

Proverb: "A fool’s bolt is soon shot.”

“It's a valiant flea that dare eat his breakfast on the lip of a lion.”

Give them great meals of beef and iron and steel, and they will eat like wolves, leave their wits with their wives, and fight like devils.

Your fair show shall suck away their souls, leaving them but shales and husks of men.

There is not work enough for all our hands nor scarce blood enough in all their sickly veins to give each naked curtal-ax a stain.

That England shall couch down in fear and yield.

But if the cause be not good, the King himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in a battle, shall join together at the Latter Day and cry l, “We died at such a place for him.”

I am afeard there are few who die well that die in a battle.

For how can they charitably dispose of anything, when blood is their argument?

All offenses, my lord, come from the heart.

Nothing came from me that might offend Your Majesty.

He is full of valor and of kindness and princely in both.

Why, here he comes, swelling like a turkey-cock.

The venom of such looks, we fairly hope, have lost their quality.

* This day we shall change all griefs and quarrels into love.

My duty to you both, on equal love, Great Kings of France and England!

I have elabored with all my wits, my pains, and strong endeavors to bring you riches.

She is a maid still rosed over with the virgin crimson of * modesty.

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* * * *

Let thine eye be thy cook.

His face is not worth sunburning.

He never looks in his glass for love of anything he sees in there.

Nice customs curtsy to great kings.

You have witchcraft in your lips.

Heaven sets endeavors in continual motion, as so the work of honeybees.

‘Tis ever common that men are merriest when they are away from home.

His nose was as sharp as a pen.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.

Close the wall up with our English dead!

In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man as modest stillness and humility. But when the blast of war blows in our ears, then imitate the action of the tiger. Stiffen the sinews and conjure up the blood.

Disguise fair nature with hard-favored rage.

I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, straining upon the start.

The game’s afoot! Follow your spirit!

Upon this charge, cry out in protest.

* I would give all my fame for a pot of ale and safety. * Men of few words are the best men.

My Lord High Constable, the English lie within fifteen hundred paces of your tents.

Who hath measured the ground? * Men will distill some soul of goodness in even evil things.

Blood is their argument.

What have kings that privates have not too, save ceremony?

O God of battles, steel my soldiers’ hearts; and possess them not with fear! Take from them now the sense of reckoning, before the opposed numbers pluck their hearts from them.

But if it be a sin to cover honor I am the most offending soul * alive.

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We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. He today that * sheds his blood with me shall be my brother. * Doth Fortune play the huswife (hussy) with me now?

To England will I steal, and there I’ll steal; and patches will I put unto these cudgeled scars, and swear I got them in the Gallia wars.

Our houses and ourselves and children have been lost, for we will not learn, for want of time, the sciences anymore; * but rather grow up like savages.

Can any of your neighbors tell?

Small time, but in that small time most greatly lived this star of England.

*

* * * * *

11. Henry VI Part One: Comets, importing change of time and states, brandish your crystal tresses (long hair) in the sky.

And in that sea of blood my boy did drench his overmounting spirit-there died my blossom, in his pride.

Between two hawks, which flies the higher pitch?; between two dogs, which hath the deeper mouth?

Civil dissension is a viperous worm.

Sharp and piercing to maintain his truth.

Thy consuming canker eats his falsehood.

The truth appears so naked on my side that any purblind eye may find it out.

Your cheeks do counterfeit our roses; for pale they look with fear, as witnessing the truth.

* I dare say this quarrel will drink blood another day.

First, lean thine aged back against mine arm, and in that ease I’ll tell thee my disease. * I will lock his counsel in my breast. * We forfeit a traitor and a coward.

Wrathful fury makes me weep that thus, we die, while * remiss cowards and traitors sleep.

Unchain your spirits now with your spelling charms and try to * gain your liberty.

Break thou in pieces and consume to ashes, thou foul * accursed minister of hell!

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*

Shall we at last conclude an effeminate peace?

Boiling choler chokes the hollow passage of my poisoned voice, by the very sight of these, our baleful enemies.

Hung be the heavens with black, yield to night!

Hang up your ensigns, let your drums be still, for here we entertain a solemn peace.

King Henry the fifth, too famous to live long!

Speak softly, or else for hearing of the loss of those great towns will make him burst his head and rise from death itself.

Ten thousand soldiers with me I will take, whose bloody deeds shall make all Europe quake.

* Now here I take my leave to go about my preparation.

England never had a king until his time.

He is like an effeminate prince, whom like a schoolboy, you * can overawe.

Stand back thou manifest conspirator − thou that contrivedist to murder our dear lord and givest whores * indulgences to sin.

In treachery, it is more manifest, that thou had laidest a trap to take my life.

The King, thy sovereign, is not quite exempt from envious malice of thy swelling heart.

Leave this peevish broil and set this unaccustomed fight * aside. * It is the only means to stop effusion of our Christian blood. * Should I give consent and flatter sin? * Have I, by magic verses, contrived his end? * Bring him in obedience to your yoke.

Till bones and flesh and sinews fall away, so will this base and envious discord breed.

If once he comes to be a cardinal, he’ll make his cardinal's * cap co-equal with the crown.

Because you had need, Orleans is besieged. * Believe my words, for they are certain and unfallible.

Search out thy wit for secret policies and we will make thee famous throughout the world.

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* * * * * * *

I am by birth a shepherd's daughter, and my wit is untrained in any kind of art.

Christ’s Mother helps me, else I am too weak.

Distrustful recreants and fight till the last gasp.

Glory is like a circle in the water which never ceaseth to enlarge itself.

Go, go, cheer up thy hungry-starved men.

This day is ours, as many more shall be.

Through our policies we will make a breach.

He means no goodness by his looks.

Let frantic Talbot boast in triumph for a while and, like a peacock, sweep along his tail.

Your honours shall perceive how I will work to bring this matter to its desired end.

As a mother looks upon on her baby boy, when death does close its tender-dying eyes.

* Strike those that hurt, and hurt not those that help!

One drop of blood drawn from thy country’s bosom should * grieve thee more than streams of foreign gore.

Return thee therefore with a flood of tears and wash away thy country’s stains. * Done like a Frenchman – turn and turn again.

Like spirits that are culled out of the powerful legions under * earth. * Hold me not with silence.

Now the time is come that France must veil her lofty-plumed * crest and let her head fall into England’s lap.

My ancient incantations are too weak and hell too strong for * me. * Now, France, thy glory dropeth to the dust. * I prithee give me leave to curse awhile.

I am with child, ye bloody homicides. Murder not then the fruit within my womb , although ye hale me to a violent death.

Stay, stay thy hands; thou art an Amazon, and fightest with the sword with the sword of Deborah (re: Joan of Arc).

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Was Mahomet inspired with a dove? Art thou with an eagle art inspired then?

Now shine it like a comet of revenge, a prophet to the fall of all our foes!

Now let us on, my lords, and join our powers, and seek how we may prejudice the foe.

Gloucester, we’ll meet to your cost, be sure; thy heart-blood I will have for this day’s work.

I’ll call for clubs if you will not go away.

This Cardinal’s more haughty than the devil.

‘Tis the terror of the French, like a scarecrow, that affrights our children so.

Your hearts I’ll stamp out with my horse’s heels and make a quagmire of your mingled brains.

Sheep run not half so treacherous from the wolf, or horse or oxen from the leopard, as you fly from your oft-subdued slaves.

I am but a shadow of myself.

Foul fiend of France and hag of all despite, encompassed with thy lustful paramours.

Good lord, what madness rules in brainsick men.

Stoop and bend thy knee.

You are polluted with your lusts, stained with the guiltless blood of innocents, corrupt and tainted with a thousand vices.

Dare ye come forth and meet us in the field?

Undaunted spirit in a dying breast!

Heavens keep old Bedford safe!

Open your city gates, be humble to us, call my sovereign yours and do him homage as obedient subjects.

I’ll withdraw me and my bloody power.

Shall all thy mother’s hopes lie in one tomb?

When others sleep upon their quiet beds, we are constrained to watch in darkness, rain, and cold.

Laughest now, thou wretch; thy mirth shall turn to moan.

Judge you then, my lord of Warwick, between us.

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Prick not your finger as you pluck off the white rose lest the bleeding you paint the white rose red, and cause you to fall on my side against your will. ‘Tis not for fear, but anger, that's in thy cheeks.

The quarrel toucheth none but us alone; so betwixt ourselves let us decide it then.

O the truth and plainness of the case.

Go forward, and be choked with thy ambition!

And so farewell until I meet thee next.

Henry is able to enrich his queen, and not to seek a queen to make him rich, but worthless peasants must bargain for their wives.

Suffolk hath prevailed; and thus he goes.

Margaret shall now be Queen, and rule the King; but I will rule both her, the King, and all the realm.

Kind keepers of my weak decaying age, let dying Mortimer here rest himself.

Take pity on my hard distress.

That malice was a great and grievous sin.

Will not you maintain the thing you teach?

Friendly counsel cuts off many foes.

The rigor of tempestuous gusts provokes the mightiest hulk against the tide.

I am sick with the workings of my thoughts.

Conduct me where, from company, I may resolve and ruminate my grief.

Do execution on the watch.

Will you fly and leave Lord Talbot?

All the Talbots in the world, to save my life.

This fellow here with envious carping tongue upbraided me about the rose I wear.

The snares of war will tangle thee.

On either hand there are squadrons pitched to wall thee from the liberty of flight.

The glass does now begin to run and finish off its sandy hour process.

The fraud of England, not the force of France, hath now * entrapped the noble-minded Talbot.

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12. Henry VI Part Two: Now, lords, my choler is much overblown.

I come to talk of commonwealth affairs.

Sorrow and grief have vanquished all my powers.

Wouldst thou have me rescue thee from this reproach?

She sweeps through the court with troops of ladies.

An envious load lies upon his heart.

Tut, these are petty faults compared to faults unknown.

Small curs are not regarded when they grin, but great men tremble when the lion roars.

Thou hast given me in this beauteous face, a world of earthly blessings to my soul.

A sympathy of love unites our thoughts.

Her sight did ravish, but her grace in speech, was even more so.

Her words were clad with wisdom’s majesty, that makes me fall to weeping joys; such is the fullness of my heart’s content.

Lords, with one cheerful voice welcome my love.

Man and birds are fain of climbing high.

The treasury of everlasting joy.

How irksome is this music to my heart!

God be praised, that to believing souls gives light in darkness, and comfort in despair!

My heart is drowned with grief, whose flood begins to flow within mine eyes.

In thy face I see the map of honor, truth, and loyalty.

Thou never didst them wrong, nor no man; no more than the butcher takes away the calf.

Hide not thy poison with such sugared words.

Lay not thy hands on me; as their touch affrights me as would a serpent’s sting.

Thou baleful messenger- out of my sight!

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Upon thy eyeballs, murderous tyranny sits in grim majesty to fright the world.

O thou that judgest all things, stay my thoughts that labour to persuade my soul to lay some violent hands upon my dearest ones.

See how deep my grave is made.

With his soul fled, all my worldly solace is restored and I see my life in death.

What stranger or better breastplate than is a heart untainted!

He shall not breathe infection in this air but three days longer, as the pain of death approaches.

If thou dost plead for him, thou wilt but add increase unto my wrath.

O thou eternal mover of the heavens, look with a gentle eye upon this wretch.

O God, beat away the busy meddling fiend that lays strong siege unto this wretch’s soul, and from his bosom purge this black despair.

Peace to his soul, if God’s good pleasure be!

If thou thinkest on heaven’s bliss, hold up thy hand and make signal of thy hope.

O, graceless men, they know not what they do.

Some sudden qualm hath struck me at the heart and dimmed mine eyes, that I can read no further.

To you brave peers of England, pillars of the state, I must unload my grief, your grief, and the common grief of all the land.

In winter’s cold and summer’s parching heat.

O peers of England, shameful is this league we find ourselves.

Blotting your names from books of memory.

His large style agrees not with the leanness of his purse.

I see thy fury. If I longer stay, we shall begin again our ancient bickerings.

* Banish the canker of ambitious thoughts. * Hast thou not worldly pleasure at command beyond compass

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of thy thought?

Art thou still hammering such treachery, risking to tumble down thyself from top of honor's head to disgrace’s feet?

Away from me, and let me hear no more of it!

‘Tis but a base ignoble mind that mounts to higher than a bird can soar.

I banish her my bed and company and give her as a prey to law and shame.

Seest how the law hath judged me.

I cannot justify whom the law condemns.

Mine eyes are full of tears, and my heart of grief.

This dishonor in thine age will bring thy head with sorrow to the ground!

His red sparkling eyes blab his heart’s true malice, and his cloudy brow depicts his stormy hate.

He unburdens with his tongue, the envious load that lies upon his heart.

Your best endeavour has only stirred up my liefest liege to be mine enemy.

You shall be the well-affected victim of an ancient proverb.

Proverb: "A staff is quickly found to beat a dog."

So happy for his possible cure, he throws away his crutch before his legs are firm enough to bear his body.

* My sword will shed hot blood, mine eyes no tears.

Image of pride, why should I hold my peace?

The commons, like an angry hive of bees that want their leader, scatter up and down and care not who they sting in * their revenge.

Who, finding the heifer dead and bleeding fresh, and seeing a butcher with an axe, would not suspect ‘twas he that made * the slaughter?

Go away or I will drag thee hence.

Unworthy though thou art, I’ll cope with thee.

I'll do some service to his ghost. * So bad a death argues for a monstrous life.

You best should go to bed and dream again, to keep thee from the tempest of the field.

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Let not his smoothing words bewitch your hearts. Be wise and circumspect.

Thy heaven is on earth; as thine eyes and thoughts beat on a crown.

It is the treasure of thy heart.

You are a pernicious protector, and a dangerous peer.

Bring me unto my trial when you will.

Why doth this great man nit his brows, as frowning at the favors of the world?

Why are thine eyes fixed to the sullen earth?

It is great sin to swear unto a sin, but greater sin to keep a sinful oath.

Were I a man, a duke, and next of blood, I would remove these tedious stumbling-blocks and smooth my way upon their headless necks.

Here, Hume, take this reward. Make merry, man, with thy confederates in this weighty cause.

Come you, my lord, to see my open shame?

Dark shall be my light, and night my day.

To think upon my pomp shall be my hell.

With thou gone, all comfort goes with thee!

No joy abides with me; now my only joy is death.

My shame will not be shifted with my change of clothes. No; as it will hang upon my richest robes and show itself, no matter what my attire.

Go, lead the way; I long to see my prison.

They have promised: to show you a spirit raised from depth of under ground.

Make merry with another's gold.

This business asketh silent secrecy so seal up your lips and give no words but mum.

A crafty knave does need no broker.

All his mind is bent to holiness.

She sweeps it through the court with troops of ladies, more like an empress than a wife.

That bears so shrewd a maim; two pulls at once and his lady's banished and a limb's lopped off.

* * * *

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* *

* *

He knits his brow and shows an angry eye.

My name is wounded with slander’s tongue.

To be a queen and crowned with infamy!

Erect his statue and worship it and make my image but an alehouse sign.

Seek not a scorpion’s nest.

The vaulting sea refused to drown me.

When from thy shore the tempest beat us back, I stood upon the hatches and faced the storm.

Give me thy hand that I may dew it with my mournful tears.

Let the rain of heaven wet this place and wash away my woeful monuments.

Her kiss is printed in thy hand.

A thousand sighs I breathed for thee.

I loathe to part from you a hundred times more-more than to die. Farewell, my life with thee.

A subtle traitor needs no sophister (philosopher).

If we don't escape we might soon see the bottom of all our fortunes.

List' to me, for I am bold to counsel you in this.

Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep; in his simple and smooth show, he harbors treason.

It's a dreadful oath, sworn with a solemn tongue!

Thou shalt be awake while I shed thy blood.

* Their softest touch do smart as much as lizards’ stings! * Their music is as frightful as a serpent’s hiss. * The wilderness is populous enough, for me.

You are in sight to die.

A jewel, locked into the woefullest cask that ever did contain a thing of worth.

An imperial tongue is stern and rough.

Come, soldiers, show all cruelty that you can, so this my death may never be forgot.

Her fume needs no spurs, as she’ll gallop far enough to her * destruction. * Trust nobody for fear you'll be betrayed.

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* Deep night, dark night, the silent of the night. * They hold by force and not by right. * Do you as I do in these dangerous days.

They have snared the shepherd of the flock.

My blossoms crushed in the bud, and caterpillars eat my * leaves away.

Show me one scar charactered on thy skin; men’s flesh preserved so whole do seldom win.

I fear the starved snake, that you cherish in your breasts, will * sting your heart. * You put sharp weapons in a madman’s hands!

I will stir up some black storm that shall blow ten thousand * souls to heaven or to hell!

Unloose thy long-imprisoned thoughts and let thy tongue be equal with thy heart.

Why hast thou broken faith with me. * I am resolved for either dignity or for death.

By water shall he die, and take his end.

*

*

* * *

Let him shun castles; safer shall he be upon the sandy plains.

Descend you false fiend into the darkness and the burning lake!

Your penance done, throw off your present clothes, and go attire for our journey.

Stop the rage in time before the wound does grow uncurable.

For suddenly a grievous sickness took him, that makes him gasp, and stare, and catch the air, blaspheming God, and cursing men on earth.

Merchant-like, I sell revenge.

I'll dam up this, thy yawning mouth.

Who, in contempt, shall hiss at thee again?

Be thou wedded to the hags of hell.

O miserable age! Virtue is not regarded much by merchants

* There’s no better sign of a brave mind than a hard hand.

Our enemies shall fall before us, inspired with the spirit of putting down kings and princes.

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*

I thank you, good people.

I'll pay no money to you.

All shall eat and drink on my score; and I will apparel them all in one livery, that they may agree, like brothers, and worship me as their lord.

He hath gelded the commonwealth and made it an eunuch.

He speaks French; and therefore he is a traitor.

I have thought upon it; and so it shall be so.

Burn all the records of the realm; my mouth shall be the new parliament.

For pleading so well for his life he shall die. Away with him!

The proudest peer in the realm shall not wear a head on his shoulders, unless he pay me tribute.

It is said ‘Labor in thy vocation’; which is as much to say as ‘Let the magistrates be laboring men’; and therefore should we be magistrates?

The field is honorable.

There was he born, under a hedge; for his father had never a house but the cage.

The first thing we do is kill all the lawyers.

His army is a ragged multitude of hinds and peasants, rude and merciless.

All scholars, lawyers, courtiers, gentlemen, are but false caterpillars and we intend their death.

The citizens fly and forsake their houses; and thirsting after prey, join with the traitors; and jointly swear to spoil the city and the royal court, as well.

To recover them would lose my life.

Justice with favor have I always done.

* Prayers and tears have moved me, where gifts could never. * Grovel on thy face.

If I could come so near your beauty with my nails, I'd set my ten commandments in your face. * Descend to darkness and the burning lake!

This knave tongue begins to double. * Small curs are not regarded when they grin.

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* Small things make base men proud. * Large gifts have I bestowed on learned clerks.

Ignorance is the curse of God. * Great men have reaching hands.

Oft have I struck those that I never saw, and struck them dead.

Long sitting to determine poor men’s causes hath made me full of sickness and diseases. * It's the palsy, not the fear that provokes me.

And as I thrust thy body in with my sword, so wish that I * might thrust thy soul to hell.

I will drag thee headlong by the heels unto a dunghill, which * shall be thy grave. * Priests pray for enemies, but princes kill them.

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13. Henry VI Part Three: Now sways it this way, like a mighty sea forced by the tide to combat with the wind; now sways it that way, like the selfsame sea forced to retire by fury of the wind. Sometime the flood prevails, and then the wind; now one the better, then another best; both tugging to be victors, breast to breast, yet neither conqueror nor conquered; so is the equal poise of this fell war.

You both have vowed revenge on him, his sons, his favorites, and his friends.

For his sons, kingship is devalued in other ways.

For a balance in the private life, he envies a life comparable with that of the shepherd’s existence.

He produces a mad urge to destroy.

And happy always is it for the son whose father, for his hoarding, went to hell?

This battle fares like to the morning’s war, when dying clouds contend with growing light.

Sometime the flood prevails, and then the wind.

Here on this molehill will I sit me down and want for God to determine to whom the victory shall go.

For what is in this world but grief and woe?

So minutes, hours, days, months, and years, passed over to * the end where they were once created.

O yes, it doth; a thousand-fold it doth. * O, piteous spectacle! O, bloody times!

While lions war and battle for their dens, poor harmless * lambs abide their enmity.

Her sighs will make a battery in his breast. * Her tears will pierce into a marble heart. * He was shaken from his regal seat. * It turned my captive state to liberty. * My fears were turned to hope, my sorrows unto joys. * My joy of liberty is half eclipsed.

These graces challenge grace.

When the lion fawns upon the lamb, the lamb will never * cease to follow him.

Thou hast undone thyself, thy son, and me. * Your legs did better service than your hands.

Marked by the destinies to be avoided, as venom toads or * lizards’ dreadful stings.

Your gracious words revive my drooping thoughts and give my tongue-tied sorrows leave to speak.

Ay, now begins a second storm to rise, for this is he that * moves both wind and tide. * Deceit was bred by necessity. * How can tyrants safely govern home?

You are the proud setter-up and puller-down of kings! * With all your talk and tears.

Tell him my mourning weeds are laid aside, and I am ready to * put my armor on. * How sweet a plant have you untimely cropped! * For a kingdom, any oath may be broken.

His father reveled in the heart of France.

He took a beggar to his bed.

Sound trumpets! Let our bloody colors wave! Either victory, * or a grave! * These words will cost ten thousand lives this day.

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For this world frowns, and your sun is clouded.

We are weak and cannot shun pursuit; we are bootless in our flight and they do follow us with wings.

Now you partly may perceive my mind.

To tell thee plain, I aim to lie with thee.

The harder matched, the greater victory.

My mind presageth happy gain and conquest.

Once more we sit on our royal thrones, repurchased with the blood of enemies.

Ah, if you murder this innocent child, you will be hated both

by God and man.

A she-wolf's tongue, is more poisonous than the adder’s tooth!

Beggars mounted, run their horses to their deaths.

‘Tis beauty that doth oft make women proud, but, God knows thy share of it is small.

Open thy gate of mercy, gracious God! My soul flies through these wounds to seek out thee.

Thou shalt know this strong right hand of mine it can pluck the diadem from King Henry's faint hearted head, and wring the awful scepter from his fist.

Forspent with toil, as runners with a race, I lay me down a little while to breathe; I'm spent for strokes received, and many blows repaid.

Why stand we like soft-hearted women here, wailing on our losses.

Here on my knee I vow to God I’ll never pause again, never stand still, till either death hath closed these eyes of mine or fortune given me my measure of revenge.

Having nothing, nothing can be lost.

With hasty Germans and blunt Hollanders.

Not mutinous in peace, yet bold in war; My blood, my want of strength, my sick heart shows, that I must yield my body to the earth.

To search the secret treasons of the world.

There is nothing left to me, but my body’s length.

What is it that glues my lips and will not let me speak?

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Shall we go throw away our coats of steel, and wrap our bodies in black mourning gowns?

Single out some other chase.

I myself will hunt this wolf to death.

Much rain wears out the marble.

I’ll make my heaven in a lady’s lap.

I can murder while I smile. I’ll drown more sailors than the mermaid shall; I’ll slay more gazers than the basilisk (dragon); I’ll play the orator as well as Nestor, deceive more slily (slyly) than Ulysses could, and, like a Sinon (the one who persuaded the Trojans to bring in the horse), take another Troy.

I cry for what grieves my heart, and wet my cheeks with artificial tears, and frame my face to all occasions.

I can add colors to the chameleon, change shapes with Proteus for advantages, and send the murderous Machiavel to school. If I can I do this, can I not easily get a crown?

Many men that stumble at the threshold are well foretold that danger lurks within.

When the fox hath once got the scent in his nose, he’ll soon find means to make his body follow.

Fearless minds climb soonest unto crowns.

Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind; the thief doth fear each bush an officer.

To whom do lions cast their gentle looks?

I would, your highness, depart the field.

He has best success when you are absent.

This is the hand that stabbed thy father, York.

There’s the heart that triumphs in their death and cheers the hands that slew them. And there is one who will execute the like upon thyself.

Here burns my candle out; and here it dies; but while it lasted, it gave you your light.

For what doth cherish weeds but gentle air?

What makes the robbers bold is too much lenity?

Our hope is lost; our ranks are broke, and ruin does follow us.

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What counsel do you give?

Whither shall we fly? * He knows the game; how true he keeps the wind! * That’s a day longer than a wonder lasts. * A little fire is quickly trodden out. * * * *

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Every cloud engenders not a storm.

My sighing breast shall be thy funeral bell.

It’s a love which virtue begs and virtue grants.

To tell you plain, I'd rather lie in prison.

I know I am too mean to be your queen.

Ay, almost slain and taken prisoner, either betrayed by the falsehood of his guard or by his foe surprised.

You are the forest that makes small brooks to flow.

Thou ruthless sea, thou quicksand of deceit, thou ragged fatal rock!

The owl shrieked at thy birth, an evil sign it was.

Thy mother felt more than a mother's pain, and yet brought forth less than a mother's hope.

Fair hope does hinder life’s decay.

Wean me from despair.

Yield not thy neck to fortune’s yoke.

With patience, calm the storm.

Tell him he’ll prove a widower shortly and I’ll wear the willow garland for his sake.

‘Tis better using France than trusting France.

Let us be backed with God and with the seas which he hath given for fence impregnable.

Away with scrupulous wit! Now arms must rule!

Subjects may challenge nothing of their sovereigns; but if a humble prayer may prevail, I then crave pardon of your majesty.

Help in time of storm, as every loyal subject ought to do.

Women and children of such high a courage, but warriors faint!

14. The Life of King Henry VIII: * No man’s pie is free from the devil's ambitious finger.

If you have not the power to muzzle him; it's best not wake * him in his slumber. * A beggar’s book outworths a noble’s blood.

I do know them to be corrupt and treasonous.

Proof as clear as founts in July when we see each grain of * gravel.

He is equal ravenous as he is subtle, and as prone to * mischief.

The net has fallen upon me! I shall perish under device and practice.

The will of heaven be done in this and all things! I obey.

My life is spanned already.

They glory not in mischief, nor build their evils on the graves * of great men. * Go with me like good angels to my end.

Felled by our servants and by those we loved most-a most * unnatural and faithless service. * The force of his own merit buys a place next to the King.

Grievingly I think the peace between the French and us not values the cost that did conclude it. * To climb steep hills requires slow pace at first.

Anger is like a full hot horse, who being allowed his way, tires * him so.

By violent swiftness, that which we run at, we lose by over* running. * Liquor wastes an argument.

How holily he works in all his business.

He dives into his soul and there scatters dangers, doubts, wringing of conscience, fears, and despairs.

His eye was set against the moon.

We have seen him in most strange postures. * He works with what heaven hath given him. * There's not a graver eye than jealousy * The back is sacrifice to the load.

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Sir, I desire you to do me right and justice, and to bestow your pity on me.

I have been to you a true and humble wife.

I am ever in fear to kindle your dislike.

Shut the door upon me, and in so doing give me up to the sharpest kind of justice.

Things are as they are.

Though you are mine enemy, induced by potent circumstances, you shall not be my judge.

My lord, my lord, I am a simple woman, much too weak to oppose your cunning.

There’s nothing I have done yet, o’er my conscience, that deserves a corner.

Out with it boldly as truth loves open dealing.

Leave your griefs and take my counsel.

Virtue finds no friends.

Only with great care, exempt yourself from fear.

Black as if besmeared in hell.

The quiet of my wounded conscience.

The King/Queen is put in anger.

With a splitting power, it makes a trembling in the region of my breast.

I stood not in the smile of heaven.

Killing care and grief of heart.

There is a mutiny in his mind.

Words are no deeds.

The foulness is the punishment.

Take notice, lords, he has a loyal breast.

He has strangled his language in his tears.

This oracle of comfort has so pleased.

The grieved commons hardly conceive of me.

His will is most malignant, and it stretches beyond you to your friends.

This heaven of beauty shall shine full upon them.

We shall give you the full cause of our coming.

Madam, you wrong the King’s love with these fears.

Your hopes and friends are infinite.

Madam, you wander from the good we aim at.

* Stubborn spirits swell, and grow as terrible as storms. * This candle burns not clear; and so it must be snuffed.

He hath crawled into the favor of the King and is now his * oracle.

Though perils abound, as thick as thought could make ’em, * and appear in forms so horrid, throw them from your soul. * I am in the full meridian of my glory.

How much, methinks, I could despise this man, but I am * bound in charity against it!

So farewell to the little good you bear me. Farewell, a long farewell, to all my greatness! * It is a poor man that hangs on princes’ favors! * And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer, never to hope again. * Tis a burden too heavy for a man that hopes for heaven! * May a tomb of orphans’ tears weep upon him.

There was the weight that pulled me down.

I will be forgotten, and shall sleep in dull, cold marble, where * there will be no mention of me.

I charge thee, fling away ambition as by that sin, the angels * fell.

Corruption wins not more than honesty. Still in thy right * hand carry gentle peace to silence envious tongues.

He would not in mine age, have left me naked to mine * enemies.

Is it possible the spells of France should juggle men into such strange mysteries? * Two women placed together makes for cold weather.

Gentlemen, the penance lies on you if these fair ladies pass away frowning. * Out of the great respect they bear to beauty. * Beauty and honor in her are so mingled.

O my lord, press not a falling man too far! ‘His faults lie open * to the laws. * He is now so little of his great self.

They seem a noble troop of strangers. They’ve left their barge and landed, and hither make, as great ambassadors from foreign princes. * Who was it that fed him with his prophecies? * He was a deep and envious one.

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This secret is so weighty, and will require a strong faith to conceal it.

So good a lady she was that no tongue could ever pronounce dishonor of her.

So much the more must pity drop upon her.

It faints me to think what follows.

Even hearts of the most hard tempered melt and lament for her.

This is this spice of your hypocrisy.

The tidings that I bring will make my boldness manners.

Now good angels fly o’er thy royal head, and shade thy person under their blessed wings!

I will scold it out of him Please digest this letter.

Plague of your policy!

If you were half so honest, men’s prayers would seek you, not their fears!

That comfort comes too late, ‘tis like a pardon after execution. I am past all comforts now but prayers.

Someday I shall dwell with worms, and my poor name banished from the kingdom.

The dews of heaven fall thick in blessings on her!

Some touch of your late business.

I shall remember this bold language.

Each following day became the next day’s master.

A gift that heaven gives to him.

This gift will buy a place next to the king.

Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot that it does singe yourself.

These sad thoughts, work too much upon him.

Who set the body and the limbs?

It will help me nothing to plead mine innocence, for that dye is on me which makes my whit’st part pitch black.

He is darkening my clear sun.

I have this day received a traitor’s judgment, and by that name I must die.

I bear no malice for my death.

Go with me, like good angels, to my end.

* Lift my soul to heaven.

Though I'm lost of everything, yet I am richer than my base * accusers.

Make my name once more noble.

Where you are liberal of your loves and counsels be sure you be not loose.

Beware of those you make friends and give your hearts to, for when once they perceive the least rub in your fortunes they fall away like water from ye, never to be found again.

I cannot tell what heaven hath given him: let some graver eye pierce into that; but I can see his pride peep through * each part of him. * He begins a new hell in himself.

What shall lessen this big look?

You have now a broken banquet; but we’ll mend it.

Good digestion to you all.

Once more I shower a welcome on ye; welcome all! * They have done my poor house grace.

All goodness is poison to thy stomach.

All my glories in that one woman I have lost forever.

Unmannerly language appears like loud rebellion and breaks the sides of loyalty. * The back is sacrifice to the load.

I am much too venturous in tempting of your patience.

It comes to pass that all is reversed now: tongues spit their duties out, and cold hearts freeze allegiance in them; their curses now live where their prayers once did; and tractable * obedience is a slave.

You are mine enemy; for it is you that has blown this coal * betwixt my lord and me.

I am a simple woman, much too weak to oppose your * cunning.

You sign your place and calling, in full seeming, with meekness and humility; but your heart is crammed with arrogancy, spleen and pride.

Everything that heard him play his music, even the billows of * the sea, hung their heads in sorrow. * Sweet music is such art, killing care and grief of heart. * All hoods make not monks.

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* He's grown too desperate to be honest.

They who care for my afflictions are those my trust must * grow to. * I put my sick cause into his hands.

She is a constant woman to her husband. * Ye have angels’ faces, but heaven knows your hearts. * We can never feel too little, or hear too much.

These cardinals trifle with me: I abhor these dilatory sloth and tricks of Rome. * With thy approach, I know, my comfort comes along. * There is a mutiny in his mind.

You may dwell in his musings: but I am afraid his thinkings are below the moon, not worth his serious consideration.

Stand up, good man: Thy truth and thy integrity is rooted in us, thy friends.

The red wine first must rise in their fair cheeks, my lord; then * we shall have ‘em.

If ever any malice in your heart were hid against me, tell me and forgive me now.

There are many sharp reasons to defeat the law.

I will commend a secret to your ear much weightier than all you've had before. * I left him in his privacy, full of sad thoughts and troubles.

It seems the marriage with his brother’s wife has crept too near his conscience.

The news is everywhere; every tongue does speak it and every true heart weeps for it.

Heaven will one day open his eyes that so long have slept * upon this bold bad man. * Press not a falling man too far.

Careful, as one's faults lie open to the law. * My heart weeps to see him so little of his great self.

The question did at first so stagger me.

Let's withdraw into your private chamber. We shall give you the full cause of our coming.

Madam, you wander from the good we aim at.

It's worse than the sacring (the act of consecration) bell, * when the brown wench lay kissing in your arms.

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My legs, like loaden branches, bow to the earth, willing to leave their burthen.

I am not worthy yet to wear it.

The dews of heaven fall thick in blessings on her!

Let me have my honor: strew me over with maiden flowers, that all the world may know I was a chaste wife to my grave.

O This old man is broken with the storms of state, and is come to lay his weary bones among ye: give him a little earth for charity.

Men’s evil manners live in brass; and their virtues we write in water.

I am most joyful, madam, that such good dreams possess your fancy.

Affairs, that walk – as they say spirits do – at midnight, have in them a wilder nature than the business that they may dispatch by day.

Lay all the weight ye can upon my patience.

I make as little doubt as you do conscience in doing daily wrongs.

I take my cause from the gripes of cruel men and give it to a most noble judge.

All goodness is poison to your stomach.

15. The Tragedy of Julius Caesar: I am indeed, sir, a surgeon of old shoes; when they are in great danger, I recover them.

He soars above the view of men.

Shake off this sterile curse.

I'd rather tell thee what is to be feared than what I fear, for always I am Caesar.

* Neither Heaven or earth have been at peace tonight.

Cowards die many times before their deaths; but the valiant * taste death but once.

The skies are painted with unnumbered sparks of fire and everyone doth shine.

Yonder Cassius has a lean and hungry look; he thinks too much; such men are dangerous. * This was the unkindest cut of all. * I am constant as the northern star.

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* Beware the idyes of March.

This place will crowd a feeble man almost to death.

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This breast of mine hath buried thoughts of great value.

You have no such mirrors that will show your hidden worthiness.

We have both fed well, and now can both endure the winter's cold.

Has this man become a god and Cassius just a wretched creature who must bend his body?

Oh, that tongue of his that bade the Romans to mark him and write his speeches in their books.

He is a man of such a feeble temper.

He doth bestride the world like a Collosus; and we petty men walk under his huge legs and peep about to find our dishonorable graves.

Men are sometimes masters of their fates: the fault dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.

Now in the name of all gods at once, upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed, that he is grown so great?

I am glad that my weak words have struck and that much show of fire has resulted.

This rudeness is a sauce to his good wit, which gives men stomach to digest his words with better appetite.

Who is so firm that cannot be seduced?

The strange impatience of the heavens.

What is the true cause why all these fires, why all these gliding ghosts, why birds and beasts, from quality and kind, why old men, fools and children calculate, why all these things change from their ordinance, and pre-formed faculties, to monstrous quality? Why? For heaven hath infused them with these spirits to make them instruments of fear and warning unto a monstrous state.

It is like thunders, lightens, opens graves, and roars of lions in the Capitol.

Our fathers' minds are dead and we are governed with our mothers' spirits.

You make the weak most strong, you gods, strong enough to defeat tyrants.

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A friend should bear his friend's infirmities, but Brutus makes mine greater than they are.

You love me not.

You give place to accidental evils.

My heart is thirsty for that noble pledge.

Set honor in one eye and death in the other, and I will look on both indifferently.

An angry spot doth grow on Caesar's brow.

His affections swayed more than his reason.

"Tis a common proof that lowliness is a young ambition's ladder and when he once attains the upmost round, he turns his back and looks into the clouds, scorning the base degrees by which he did ascend.

Genius and the mortal instruments are in the council.

When evils are most free, by day, where wilt thou find a cavern dark enough to mask thy monstrous visage?

Creatures such as men doubt; but do not stain the even virtue of our enterprise.

Break not the smallest particle of any promise that passes from you.

* He will never follow anything that other men begin. * Let us be sacrifices, rather than be butchers. * Let's kill him boldly, but not wrathfully.

Let us carve him as a dish fit for the gods.

Enjoy the honey-heaven dew of slumbers.

As dear to me as are the ruddy drops that visit my sad heart.

And by and by thy bosom shall partake the secrets of my heart.

This will make sick men whole. * He is past his time of fearing death.

Waving our red weapons over our heads, let us all cry, "Peace, freedom and liberty! Victory!"

He is a hot friend cooling.

When love begins to sicken and decay, it needs a forced * ceremony.

Must I give way and room to your rash choler?

Shall I be frightened by a madman's stares?

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There is no terror in your threats; for I am armed so strong in honesty that they pass by me as the idle wind.

I do not like your faults.

O Cassius, I am sick from many griefs.

No man bears his sorrow better.

With this I bury all unkindness, Cassius.

The enemy increaseth every day.

There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; omitted, all the voyage of their lives are bound in shallows and in miseries. On such full sea are we now afloat; and we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.

The deep of night has crept upon our talk.

I should not urge them past their night; I know that even young bloods look for times of rest.

I'll never look you in the face again.

Those that understood him smiled at one another and shook their heads; but, for mine own part, it was Greek to me.

I have seen tempests, when the scolding winds have rivered the knotty oaks; and I have seen ambitious oceans swell and rage and foam, exalted with the threatening clouds.

O, he sits high in all people's hearts.

He that cuts off twenty years of life cuts off that many years of fearing death.

Sir, March is wasted fourteen days Grey lines that fret the clouds are messengers of the day.

O, let us have him; for his silver hairs will purchase us a good opinion and buy men's voices to commend our deeds.

No, my Brutus; you have some sick offence in your mind.

I'll give myself a voluntary wound.

O, constancy, be strong upon my side; and set a huge mountain 'tween my heart and tongue.

I have a man's mind but a woman's might.

I will strive with things impossible.

* The graves have yawned and yielded up their dead.

Fierce fiery warriors fought upon the clouds, in the ranks and squadrons they have drizzled blood upon the Capitol.

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The noise of the battle hurtled in the air, horses did neigh, and dying men did groan, and ghosts did shriek and squeal about the streets.

When beggars die there are no comets seen.

Mark Anthony shall not love Caesar dead so well as Brutus living.

O mighty Caesar! Dost thou lie so low?

Have all thy conquests, glories, triumphs and spoils shrunk to this little measure?

My credit now stands on such slippery ground.

How like a deer, stricken by many princes, dost thou lie here!

With dreadful objects so familiar, mothers shall but smile when they behold their infants quartered by the hands of war.

You have some sick offence within your mind.

I'd rather be a dog and bay at the moon, than such a one as you.

Cry "Havoc!" and let loose the dogs of war.

This foul deed shall smell above the earth with carrion men, groaning for burial.

Friends, Romans and countrymen, lend me your ears.

If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.

Brutus, as you know, was Caesar's angel.

16. King John: * My conscience whispers in your ear.

Thou dost shame thy mother, and wound her honour, with this diffidence.

They shoot but calm words folded up in smoke, to make a faithless error of your ears.

Here's a large mouth indeed, that spits forth death and mountains, rocks and seas, and talks familiarly of roaring lions as maids do talk of puppy-dogs! * I am stifled with the smell of sin.

You are a resolved villain whose bowels suddenly burst out.

Do you not read some tokens of my son in the large composition of this man?

That yon green boy shall have no sun to ripe the bloom that promiseth a mighty fruit.

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* Kneel thou down now, and rise more great.

Like hoarding abbots are we. * Like imprisoned angels set at liberty. * The fat ribs of peace must now, by the hungry, be fed upon.

He did with his iron tongue and brazen mouth sound on into * the drowsy race of night.

A passion hateful to my purposes.

Using conceit alone, thou couldst see me without eyes, hear me without thine ears, and make reply without a tongue. * He is a very serpent in my way.

Wheresoever this foot of mine doth tread he lies before me * in my way.

The peace of heaven is theirs that lift their swords in such a * just and charitable war. * With the burden of our armor, here we sweat. * This toil of ours should be a work of thine.

The swords of soldiers are his teeth, his fangs; but now he feasts, mousing on the flesh of men.

The sea enraged is not half so deaf, lions more confident, mountains and rocks more free from motion, than you in your belief.

Drawn in the flattering table of her eye! Hanged in the frowning wrinkle of her brow and quartered in her heart!

From a resolved and honorable war, to a most base and vile* concluded peace.

Whiles I am a beggar, I will rail and say there is no sin but to be rich; and being rich, my virtue then shall be to say there is no vice but beggary.

Go, bear him in thine arms. * I lose my way among the thorns and dangers of this world.

As doth the fury of two desperate men which at their very * meeting, fall and die. * He is full of unpleasing blots and sightless stains.

Only when you are patched with foul moles and eye* offending marks will I be much contented. * Grief fills the room up of my absent child. * There is such disorder in my wit.

On peril of a curse, let go the hand of that arch-heretic. * All form is formless, and order, orderless.

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Be champion of our church, or let the church, our mother, breathe her curse, a mother’s curse, on her revolting son.

France, thou mayst hold a serpent by the tongue, a chafed lion by the mortal paw, a fasting tiger safer by the tooth, * than you can keep in peace the hand which thou dost hold.

For that which thou hast sworn to do is not amiss when it is truly done. * Arm thyself against these giddy, loose suggestions.

The peril of our curses fall on thee so heavy as thou shalt not shake them off, and in despair, die under their black weight.

Lady, you utter madness, and not sorrow.

You hold too heinous a respect for grief.

Before the curing of a strong disease, even in the instant of repair and health, the fit is strongest.

Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale, vexing the dull ear of a * drowsy man. * Strong reasons makes for strong actions!

It startles mine eyes, and makes me more amazed than if I'd * seen the vaulty top of heaven. * So, noble men can knit your sinews to the strength of mine.

I hope your warrant will bear out the dead.

Must you with hot irons burn out both mine eyes?

The breath of heaven hath blown his spirit out, and strewed * repentant ashes on his head.

His passion is so ripe, it needs to break.

He hath left it so shapeless and so rude.

17.The Tragedy of King Lear: Meantime, we shall express our darker purpose.

Shake all cares and business from our age and confer them on younger strengths.

Better thou hast not been born than not to have pleased me * better.

Dost thou call me fool, boy?

Ingratitude, thou marble-headed fiend, is more hideous than * a sea monster when shown in a child. * Thou hast the power to shake my manhood.

O how this mother swells up toward my heart!

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She looked black upon me and stuck me with her tongue most serpent-like upon my very heart.

May all the stored vengeances of heaven fall on her ingrateful top! Strike her young bones!

You nimble lightnings, dart your blinding flames into her scornful eyes! Infect her beauty!

Thou art a bile, a plague-sore, an embossed carbuncle, in my corrupted blood.

Man's life is cheap, as cheap as a beast's.

What stirs these daughters' hearts against their father?

Touch me with noble anger.

Beware! Let not women's weapons, her water drops, stain man's checks!

I love you more than word can wield the matter, and dearer than eyesight, space and liberty.

* A love that makes breath poor and speech unable.

With men so disordered, so deboshed and bold, our very court is so infected with their manners.

Kill thy physician, and rather bestow the fee upon the foul * disease itself.

That such a slave as this should wear a sword, who wears no honesty. Such smiling rogues as these are like rats.

Sir, 'tis my occupation to be plain.

I have seen better faces in my time than stand on any * shoulder that I see before me now. * Sir, I am too old to learn. * Out of heaven's benediction comes the warm sun. * Nothing but misery believes in miracles. * All the power of his wits have given way to his impatience.

The gods reward your kindness! * The rack of this tough world will stretch him out further. * A tardiness in nature often leaves the history unspoken.

Fairest, Cordilia, that art most rich, but poor; most choice, * yet most forsaken; and most loved, yet most despised! * Whatever is lawful and cast away, I take up.

Like a sister, I am most loath to call your faults. * As mad and vexed as the sea and sighing aloud.

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It would make a great gap in your own honor, and would shake to pieces, the heart of his obedience.

We make guilty of our disasters.

We are the fools by heavenly compulsion.

We are obedient to planetary influence.

All that we are evil is by divine thrusting.

My father compounded with my mother under a dragon's tail.

This shortness of time hath qualified the heat of his displeasure.

The speed of his rage now goes slower.

His nature is so far from doing harms.

The enemy's in view; draw up your powers!

Here is the guess of their true strength and forces.

Age has charms in it.

Though the wisdom of nature can reason it thus and thus, yet nature finds itself.

Love cools, friendship falls off, and brothers divide.

We have seen the best of our time: now machinations, hollowness, treachery, and all ruinous disorders follow us quietly to our graves.

The night comes on and the bleak winds do sorely ruffle.

I like not this unnatural dealing.

The pain of perpetual displeasure.

Neither to speak of him, entreat for him, nor any way sustain him.

As flies are to wanton boys, we are we to the gods: they kill us for their sport.

"Tis the plague of the times, when madmen lead the blind.

Bring me to the very brim of it.

I'll repair the misery thou dost bear with something rich.

Let us frustrate his proud will.

What serious contemplation are you in?

I'll take the basest and poorest shape. My face I'll grime with filth, blanket my loins and elf my hair in knots.

The winds and persecutions of the sky.

Let not the creaking of shoes nor the rustling of silks betray thy poor heart to a woman.

Fie, fah, and fum, I smell the blood of a British man.

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Have more than thou showest, speak less than thou knowest, lend less than thou owest, ride more than thy goest, learn more than thou trowest, set less than thou throwest.

Leave thy drink and thy whore and stay indoors, and thou shalt have no more than two tens to a score..

You have seen the sunshine and the rain at once, both in her smiles and tears.

I will have my revenge, ere I depart this house.

You’re not worth the dust which the rude wind blows in your face.

Blasts and fogs upon thee!

He is mad who trusts in the tameness of a wolf, a horse's health, a boy's love, or a whore's oath.

Nothing can come of nothing.

I fear your disposition.

Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile; filth savors itself.

The heavens do not send quickly down their visible spirits to tame these vile offences.

Humanity will prey on itself like monsters of the deep.

Let these bands obey my blood.

A woman's shape does shield her.

Lords and knobble friends know their intent.

* There is somehow comfort in this great decay around us.

This power will close the eye of anguish.

18. Love's Labor Lost: Let fame that we all hunt after in our lives, register brazen upon our tombs, and let it grace us with the disgrace of * death.

It's a war against our own affections and the huge army of the world's desires.

He is like an envious sneaping frost that bites the first-born infants of the spring!

He hath a mint of phrases in his brain and the sweet music of * his own vain tongue.

Both right and wrong chose a man of compliments as the * umpire of their mutiny.

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In high-born words, the real worth of many a good knight is lost in the world's debate.

Our sentence is to fast a week on bran and water.

So sweet a kiss the golden sun does give to those fresh morning drops upon the rose.

Thy face gives light to me even through these tears of mine.

Ride triumphant in my woe and add to your glory with my grief.

Either a true man or a thief gallops so.

She is only an attending star to the moon, whose light can scarce be seen.

Black is the badge of hell, the hue of dungeons and the school of night.

It's a blister on his sweet tongue.

When it hath won the thing it hunteth most, 'tis won as towns with fire are won, but yet so lost.

Beauty doth varnish age as if new-born and gives the crutch the cradle's infancy.

O, it is the sun that makes all things shine!

The Devil's temptation resembles the spirits of the light.

He is the lord of folded arms and the anointed sovereign of sighs and groans!

She has two pitched balls stuck in her face for eyes.

God give us grace to groan!

* Dare not to come in rain, for fear your colors wash away.

Love first learned in a lady's eyes, lives not just in the brain, but with the motion of all the elements.

A lover's eyes will gaze an eagle blind and a lover's ear will * hear the lowest sound.

Love's feeling is more soft and sensible than the tender horns of cockled snails.

When love speaks, the voice of all the gods make heaven * drowsy with its harmony.

They are the books, the arts, and academes, that show, contain and nourish all the world.

Justice always whirls in equal measure.

O, never will I trust again to speeches penned, nor to the motion of a school boy's tongue!

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* Honest plain words best pierce the ear of grief.

Your beauty hath deformed us to the opposed end of our intents.

Love is full of unbefitting strains, all wanton as a child, skipping and vain, formed by the eye, and therefore like the eye, full of straying shapes, of habits and of forms, varying in subjects as the eye doth roll.

Those heavenly eyes that look into these faults.

The error that love makes is likewise yours.

Behold the windows of my heart-my eyes-they hold the * answer that you seek.

How hast thou purchased this experience?

What strong sign is it when a man of great spirit grows * melancholy?

My father's wit and my mother's tongue assist me!

My penny of observation.

A message well sympathized is a horse ambassador for an ass.

Beauty is bought by judgment of the eye not by the base use of a chapman's tongue.

None are so surely caught as when wit turns the fool.

Your favors are ambassadors of love.

I shall shut myself up in a morning house raising tears of lamentation of past remembrances. * He has the most power to do the most harm.

He hath the wit to make an ill shape good.

He hath the look and shape to win her grace, though he has no wit.

I shall darkly end this argument.

The thousand verses of a faithful lover.

Ay, my continent of beauty. * O thou monster Ignorance, how deformed thou doest look!

This is a gift that I have: a foolish extravagant spirit, full of forms, figures, shapes, objects, apprehensions, motions and revolutions. * The good luster of conceit pearl enough for a swine. * Who that understands thee not, loves thee not.

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Sir, he has never fed on the dainties that are bred in books.

He has never fed on paper or drunk its ink. His intellect is not replenished. He is an animal − only sensible in the duller parts.

I praise God for you, sir. Your statements have been sharp and sententious, pleasant without scurrility, witty without affection, audacious without impudency, learned without opinion and strange without heresy.

I fear these stubborn lines lack the power to move.

Empress of my love!

The lover, sick to death, wished himself the heaven's breath.

I'll turn mortal for thy love.

Dark needs no candles now, for dark is light.

I never knew a man to hold such vile stuff so dear.

Apology is a salve for perjury.

Walk aside the true folk, and let the traitors stay.

They are worse fools to purchase such mockery.

My face is but a moon and clouded too.

Love's argument should first come on foot rather than on high horseback.

I'll change my black, rich gown and jewelry for a faithful friend.

19. Macbeth: When shall we three meet again in thunder, lightning, or in * rain? * When the hurly-burly's done, when the battle’s lost and won.

Give me the knowledge of the broil as thou didst leave it last. * I am faint; and my gashes cry for help.

If you can look into the seeds of time and say which grain will * grow and which will not, speak then to me.

What at first seemed corporal and sturdy, melted as breath * into the wind.

Have we eaten on the insane root that takes our reason * prisoner?

Why do you dress me in these borrowed robes?

That horrid image doth unfix my hair and make my seated heart knock at my ribs?

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Come what come may, time and the hour runs through even the roughest day.

Nothing in his life became him as much as his leaving it. He * died as one that had been studied in his death. * There’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face.

He was a gentleman on whom I built an absolute trust.

Sun and stars, please hide your fires; let not light see my black and deep desires.

I fear thy nature it is too much full of the milk of human * kindness.

Thou wouldst be great, without ambition: and without the illness that does attend it.

Direst cruelty makes thick my blood.

You wait on nature’s mischief. Come, thick night, and pall thee in the dunnest (thickest) smoke of hell, so that my keen knife sees not the wound it makes, nor heaven peeps through the blanket of the dark to cry ‘hold, hold!’ Stop this mischief! * Your face is as a book where men may read strange matters.

To beguile the time, look like the time; bear welcome in your eye, your hand, your tongue; look like the innocent flower, * but be the serpent under it.

Bid God yield us for your pains and thank us for your trouble.

The sightless couriers of the air, shall blow the horrid deed in * every eye and tears shall drown the wind. * I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent.

I have given suck, and know how tender ‘tis to love the babe that milks me. But I've also plucked my nipple from his * boneless gums and dashed his brains out.

I go, and it is done; the bell invites me with its knell and * summons me to heaven or to hell.

By the pricking of my thumb something wicked comes this * way. * Fit to govern but not to live.

Eye of newt, and toe of frog, wart of bat, tongue of dog, adders folk, and blind-worms' stings, lizards legs and howlets' wings − for a charm of powerful trouble, like hellbroth boil and bubble.

The bell invites me.

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* False face must hide what the false heart doth know.

The bell invites me.

Wash this filthy witness from your hand.

‘Tis safer to be that which we destroy than by destruction * dwell in doubtful joy. * We have only scorched the snake, not killed it.

Our poor malice remains in danger of her former tooth. * The affliction of these terrible dreams shake us nightly.

Better be with the dead, whom we have killed than to suffer the living tortures of the mind.

Come on, my gentle lord, sleek o’er your rugged looks-be bright and jovial among your guests to-night.

Make your faces vizards (masks) to our hearts, disguising as * they are. * O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!

The food of the day begin to droop and drowse, while night’s black agents rouse to their preys. * The fit is momentary; upon a thought he will again be well. * You shall offend him and extend his passion. * This is the very painting of your fear.

O, these flaws and starts would well become a woman’s story at a winter’s fire.

You think that something such as this can overcome us like a * summer’s cloud without our special wonder?

How can you see such sights and keep the natural ruby of * your cheeks when mine is blanched with fear? * They say that blood will have blood. * Stones have been known to move and trees to speak.

How did you dare to trade and traffic with Macbeth in riddles and affairs of death; and I, the mistress of your charms, the close contriver of all harms.

Your vessels and your spells provide.

Great business must be wrought in time before is shown the corner of the moon. * Security is a mortal's chiefest enemy.

Double, double, toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron * bubble. * Fillet of a fenny snake, in the cauldron boil and bake.

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How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags, what is it you do?

Who can impress the forest, and bid the tree unfix his earthbound root? Rebellious dead arise.

His flight was madness. When our actions do not, our fears do make us traitors.

Why do I put up that womanly defense?

Let us seek out some desolate shade, and there, weep our sad bosoms empty.

Each new morn new widows howl, new orphans cry, new sorrows strike heaven on her face.

This tyrant, whose sole name blisters our tongues, was once thought honest.

It weeps, it bleeds, and each new day a gash is added to her wounds.

More often upon her knees than on her feet, she died every day she lived.

With this strange virtue, he hath a heavenly gift of prophecy.

Almost afraid to know itself.

It cannot be called our mother, rather our grave.

It is a place where signs and groans, and shrieks that rent the air, are made, not marked; and where violent sorrow dwells.

Now is the time to create soldiers of us, and make our women fight to doff their dire distresses.

I cannot but remember such things; they were the most precious to me − never to experience again.

Did heaven look on, and refuse to help?

Not for their own demerits, but for mine, did slaughter fall on their souls. Heaven rest them now!

The smell of the blood is still in these hands. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten them.

With a sigh the heart is sorely charged.

For the dignity of the whole body, I should not have such a black heart in my bosom.

He cannot buckle his distempered cause within the belt of rule.

Now does he feel his secret murders sticking on his hands.

They come! Our castle’s strength will laugh this siege to scorn. Here let them lie till famine and the ague eat them up.

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20. Measure for Measure: You are always figuring diseases in me; but thou are full of error.

I have purchased many diseases under her roof.

I pray a thousand prayers for thy death.

Show your sheep-biting face, and be hanged within the hour!

Good counselors never lack clients.

Though you change your place, you need not change your trade.

Courage! There will be pity taken on you; you that have been almost worn out in good service.

Acquaint her with the danger of my state.

It's like an overgrown lion in a cave.

When terror is not in use, in time, the rod becomes more mocked than feared; when our decrees are dead to infliction, they themselves are dead, and when liberty plucks Justice by the nose; and the baby beats the nurse, so to goes all decorum.

Who would ambush my name and do it slander?

Tongues, far from the heart, play with virgins so.

Does he blunt his natural edge with profits of the mind?

Assay the power you have.

We must not make a scarecrow of the law, setting it up to fear the birds of prey, or let it keep but one shape 'till custom makes it their perch and not their terror.

* 'Tis one thing to be tempted, but another thing to fall.

Some rise by sin, and some fall by their virtues; some run wild with vice, and answer to none, yet some are * condemned for one fault and our fault alone.

Mercy is not itself, what it oft appears; pardon is oft the * nurse of a second woe.

There is no remedy.

Well, believe this, no ceremony is worth it: not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword, the marshal's truncheon, not the judge's robe.

O, it is excellent to have a giant's strength, but it is tyrannous * to use it like a giant! * Out damned spot!

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Such gifts that heaven shared with you.

Give me what I ask or, with an outstretched throat, I'll tell the world aloud what kind of man thou art.

He will not only die the death, but by thy unkindness his death shall draw out to a lingering sufferance.

The miserable have no other medicine, but only hope: I have hope to live, but I am prepared to die.

In this life lie hid, more than a thousand deaths; Death makes these odds all even.

To sue to live, I find I seek to die; and seeking death, find life: let it come on.

It is no remedy to save a head and cleave a heart in twain.

I will encounter darkness as a bride, and hug it in mine arms.

It's a pond as deep as Hell.

O! Were it but my life, I'd throw it down for your deliverance and salvation as frankly as I would a pin.

Is this not a kind of incest, to take life and pleasure from thy own sister's shame?

Grace, being the soul of your complexion, shall keep the body of it, forever fair.

As the idle spider's strings draw in most ponderous and substantial things; I too must apply craft against my vices.

I'll make bad good, and good provoke to harm.

A feather can turn a scale.

I will lay myself in hazard.

Truly, sir, I would desire you to clap into your prayers: for look you, the warrant's come.

He that drinks all night, and is hanged in the morning, may sleep the sounder all the next day.

Sir, your company is fairer than honest.

How might she tongue me next?

I have seen corruption boil and bubble, till it overran the stew.

He slipped so grossly, both in the heat of blood, and in the lack of tempered judgment.

It sticks so deeply in my prominent heart, that I crave death more willingly than mercy.

What's mine is yours, and what's yours is mine.

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21. The Merchant of Venice: Such vinegar aspect they have that they’ll not show their teeth in the way of any smile.

Let me play the fool, with mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come, and let my liver heat with wine.

O my Antonio, I do know of those that are reputed wise for saying nothing.

He speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more than any man in all Venice. His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff; you shall seek all day ere you find them, and when you have them, they are not worth the search.

The man that hath no music in himself is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils.

But my chief care is to come fairly off from these great debts.

Sometimes from her eyes I did receive fair and speechless messages.

By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is aweary of this great and heavy world.

If only your miseries were in the same abundance as your good fortunes.

Superfluity comes sooner by white hairs, but competency lives longer.

If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels would be churches, and poor men’s cottages princes’ palaces. It is a good divine that follows his own instructions.

Though the brain may devise laws for the blood, hot tempers leap o’er cold decrees: as a young hare skips o’er the good counsel of a cripple.

He is every man in no man. He will fence with his own shadow.

Ships are but boards, and sailors but men.

I will buy with you, sell with you, talk with you, walk with you, and so following; but I will not eat with you, drink with you, nor pray with you.

The devil can cite Scripture for his own purpose.

An evil soul can produce holy witness, like a villain with a smiling cheek: a goodly apple rotten at the heart. O, what a goodly outside does falsehood have!

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Why, look you, how you storm!

I cannot forget the shames that you have stained me with.

A pound of man’s flesh taken from a man is not so estimable or profitable as is the flesh of muttons, beefs, or goats.

I say, to buy his favor, I extend this friendship. If he will take it, so; if not, adieu.

Let us make incision for your love to prove whose blood is reddest, his or mine.

By nice direction of a maiden’s eyes.

For the heavens, rouse up a brave mind.

I lose my hopes.

I will wear prayer books in my pockets and look demurely.

These foolish drops do something to drown my manly spirit.

Alack, what heinous sin is in me, to be ashamed to be my father’s child!

But though I am a daughter to his blood, I am not to his manners.

If e’er her father, the Jew, were to get to heaven, it will be for his gentle daughter’s sake.

There is some ill a-brewing towards my rest.

I did dream of money bags tonight.

A proverb is never stale in a thrifty mind.

Who riseth from a feast with the keen appetite that he first sits down with?

But love is blind and lovers cannot see the pretty follies that they themselves commit.

This casket threatens me.

Men that hazard all, do it in hope of fair advantages.

A golden mind stoops not to shows of dross; or sinful thought!

Never so rich a gem was set in worse than gold.

All that glisters is not gold.

Farewell to heat, and welcome to the frost.

Give him a gentle riddance.

Draw the curtains and let all of his complexion choose me so.

The candle sings to the moth. O, these deliberate fools!

When they do choose, they have the wisdom by their wit to lose.

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If it feeds nothing else, it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me; hindered me half a million; laughed at my losses; mocked at my gains; scorned my nation; thwarted my bargains; cooled my friends; and heated mine enemies-and what’s his reason? I am a Jew. The world is still deceived with ornaments. A thing so tainted and corrupt, being seasoned with a gracious voice, obscures the show of evil?

It hides its grossness with fair ornaments.

There is no vice so simple that does not show but some mark of virtue on its outward parts.

How many cowards, whose hearts are all as false as stairs of sand, wear yet false bravery on their chins?

It is a guiled and deceiving shore to a most dangerous sea.

Cunning times put on the seeming truth to entrap the wisest.

How all the other passions pale compare and fleet to air, as doubtful thoughts, and rash-embraced despair, and shuddering fear, and green-eyed jealousy!

Here are severed lips, parted with sugar breath so sweet.

Here in her hair, the spider weaves a golden mesh to entrap the hearts of men faster than gnats in cobwebs.

Madam, you have bereft me of all my words-only my blood speaks to you in my veins, and there is such confusion in my powers.

Swearing oaths of love till my very roof was dry.

Never shall you lie by her side with an unquiet soul.

You shall have gold to pay the petty debt twenty times over.

My ships have all miscarried, my creditors grow cruel and my estate is very low.

Thou calledst me a dog before thou hadst a cause, but, since I am a dog, beware my fangs.

I'll not be made a soft and dull-eyed fool, to shake the head, relent, and sigh, and yield.

How little cost I have bestowed in purchasing the semblance of my soul.

I go with all convenient speed.

We’ll see our husbands before they think of us.

This making of Christians will raise the price of hogs.

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He finds the joys of heaven here on earth; so it stands to reason, he should never come to heaven.

No lawful means can carry me out of envy’s reach.

I do oppose my patience to his fury, and am armed to suffer his tyranny and rage with a quietness of spirit.

Glancing an eye of pity on his losses.

Turks and Tartars were never trained to offices of tender courtesy.

This is no answer, thou unfeeling man, to excuse the current of thy cruelty!

The weakest kind of fruit drops earliest to the ground, and so let me.

The hangman’s axe bears only half the keenness of thy sharp envy.

Can no prayers pierce thee?

I hold opinion with Pythagoras, that souls of animals infuse themselves into the trunks of men.

Thou but offendest thy lungs to speak so loud.

Repair thy wit, good youth, or it will fall to cureless ruin.

I stand here for law.

Curb this cruel devil of his will.

How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!

Look how far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

When the moon shone, we could not see the candle.

I am the unhappy subject of these quarrels.

I know not why I am so sad.

The whole world is stage, where every man must play a part, and mine a sad one.

Let me play the fool.

When I ope my lips, let no dog bark!

My little body is aweary of this great world.

God made him and therefore let him pass for a man.

It is a wise father that knows his own child.

Truth will come to light.

Hath not a Jew eyes?

Tell me, where is fancy bred.

The sins of the father are laid upon his children.

I never knew so young a body with so old a head.

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The quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth like gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath. It is twice blest. It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.

I am never merry when I hear sweet music The moon sleeps and will not be awaked.

You only are reputed wise for saying nothing.

God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man.

When he is at his best he is little worse than a man, and when he is worse he is little better than a beast.

You are the portrait of a blinking idiot.

These are a sort of men whose visages do cream and mantle like a standing pond.

22. The Merry Wives of Windsor:

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The gentleman had drunk himself out of his five senses.

The sweet woman leads an ill life with him.

Master, I desire more acquaintance of you.

I will stare him out of his wits. I will awe him with my cudgel; and hang like a meteor o’er him.

My heart is ready to crack with impatience.

See the hell of having a false woman! My bed shall be abused, and my coffers ransacked.

I will rather trust a Fleming with my butter, a Welshman with my cheese, an Irishman with my aqua-vitae bottle, or a thief to walk my ambling gelding, than my wife with herself.

Better three hours too soon than a minute too late.

Well, if I be served such another trick, I’ll have my brains taken out and buttered, and give them to a dog for a new year’s gift.

Your sorrow hath eaten up my sufferance.

I have suffered more for their sakes, than a man’s disposition is able to bear.

I witnessed the guiltiness of my mind, and the sudden surprise of my powers.

When night-dogs run, all sorts of deer are chased.

Let vultures gripe thy guts!

His guts are made of puddings We cannot misuse him enough.

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Why, then the world's mine oyster, which I with sword will open.

Love, like a shadow flies, when love pursues, pursuing that which flies, and flying that which pursues.

I could drive her then from the ward of her purity, her reputation, her marriage-vow, and a thousand other of her defenses. Her defenses are now too, too strongly embattled against me. * He is as slanderous as Satan.

He is as wicked as his wife. * He shall die a flea’s death.

Methinks his flesh is punished now enough to have no more of such desires.

He is as poor as Job. 23. A Midsummer's Night Dream: I wooed thee with my sword and won thy love doing thee injuries. * Love looks not with eyes but with the mind.

Lord, what fools these mortals be!

The course of true love never did run smooth.

I know not by what power I am made bold, nor how it may concern my modesty.

In your presence I am here to plead my thoughts. * *

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Can you endure the livery of a nun, and live a barren sister all your life, chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon?

Being overfull of self-affairs, my mind did lose it.

The moon, the governess of floods, pale in her anger and washes all the air.

I am your spaniel; and the more you beat me the more I will fawn on you. Use me but as your spaniel, spurn me, strike me, neglect me, lose me; only give me leave, unworthy as I am, to follow you.

Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit.

I am sick when I do look on thee and I am sick when I look not on you.

You do impeach your modesty too much.

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Do not commit yourself into the hands of one that loves you.

Trust not the opportunity of night and the ill counsel of a desert place with the rich worth of your virginity.

And with the juice of this I’ll streak her eyes and make her full of hateful fantasies.

Who'll not exchange a raven for a dove?

Reason becomes the marshal to my will.

A serpent ate my heart away and you sat there smiling.

I almost swoon with fear.

What angel wakes me from my flowery bed?

Scorn and derision never come in tears.

You do advance your cunning more and more, so much that truth kills truth.

I am sure you hate me with your heart.

He conjures tears up in a poor maid’s eyes.

Have you no modesty, no maiden shame, no touch of bashfulness?

Will you tear impatient answers from my gentle tongue?

You are the king of shadows.

These lovers seek a place to fight in private.

This makes my eyeballs roll with wonted sight.

When they next wake, all this derision shall seem a dream and fruitless vision.

And then I will her charmed eye release from monster’s view, and all things shall be at peace.

Night’s swift dragons quickly cut the clouds full fast.

I am feared in both field and town.

Goblin, lead these dragons to their purpose.

He goes before me and dares me on. And when I come where he calls, he is gone.

You are ill met by moonlight. (How not nice to meet you.)

How low am I? I am not yet so low that my nails cannot reach unto thine eyes.

He's the King of Shadows.

One sees more devils than vast hell can hold Well moused, Lion! (Toying like a cat with a mouse.)

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With the help of a surgeon he might yet recover, and prove an ass.

The villain is much lighter-heeled than I. I followed fast, but * faster did he fly.

Come though gentle day and show me thou gray light. * Here she comes, curst and sad. * Cupid is a knavish lad, who makes poor females mad.

Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, and such shaping fantasies, that apprehend more than cool reason could ever comprehend.

The lunatic, the lover and the poet are all compact, and all * the same.

Mad men see more devils than all of hell can hold. * To the lover, all as frantic. * Such tricks hath strong imagination.

In night and fear and imagining, how easy is a bush supposed * a bear! * How shall we find the concord of this discord?

There are men who never labored in their minds till now. * I toil among my unbreathed memories. * Be kind and give them thanks for nothing.

Our sport shall be to take what they mistake and miss.

Great clerks have purposed to greet me with premeditated welcomes; and I have seen them shiver look pale and make * periods in the midst of sentences. * Out of this silence I still picked a welcome.

Love, is tongue-tied simplicity − speaking least speaks, the * most. * If we offend, it is with our good will.

To show our simple skill, will be the true beginning of our * end.

He hath let his prologue speak like a rough colt; and knows not how or when to stop it. * It is not enough to speak, but to speak the truth.

Indeed he hath played on his prologue like a child on a recorder; a sound, but not in government.

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You wonder at this show; but wonder on, till truth make all things plain.

Which lion vile with bloody mouth did stain.

You O sweet and lovely wall, show me thy chink, to blink through with mine eyne (eyes)!

You O wicked wall, through whom I see no bliss! Cursed be thy stones for thus deceiving me!

The very best of a beast, my lord, that e’er I saw.

This lion is a very fox for his valor and a goose for its direction.

The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve.

The heavy gait of night closes in on me.

The blots of Nature’s hand shall not be in their issue; never mole, harelip, nor scar, nor mark prodigious, such as are despised in nativity shall be upon their children.

With unearned luck we can hope to escape the serpent’s tongue.

The morning, with her cheerful light, had driven the stars aside.

In the ocean falls to rest the day, and night from thence doth rise.

Love has made her bold and the lioness comes, all foaming, and all smeared with blood from the wood.

Cowards wish for death.

Black is the color of thy fruit.

Her sword is yet warm with slaughter of her love.

The course of true lover never did run smooth.

So quick do bright things come to confusion.

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, and therefore winged Cupid is painted blind.

Over hill, over dale, thorough bush, thorough brier, over park, over pale, thorough flood and thorough fire I wander everywhere.

I'll meet by moonlight, proud Titania.

You spotted snakes with double tongue, and thorny hedgehogs. Newts and blindworms, do no wrong.

Come not near our Fairy Queen.

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Lord, what fools these mortals be!

And though she be but little, she is fierce.

This is the true beginning of our end.

If we shadows have offended, we do apologize.

24. Much Ado About Nothing: A victory is twice itself when the achiever brings home full numbers.

An overflow of kindness.

Few of any sort and none of name have been lost.

O. What men dare do! What men may do, not knowing what they do!

Done to death by slanderous tongues.

Some Cupids kill with arrows, and some with traps.

Let every eye negotiate for itself and trust no agent; for beauty is a witch against whose charms faith melteth in blood.

There are no faces truer than those that are so washed.

How much better is it to weep at joy than to joy at weeping.

Never came to trouble my house with the likeness of your grace.

Trouble being gone, comfort should remain; but when you depart from me, sorrow abides and happiness takes his leave.

Death is the fairest cover for her shame.

I pray thee, cease thy counsel, which falls into mine ears as profitless as water in a sieve.

When he groans, please patch his grief with proverbs, and make his misfortune drunk.

We are flesh and blood; and so there was never yet philosopher that could endure a toothache patiently.

Thy slander hath gone through her heart, and now she lives buried with her ancestors, in a tomb where never scandal slept.

I thank thee for thy care and honest pains.

He hath borne himself beyond the promise of his age.

He wears his faith as a fashion of his hat; it ever changes with the next block.

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I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than hear a man swears that he loves me.

He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man; and he that is more than a youth is not for me, and he that is less than a man, I am not for him. Therefore, I will even take sixpence in earnest and lead his apes into hell. (Unmarried women were said to be fated to lead apes to hell.)

What fire is in mine ears? Rumors are the fires in my ears!

Can the world buy such a jewel?

All hearts in love use their own tongues. Let every eye negotiate for itself and trust no agent; for beauty is a witch against whose charms faith melteth into blood. This is an accident of hourly proof.

Two bears will not bite one another when they first meet.

Not to be married, not to knit my soul to an approved wanton.

For thee, I'll lock up all the gates of love; and on my eyelids conjecture shall hang and turn all beauty into thoughts of harm.

O noble sir, your overkindness doth wring tears from me!

So the life that died with shame lives in death with glorious fame.

But speak you this with sad brow?

It is an opinion that fire cannot melt out of me; and I will die in it at the stake.

I will do myself the right to trust none.

Pluck off the bull's horns and set them in your forehead.

She speaks poniards, and every word stabs.

I will fetch for you a toothpicker now from the furthest inch of Asia, bring you the length of Prester John's foot, fetch you a hair off the great Cham's (Kublai Khan’s) beard, send a message to the Pygmies, rather than hold three words' conference with this harpy (a rapacious monster).

I must not seem proud.

Happy are they that hear their detractions and can put them to mending.

I am so attired in wonder that I know not what to say.

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I will deal with this in secrecy and justly as your soul should with your body.

Thy wit is as quick as the greyhound's mouth.

If a man does not erect his tomb in his own age ere he dies, he shall have as his monument, no more than a ringing bell and a weeping widow.

In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke.

I would have thought her spirit would have been invincible against all assaults of affection.

She shall be buried with her face upwards.

His speech runs like iron through your blood.

He is composed and framed of treachery and feeds upon his villainy.

Why, what's the matter, that you have such a February face, so full of frost, of storm, and cloudiness?

* I had rather be a canker in a hedge than a rose in his grace.

I am trussed only with a muzzle and enfranchised with a clog; Therefore I have decreed not to sing in my cage. If I had my mouth, I would bite; if I had my liberty, I would do my liking.

In the meantime let me be what I am, and seek not to alter * me. * Can you make no use of your discontent.

Forbid the sun to enter. * So turns she every man the wrong side out.

Let him, like a covered fire, consume away in sighs, waste * inwardly. * Counsel him to fight against his passion.

What kind of catechizing call you this?

When two men ride of a horse, one must ride behind.

Pause a while, and let my counsel sway you in this case.

I'll have no man come over me! Why, shall I always keep myself below the stairs?

To be a well-favored man is the gift of fortune, but to write and read comes by nature.

They that touch pitch will be defiled. * The fashion wears out more apparel than the man.

If I were as tedious as a king, I could find in my heart to bestow it all of your worship.

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* O what men daily do, not knowing what they do!

O, that I had been writ down as an ass!

Thou hast mettle enough in thee to kill all care. * I was not born under a rhyming planet.

I see, lady, the gentleman is not in your books.

What, my dear Lady Disdain! Are you yet living?

Is it possible that disdain can die while she hath food to eat? * As merry as the day is long. * Speak low, if you speak love.

Friendship is constant in all other things save in the office * and affairs of love. * It keeps on the windy side of care. * Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more. Men are deceivers ever.

Four of his five wits went halting off, and now is the whole man governed with one.

How tartly that gentleman looks! I never can see him but I am heart-burned an hour after. * His gift is in devising impossible slanders. * The wind doesn't sit in the corner.

Contempt, farewell, and maiden pride, adieu!

25. Othello: The blood and the baseness of our nature conducts us to most preposterous conclusions.

Lust of the blood and permission of the will.

She will, just as tenderly, be lead by the nose as asses are.

O, beware my lord of jealousies. It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on. * She comes again with greedy ear, devouring my discourse. * She gave me, for my pains, a world of sighs.

She loved me for the dangers I had passed, and I loved her that she did pity them.

This is the only witchcraft I have used.

Men would rather take up broken weapons than use their hands.

O let the heavens give him defense against the elements. * I fear I have lost him on a dangerous sea.

What are ribs of oak when mountains melt on them?

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Bind all of your thoughts to your love, and to all good things.

His mind turned to how he might bring about his end.

This is a new piece of cunning.

It is a thorn in the mind.

My memories pierce like arrows.

Begin to prepare you for your ruin.

The moon held her fury, but nevertheless it burned within.

While she tried to hide her red embarrassment, he had already taken good notice of it.

She is later to die by knife or poison.

She, not thinking that she would suffer harm from it, showed the greatest sorrow.

God, the just examiner of all human souls, does not want that such monsters should go without suitable punishment.

Who is the malefactor of this evil condition?

Temptress in the kitchen, but a housewife in bed.

After every tempest there comes the calm.

The winds blow like they have waked up Death.

Let the laboring bark climb hills of seas.

This look of thine will hurl my soul from heaven.

Come let us to the castle, our war is done; the Turks are drowned.

Her eyes must be fed and what delight she shall have to look at the devil.

He leaps into my seat as soon as I leave it.

I’ll have him at my hip.

With that which he hath drunk tonight already, he’ll be full of quarrel and offense.

As low as my young mistress's dog.

A flock of drunkards.

Ah, drunk with only one cup; what an innovator it makes of her.

My dear sick fool, with whom love hath turned almost wrong side out.

My boat sails freely, both with the wind and stream.

Tis pride and lack of hard work that pulls a country down.

For my part, or any other man of quality, I hope to be saved.

Let us have no more of this. Let us to our own affairs.

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Gentlemen, let’s look to our businesses.

So mighty is he that he shakes the island.

Tis to his virtues a just equinox.

He is a soldier fit to stand with Caesar.

The thought of power and winning.

Drink shall rock the cradle tonight.

Hazard not the place you have not studied.

And still though you may be last, you shall be revered.

When his thrust contains his all, he risks dying by his own motion.

The growth and stillness of your youth is carried to these present years and will to your old age, it seems.

Persuade yourself to tell the truth.

The wind will fail and leave the job to fate, which will tear ship walls apart with swift ease and little strain.

Oh God, man sometimes puts an enemy in his mouth to steal away his brains.

To moralize stands you out of place, suspect to all.

Drink. Every inordinate cup is unblessed and the ingredient is a devil.

Good wine is a creature of God. Do not remove your baptism; it serves no purpose and may give you evil.

Devils of the blackest sins do suggest and tempt at first with heavenly shows.

I’ll pour pestilence in his ear.

The more she strains to do him good, the more she will undo her credit with him.

I will turn her virtue into pitch.

And out of her own goodness I’ll make the net that shall enmesh them all.

Your music attracts all that hears it by choice or chance.

As friendly as you appear, you shall not hold weight without substance. Like air, it does not keep its place well.

Languish in your displeasures.

That I do not speak despairingly of you, I would sooner remove my tongue.

As a penitent I come before you.

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You withdraw, as if there were some monster in this thought too sinister to be shown.

It is as if thy hast shut up in thy brain, some horrible conceit.

If thou dost love me, show me thy thought.

Whose breast is so pure, or house so clean, as to say no foul thing ever did intrude?

Do not be vicious in your guesses.

I confess: it is in the plague of my nature.

Spy not for abuses nor look for evil.

Do not build yourself a trouble out of scattering and unsure observance.

A good name in man or woman is the immediate jewel of their souls.

He who steals my purse, steals trash; but he that fetches from me my good name, robs me of what enriches me and makes me poor.

To be afflicted with the workings of only a half a brain, and released to the world both scorned and pitied, and never allowed contentment, is the curse worse than a death.

My heart has turned to stone. I strike it and it hurts my hand.

If you are fond of her iniquity, it gives you patent to offend.

If it touch not you, it comes near no one.

Are his wits safe?

Is she not light of brain?

It is not an honesty that in me speaks; rather it is the base of us, all cloaked in a presentable garb.

Wager that she is honest, and lay down my soul at stake; remove therefore, all doubtful thoughts of things elsewise and otherwise.

Thoughts annoying as summer flies. Their buzz and stings repeat without end, until a mind goes crazy.

Put in every honest hand a whip to lash the rascals naked through the world, east to west and west to east.

Do not slack your duties and pour out our treasures into foreign lands.

I have no great devotion to the dead; and yet he hath given me satisfying reasons.

Every way makes my gain.

Cassio hath been set upon in the dark.

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It is the green-eyed monster of jealousy that which doth mock the meat it feeds on.

Poor and content is rich, and rich enough.

But riches are as poor as winter to him that ever fears he shall be poor.

Good God, the souls of all my tribe defend against jealousy.

Those that make a life of jealousy follow all the changes of the moon with fresh suspicions.

To be once in doubt, is once to be resolved, and settle suspicions once and for all.

I wear out my eyes on this study and gaze, and my mind and heart drains of health the same.

I humbly do beseech you of your pardon.

She deceived you when she seemed to shake and fear your looks.

I do not wish to strain you with my speech.

I have not those soft parts of conversation that chamberers (chambermaids) have.

Tis destiny, unshunnable like death.

Go and please thy fantasy.

Not all the drowsy syrups of the world shall ever medicine a hurting soul.

If thou doest slander her, it tortures me.

On horrors head, horrors accumulate.

Do deeds to make heaven weep, and make all the earth amazed; and nothing can seal you to damnation greater than that.

I should be wise to know that full honesty is foolish and loses what it works for.

To be direct and honest is not safe.

I thank you for this profit.

Confess freely of thy sin, for to deny each article with an oath, cannot choke away the sorrow of your sentence made, as thou art fixed to die.

It is the very error of the moon, that she comes more nearer to the earth than she was wont, and makes men mad.

She is, like a liar, gone straight to hell.

An honest man is he, who hates the slime that sticks on filthy deeds.

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* Roast me in sulfur, as I deserve.

Where is that viper who goes through cracks and always in * the dark? * Let me die upon a kiss.

The world, a huge thing, and such a great price to pay for a small thing.

Hills whose heads touch heaven.

Cold, cold girl? Even like thy chastity.

Like the base Indian, who threw a pearl away richer than all * his tribe. * He plucked up kisses by the roots.

He has never felt no age nor known such sorrow as this. * Here is a young and sweating devil.

A hunt for new fancies. * Throw your vile guesses in the devil’s teeth. * Honor is an essence not seen.

It comes over my memories as doth a raven over an infectious house.

Nature would not invest herself in such a shadowing passion without some instruction. * Lethargy must have its quiet course.

Bear your fortune like a man.

There must be many beasts in a populous city, and many a * cruel monster.

Mark the sneers and notable scorn that dwells in every region of his face. Beware, he is on fire and may well strike out.

His patience is found to be most cunning. * He loveth to make my honesty a vise.

It would have been better to have been born a dog, than to * answer to my wakened wrath. * Keep that monster from his mind. * Think on thy sins.

Top (violate?) her and you shall die. * They are making of the beast with two backs. * I have charged thee not to haunt my door.

Thou hast practiced on her with foul charms, abused her delicate youth with drugs and minerals.

The English, are so exquisite in their drinking.

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* My best judgments collideth with my youthly pleasures. * Have you forgot all sense of place?

Pointing to the sins of others, is a sly distraction and takes * the finger away from you.

Honesty and love do mince the matter.

You are happy to be cruel. * Everything begins in the east.

You are light in my arms; has your spirit flown away?

You have no spirit, because sadly I had none to give you.

All around I see the signs, and feel the wind. Things are * breaking into pieces. * He shall fail in strength, like a leaf against the wind.

Thou are on thy Death bed. Sweet soul take heed, take heed of perjury.

Pernicious soul, rot you should, a half a grain a day.

He lies to the heart.

She was too fond of her most filthy bargain. * O, I am spoiled, undone by villains and inhuman dogs. * I cry for your gentle pardon.

Do you perceive the gastness of her eye?

What bloody passion shakes your very frame?

Bring me further on your way so that I may hear more the sweetness of your voice and story. * Your heart is burst; and you have lost half your soul.

Thieves! Thieves! Look to your houses, your daughters and * your bags! Thieves! Thieves!

Men, they are all but stomachs and we are all but food; They * eat us hungrily and when they are full they belch us out.

Tempests of high seas and howling winds; guttered rocks and congregated sands all about and everywhere; yet they let my * ship pass safely. * A dishonored man is both a monster and a beast.

26. Pericles, Prince of Tyre: * * * *

Death remembered should be like a mirror.

My unspotted fire of love for you.

I am no viper.

Her courtesy would seem to cover 101

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sin.

She is good in nothing but in sight.

He must not live to trumpet forth my infamy.

Poison and treason are the hands of sin.

Blush not in actions blacker than the night, which will shun no course to keep them from the light.

He flatters you, but then makes war upon your life.

Tis time to fear when tyrants seem to kiss.

The fear so grew in me, I hither fled, under the cover of a careful night, who seemed my good protector.

Drew sleep out of mine eyes, blood from my cheeks.

Musings came to mind, with a thousand doubts − how can I stop this tempest?

Who, either by public war or private treason, will take away your life?

We'll mingle our bloods together in the earth.

Til destiny does cut his thread of life.

Don't eat honey like a drone from others' labors.

How he came full bent with sin and had intent to murder him.

Wind, rain, and thunder remember that earthly man is but a substance that must yield to you.

Peace be at your labor, honest fisherman.

He's both their parent, and their grave; and he gives them what he will, not what they crave.

It is too late to talk of love.

Know that our griefs are risen to the top.

My ears were fed with such delightful pleasing harmony.

All officers bend to her honor.

I came unto your court for honor's cause and not to be a rebel to her state.

Where, by the loss of maidenhead a babe is moulded.

The deafening, dreadful thunders gently quench thy nimble sulfurous flashes.

The seaman's whistle is as just a whisper in the ears of death.

Slack the bolins (bowline knot) there!

The brine and cloudy billow kiss the moon, I care not.

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A terrible childbed hast thou had, my dear: no light, no fire, and unfriendly elements forgot thee utterly.

Bring me spices, ink and paper!

I give a priestly farewell to her.

Shake off the golden slumber of repose.

Virtue and cunning were endowments greater than nobleness and riches: careless heirs may darken and expand the latter two; but immortality attends the former, making a man good.

He stands peerless by this slaughter.

On my lame feet of rhyme Consume your blood with sorrowing.

Never were the waves nor wind more violent.

If you require a little space for prayer, I grant it.

Now, as I can remember, by my troth, I never did her hurt in all my life.

Will my death might yield her any profit, or my life imply her any danger?

Come you're a young foolish sapling that must be bowed.

Thunder shall not so awake the beds of eels as giving out her beauty stir up the lewdly-inclined.

The sun and moon have never looked upon such a piece of slaughter.

If fires be hot, knives sharp or waters deep, untied I still my virgin knot will keep.

Diana! Aid my purpose.

I do shame to think what noble strain you are.

To think what strain you are and how coward a spirit.

He did not flow from honorable sources.

She that sets seeds and roots of shame and iniquity.

If you were born to honor, show it now.

Your peevish chastity is not worth a breakfast in the cheapest country in the world.

I can compare our rich misers to nothing so filthy as to a whale: he plays and tumbles, driving the poor fry before him, and at last devours them all in a mouthful.

You poor inch of nature!

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Take her away; use her at your pleasure; crack the glass of her virginity and make the rest malleable.

Thy food is such as hath been belched on my infected lungs.

For what thou professest, a baboon could he speak!

Driven before the winds, he has now arrived.

We are not destitute for want.

For every graff (Earl?), send a caterpillar, and so inflict our province.

Let me know the cause of your king's sorrow.

The toughest of thy grief might equal mine.

Down on thy knees, I thank the holy gods as loud as thunder threatens us.

My father is dead. Heaven's make a star of him!

27. King Richard II: At the rise of this terrestrial ball of fire over the proud tops of the eastern pines and it darts its light through every guilty hole, murders, treasons, and detested sins; and, with the cloak of night being plucked from off their backs, they stand bare and naked, trembling at themselves. So it is with you.

His treasons will sit blushing in his face, not able to endure the sight of day, and self-affrighted, he trembles at his sin.

Counsel is all but vain.

He does me double wrong that wounds me with the flatteries of his tongue.

O, if I were, as great as is my grief, or lesser than my name!

Or if I could forget what I have been! Or not remember what I must be now!

I’ll give my jewels for a set of beads; My gorgeous palace for a hermitage; My gay apparel for an almsman’s gown; My figured goblets for a dish of wood; My scepter for a palmer’s walking-staff; My subjects for a pair of carved saints; and my large kingdom for a little grave, a little, little grave, an obscure grave with solace at its bottom.

My large kingdom for a little grave with peace and solace at its bottom.

* We’ll make foul weather with despised tears. * We dig our graves with weeping eyes.

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God omnipotent, is mustering in his clouds on our behalf, armies of pestilence, to strike the children yet unborn and unbegot of those who lift their vassal hands against my head, and threat the glory of my precious crown.

Must pride have a fall, and break the neck of that proud man that did usurp his back?

Every stride he makes upon my land is dangerous treason and comes to open the purple testament of a bleeding war.

Patience is stale, and I am weary of it.

My soul is set up on high, whilst my gross flesh sinks downward here to die.

I am like a beggar sitting in the stocks to refuge his shame.

In wooing sorrow, let’s be brief for since wedding it, there is such length in grief.

In winter’s tedious nights sit by the fire with good old folks, and let them tell thee tales of woeful ages long ago.

To quite their griefs, tell them the lamentable tale of me, which will send the hearers weeping to their beds.

The love of wicked men converts to fear, and fear to hate; and hate turns one or both to worthy danger and deserved death.

When I do see the very book indeed, where all my sins are writ, I shall believe it.

A brittle glory shineth in this face, cracked into a hundred shivers.

These external manners of laments are merely shadows to the unseen grief that swells with silence in my tortured soul.

There lies the substance of my grief.

Some of you, as with Pilate, wash your hands, showing an outward pity: yet you Pilates have delivered me to my sour cross and water cannot wash away your sins.

Mine eyes are full of tears, so much, that I cannot see.

If I turn mine eyes upon myself, I find myself a traitor with the rest.

Standing before you I melt myself away in water drops!

Off with his head!

A coward conscience, how dost those affect me!

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And thus I clothe my naked villainy with odd old ends stolen out of holy writs, and seem a saint, when most I play the devil.

Give sorrow time to tutor me to this submission.

I well remember the favors of these men.

Christ in twelve found truth in all but one, his Judas; but I, in twelve thousand, none.

My crown I have, but still, my griefs are mine: You may disposes my glories and my state, but you can't despose my griefs; still I am King of those.

Fear oppresseth strength, and gives more strength unto your foe; and, your follies fight against yourself. To fear and be slain, is no worse than to fight and die; as it is death destroying death; where fearing death pays death servile (servant like) breath.

Let me prophesy, that the blood of English shall manure the ground, and future ages will groan for this foul act; Peace shall go sleep with Turks and infidels. O if you shall rise up against this house, it will prove to be the woefullest division that ever fell upon this cursed earth!

And, in this seat of peace of tumultuous wars shall kin with kin, and kind with kind, confound; disorder, horror, fear, and mutiny shall here inhabit, and this land be called the field of Golgotha and the land of dead men’s skulls.

Send him many years of sunshine days, for what more remains for him?

With my dull and heavy eye I see you.

My tongue hath a heavy tale to say.

I play the torturer and, by small and small, lengthen out the worst that must be spoken.

If I do not do this, may my hands rot off and never brandish more revengeful steel over the glittering helmets of my foe.

I have a thousand spirits in one breast to answer twenty thousand such as you.

Princes and lords, what answer shall I make to this base man? Shall I give him chastisement and in doing so, much dishonor my fair stars and make him my equal?

What Eve, what serpent hath suggested thee to make a second fall of cursed man?

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My heart is not confederate with my hand.

My tongue is cleaved to the roof of my mouth.

Tie yourself to my strong correction.

Am I the last that knows of it?

O, thou thinkest to serve me last so I may longest keep my sorrow in my breast!

Have you in shape and mind been ill transformed and weakened? Hath he deposed thine intellect? Hath he been eating at thy heart?

Go thou, get the executioner and cut off the heads of the too-fast-growing sprays that look too lofty in our commonwealth: All must be even and mediocre in our government.

Root away the noisome weeds which suck the soil’s fertility from wholesome flowers.

The whole land, is full of weeds − her fairest flowers choked up, her fruit trees all unpruned, her hedges ruined, her arrangements knotted and disordered, and her wholesome herbs swarming with caterpillars.

Brazen trumpets breathe hope into ruined ears.

At his feet I will lay my arms and power, provided that my banishment is then repealed.

It is a deed of slander.

Don't put thy fatal hand upon my head.

Though I did wish him dead, and love him murdered, I hate the murderer. The guilt of conscience take thou for thy labor.

In this thought that many have and others will and must bear the same pain, they find a kind of ease, bearing their own misfortunes.

Nothing shall please a man till he be eased with being nothing.

What means this, that he stares and looks so wildly?

Let pity teach thee how.

Is not my teeming date drunk up with time?

Who are the violets now that strew the green lap of the newcome spring?

Rude misgoverned hands from their windows’ tops threw dust and rubbish on my head.

He is a serpent that will sting thee to the heart.

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* Cut off this festered joint to save the rest that's sound.

No joyful tongue gave him his welcome home; rather dust was thrown upon his sacred head; with such gentle sorrow he shook it off; his face still combating tears with smiles, the * badges of his grief and patience.

God, for some strong purpose has, steeled the hearts of * men.

Well, be cautious in this new spring of time, lest you be * cropped before you come to prime.

I see your brows are full of discontent, your hearts of sorrow, and your eyes of tears. Come home with me to supper and I * will lay a plot to show us all a merry day.

Such winds scatter young men throughout the world to seek their fortune than to stay at home where only small * experience grows. * As deaf as the sea, and as hasty as a fire.

Heaven be the record of my speech; I stuff and choke my throat with a foul traitor’s name.

With lies in their purses, those who empty them, fill hearts * with deadly hate. * Though death be poor, it ends a mortal, lingering woe.

Let it command a mirror straight; let it show me what face I have. * Being so great, I have no need to try.

Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadows which show * like grief itself.

The shadow of your sorrow hath destroyed the shadow of * your face. * Just an hour before, I saw the darkest deed be done.

What a tide of woe comes rushing in this woeful land at once; I know not what to do.

It is a woman’s war I fear the most: the bitter clamor of two * eager tongues.

I deal so much with false traitors and injurious villains. Need I * also worry about you, and others, and my kin as well?

I hear Abel’s cries: he who is my brother hurts the most and closest. * God and good men hate so foul a liar.

The serpent came to take you, but was handily turned away.

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I was detained by lewd employment.

You are not near my furthest urge.

All his bad life has built mounds which he must climb through with passage unassured; and with all his bad life he has to make good.

Into the tongueless caverns of the earth my glorious worth descends.

Thy arm must do it; before thy life be spent.

As our impartial are our eyes and ears, we, to our brothers and kin, are not.

There is honor to pounce on the distressed creatures on this earth and thirst for their blood.

One stroke of the sword rids him of his life.

Dress thyself plain and go unnoticed; and let your eyes be the jewels against your dismal background.

Shall I be crestfallen and seem beggar-like in their sight?

This pale beggar-fear impeaches my height.

I am disgraced, impeached and baffled.

I am pierced to the soul with a slanderer’s venomed spear.

How soon my sorrow hath destroyed my face.

O if I were only as great as my grief.

There is pale, cold cowardice in noble breasts.

With Cain, go wander through the shades of night.

Put your finger on the pain that hurts thy soul; a physician you need never require.

In the end only a small model of barren earth will serve as paste to cover for my bones.

I have felt the worst of death’s destroying wounds.

Seven fair branches spring from one root, some of those are dried by nature’s course; some branches are cut by destiny; and some are bloomed and fragrance full; but one branch may flourish strong, but at its highest, is crushed, hacked down, with all its summer leaves faded by Envy’s hand.

Thy sun sets weeping in the west witnessing storms to come, and woe and deep unrest.

Tears show their pain in love; but dry your eyes and look to remedies.

Let good spiders and toads do damage to these treacherous feet. But sadly it is only a distraction as they trample on.

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Let’s purge this choler without physicians letting blood. * Malice makes a deep incision.

Sorrow’s tooth never hurt more than where it bites, but, it * lances not the sore.

I am in your sorrows, poor. * Don’t look to flattery and pity as your cure.

Your fair discourse hath been like a sugar, making the hard way sweet and delectable.

With clog of conscience and some melancholy he hath yielded up his body to the grave.

Before thou do me in, permit me, return to my mother’s breast to suckle; I beg you, then you can strike me in my peace.

The hollow crown that surrounds the mortal temples of a king, keeps Death in his court.

A jewel in a ten-times-barred-up chest, is a bold spirit in a loyal breast.

Wander from the jewels you love. * Make no deal with the world.

The hateful commons will perform for us.

On the side of fright, thousands will fly farewell at once and forever.

High wild hills and rough uneven ways, draws out to miles and make them wearisome.

The household and his king have fled; our loyalty has been abandoned.

Meteors fight the fixed stars of heaven; and the pale faced moon looks boldly on the earth; lean-looked prophets whisper fearful changes; rich men look sad and ruffians dance and leap; some in fear to lose what they enjoy; others to enjoy by rage and war; these signs foreseen the death or * fall of kings. * Our countrymen are gone and fled.

Ah, Richard, with eyes of heavy mind, I see thy glory, like a shooting star, fall to the base earth from the firmament; the sun sets weeping in the lowly west witnessing storms to come, woe and unrest; and thy friends are fled and leave us * with our foes; and crossly to thy good all fortunes go. * I am prince by fortune of my birth, but by no more.

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I am near in blood and near in love as well as you.

I sighed my English breath in foreign clouds, eating the bitter bread of banishment.

As a long-parted mother with her child plays fondly with her tears and smiles on meeting, so weeping, smiling, give them my earth and do their favors with my royal hands.

Puny subjects may strike you, but remember thou art king.

My tears are like rain and my woeful sighs the wind; a tempest rages all confused.

Yield stinging nettles to mine enemies.

When the searching eye of heaven is hid behind the globe and lights the lower world, then thieves and robbers range abroad unseen in murders and in outrage boldly done.

Not all the water in the rough rude sea can wash the balm off from an anointed king.

Both young and old rebel and worse than I have power to tell.

O villains, vipers, damned without redemption!

Snakes warmed with my blood, sting my heart!

Three Judases, each one thrice worse than Judas!

Terrible Hell, make war upon their spotted souls for this!

Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and then of epitaphs; Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.

Let us chose executioners and talk of wills; but wait, for what have I to bequeath, save my deposed body to the ground?

There's nothing we can call our own, but death and that small model of the barren earth which serves as paste and cover to our bones.

Let us, upon the ground, tell sad stories of the death of kings: 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.

A thousand flatterers sit within thy crown.

You caterpillars of the commonwealth!

Boys, with women's voices, strive to speak big.

You are dogs easily won to fawn on any man.

You are snakes in my warm blood that stings my heart!

Go thou and fill another room in hell!

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And there the antic sits near the king, scoffing at his state and grinning at his pomp, allowing him breath, and infusing him with self and vain conceit.

The king appears impregnable; but comes at last, with a little * pin that bores through his castle wall-farewell dear king!

Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood with solemn reverence; throw away respect, tradition, form and ceremonious duty.

You have mistook me for a while: I live with bread like you, feel want, taste grief, needs friends. Subjected thus, how can you say to me I am king?

Your follies fight against yourself.

Impossible as managing unruly jades.

What sport shall we devise here in this garden to drive away the heavy thoughts of care?

Now, mark me how I will undo myself: I give this heavy weight, my crown, from off my head, and this unwieldy scepter from my hand; the pride of kingly sway from out my heart.

With mine own tears I wash away my balm; with mine own hands I give away my crown; with mine own tongue I deny my sacred state; with mine own breadth release all duteous oaths; all pomp and majesty I forswear; my acts, decrees, and statues I deny: all manors, rents, revenues, I forgo; my acts, decrees, and statutes I deny: God pardon all oaths that are broke to me; and send him many years of sunshine days. for I have given here my soul’s consent; undecked the pompous body of a king; I have made glory base, and sovereignty a slave, proud majesty a subject, and state a peasant.

I have worn so many winters out and know not now what name to call myself.

O, that I were a mockery king of snow, to melt myself away in water drops!

I see your brows are full of discontent, your hearts of sorrow, and your eyes of tears.

A plot to show us all a merry day.

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Hath these things deposed your intellect? Hath he been in thy heart and wounded it? As a lion dying you seem, who * thrusteth forth his paw to only wound the earth.

In winter’s tedious nights sit by the fire to quite their griefs.

Tell thou the lamentable tale of me, and send the hearers weeping to their beds, and in compassion will weep the fire out: and some will mourn in ashes, for the deposing of a rightful king.

I wasted time, and now doth Time waste me; for now Time * hath made me his numbering clock.

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28. Richard III: Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious summer by this sun of York.

Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace, have no delight to pass away the time.

‘Tis she that tempers him to this extremity.

O, he hath kept an evil diet long and much consumed.

When they are gone, then, must I count my gains.

I’ll make a corpse of him who disobeys.

Lady, you know no rules of charity, which renders good for bad, blessings for curses.

It is more wonderful, when angels are so angry.

I was provoked by her slanderous tongue that laid their guilt upon my guiltless shoulders.

Is not the causer of these timeless deaths as blameful as the executioner?

Never came poison from so sweet a place.

I cannot flatter and look fair.

Cannot a plain man live and think no harm?

I was a packhorse in his great affairs.

And with thy scorns drewest rivers from his eyes.

May you die a good old man!

Thee is the butt end of a mother’s blessing.

My oracle, my prophet!

The weary way hath made you melancholy.

Your Grace attended to their sugared words but looked not on the poison of their hearts.

His ancient knot of dangerous adversaries.

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Thou canst quake and change thy color and murder thy breath in the middle of a word.

His bestial appetite in change of lust.

He has a raging eye and a savage heart.

Since you will buckle fortune on my back, to bear her burden, I must have patience to endure the load.

Black scandal or foul-faced reproach will attend the sequel of your actions.

More pity that the eagles should be mewed (made to mew like cats), whiles kites and buzzards prey at liberty.

Cannot you sleep these tedious nights?

Tell him his fears are shallow, and without instance. No wonder he’s so simple.

To flee the boar before the boar pursues is only to more incense the boar to follow.

By his face so straight, shall you know his heart.

Who builds his hope in air of your good looks lives like a drunken sailor on a mast, ready with every nod to tumble down into the fatal bowels of the deep.

Come, lead me to the block; bear him my head. They smile at me who shortly shall be dead.

Pale ashes of the house of Lancaster.

Stabbed by the selfsame hand that made these wounds! Lo, in these windows that let forth thy life I pour the helpless balm of my poor eyes.

More direful death of thee than I can wish to wolves, to spiders, toads, or any creeping venomed thing that lives!

What black magician conjures up this fiend to stop devoted charitable deeds?

Alas, I blame you not, for you are mortal, and mortal eyes cannot endure the devil. Avaunt (Begone), thou dreadful minister of hell!

Foul devil, thou hast made the happy earth thy hell, filled it with cursing cries and deep exclaims.

If thou delight to view thy heinous deeds, behold the pattern of thy butcheries.

Blush, blush, thou lump of foul deformity.

Tis thy presence that exhales this blood from cold and empty veins where no blood dwells.

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O God, with this blood revenge his death!

Villain, thou knowest nor law of God nor man.

Even beasts so fierce know some touch of pity.

O, wonderful, when even devils tell the truth!

Murderous deeds are smoking in his blood.

Thou are so unfit for any place but hell.

These nails should rend the beauty from my cheeks.

Black night o’ershades thy day, and death thy life!

I never hung poison on a fouler toad.

Out of my sight! Thou dost infect mine eyes.

When thou weddest, let sorrow haunt thy bed.

Oh tender princes, use my babies well!

Foolish sorrows bid your stones farewell.

They are ready to catch each other by the throat.

Did her dreaded curse prevail so much with heaven.

Can curses pierce the clouds and enter heaven?

Long mayest thou live to wail thy children’s death.

I wish that none of you may live his natural age, but by some unlooked accident cut off!

The worm of conscience still begnaws thy soul!

Thy friends are suspect as the traitors, while thou livest, and take deep traitors for thy dearest friends!

It affrights me with a hell of ugly devils!

The slave of nature and the son of hell!

You poor painted queen, who vain flourishes in my fortune!

Thou slander of thy heavy mother’s womb.

My son is now in the shade of death.

As it is won with blood, so be it lost!

Thy garments are spotted with our blood.

You are within the compass of my curse.

So now prosperity begins to mellow and drop into the rotten mouth of death.

Hover 'round her; saying the right and lovely things.

Right hath dimmed your infant morn to aged night.

Earth gapes, hell burns, fiends roar and saints pray to have him suddenly conveyed from here.

Peace, peace, for shame, if not for charity!

False to his children and his wife’s allies.

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From forth the kennel of thy womb hath crept a hellhound that doth hunt us all to death. That dog, that had his teeth before his eyes to worry lambs and lap their gentle blood, that foul defacer of God’s handiwork, that excellent grand tyrant of the earth that reigns in galled eyes of weeping souls. That dog that thy womb let loose, to chase us to our graves.

You cloudy princess and heart-sorrowing peers that bear this heavy mutual load of moan.

Though we have spent our harvest of this king, we, are now to reap the harvest of his son.

If he be leaden, icy, cold, unwilling, be thou also; and so break off the talk, and give us notice of his inclination.

He is not lolling on a lewd love bed but on his knees at meditation.

Lend favorable ear to our requests, and pardon us the interruption.

If you are moody and discontented souls, do so through the clouds.

In revenge mock my destruction!

This is the day wherein I wished to fall.

Her curse falls heavy on my neck; she has split my heart with sorrow.

A virtuous and a Christian-like conclusion, is to pray for them that have done scathe to us.

We cited up a thousand heavy times.

Methought I saw a thousand wrecks and ten thousand men that fish now gnaw upon.

Now give evidence against my soul.

O God! If my deep prayers cannot appease thee, revenge my misdeeds!

Your eyes do menace me.

Why look you so pale?

Take heed; for he holds vengeance in his hand.

Sorrow breaks seasons and reposing hours, and sorrows makes the night morning and the noontide night.

How canst thou urge God’s dreadful law on us.

My brother killed no man; his fault was only thought, and yet his punishment, was a bitter death.

* It is lost sorrow to wail over one that’s lost. * Alas, I am the mother of these griefs.

I am as you threefold distressed, so pour out all your tears! I am your sorrow’s nurse, and I will pamper it with * lamentation.

O ill-dispersing wind of misery!

So many miseries have crazed my voice that my woe-wearied tongue is still and mute. * Dead life, blind sight, poor mortal-living ghost.

Thou camest on earth to make the earth my hell. A grievous * burden was thy birth to me.

I shall perish with grief and extreme age and nevermore behold thy face again. Take with thee my most grievous curse.

Whisper the spirits of thine enemies.

Ah, who shall hinder me to wail and weep, to chide my fortune and torment myself? I’ll join with black despair * against my own soul, and to myself, become an enemy. * Why grow the branches when the root is gone?

Give me no help in lamentation.

If thou can outstrip death and keep yourself from the reach * of hell, so do it. * Careful, lest thou increase the numbers of the dead.

Ah, my poor princes! Ah, my tender babes! My unblown flowers, my new-appearing sweets!

Hover about me with your air wings. Hear your mother’s lamentations!

Avoided grace makes destiny.

My babes would be destined to a fairer death, if grace had * blessed thee with a fairer life.

The murderous knife was dull and blunt till it was whetted on * thy stone-hard heart.

My nails were anchored in thine eyes; I was in a desperate bay of death. * An honest tale speeds best when plainly told.

Plain and not honest is too harsh a style.

My reasons are too deep and dead. * Poor infants, in their graves. * Thy broken faith hath made them prey for worms.

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The parents whose children thou hast butchered, live as old and barren plants, to wail it with their age.

Shall I be tempted by the devil thus?

Shall I forget myself to be myself?

Thou didst kill my children.

Look and see this troubled world.

Woe to that land that’s governed by a child!

When clouds are seen, wise men put on their cloaks; when great leaves fall, then winter is at hand; when the sun sets, who doth not look for night? Untimely storms make men expect a dearth (some loss or something bad).

By a divine instinct, men’s minds mistrust ensuing danger; as, by proof, we see the water swell before a boisterous storm.

Leave it all to God. Sweet flowers are slow while weeds make haste.

Idle weeds are fast in growth.

God keep me from false friends!

His valor did enrich his wit.

I believe I'll never stand upright till Richard wears the garland of his realm.

They, for their truth, better wear their heads than some who have accused them wear their hats.

My kingdom stands on brittle glass.

Sin, death, and hell have set their marks on him, and all their ministers attend to him.

Cancel his bond of life, dear God I pray, that I may live and say, "the dog is dead."

The world is full of thy foul wrongs.

My conscience hath a thousand several tongues, and every tongue brings in several tales, and every tale condemns you for a villain.

Uncertain is the way of gain!

I have a touch of your condition.

With a fearful soul I lead discontented steps on foreign soil.

Be eloquent in my behalf to her.

Your reasons are too shallow and too quick.

As I intend to prosper, I continue and thrive in my dangerous affairs.

Death, desolation, ruin, and decay!

* Be the attorney of my love to her.

Relenting fool, and shallow, changing woman! * There let him sink and let the seas be on him!

White-livered runagate that you are!

Shadows tonight have struck more terror into the soul of * Richard than can the substance of ten thousand soldiers.

Let not our babbling dreams affright our souls; Conscience is but a word that cowards use, devised at first to keep the strong in awe. Our strong arms be our conscience, and swords our law! March on, join bravely, let us to it pell-mell; * if not to heaven, then hand in hand to hell. * These famished beggars are weary of their lives. * A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse! * The wretched, bloody and usurping boar.

To reap the harvest of perpetual peace by this one bloody trial of sharp war.

Come into my tent; for the dew is raw and cold. Let us consult upon tomorrow’s business.

Great God of heaven, say amen to all!

England hath long been mad, and scarred herself.

Abate the edge of traitors, gracious Lord, that would reduce these bloody days again and make poor England weep in streams of blood! * He hath no friends if they only fly in the face of fear.

Thy wife, that never slept a quiet hour with thee, now fills thy sleep with perturbations. * Dream on, dream on of bloody deeds and death.

Was ever woman in this humor wooed? Was ever woman in this humor won?

The world is grown so bad that wrens make prey where * eagles dare not perch.

I clothe my naked villainy and dress myself to seem a saint * when most I play the devil. * So wise so young, they say, do never live so long.

Short summers lightly have a forward spring.

I am in so far in blood that sin will pluck on sin.

I am not in the giving vein today. * Harp not on that string.

All Souls’ Day is my body’s doomsday.

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Wrong hath but (brings) wrong, and blame the due of (brings) blame.

True hope is swift and flies with swallow’s wings; It makes kings gods and meaner creatures kings.

The King’s name is a tower of strength.

Tomorrow in the battle, think on me, and fall, thy edgeless sword. Despair and die! * O coward's conscience, how dost it so afflict me!

With their deaths, is their parents’ strife so buried too?

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29. Romeo and Juliet: You men, you beasts, that quench the fire of your pernicious rage with purple fountains issuing from your veins.

From those bloody hands throw your mistempered weapons to the ground.

An hour before the worshiped sun peered forth the golden window of the east, a troubled mind drove me to walk abroad.

What sadness lengthens all his hours?

One's pain is lessened by another’s anguish. One's desperate grief cures with another’s languish.

The mad blood stirring in these hot days.

He beats cold death aside.

Many a morning hath he there been seen, with tears augmenting the fresh morning’s dew, adding to clouds more clouds with his deep sighs.

My only love springs from my only hate! Too early seen yet known too late.

O happy dagger! This is thy sheath; there it rusts and let me die.

He that is stricken blind cannot forget the precious treasure of the sight he lost.

O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright! It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night.

My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand to smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

Do not say “banishment”. Be merciful and give me death, instead, for exile hath more terror in his look, much more than death.

But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the East, and Juliet is the sun. Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, who is already sick and pale with grief that thou, her * maid, art far more fair than she. * For stony limits cannot hold love out.

My life is better ended by their hate than death prorogued, wanting of thy love.

In such a case as mine a man may strain courtesy.

Hang up philosophy! Unless philosophy: it can never make a * Juliet!

It was the lark, the herald of the morn, no nightingale. Look, love, what envious streaks do lace the severing clouds in yonder east. Night’s candles are burnt out, and a new day stands tiptoe on the misty mountain-tops. ~I must be gone * and live, or stay and die. * I read volumes in your young face.

Cut him out in little stars, and he will make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night * and pay no worship to the sun.

Women grow by men.

Go, girl, seek happy nights to happy days.

Is your man secret? Did you ne’er hear it said: “Two may * keep counsel, putting one away?” * If love be rough with you, be rough with love. * True I talk of dreams, they are the children of an idle brain.

Appear to me my lover, in the likeness of a sigh.

Alas, poor Romeo, he is already dead, stabbed with a white wench’s black eye. He is run through the ear with a lovesong. His heart has been cleft with the blind bow − man's shaft.

What eye, but such an eye, would spy out such a quarrel? * Thy head is as full of quarrels.

To be a virtuous and well-governed youth. * O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?

They wash his wounds with tears?

He made you for a highway to my bed.

So early I was washed with loathsome smells, and shrieks like * mandrakes (plants) torn out of the earth.

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* Now, the sun advances its burning eye.

Women fall when there’s no strength in men. * O, I am fortune's fool ! * These violent delights have violent ends.

Art thou not a man? Thy tears are womanish; and thy wild acts denote the unreasonable fury of a beast.

O Juliet, I already know thy grief.

This shall not excuse the injuries that thou hast done me.

Therefore turn and draw.

Poor soul, thy face is much abused with tears.

See what a scourge is laid upon you. Heaven finds the means to kill your joys with love. They are winking at my discords * too. I have lost the brace of kinsmen.

All are punished.

A pair of star-crossed lovers.

They are the children of an idle brain, begot of nothing but vain fantasy, which is as thin a substance as the air and more * inconstant than the wind. * They have made worm's meat of me.

Thou cutest my head off with a golden axe and smilest upon * the stroke that murders me. * Sad hours seem so long.

Alas that love, so gentle in his view, should be so tyrannous and rough in proof! * I will make thee think a swan a crow. * It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night like a rich jewel.

My only love sprung from my only hate! Too early seen * unknown, and known too late! * He jests at scars that never felt a wound.

That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as * sweet. * Love goes toward love as schoolboys from their books.

How silver-sweet sound lovers’ tongues and by night. * Soft music to attending ears.

Good night, good night. Parting is such sweet sorrow that I * shall say “Good night” till it be tomorrow. ’Tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door, but * ‘tis enough and it will do. * A plague on’ both your houses!

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* Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds It was the nightingale, and not the lark, that pierced the * fearful hollow of thine ear.

Thank me no thankings, nor proud me no prouds.

Past hope, past care, past help. * Not stepping o’er the bounds of modesty. * Death, that hath sucked the honey of thy breath.

Never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her * Romeo.

30. The Taming of the Shrew: * They are the sweets of sweet philosophy.

She'll comb your noddle with a three-legged stool and paint your face and use you like a fool. * * * *

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O fiend of hell-make her bear the penance of her tongue.

There’s small choice in rotten apples.

I must bend thoughts and wits to win her.

Thou’dst thank me but a little for my counsel.

Though she chide as loud as thunder I will board her when the clouds in autumn crack.

He will throw a figure in her face and so disfigure her.

See how the young folks lay their heads together to beguile the old folks!

To what end are all these words?

When did she ever cross thee with any bitter word?

Her silence flouts me and I’ll be revenged.

Talk not to me: I will go sit and weep till I can find occasion of revenge.

And where two raging fires meet together they do consume the very thing that feeds their fury.

Little fire grows great with little wind, yet extreme gusts will blow it out.

Iron may hold with her, but never lutes. I think she’ll sooner prove a soldier.

She sings as sweetly as a nightingale.

Asses are made to bear and so are you.

Women are made to bear and so are you.

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Old fashions please me best; I am not so nice to change true rules for odd inventions.

I'll not give my hand opposed against my heart.

He is a frantic fool, showing his bitter jests in blunt behavior.

For such an injury would vex a saint, and much more a shrew of thy impatient humor.

First were we sad, fearing you would not come; now sadder that you come so unprovided.

I am in honest company and I thank you all.

The door is open, sir, there lies your way.

I am sent before to make a fire, for their coming.

Away, you three-inch fool!

I am no beast.

Out of their saddles and into the dirt, and therein hangs a tale.

He has not the grace or ability to hold my stirrup nor to take my horse.

You whoreson, beetle-headed, flap-eared knave!

My tongue will tell the anger of my heart.

Though our garments are poor, it is the mind that makes the body rich.

As the sun breaks through the darkest clouds, so honor peereth through our meanest habits.

Painted skin contents the eye.

Here he comes − set your countenance, sir.

She conceives her tale.

Dart not scornful glances from those eyes as it blots thy beauty as frosts doth bite the meads and confounds thy fame as whirlwinds shake fair buds.

I crave no other tribute at thy hands but love, fair looks, and true obedience; too little payment for so great a debt.

I am ashamed that women are so simple to offer war where they should kneel for peace, or seek for rule, supremacy, and sway, when they are bound to serve, love, and obey.

Why are our bodies soft and weak and smooth, unapt to toil and trouble in the world, and that our soft conditions and our hearts should well agree with our soft external parts?

But now I see our lances are but straws.

31. The Tempest: * Your tale, sir, would cure deafness.

My father’s of a better nature, sir, than he would appear by speech. * * * * * * * *

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I am your wife, if you will marry me; if not, I’ll die your maid.

Hell is empty, and all the devils are here!

This is an open-eyed conspiracy.

You are men of sin and destiny.

You are an instrument of the lower world.

The sea hath belched you up on this island.

Your swords are now too massive for your strengths and cannot be lifted.

Your foul deeds have incensed the seas and shores and all the creatures against your peace.

His tears run down his beard like winter’s drops from the eaves of reeds (the reeds of a thatched roof).

Your charm so strongly works them.

She died and left thee there, where thou didst vent thy groans.

Thy groans did make wolves howl and penetrate the breasts of ever-angry bears.

We cannot do without him. He does make our fire, fetch our wood, and serve in offices that profit us.

Thou are a poisonous slave, got by the devil himself.

Are you an advocate for an impostor?

Thy nerves are in their infancy again and have no vigor in them.

Thou shalt be as free as mountain winds!

Poor worm, thou art infected and it shows!

My high and gentle charms do work.

If I have too austerely punished you, your compensation makes amends.

Sour-eyed disdain and discord is what I wish for you.

I shall set my goblins on my enemies that they may grind their joints with dry convulsions and shorten up their sinews.

Their understanding begins to swell, and their approaching tide will shortly fill the reasonable shore, that now lies foul and muddy. Not one of them looks on me and knows me yet.

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Please stop and sit. Let us not burden our remembrance with a heaviness that’s gone. * Every third thought is of my grave.

May wicked dew from a raven’s feather and from unwholesome fen drop on you both!

You taught me language, and how to curse. I wish the red plague rid you for learning me your language!

I am surrounded by adders, who, with cloven tongues, do * hiss me into madness.

O Southwest blow on you and blister you all over.

Do that good mischief that makes this island thine own forever.

To you, I am no more than your footlicker.

You have good cause, sir. * The truth you speak doth lack some gentleness. * Fie, what a spendthrift is he of his tongue!

Go sleep, and hear us.

She dwells ten leagues beyond man’s life.

We are such stuff as dreams are made of and our little life is rounded with sleep This thing of darkness I acknowledge. * Here lies your brother, no better than the earth he lies upon. * They’ll take suggestion as a cat laps milk. * Though fools at home condemn them, travelers never lie.

The air breathes upon us here most sweetly. * I breathe with rotten lungs.

Thou dost snore distinctly; and there’s meaning in thy snores.

Although a lord, he is of weak remembrance.

You cram these words into mine ears against the stomach of * my sense.

I wish that I could shut up my thoughts. * Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.

I will here, shroud myself till the dregs of the storm be past. * I hope for quiet days, fair issue, and long life. * I shall never melt mine honor into lust. * Keep your darkness chained below.

What strange fish hath made his meal on thee?

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Their great guilt, like poison given to work a great time after, now begins to bite their spirits.

Her waspish-headed son has broke his arrows and swears he'll shoot no more, and only play with sparrows: but, being a boy, he'll soon be out again.

Live and love thy misery!

I know her by her gait.

We are such stuff as dreams are made of.

Our little life is rounded with a sleep.

And my ending is despair unless I be relieved by prayer.

Bear with my weakness; as my old brain is troubled.

Be not disturbed with my infirmity.

Sir, I am vexed.

I’ll walk a turn or two to still my beating mind.

32. The Life of Timon of Athens: * An eagle in flight, leaves no tract behind.

Things of like value, differing in the owners, are prized by their masters. * To set a gloss on faint deeds and hollow welcomes.

This man is ever angry.

You had rather be at a breakfast of enemies than a dinner of * friends. * Men shut their doors against a setting sun.

Not without fair reward.

His promises fly so beyond his state that what he speaks is all in debt.

I bleed inwardly for my lord.

Thou art a soldier, therefore seldom rich. It comes in charity to thee: for all thy living is amongst the dead, and all the * lands thou hast, lie all in fields of pitch. * Honest fools lay out their wealth on courtesies.

I am sworn not to give regard to you.

Please, come with better music. * I must not break my back to heal his finger.

My master is awaked by great occasion. * Do not mistake my fortunes; I am wealthy in my friends.

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After distasteful looks and these hard fractions, I am still resolved.

Has friendship such a faint and milky heart that turns so quickly?

Who bates mine honor shall not know my coin.

One business does command us all; and mine is money.

He is now poor, and that’s revenge enough. Who can speak broader than he that has no house to put his head into?

Such may rail (lean/live?) against great buildings?

Show me an iron heart.

Cut my heart in sums.

You only speak from your distracted soul.

Nothing emboldens sin so much as mercy.

The law shall bruise him.

Honor, health, and compassion to the senate!

Women are more valiant that stay at home; the ass more captain than the lion, the fellow leaden with irons wiser than the judge; as wisdom comes from suffering.

Obedience does fail in children.

Cut your trusters’ throats! Bound servants, steal!

Maid, to thy master’s bed.

Let confusion live!

We do turn our backs from our companion thrown into his grave.

Serving alike in sorrow; our bark is leaking, and we, shipmates, stand on the dying decks.

Hearing the surges threat: we must all part into this sea of air.

The learned pate ducks to the golden fool: all is oblique.

Direct villainy. All feasts, societies, and throngs of men!

Sauce his palate with thy most operant poison!

Wrong and right; base and noble; old and young; coward and valiant.

Lug your priests and servants from your sides.

If religious canons, and civil laws are cruel; then what should * war be called?

This fell whore of thine, with her concubine look, is more * destruction than thy sword.

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Pardon him for his wits.

Thatch your poor thin roofs with burdens of the dead.

You are a whore still, no matter what.

A poor unmanly melancholy sprung from change of fortune.

So long a madman, now a fool.

Mend my company; take away thyself.

Thou should have hated meddlers sooner and loved thyself better now.

Give it the beasts to be rid of the men.

Thou art the cap of all the fools alive.

Each thing's a thief: the sun’s a thief, and with his great attraction he robs the sea: the moon’s an arrant thief, and her pale fire she snatches from the sun: the sea’s a thief, whose liquid surge resolves the moon into salt tears: the earth’s a thief, that feeds and breeds by a composture stolen from general excrements: each thing’s a thief.

All who you meet are thieves.

I never had an honest man about me; for all I kept were knaves.

Lust and laughter does abound, and pity’s sleeping.

Let prisons swallow them, and debts wither ‘em to nothing.

May diseases lick up their false bloods! And so, farewell, and thrive.

Excellent workman! Though canst not paint a man so bad as is thyself.

Wilt thou whip thine own faults in other men?

Surprise me to the very brink of tears: lend me a fool’s heart and a woman’s eyes.

Graves be the only objects of men’s works and death their only gain!

You have received your grief.

33. The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus: Noble patricians, patrons of my right, defend the justice of * my cause with arms.

Whom you pretend to honor and adore, withdraw and abate your strength.

Commit my cause in the balance to be weighed.

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Your son is marked, and die he must, to appease the groaning shadows of those he did away.

Make this his last farewell to their souls.

That kiss is comfortless as frozen water to a starved snake.

In peace and honor rest you here, my sons.

Fair lords, your fortunes are alike, for in your country’s service you drew your swords.

I'd rather be shipped to hell, than be robbed of the people’s hearts!

Rest on my word.

Let not discontent daunt all your hopes.

These words are razors to my wounded heart.

Dissemble all your griefs and discontents.

Now, now sweet emperor, we must all be friends.

Now climbeth to Olympus’ top, safe out of Fortune’s shot; O sit aloft, secure of thunder’s crack and lightning's flash, advanced above pale envy’s threatening reach.

The golden sun salutes the morn and gifts the ocean with his beams.

Thy years want wit and thy wit wants edge.

You foul-spoken coward, that thunderest with thy tongue, and with thy weapon darest perform nothing!

I tell you, lords, you do but plot your deaths by this device.

The forest walks are wide and spacious, fitting for plots of rape and killing of a dainty doe.

She shall file our engines with advice.

Palaces are full of tongues, of eyes, and ears: but these woods are ruthless, dreadful, deaf, and dull; there, speak, and strike, brave boys, and take your turn; and there serve your lusts, shadowed well from heaven’s eye.

This is the day of doom for him.

Thy sons made pillage of her chastity.

They wash their hands in his warm blood.

The echoes of the horns mock the hounds.

Let's drag her husband to some secret hole and make his dead trunk a pillow to our lust.

As fresh as the morning dew distilled on flowers.

This seems to me a very fatal place.

My heart suspects more than mine eye can see.

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Thy hand once more, I will not loose again.

It is a wonder great that man’s face can fold such murderous tyranny in such pleasing smiles.

They need not speak a word; their guilt is plain.

She hath no tongue to call, nor hands to wash; so let’s leave her to her silent walks.

If I do dream, would all my wealth awake me!

May I slumber in eternal sleep!

Like to a bubbling fountain stirred with wind, your words doth rise and fall between thy rosed lips, blushing to be encountered with a cloud.

O! had the monster seen those lily hands tremble, like aspen-leaves, upon a lute, and make the silken strings delight to kiss them, he would not, then, have touched them for his life; Or had he heard the heavenly harmony which that sweet tongue hath made, he would have dropped his murderous knife.

Pity me of mine age, whose youth was spent in dangerous wars, whilst you securely slept; pity us for all the frosty nights that I have watched and for these bitter tears, which now you see filling the aged wrinkles in my cheeks; be pitiful to my condemned sons, whose souls are not corrupted as ‘tis thought. For my sons I never wept, because they died in honor’s lofty bed.

I tell my sorrows to the stones, even though they cannot answer my distress, yet in some sort they are better than the tribunes, for they will not intercept my tale. When I do weep, they, humbly at my feet, receive my tears, and seem to weep with me; Rome could afford no tribunes like to these. A stone is as soft as wax, but tribunes more hard than stones; A stone is silent, and offendeth not, and tribunes with their tongues doom men to death.

I bring consuming sorrow to thine age.

What fool adds water to the sea, or brings a faggot (bundle of wood) to bright-burning Troy?

My grief was at height before thou camest.

I will be a speechless complainer and will be as perfect, as begging hermits in their holy prayers, who never sigh or hold their stumps to heaven.

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He that wounded her hath hurt me more than had he killed me dead: For now I stand as one upon a rock surrounded in a wilderness of sea, who marks the waxing tide grow wave by wave, expecting ever when some envious surge will swallow me. Lead my way to death for my wife and wretched sons are gone; and here stands my other son, a banished man, and here my brother, weeping at my woes: but that which gives my soul the greatest spurn, is dear Lavinia, dearer than my soul. Thou hast no hands to wipe away thy tears, nor tongue to tell me who hath martyred thee.

Why dost thou laugh? It fits not with this hour.

This sorrow is an enemy, and usurps and blinds my eyes with tears.

Which way shall I find Revenge’s cave? For these two heads, pity and revenge do seem to speak to me.

Unknit thy sorrow.

My heart all mad with misery beats in this hollow prison of my flesh.

Thou map of woe, that dost talk in signs!

I will learn thy thoughts.

He takes false shadows for true substances.

There is enough written upon this earth to stir a mutiny in the mildest thoughts and even arm the minds of infants.

He hath more scars of sorrow in his heart than foemen’s marks upon his battered shield.

For all the water in the ocean can never turn the swan’s black legs to white.

Tell the empress from me, I am of age to keep mine own, excuse it how she can.

Your beauty bears you privilege.

Blushing − the treacherous hue that betrays all matters of the heart.

He doth me wrong to feed me with delays.

I’ll dive into the burning lake below and pull her out by the heels.

He is the lord of my life and commander of my thoughts.

Comfort his distressed plight rather than prosecute the meanest of his contempts.

* His loss hath pierced him deep and scarred his heart.

Bear the faults of his age.

And now, sweet emperor, be blithe again, and bury all thy fear in my devices. * Few escape the compass of my curse.

Let us join with him and right his heinous wrongs.

He keeps to ruminate strange plots of dire revenge.

Revenge will come to join with him and work confusion on * his enemies. * Who doth molest my contemplation?

Witness these trenches made by grief and care; witness the tiring day and heavy night; and witness all the sorrow that I * know.

I am Revenge, sent from the infernal kingdom, to ease the gnawing vulture of thy mind, by working wreakful vengeance on thy foes. Come down, and welcome me to this world’s * light; confer with me of murder and of death.

There’s not a hollow cave or lurking-place, no vast obscurity or misty vale, where bloody murder or detested rape can couch for fear, where I won't find them out; and in their ears, tell them of my dreadful name, Revenge, which makes the * foul offenders quake.

I'll find the murderers within their guilty caves: and load my * car with all their heads.

From Hyperion’s (the sun) rising in the east until his very downfall in the western sea: and day by day I’ll do this heavy task.

We worldly men have miserable, mad, mistaking eyes. O sweet revenge! Now do I come to thee! * Could not all hell afford you such a devil?

More dear than her sweet hands or tongue is her spotless chastity. * Villains! For shame you could not beg for grace. * Hark, wretches! How I mean to martyr you. * This one hand yet is left to cut your throats.

Hark! Villains, I will grind your bones to dust, and with your blood and it I’ll make a paste; and of the paste a coffin I will rear, and make two pastics of your shameful heads.

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Some devil whispers curses in my ear, and prompts me, that my tongue may utter forth the venomous malice of my swelling heart!

The girl should not survive her shame and by her presence still renew his sorrows.

What would you say if I should let you speak?

My tears have made me blind.

Why, there they are both, baked in that pie; eating the flesh that she herself hath bred.

Grave witnesses of true experience.

My heart is not compact of flint nor steel.

If I utter all my bitter grief, floods of tears will drown my oratory. Here is a captain, let him tell the tale; your hearts will throb and weep to hear him speak.

Set him breast-deep in earth, and famish him; there let him stand, rave and cry for food.

No mournful bell shall ring her burial; but throw her forth to beasts and birds of prey.

Her life was beast-like, and devoid of pity; and, being so, shall have like want of pity.

34. Troilus and Cressida: The Greeks are strong and skillful to their strength, fierce to their skill and to their fierceness valiant. But I am weaker than a women's tear; tamer than sleep, fonder than ignorance, less valiant than a virgin in the night and skillless as unpracticed infancy.

Fair Cressida comes to my thoughts.

Bury this sigh in the wrinkle of a smile.

I will begin at the heel and tell what thou are by inches.

Thou crusty botch of nature!

He has not so much brain as ear-wax!

Mirth turns to sudden sadness.

It pours into the open ulcer of my heart.

Hard as the palm of a ploughman.

Fools on both sides!

I cannot fight upon this argument. It is too starved a subject for my sword.

Her bed is in India; there she lies, a pearl.

* You are blind − all eyes and no sight.

Hector was stirring early.

He is one of the flowers of Troy.

What sneaking fellow comes yonder?

Upon my back to defend my belly; upon my wit to defend my wiles; upon my secrecy, to defend mine honesty; my mask to defend my beauty. To defend all these wards I lie at a * thousand watches. * Men prize the thing ungained more than it is worth.

What grief has set the jaundice in your cheeks?

What evil mixture is this? What plagues, what portents, what mutiny, what raging of the sea and shaking of the earth; what commotion of the winds, what frights and horrors that divert and crack and rend deracinate the unity and married calm of states quite from their fixture!

Everything includes itself in power: power into will and will into appetite. Appetite is a universal wolf, doubly seconded with will and power, with universal prey that in the end will * eat upon itself.

Achievements, plots orders, preventions, excitements to the field, or speech for truce, success or loss, what is or is not, serve as the stuff to make up paradoxes.

They tax our policy and call it cowardice; and count wisdom as no member of war. * With surety stronger than Achilles arm.

I have a young conception in my brain. Allow me my time to * bring it to some shape. * I have bobbed his brain more than he has beat my bones.

He wears his wit in his belly and his guts in his head.

You are for dreams and slumbers, brother priest; You fur * your gloves with reason.

Whose face has launched above a thousand ships and turned * crowed kings into merchants. * To be valiant is no praise at all. * The rich advantage of a promised glory.

You are a fool positive. * How his silence drinks up this applause.

Light boats sail swift, though greater hulks draw deep.

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You shall not bob us out our melody: if you do, my melancholy be upon your head.

What exploits are in hand tonight?

These lovers cry Oh! Oh! They die!

Love breeds hot blood, and hot blood begets hot thoughts which begets hot deeds and hot deeds is love.

You shall do more than all the island kings!

I shall lose distinction in my joys.

I fear the capacity of my ruder powers.

Fears make devils of cherubins.

When we vow to: weep seas, live in fire, eat rocks, tame tigers-this is the monstrosity of love.

All lovers swear more performance than they are able.

They have the voices of lions but the acts of hares.

My thoughts were like unbridled children − too headstrong for their mother.

Perchance I show more craft than love?

This exceeds man's might and dwells with the gods above.

To feed her lamp and flames of love.

That doth renew swifter than blood decays!

Crown up the verse and sanctify the numbers.

When time is old and hath forgot itself. When waterdrops have worn down the stones of Troy.

I am not false − I swerve not a hair from the truth.

To angle for your thoughts.

Stick the heart of falseness.

I am new into the world − strange and unaquainted.

To come as humbly as they used to creep.

I do not strain at the position.

No man is lord of anything.

Like a gate of steel that fronts the sun.

His figure and his heat.

Time is like a fashionable host.

Farewell goes out of sighting.

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.

Things in motion sooner catch the eye.

The fool slides over the ice that you would break.

A woman impudent and mannish is not more loathed than

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an effeminate man in time of action.

A plague of opinion. A man may wear it on both sides like a leather jerkin.

I had rather be a tick in a sheep than such a valiant ignorant.

You are armed in black defiance.

With such a costly wealth and friends.

For every false drop in her bawdy veins, a Grecian's life hath sunk; for every scruple of her contaminated carrion weight, a Trojan hath been slain.

A pestilence on him!

How my achievements mock me!

Tear my bright hair and scratch my praised cheeks; crack my clear voice in sobs and break my heart.

With so many thousand sighs did they buy each other.

With this wind my heart will blow up by its roots.

For I will throw my glove to Death himself.

While other fish and craft for great opinion, I, with great truth, catch mere simplicity.

Come, stretch thy chest, and let thy eyes spout blood.

I'll take that winter from your lips, fair lady.

The idol of idiot-worshippers.

With too much blood and too little brain, these two may run mad.

By Hell and all Hell's torments I will not speak a word.

The error of our eyes direct our mind. What error leads, must err.

My mind has now turned whore.

Let all untruths stand by their stained name.

The gods are deaf to hot and peevish vows.

They are polluted offerings, more abhorred than spotted livers.

But vows to every purpose cannot hold.

The brave man holds honor more precious − more dear − than life.

His wounds have roused his drowsy blood.

I do distain thy courtesy.

Turn slave, and fight.

Rest sword; thou hast had thy fill of blood and death.

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Look how the sun begins to set; how ugly night comes * breathing at his heels. * The dragon wing of night overspreads the earth.

35. Twelfth Night: * My desires, like fell and cruel hounds, ever do pursue me.

What a plague causes you to take her life? * Care is an enemy to life.

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Ay, but he’ll have but a year with all these ducats (coins).

Let them hang themselves in their straps.

You are a coward, a most devout coward, almost religious in it.

You are an ungracious wretch, fit for the mountains and the barbarous caves, where manners never were preached! Out of my sight!

Be not afraid of greatness.

Journey's end in lovers meeting.

If music be the food of love, play on.

He’s a very fool and a prodigal as well.

Though he smiles upon her, it will be so unsuitable to her disposition, being addicted to melancholy as she is.

This will turn him into a notable contempt.

Thou knowest no less than all.

Be clamorous and leap all civil bounds rather than make an unprofited return.

Then let thy love be younger than thyself, or thy affection won't hold out.

I am as hungry as the sea, and can digest as much.

When all is known, and golden time convents, a solemn combination shall be made.

She is so abandoned to her sorrow.

Adorations, fertile tears, and groans do thunder love with sighs of fire.

This fellow is wise enough to play the fool.

To do that well craves a kind of wit.

Tis a vulgar proof that very oft we pity enemies.

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Some kind of men put quarrels purposely on others to taste their valor.

Methinks his words do fly so much from passion that he believes himself.

Many a good hanging prevented a bad marriage.

Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.

Til the pangs of death shake him.

Infirmity, that decays the wise, doth ever make the better fool.

Some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them.

Lady, you are the cruelest woman alive, so lead your graces to the grave and leave the world no copy.

Methinks it is time to smile again.

If one should be a prey, how much the better to fall before the lion than the wolf!

O world, how apt the poor are to be proud!

If you had any eye behind you, you might see more detraction at your heels than fortunes before you.

You let time wash off the double gilt of this opportunity.

You are now sailed into the north of my lady’s opinion; where you will hang like an icicle on a Dutchman’s beard.

In nature, there’s no blemish but the mind; none can be called deformed, but the unkind.

Virtue is beauty; but the beauteous evil are empty trunks o’er-flourished by the devil.

Blind waves and surges have devoured him.

36. Two Gentlemen from Verona: * Wear out thy youth with shapeless idleness.

Now I can break my fast, dine, sup and sleep upon the very * naked name of love. * Love, lend me wings to make my purpose swift.

Thou hast lent me wit to plot this drift! * If she respects not words, win her with gifts. * Dumb jewels often in their silent kind, win the lady. * A woman sometimes scorns what best contents her.

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* And with thy daring folly you burn the world? * And why not death, rather than a living torment?

My ears are stopped and cannot hear good news, so much of * bad already hath possessed them. * O, I have fed upon this woe already. * His little speaking shows his love is small. * Like a testy babe, he will scratch the nurse. * He gives up a thousand oaths and an ocean of his tears.

His words are bonds, his oaths are oracles, his love sincere, his thoughts immaculate and his tears pure messengers sent * from his heart. * His heart is as far from fraud as heaven from the earth. * Let this habit make thee blush! * Shame lives in a disguise of love. * I like thy counsel; how well hast thou advised me.

To seal our happiness with their consents! * I read your fortune in your eye.

Was this the idol that you worship so? * Time is the nurse and breeder of all good.

Hope is a lover’s staff; walk with it, and manage it against * despairing thoughts. * A little time, my lord, will kill that grief.

I claim the promise for her heavenly picture.

As plain as the nose on a man’s face, or a weathercock on a * steeple! * Love can feed on the air.

She hath a sweet mouth.

She is slow in words. * She has more faults than hairs. * If the river were dry, I could fill it with my tears. * If the wind were down I could drive the boat with my sighs.

Sir, if you spend word for word with me, I shall make your * wit bankrupt. * All these are servants to deceitful men.

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How and which way I may bestow myself to be regarded in her sun-bright eye.

Such is the fury of ungoverned youth.

Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits.

She's lost past all cure.

I have no other but a woman's reason.

Thou art a votary (faithful follower) to fond desire.

A man hath a tongue if with his tongue he cannot win a woman.

O how spring of love resembleth the uncertain glories of an April day; which first shows all the beauty of the sun, but by and by, a cloud takes all away.

Thou hast deceived so many with thy vows.

Your falsehood becomes you well to worship shadows and adore false shapes.

I do desire thee, even from a heart as full of sorrows as a sea of sands.

His false finger have profaned the ring.

I have been seized by a hungry lion.

I would have been a breakfast to the beast.

The sun begins to gild the western sky and now, it is about the very hour.

37. The Two Noble Kinsmen: It infects the winds with the stench of our slain lords.

Let us be the windows to our woes.

Your grief is written in your cheek.

This garden has a world of pleasures in it.

With her chaste blushes!

I tie you to your word.

How you maim your honor.

I am deaf to all but your compassion.

Shall anything that loves me perish for me?

Do men prune the straight young boughs that blush with a thousand blossoms, because they may be rotten? I think not.

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Every blow that falls, threats a brave life; each stroke laments the place whereon it falls, and sounds more like a bell than a blade.

Palamon has a most menacing aspect; his brow is graved, and seems to bury what it frowns upon.

I shall here make trial of my prayers Hang your shield afore your heart.

I wish him excess and overflow of power and ill-dealing fortune.

We have been soldiers, and we cannot weep when our friends don their helms and put to sea; or tell of babes broached on the lance; or women that have sod their infants in and afterwards ate them; and the brine they wept at killing them.

Their knot of love, tied, weaved, entangled, with so true, so long, and with a finger of so deep a cunning, may be outworn, but never undone.

I think Theseus (Greek hero) cannot be umpire to himself, cleaving conscience into twain and doing each side equal justice. ’Tis pity love should be so tyrannous.

Thou being but mortal makest affections bend.

He groans under such a god-like master.

Dearer in love than blood.

Unhardened in the crimes of nature.

Let us leave the city Thebes and the temptings in it, before we further sully our gloss of youth.

Those hopes are prisoners with us.

The poison of pure spirits, might, like women, woo us to wander.

We are an endless mine to one another.

We are, in one another, families.

You have been well advertised.

How much I dare; you’ve seen me use my sword against the advice of fear.

You shall have garments and perfumes, to kill the smell of prison.

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Pardon my hard language; as when I spur my horse, I chide him not.

Content and anger in me have but one face.

The sick between us must be cured by bleeding.

And thereby hangs a tale.

This hand shall never more come near thee with such friendship.

Tis worse to me than begging, to take my life so basely.

I’ll preserve the honor of affection and die for her.

Make death a devil.

If she refuses me, my grave will wed me, and soldiers will sing my epitaph.

Dusty and old titles cure the world. O the plurisy of people.

I was false, yet never treacherous, cousin.

Small winds shake him.

Our hands advanced before our hearts.

He's strong enough to laugh at misery.

The hardy youths strive for games of honor, hung with all the painted favors of their ladies.

Farewell, kind window; may rude wind never hurt thee.

O my lady, if ever thou had felt what sorrow was, dream how I did suffer. Come, now bury me.

Traitor kinsman, thou would perceive my passion, if these signs of prisonment were off me and my hands were the owner of a sword.

Hail, sovereign queen of secrets.

He bears thy yoke as if it were a wreath of roses, yet is heavier, than lead itself.

I never practiced upon this man’s wife, never attended at great feasts and never sought to betray a beauty. However, I have been harsh to large confessors, and hotly asked them, if they had mothers.

I have never been foul-mouthed against thy law and never revealed a secret.

Thou hast the power to call the fiercest tyrant from his rage.

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There’s many a man alive that hath outlived the love of the people. And in this selfsame state, many a father outlives his children's love.

We expire, but not without men’s pity.

Though I know his ocean needs not my poor drops, yet they must yield their tribute there to it.

Mark how his virtue, like a hidden but emerging sun, breaks through his baser garments.

By the helm of Mars, I saw them in the war, likened to a pair of lions, smeared with their own prey − they were a mark worth a god's view.

Lady, you shall see men fight now.

Before the gods let them tender their holy prayers; let the temples burn bright with sacred fires, and the altars in hallowed clouds commend their swelling incense to those above us. Let no due be wanting.

Be plighted with a love that grows as you decay.

Urns and odors bring away.

Vapors and deep sighs darken the day.

Our dole does look more deadly than our dying.

Lord, what a coil he keeps!

Why should I love this gentleman?

He is the mean keeper of my prison.

To marry him is hopeless.

To be his whore is witless.

What pushes are we wenches driven to!

When age fifteen once has found us!

He has so much in him to please a woman–if it he please him to bestow it so.

These eyes looked on and pitied him.

To hear him sing in an evening − what a heaven it is! And yet his songs are sad ones.

Fairer spoken was never gentleman.

Once he kissed me; I loved my lips the better ten days after.

He grieves much, and me as much when I see his misery.

What says the law then?

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For law or kindred!

And this night, or tomorrow, he shall love me.

Let all the dukes and all the devils roar.

Some honest-hearted maids will sing my dirge, and tell to memory that my death was noble, dying almost as a martyr.

I am very cold, and all the stars are out as well.

The sun has seen my folly.

Yonder, there is the sea; and for every ship a rock lies watching under water.

In this place, are Lords and courtiers with maids with child.

They shall stand in fire up to the navel and in ice up to the heart, and there the offending part burns and the deceiving part freezes − in troth (truth) a very grievous punishment, as one would think, for such a trifle.

I would marry a leprous witch to be rid of this affliction.

Confine her to a place where the light may rather seem to steal in than be permitted.

Objects that are inserted between her mind and eye become the pranks and friskins of her madness.

We shall find some blind priest for the purpose, who will venture to marry us.

He was kept down with hard meat and ill lodging; but I’ll kiss him up again.

His shackles will betray him; and he’ll be taken once again.

Why do you rub off my kiss?

I am a fool and my reasoning is lost in me.

These eyes, these bright lamps of beauty, that command and threaten love, and what young maid dare cross ‘em?

His very look, shows him hardy, fearless, proud of danger; and the circles of his eyes show the fire within him.

A little man, but of a tough soul, seeming as great as any.

He is gray-eyed, which yields compassion when and where he conquers.

He does no wrongs, nor takes none.

Sharp to spy advantages, and where he finds ‘em; he’s swift to make ‘em his.

* You would seek to unsphere the stars with oaths.

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* Methinks my favor here begins to warp.

You are rough and hairy!

He shows a lover when he smiles, and when he frowns , a * soldier.

We honor you with trouble.

Her distraction is more at the times of the moon than at any other time. * Ne’er cast your child away for honesty.

Cure her first this way, and if she will be honest, she will take * the path before her.

She's always dreaming of another and a better world.

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38. The Winter's Tale: Royally attorneyed with interchange of gifts.

From the ends of opposed winds.

The heavens continue their loves!

Makes old hearts fresh.

Is whispering nothing?

Here's ado to locked-up honesty.

It is a fear which oft infects the wise.

Even honesty is never free of all infirmities.

He is cured of these diseased opinions.

You have touched his queen forbiddenly.

He swears his thoughts by each particular star in heaven.

By all the influences of the stars You may as well forbid the sea to disobey the moon.

Take the urgent hour to make your move.

Unpathed waters and undreamed shores lead most certain to miseries.

No hope to help you.

These pains − as you shake off one you take on another.

You had drawn oaths from him.

You, sir, charge him too coldly.

You and I are devils.

The offences we have made you do, we will answer for, but * only if you first have sinned with us.

One good deed dying tongueless slaughters a thousand * waiting. * Our praises are our wages. * Some ill planet reigns here.

I must be patient till the heavens look with an aspect more * favorable.

Sir, spare your threats! The bug which you would fright me with I have already seen.

To me life is no commodity.

The infection of my brains and hardening of my brows.

Lest it should bite its master and so prove too dangerous, as ornaments often do. * This will hiss me to my grave.

Contempt and clamor will be my knell.

If all despair who have revolting wives, all mankind would * hang themselves. * For thy conceit is soaking. * Skulking in corners. * Wishing clocks more swift?

Conceiving the dishonor of his mother, he straight declined, drooped, and took it deeply.

He fastened and fixed the shame on to himself; he threw off his spirit and his appetite, his sleep, and downright * languished.

See how he fares.

The very thought of my revenges recoils upon me.

A nest of traitors! * I am a feather in each wind that blows. * I shall live on to see this bastard kneel. * You have past all shame.

I have looked upon my queen’s full eyes. * I have taken treasure from her lips.

Stars, stars, and all eyes are dead coals! * He comes not near to his father’s greatness.

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The blessed gods purge all infection from our air whilst you do climate here!

Your honor was never overthrown by your desires.

Thoughts that would thick my blood.

My best blood turns to an infected jelly, and my name be yoked with his that did betray the best!

Your heart is full of something that takes your mind away from feasting.

Thou art too base to be acknowledged.

They creep like shadows by him.

Sigh and ask if you can call your children yours.

This most cruel usage of your queen.

More than your own weak-hinged fancy.

Something savors of tyranny, and will ignoble make you scandalous to the world.

This news is mortal to him.

Look down and see what death is doing to her.

Working with thy jealousies and fancies too weak for boys and too green and idle for girls.

Do not repent these things, for they are heavier than all thy woes can stir.

The gods will fulfill their secret purposes.

Is all so monstrous to our human reason as my Antigonus to break his grave and come again at me?

Sir, my liege, your eye hath too much youth in it.

Not a month before she was more worth such gazes.

I have heard, but not believed, the spirits of the dead may walk again.

I never saw a vessel of like sorrow, so filled and so becoming.

With shrieks, she melted into air.

I did in time collect myself.

Dreams are toys.

You see how the sea it chafes, how it rages and how it takes up all the shore.

The most piteous cry of the poor souls!

Run not before mine honor.

* My lusts burn hotter than my faith.

Cast your good counsels upon his passion. * Let myself and Fortune tug for the time to come.

I am so fraught with curious business that I leave out * ceremony. * Infirmity waits upon worn times. * The lands and waters ‘twixt your throne. * He gave a measured look upon you.

Camillo has betrayed me; whose honor and whose honesty till now endured all weathers. * Though I saw the stars, I will kiss the valleys first.

Come, quench your blushes and present yourself just as you are.

I think affliction may subdue the cheek.

Ha, ha, what a fool Honesty is! And Trust, his sworn brother, * a very simple gentleman!

Do as the heavens do and forget your evil and forgive * yourself.

When she has obtained your eye she'll have your tongue as * well.

Never have I seen wretches so quake; they kneel and kiss the earth.

There was speech in their dumbness, and language in their * very gestures. * With every wink of the eye some new grace was be born.

Our absence makes us unthrifty to our knowledge.

You might behold one joy to crown another.

Sorrow wept to take leave of them.

She had one eye declined for the loss of her husband, and another elevated so that the oracle was fulfilled.

1. 1. Venus and Adonis: The sun, with purple-colored face, had taken its last leave of * the weeping morn.

A thousand honey secrets shalt thou know.

Cloy not thy lips with loathed satiety, but rather famish them amid their plenty.

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He had taken his last leave of the weeping morn.

Art thou shamed to kiss? Then wink again, and I will wink; so shall the day seem night.

Love is a spirit all compact of fire.

Sometime he runs among a flock of sheep, to make the cunning hot-scenting hounds doubt their smells.

He is driven into doubt.

His smell has mingled with others.

To mingle beauty with infirmities.

As mountain-snow melts with the mid-day sun.

He hath dropped a precious jewel in the flood.

Her song was tedious and outwore the night.

Like many clouds consulting for foul weather. It shall be fickle, false and full of fraud.

The risk of things; as night-wanderers with their light blown out in some mistrustful wood.

A thousand honey secrets shalt thou know.

2.The Rape of Lucree: Thoughts are but dreams till their effects be tried.

The blackest sins are cleared with absolution.

Cozening the pillow of a lawful kiss.

She, much amazed, breaks open her locked up eyes.

The scornful mark of every open eye.

Light and lust are deadly enemies.

To cloak offences with a cunning brow.

The patient dies while the physician sleeps; the orphan pines while the oppressor feeds; justice feasts while the widow weeps; advice is sporting while infection breeds; thou grants no time for charitable deeds.

Brand not my forehead with thy piercing light, for day hath naught to do what’s done by night. ‘Tis double death to drown in ken (sight) of shore.

He ten times pines that pines beholding food.

To see the salve doth make the wound ache more; great grief grieves most at what would do it good.

* To the poor counterfeit of her complaining.

May any terms acquit me from this chance?

The fountain clears itself; and why not I from this compelled * stain? * The old bees die and the young possess their hive.

It hath served a dumb arrest upon his tongue.

In such relenting dew of lamentations; kneel with me and help to bear my pain.

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3. The Passionate Pilgrim: One angel in another’s hell My vow was a breath and a breath was just a vapor.

Exhale this vapor vow.

To court the lad with many a lovely look.

If music and sweet poetry agree.

Crabbed age and youth cannot live together: youth is full of pleasure, age is full of care; youth like summer morn, age like winter weather; youth like summer brave, age like winter bare.

Youth is nimble, age is lame; youth is hot and bold, age is weak and cold; youth is wild, and age is tame.

As with broken glass no cement can ever redress it.

Heart hath his hope, and eyes their wished sight; sorrow changed to solace, and solace mixed with sorrow.

4. A Lover’s Complaint: His browny locks did hang in crooked curls, and every light occasion of the wind.

My mind assigned to thoughts of lands and mansions.

The diamond; why is it beautiful, and yet so hard.

My boast is true.

It was an accident which brought me to her eye.

Religious love put out religion’s eye.

How mighty then you are! O, hear me tell about it.

Shake off my sober guards and civil fears.

In him a plenitude of subtle matter.

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5. The Phoenix and the Turtle: The auger of the fever's end.

Single nature's double name; neither two nor one was called.

Death is now the phoenix's nest * Truth and beauty buried be.

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6. Sonnets: Every private widow may keep by her children's eyes, her husband's shape in mind.

Who lets so fair a house fall to decay?

I consider everything that grows holds in perfection but a little moment.

They wear their brave state out of memory.

To change your day of youth to sullied night.

Now stand you on the top of happy hours.

Death shall not brag where thou wanderest in his shade.

Devouring time, blunt thou the lion's paw and make the earth devour her own sweet brood; pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws and burn the long-lived phoenix in her blood.

Oh learn to read what silent love hath writ.

Present thy shadow to my sightless view, which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night, makes black night beauteous and her old face new. By day my limbs, by night my mind.

All losses are restored and sorrows end.

Roses have thorns and silver fountains mud; clouds and eclipses stain both morn and sun; and lonesome canker lives in the sweetest bud and all men make faults.

Thou are all the better parts of me.

Kill me with all your spites; yet we must not be foes.

Lay on me this cross.

All the days are nights to see till I see thee; and nights are bright days when dreams do show thee me.

Heavy tears are badges of my woe.

What is your substance and whereof are you made?

I am the wit of former days.

As the waves make toward the pebbled shore, so do our

minutes hasten to their end.

Not making worse what nature made so clear. Such a counterpart shall frame his wit, making his style admired everywhere.

The sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds; and lilies * that fester smell far worse than weeds. * For his theft a vengeful canker will eat him up to death. * Rise resty Muse-give thy pen both skill and argument. * Have you not the power to lend base subjects light?

Worse essays proved thee my best of love. * Let me not the marriage of true minds admit impediments.

What portions have I drunk of Siren tears, distilled from limbecks foul as hell within, applying fears to hopes and * hopes to fears. * How hard true sorrow hits.

All men are bad and in their badness reign.

As time has witnesses, those who live for crime will die for * goodness.

Slandering creation with false esteem.

As those two mourning eyes become thy face; mourning * doth thee grace.

Be wise as thou art cruel.

Do not press my tongue-tied patience with too much distain. * Let sorrow lend me words. * As black as hell, as dark as night. * The wiles and guiles that women work. *****

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y Synopsis of Shakespeare’s Life William Shakespeare was born to John and Mary Shakespeare in 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon, a market town of approximately 2,000 residents about 100 miles northwest of London. Shakespeare’s farther married into a prominent family when he married Mary Arden. He became a successful landowner, moneylender, wool and agricultural dealer and glover. He was also a successful politician ultimately becoming bailiff (today’s equivalent of a mayor) of Stratford. Later though he fell into debt and had many legal problems. William was the 3rd of 8 children a number of whom died young. Although baptized, his birth was unregistered. He died in 1616 at the age of 52 which was a ripe old age for a time when life expectancy was between 30 and 40 years.

Shakespeare never went to a university, as that was normally only for those who became clergy. He did however get an excellent classical grammar school education and as a result his plays drew off such great Greeks and Romans as Seneca and Plautus. He was also skilled in a number of professions and over his life had acquired a very extensive and impressive vocabulary.

When he was 18, he married Anne Hathaway who was 26 and 3months pregnant. They had their first child Susanna and later twins, Hamnet and Judith, but sadly Hamnet, their only boy, died at age 11.

He later moved to London as a playwright and an actor, which were not considered noble professions at the time. Further, he was not initially successful.

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His first play was Henry IV, Part I and his acting troupe was called “The King’s Men” (being sponsored by King James I) in which he was the principal comedian and tragedian. He became financially successful from his plays, which was further multiplied by good real estate investments in Stratford, including the purchase of the 2nd largest house there, The New House, for his parents. As a result of his financial success and notoriety he applied for a coat of arms making himself a gentleman. His two daughters married wealthy.

Even early in his career, Shakespeare was spinning tales that displayed in-depth knowledge of international affairs, European capitals and history, as well as familiarity with the royal court and high society. For this reason, some theorists have suggested that one or several authors wishing to conceal their true identity used the person of William Shakespeare as a front. Proposed candidates include Edward De Vere, Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe and Mary Sidney Herbert. Most scholars and literary historians remain skeptical about this hypothesis, although many suspect Shakespeare sometimes collaborated with other playwrights.

To the world, Shakespeare left a lasting legacy in the form of 38 plays, 154 sonnets, and two narrative poems. He is not only recognized as one of the greatest English playwrights of his era but also the greatest playwright in the English language. *****

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y Index of Summaries of Plays # 1.

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Name All’s Well That Ends Well Antony and Cleopatra As You Like It The Comedy of Errors The Tragedy of Coriolanus The Tragedy of Cymbeline The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark Henry IV Part One Henry IV Part Two Henry V Henry VI Part One Henry VI Part Two Henry VI Part Three The Life of King Henry VIII The Tragedy of Julius Caesar King John The Tragedy of King Lear Love's Labor Lost Macbeth Measure for Measure The Merchant of Venice The Merry Wives of Windsor A Midsummer's Night Dream Much Ado About Nothing Othello Pericles, Prince of Tyre King Richard II Richard III Romeo and Juliet The Taming of the Shrew

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The Tempest The Life of Timon of Athens The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus Troilus and Cressida Twelfth Night Two Gentlemen from Verona The Two Noble Kinsmen The Winter's Tale *****

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y Summaries of Plays 1. All’s Well That Ends Well: Bertram, the son of a widowed countess sets off from Rousillon with his friend, Parolles, and the Lord Lafeu, to the French court. He is the ward of the French king. He is unaware that Helena, orphan daughter of the countess’ physician, raised in the household of the countess, is in love with him. The countess gives her permission to try and cure the king’s illness. No one has been able to cure him but Helena succeeds and, as a reward, the king invites her to choose a husband from among his wards. She chooses Bertram. Bertram’s ambitions for a wife go beyond her, however, and although he marries her on the king’s orders, he runs away with Parolles to fight in the wars in Italy. He writes a letter to Helena, telling her that he will not recognize the marriage until she can demonstrate that she is wearing his heirloom ring and carrying his child.

Helena goes home and prepares to seek Bertram out. She disguises herself as a pilgrim and goes to Florence where she is befriended by a widow and her daughter, Diana. In the meantime Bertram has fallen in love with Diana.

Helena fakes her death and Bertram returns to the French court. His mother and Lafeu, also believing Helena to be dead, arrange for Bertram to marry Lafeu’s daughter. Bertram gives Lafeu a ring that Helena, as Diana, had given him at the late night meeting in Florence and it becomes apparent that it is the ring that the king had given Helena on her marriage to Bertram.

In the midst of the confusion Diana arrives with Bertram’s ring and accuses him of seducing and abandoning her. Bertram denies it but Lafeu withdraws his daughter from the marriage. The king orders that Diana be taken to prison but then Helena appears as a witness to the truth of Diana’s story. She is pregnant and her story soon

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comes out. Bertram accepts her as his wife. The king offers Diana a choice of husbands from among his courtiers, with a rich dowry.

The play ends with everyone being more or less satisfied.

2. Antony and Cleopatra: After defeating Brutus and Cassius, following the assassination of Julius Caesar, Mark Antony becomes one of the three rulers of the Roman Empire, together with Octavius Caesar and Lepidus, and is responsible for the eastern part of the empire. He falls in love with Cleopatra, the Queen of Egypt, and settles in Alexandria. However, he is compelled to return to Rome when the empire is threatened by the rebellion of Sextus Pompey, the son of Pompey, who had been defeated by Julius Caesar.

As his wife has just died Antony marries Octavius’ sister, Octavia, in an attempt to heal the rift between the two emperors. They make peace with Pompey. When Cleopatra hears about Antony’s marriage she flies into a jealous rage but knows that Antony does not love Octavia. Antony goes to Athens but when war breaks out between Caesar and Pompey, Antony sends Octavia back to Rome and returns to Egypt.

Caesar is incensed with Antony’s behavior and he declares war on both Antony and Cleapatra. When the Romans arrive Antony is offered a choice of how to fight and, despite being renowned as the world’s greatest soldier, he chooses to fight on the sea. The Egyptian navy is inadequate and when Cleopatra’s navy turns and flees, Antony follows them and Caesar defeats him.

Cleopatra goes to her tomb and sends a message to Antony that she is dead. Antony is devastated and decides to kill himself. He botches the suicide and wounds himself without dying. His followers take him to Cleopatra’s tomb, where he dies in her arms.

Cleopatra’s life is in tatters. Having lost Antony and being at the mercy of Caesar, she resolves to commit suicide.

The play ends with Cleopatra killing herself with snakebites and Caesar allowing her to be buried beside Anthony.

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3. As You Like It: Orlando, the youngest son of Sir Roland de Boys, is ill-treated by his brother Oliver. When he responds to the general challenge issued by the Duke’s wrestler, Charles, Oliver tells Charles to injure Orlando if he can manage it. The Duke’s daughter, Celia, and her cousin, Rosalind, watch the match and Rosalind falls in love with Orlando.

Orlando wins but the Duke gets angry when he discovers that Orlando is the son of his old enemy, Sir Roland de Boys. Rosalind gives Orlando a chain to wear and he falls in love with her.

The Duke unexpectedly banishes Rosalind and she decides to find her father, the real Duke, who has been overthrown by his brother, Celia’s father, Frederick. Duke Senior lives in the forest of Arden.

Together with the court jester, Touchstone, the girls set out, disguised as a country boy, Ganymede, and his sister, Aliena. Coincidentally, Orlando, fearing for his life, has also left home, accompanied by his father’s servant, Adam.

In the forest, the group from the court encounter a young shepherd, Silvius, and watch him being rejected by a shepherdess, Phoebe, as he declares his love for her. They meet an old shepherd, Corin, who is looking for someone to take over the sheep farm. Ganymede, who wants to settle in the forest, buys the lease.

Duke Senior, unaware that his daughter is looking for him, is living a simple life with some courtiers and huntsmen. One of them is the melancholy Jaques, who reflects constantly on life. Orlando and Adam arrive and the outlaws welcome them and feed them.

Orlando hangs some love poems that he has written to Rosalind from the branches of trees. Rosalind and Aliena find them.

Ganymede helps him to cure his lovesickness by wooing him, Ganymede, as though he/she were Rosalind. A country girl, Audrey, falls in love with Touchstone and abandons her faithful William because of her love for the fool.

Oliver is searching for his brother. He has an accident and Orlando saves his life. Orlando is slightly injured and when he tells Ganymede about it she faints. Oliver and Celia fall in love. Phoebe falls in love 161

with Genymede. It all becomes very complicated. Hymen leads a masque; Rosalind re-emerges as a woman and her father gives her to Orlando; Phoebe accepts Silvius; Orlando’s older brother returns from university with the news that Celia’s father, Frederick, has retired as Duke to become a hermit; Jaques goes to join him. There is a joyful dance to celebrate the four marriages and the happy ending.

4. The Comedy of Errors: In Ephesus, ruled by Duke Solinus, Egeon, a merchant of Syracuse, stands trial for landing in a country where Syracusians are banned.

Egeon explains how 23 years before he had lost his wife and one of their identical twin sons, with the boy’s companion, also an identical twin boy, in a storm at sea. Egeon had brought up the surviving boys but at eighteen they had gone in search of their lost brothers. Not hearing from them, Egeon had also left home to seek news and has now arrived at Ephesus. Solinus is softened by the story and allows Egeon until sunset to try to raise 1000 marks ransom, or he must die.

Meanwhile, in a nearby marketplace a merchant has befriended two tourists, Antipholus of Syracuse (Egeon’s son) and his servant companion, Dromio. Learning of the ban on Syracusians, they take on local dress before going to explore the town, where, unknown to them, their twin brothers have been living after being saved from the storm by fishermen who brought them up in Corinth.

Antipholus of Syracuse is much surprised to be accosted by Dromio of Ephesus who is angry that his master has not returned home to his wife, Adriana, for dinner. The likeness of the Dromio twins to each other, and also between the sons of Egeon leads to a series of confusions whereby Antipholus of Syracuse dines with his sister-inlaw and at the same time falls in love with her sister, Luciana. His servant prevents entry to their own home by Antipholus and Dromio of Ephesus and their merchant friends. This exclusion leads Antipholus to resort to his friend the courtesan.

A chain previously ordered from Angelo, the goldsmith, is delivered to the wrong Antipholus and Angelo’s claim for payment leads to the arrest of Antipholus of Ephesus and his servant, while Adriana, fearing for her husband’s sanity gets Dr. Pinch, the schoolmaster, to exorcise them. While they are under restraint their Syracusian 162

brothers cause panic in the town but, frightened themselves, they take refuge in a priory.

The sunset hour of Egeon’s sentence arrives, and the Duke returns but is stopped by Adriana who appeals for aid as he has befriended her husband in the past. The Ephesian twins, having escaped their bonds, arrive to claim justice and Egeon recognizes them, as he thinks, the boys he brought up in Syracuse. Solinus sends for the Abbess who appears, to everyone’s surprise, with the second pair of twins. She further amazes everyone by recognizing Egeon. She is Aemilia, his long-lost wife, who, surviving the storm and fearing all her family to be dead, had entered a religious order.

When all have told their stories Antipholus of Syracuse renews his suit to Luciana, the Duke pardons Egeon, and everyone goes to celebrate the reunions at the home of Adriana and Antipholus of Ephesus. Dromio of Syracuse happily passes the attentions of Adriana’s servant girl, who has pursued him since the dinner at Adriana’s house, back to his brother and the two joyfully leave the stage hand in hand.

5. The Tragedy of Coriolanus: Rome is in a mutinous mood. The citizens are protesting about their rulers’ incompetence and the shortage of food. A popular senator, Menenius Agrippa, has just managed to calm them when the arrogant and fiery young general, Caius Martius, arouses their emotions again by confronting them. He tells them that tribunes, including Sicinius Velutus and Junius Brutus, have been appointed to speak on their behalf.

Martius leads the Roman army against the Volscian forces, led by Tullus Aufidius, which are threatening Rome. Martius defeats the Volscians in their own city, Corioli, with great personal valor, and is given the title of ‘Coriolanus’. When he returns to Rome the senate elect him to succeed Cominius as Consul. He accepts the honor but refuses to subject himself to the endorsement of the common people in the market place. He finally very reluctantly agrees to it but although he achieves the people’s approval, it is not a ringing endorsement. Urged on by the tribunes, Sicinius and Brutus, they reverse their endorsement. Coriolanus shows his contempt for them 163

by denying their right to corn. His mother, Volumnia, and some senators, do everything they can to smooth matters between him and the people but they are unsuccessful. He is expelled from Rome.

He goes to the Volscian city of Antium in disguise and is welcomed by his former enemy, Aufidius. The Roman tribunes celebrate Coriolanus’ departure until the news arrives that he has joined forces with Aufidius to challenge the city. All diplomatic attempts to stop him fail until his mother, his wife, Virgilia, and his young son, approach him. He is unable to resist their entreaties and agrees to make peace. Aufidius, filled with a sense of betrayal, kills Coriolanus.

6. The Tragedy of Cymbeline: This is the story of a British king, King Cymbeline who’s daughter, Imogen, went against him and married a low-born, Posthumus, instead of his oafish stepson Cloten, son of his devious Queen wife who uses the king as a puppet. Posthumus is exiled in Italy where he meets Iachimo who bets he can seduce Imogen because he believes all women are unchaste. After failing to seduce her he hides in a chest he sends to her and steals her bracelet to confirm that he won the bet. This enrages Posthumus who orders his servant Pisanio to kill her. Pisanio however believes she is innocent and helps her escape and then reports that she has been killed as ordered.

In her escape in the wilds of Wales she comes upon a cave occupied

by Belarius, a noblemen and his two sons who were banished by Cymbeline, and his two sons. The two sons, Guiderius and Arviragus, are in reality, the revenge-kidnapped sons of the king, but don’t know it. Cloten still pursuing Imogen, is killed in an encounter in the wilds with Guiderius. Imogem feels ill and drinks a poisonous potion the Queen had given her telling her it was “medicine”, and then falls into a death-like sleep.

Imogen awakes next to dead Cloten and thinks it’s Posthumus. In the meantime the Roman army invades Britain because it refused to pay Rome tribute, a payment for a promise of non-aggression. With the combined help of Posthumus, Guiderius and Arviragus Rome is defeated. Posthumus, regretful and despondent over Imogen’s death, actually fights on both sides in a death wish.

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At the end of the play all is well as Iachimo apologizes for all the trouble he’s caused by the bet, Imogen and Posthumus are reunited, the Queen dies, Belarius is forgiven, Cymbeline is united with his natural sons and, in a gesture of peace, frees the Roman prisoners and agrees to resume paying tribute.

7. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark: Prince Hamlet is depressed. Having been summoned home to Denmark from school in Germany to attend his father's funeral, he is shocked to find his mother Gertrude already remarried. The Queen has wed Hamlet's Uncle Claudius, the dead king's brother. To Hamlet, the marriage is "foul incest." Worse still, Claudius has had himself crowned King despite the fact that Hamlet was his father's heir to the throne. Hamlet suspects foul play.

When his father's ghost visits the castle, Hamlet's suspicions are confirmed. The Ghost complains that he is unable to rest in peace because he was murdered. Claudius, says the Ghost, poured poison in King Hamlet's ear while the old king napped. Unable to confess and find salvation, King Hamlet is now consigned, for a time, to spend his days in Purgatory and walk the earth by night. He entreats Hamlet to avenge his death, but to spare Gertrude, to let Heaven decide her fate.

Hamlet vows to affect madness — puts "an antic disposition on" — to wear a mask that will enable him to observe the interactions in the castle, but finds himself more confused than ever. In his persistent confusion, he questions the Ghost's trustworthiness. What if the Ghost is not a true spirit, but rather an agent of the devil sent to tempt him? What if killing Claudius results in Hamlet's having to relive his memories for all eternity? Hamlet agonizes over what he perceives as his cowardice because he cannot stop himself from thinking. Words immobilize Hamlet, but the world he lives in prizes action.

In order to test the Ghost's sincerity, Hamlet enlists the help of a troupe of players who perform a play called The Murder of Gonzagoto which Hamlet has added scenes that recreate the murder the Ghost described. Hamlet calls the revised play The Mousetrap, and the ploy proves a success. As Hamlet had hoped, 165

Claudius' reaction to the staged murder reveals the King to be conscience-stricken. Claudius leaves the room because he cannot breathe, and his vision is dimmed for want of light. Convinced now that Claudius is a villain, Hamlet resolves to kill him. But, as Hamlet observes, "conscience doth make cowards of us all."

In his continued reluctance to dispatch Claudius, Hamlet actually causes six ancillary deaths. The first death belongs to Polonius, whom Hamlet stabs through a wallhanging as the old man spies on Hamlet and Gertrude in the Queen's private chamber. Claudius punishes Hamlet for Polonius' death by exiling him to England. He has brought Hamlet's school chums Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to Denmark from Germany to spy on his nephew, and now he instructs them to deliver Hamlet into the English king's hands for execution.

Hamlet discovers the plot and arranges for the hanging of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern instead. Ophelia, distraught over her father's death and Hamlet's behavior, drowns while singing sad love songs bemoaning the fate of a spurned lover. Her brother, Laertes, falls next.

Laertes, returned to Denmark from France to avenge his father's death, witnesses Ophelia's descent into madness. After her funeral, where he and Hamlet come to blows over which of them loved Ophelia best, Laertes vows to punish Hamlet for her death as well.

Unencumbered by words, Laertes plots with Claudius to kill Hamlet.

In the midst of the sword fight, however, Laertes drops his poisoned sword. Hamlet retrieves the sword and cuts Laertes. The lethal poison kills Laertes. Before he dies, Laertes tells Hamlet that because Hamlet has already been cut with the same sword, he too will shortly die. Horatio diverts Hamlet's attention from Laertes for a moment by pointing out that "The Queen falls."

Gertrude, believing that Hamlet's hitting Laertes means her son is winning the fencing match, has drunk a toast to her son from the poisoned cup Claudius had intended for Hamlet. The Queen dies.

As Laertes lies dying, he confesses to Hamlet his part in the plot and explains that Gertrude's death lies on Claudius' head. Finally enraged, Hamlet stabs Claudius with the poisoned sword and then pours the last of the poisoned wine down the King's throat. Before he dies, Hamlet declares that the throne should now pass to Prince 166

Fortinbras of Norway, and he implores his true friend Horatio to accurately explain the events that have led to the bloodbath at Elsinore. With his last breath, he releases himself from the prison of his words: "The rest is silence."

The play ends as Prince Fortinbras, in his first act as King of Denmark, orders a funeral with full military honors for slain Prince Hamlet.

8. Henry IV Part One: (1399-1413) Henry Bolingbroke has usurped his cousin, Richard II, to become King of England. News comes of a rebellion in Wales, where his cousin, Edmund Mortimer, has been taken prisoner by Owen Glendower, and in the North, where Harry Hotspur, the young son of the Earl of Northumberland, is fighting the Earl of Douglas.

The king’s problems mount up and he is forced to postpone his proposed participation in a crusade. Moreover, his heir, Henry, known as Hal, shows no interest in princely matters and spends all his time in the London taverns with disreputable companions, particularly one dissolute old knight, Sir John Falstaff.

Falstaff will do anything to finance his eating and drinking. He carries out a robbery with two of his friends but Hal and Poins rob them in turn. Hal protects Falstaff from the law and returns the money to the victims.

Although Hotspur has been forced to agree to support the king he joins a plot with his father and his uncle, Worcester, to support Glendower, Mortimer, and Douglas against the king.

Hal returns to the court, makes his peace with his father, and is given a command in the army that is preparing to meet Hotspur. Falstaff has also been given a command but he has taken bribes and filled his ranks with beggars instead of recruiting able men. The King offers to pardon Hotspur if he will withdraw his opposition. Glendower’s troops and those of Northumberland have been unable to contact Hotspur and Worcester withholds the King’s offer from Hotspur and the battle of Shrewsbury begins.

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Falstaff’s conduct in the war is disreputable and behaves in a cowardly way, while Hal saves his father’s life in combat with the Scotsman, Douglas. He encounters Hotspur, who is killed. Falstaff, having feigned death to avoid injury, claims to have fought and killed Hotspur. The King’s army triumphs over the rebels and Worcester is condemned to death. Hal frees Douglas while Henry takes his troops to continue the war against Mortimer and the Welsh, and the remnants of the Northumberland forces.

9. King Henry IV Part Two: (1399-1413) King Henry IV has been victorious at the battle of Shrewsbury but the Earl of Northumberland hears rumors that his son, Harry Hotspur, has been the victor. Northumberland and the Archbishop of York decide to oppose the king’s forces, led by Prince John. The news of Hotspur’s death finally comes, however, and Hotspur’s widow and Lady Northumberland urge them not to continue with their rebellion.

The Lord Chief Justice criticizes Sir John Falstaff for his behavior during the wars but gives his blessing to him in his intention to join Prince John’s forces. Before Falstaff can leave he is arrested for his debt to Mistress Quickly, the landlady of the Boar’s Head tavern.

They both land up in court where Falsaff persuades her to patch up their differences. Prince Hal and his friend Poins, arrive at the tavern, disguised as servants. Acquaintances between Hal and Falstaff and his companions are renewed. Pistol arrives and tells Falstaff that he should have departed for the wars by now. Hal and is friends remain, still dressed as servants, although the king is sick, and worried about the succession. Falstaff recruits men, conforming to his usual corrupt methods.

York, Mowbray and Hastings prepare for battle. The Earl of Westmorland arrives from Prince John to hear their grievances and they come to a peace arrangement. However, as soon as the rebel armies disperse, Westmorland arrests the three leaders for treason.

The king is very ill. Hall arrives from London. He thinks the sleeping king is dead and he lifts the crown and tries it on. The king wakes up and is angered by that. They make up and are reconciled before the king prepares himself for death.

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When Falstaff hears of the king’s death and Hal’s succession he sets out to attend the coronation, expecting to be given high office, but the king denies knowing him and banishes him, commanding him to come no nearer than ten miles of his court. The play ends with Falstaff left hurt and hoping that the king will change his mind, while the King Henry plans a war against France.

10. Henry V: (1413-1422) Henry V’s father Bolingbroke (Henry IV) was never able to rule comfortably because he had usurped Richard II. On his succession King Henry V is determined to prove his right to rule, including over France. An ambassador arrives from the French Dauphin with a provocative gift of tennis balls. Henry responds by preparing to invade France. Three of the king’s friends, Scroop, Cambridge and Grey, are discovered to be plotting against him and he condemns them to death. Pistol, Nym, and Bardolph, the companions of Henry’s dissolute days in London, join the king’s forces and set off for the wars. The news comes of Sir John Falstaff’s death.

The English take the town of Harfleur and the king moves on towards Calais. The two armies prepare for battle near Agincourt. The night before the battle the king visits his troops in disguise. The French numbers are superior but Henry inspires his troops with a powerful patriotic speech. The battle begins and the French are defeated, with heavy losses, whereas the English losses are light. Henry returns to London in triumph before making peace with the French king.

Henry woos the French Princess Katherine and their marriage links England and France.

11. Henry VI Part One: (1422-Deposed 1461) The play opens in the aftermath of the death of King Henry V. News reaches England of military setbacks in France, and the scene shifts to Orleans, where ‘La Pucelle’ (Joan of Arc) is encouraging the Dauphin to resist. She defeats an English army led by Talbot.

In England, Richard, Duke of York, quarrels with John Beaufort, 1st Duke of Somerset about his claim on the throne. The lords select red or white roses, depending on whether they favor the House of Lancaster or that of York. Edmund Mortimer, a leading claimant to

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the throne, is a prisoner in the Tower of London and declares Richard his heir. The young Henry VI honors both Richard and Talbot.

Talbot dies bravely in his next battle against the French. In the meantime, King Henry is married off to a young French princess, Margaret of Anjou. Suffolk intends to control the king through Margaret. Ill feeling between him and the Duke of Gloucester continues to grow.

The play ends with Suffolk having won, in that Margaret will rule the king and he, Suffolk, will rule her, which ultimately leads to big trouble in England in Part 2 and Part 3.

12. Henry VI Part Two (1422-Deposed 1461) This play begins with the marriage of King Henry VI to the young Margaret of Anjou. William de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, aims to influence the king through her. The major obstacle to this plan is the regent of the crown, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, who is very popular with the people. Queen Margaret vies with his wife, Eleanor, for precedence at court. Eleanor is lured by an agent of Suffolk into dabbling in necromancy, and then arrested, to the embarrassment of her husband, Gloucester. Nevertheless, the demon she has summoned delivers some accurate prophecies concerning the fates of several characters in the play. Gloucester is then accused of treason and imprisoned, and afterwards assassinated by agents of Suffolk and the Queen.

Meanwhile, Richard, Duke of York, who has a tenuous claim to the throne, schemes to make himself king.

The Earl of Suffolk is banished for his role in Gloucester’s death and beheaded by Walter the pirate, leaving Margaret without her mentor.

Meanwhile, Richard of York has managed to become commander of an army to suppress a revolt in Ireland. York enlists a former officer, Jack Cade, to lead a rebellion that threatens the whole kingdom, so that he can bring his army from Ireland into England and seize the throne.

As Cade’s rebels are routed, York, who has brought his army over on the pretext of protecting the King from Somerset, declares open war 170

on the king, supported by his sons, Edward (the future King Edward IV) and Richard (the future King Richard II).

The English nobility now take sides, and the Battle of St Albans ensues. The Duke of Somerset is killed by the future Richard III. Young Lord Clifford, whose father has been killed by the Duke of York, vows revenge on the Yorkists, and allies himself with King Henry’s other supporters.

13. Henry VI Part Three: (1422-Deposed 1461) This play begins in London, with the Duke of York entering the throne room and Henry bargaining with York to let him remain as king while he is alive and to assume the throne only after he is dead.

This horrifies the other nobles, and Margaret, the Queen, that he would deny his son, Prince Edward, his birthright. (Henry believes that “son’s don’t appreciate what their fathers leave them”.)

Margaret’s forces arrive to challenge York, who is captured and killed.

With York dead, his son, Edward, takes over the throne. Richard, who has a hump back and a withered right arm, decides he will pretend to be a loyal brother while he connives for the throne himself. Edward seeks the hand of the King of France’s sister, to which the king accepts, and Margaret goes to France to ask for aid to fight Edward. Edward takes an immediate liking to Lady Gray when she petitioned him to get back her lands, and marries her instead of the king’s sister, which makes the king mad enough to give the troops that Margaret is looking for. In the winds of war, Edward is off the throne then on it again and in one of the many battles, Henry’s son, Prince Edward is killed and Margaret is imprisoned.

Richard then sneaks off to meet King Henry and kills him. He declares that because of the fate of his deformities he shall have to fight only for himself. With Henry and his son out of the way Richard only has to eliminate George and Edward, his brothers.

The play ends with the birth of Edward’s son and a celebration of that birth, as well as of Edward’s attainment of the throne. Nothing stands in the way of Richard’s way to the throne other than his brother, Edward.

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14. The Life of King Henry VIII: (1509-1547) Cardinal Wolsey, a close advisor to Henry VIII’s father, Henry VII, has framed the Duke of Buckingham for treason, who is executed. The Queen, Katherine, hates Wolsey and he is also hated by the people because of the plot against Buckingham and the harsh, unfair taxes he is imposing in the King’s name. The King goes to a party hosted by Wolsely and falls in love with Anne Bullen, a lady-in-waiting to the Queen.

Henry, married to Katherine for twenty years, decides that the marriage is not legal because she is the widow of his brother, and it is therefore incest. He asks Wolsey for his advice. Because of that Wolsey becomes even more hated, both by Katherine and the people so he can’t agree to Henry’s solution of a divorce, but he agrees to put it to the Pope, who will send someone to investigate and make a ruling. Katherine regards the marriage as sacred but she has to submit to the proceedings.

Wolsey’s enemies are active and, the situation compounded by some bad luck, he begins to lose the confidence of Henry. Also, Henry sees him as a stumbling block to the divorce. Wolsey knows that Henry is determined to marry Anne Bullen so he advises the Pope to postpone a decision. With Wolsey in disgrace Henry goes ahead with the divorce and the remarriage without any regard to the Pope’s opinion. Wolsey then dies, followed soon after by Katherine.

The new Archbishop of Canterbury has a plot hatched against him by Wolsey’s secretary, Gardiner, who is tried and executed for treason.

Henry has a daughter, Elizabeth, by Anne Bullen.

The play ends with Cranmer, a friend of the king, christening her and making a speech foretelling a noble rule for Elizabeth and a glorious period of history during her reign.

15. The Tragedy of Julius Caesar: The tribunes, Marullus and Flavius, break up a gathering of Roman citizens who seek to celebrate Julius Caesar’s triumphant return from war. The victory is marked by public games in which Caesar’s friend, Mark Antony, takes part. On his way to the arena Caesar is stopped

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by a stranger who warns that he should ‘Beware the Ides (15th) of March.’

Fellow senators, Caius Cassius and Marcus Brutus, are suspicious of Caesar’s reactions to the power he holds in the Republic. They fear he will accept offers to become Emperor. Cassius, a successful general himself, is jealous, while Brutus has a more balanced view of the political position. Cassius, Casca, and their allies, visit Brutus at night to persuade him of their views, and they plan Caesar’s death.

Brutus is troubled but will not confide in his devoted wife, Portia.

On the 15th March Caesar is urged not to go to the Senate by his wife, Calphurnia, who has had dreams that he will be murdered, and she fears the portents of the overnight storms. He is nevertheless persuaded by flattery to go and as petitioners surround him Caesar is stabbed and dies as Brutus gives the final blow. When Caesar sees his good friend Brutus was one of the murderers, he says, “Et tu Brutus?,” “You too, Brutus?”

Against Cassius’s advice Mark Antony is allowed by Brutus to speak a funeral oration in the market place after Brutus has addressed the people of Rome to explain the conspirators’ reasons and their fears for Caesar’s ambition. Brutus calms the crowd but Antony’s speech stirs them to rioting and the conspirators are forced to flee from the city.

Brutus and Cassius gather an army in Northern Greece and prepare to fight the forces led by Mark Antony, who has joined with Caesar’s great-nephew, Octavius, and with Lepidus. Away from Rome, Brutus and Cassius are filled with doubts about the future and they quarrel bitterly over funds for their soldiers’ pay. They make up the argument and despite the misgivings of Cassius over the site they prepare to engage Antony’s army at Philippi. Brutus stoically receives news of his wife’s suicide in Rome, but he sees Caesar’s ghost as he rests, unable to sleep on the eve of the conflict.

In the battle the Republicans at first appear to be winning but when his messenger’s horse seems to be overtaken by the enemy Cassius fears the worst and gets his servant, Pindarus, to help him to a quick death. Brutus, finding Cassius’s body, commits suicide as the only 173

honorable action left to him. Antony, triumphant on the battlefield, praises Brutus as ‘the noblest Roman of them all’, and orders a formal funeral before he and Octavius return to rule in Rome.

16. King John: (1199-1216) This play involves the demand of King Philip of France for King John of England to abdicate his throne in favor of his nephew, Arthur, threatening war if he doesn’t. John however rules that the Bastard, his younger brother and favored son of his mother, Eleanor, will succeed him. He is “favored” because it is rumored that he is the son of Richard the Lionhearted!

The French and British fight over the English held French town of Angers, whose citizen are indifferent as to who controls their city and propose a truce through with the marriage of Luis, Philip’s son, and Blanche, John’s niece. Arthur’s mother, Constance, naturally is upset about this arrangement. The pope is also upset with John about the posting of an archbishop, and excommunicates him. He also threatens excommunication of King Philip if he doesn’t break with John, which Philip finally does.

The English capture Arthur, and bring him to England and ask Hubert to kill him. Hubert can’t do it because he’s impressed with his sweet innocence. John sends the Bastard to return to England to raise money from the monasteries, which upsets many noblemen and clergy alike. Further, Arthur tries to escape and falls form a castle tower. Many feel though that King John killed him, which upsets even more noblemen, who desert John in favor of Louis, King Philip’s son.

John worried about his losing support, gives into the pope and asks that the pope intercede with the French and turn away their army.

The Bastard though, still wants to fight the French on behalf of John and threatens Louis, who backs down. When the English lords who defected to the French, learn that Louis had planned to kill them as soon as he was victorious, they return to John’s side. Louis is subsequently defeated in a sea battle.

In the meantime, John has been poisoned by a monk and all gather around the king, including his son Prince Henry. The Bastard, just 174

about to attack Louis, when Pandolf, the pope’s ambassador, brings a peace treaty from Louis.

The play ends with the Bastard and the lords swearing allegiance to Henry and the Bastard speaking of England never being taken by foreigners unless it is damaged by internal strife.

17. The Tragedy of King Lear: The Earl of Gloucester introduces his illegitimate son, Edmund, to the Earl of Kent at court. Lear, King of Britain, enters. Now that he is old Lear has decided to abdicate, retire, and divide his kingdom between his three daughters. Each will receive a portion of the kingdom according to how much they love him. Goneril, Duchess of Albany, the oldest, and Regan, Duchess of Cornwall, the second, both speak eloquently and receive their portion but Cordelia, the youngest, can say nothing. Her declaration that she loves him according to a daughter’s duty to a father enrages him and she is disowned.

One of Cordelia’s suitors, the Duke of Burgundy, rejects her once she is dowerless but the King of France understands her declaration and takes her as his wife, while the Earl of Kent is banished for taking Cordelia’s part against the King. The kingdom is shared between Goneril and Regan. Lear tells them that he intends to live alternately with each of them.

Meanwhile, Edmund is determined to be recognized as a rightful son of Gloucester and persuades his father that his legitimate brother, Edgar, is plotting against Gloucester’s life, using a deceitful device.

Edmund warns Edgar that his life is in danger. Edgar flees and disguises himself as a beggar. Goneril becomes increasingly exasperated by the behavior of Lear’s hundred followers, who are disturbing life at Albany’s castle. Kent has returned in disguise and gains a place as a servant to Lear, supporting the King against Goneril’s ambitious servant, Oswald. Lear eventually curses Goneril and leaves to move in with Regan.

Edmund acts as a messenger between the sisters and is courted by each in turn. He persuades Cornwall that Gloucester is an enemy because, through loyalty to his King, Gloucester assists Lear and his devoted companion, the Fool, when they are turned away by Regan 175

and told to return to Goneril’s household. Despairing of his daughters and regretting his rejection of Cordelia, Lear goes out into the wilderness during a fierce storm. He goes mad. Gloucester takes them into a hut for shelter and seeks the aid of Kent to get them away to the coast, where Cordelia has landed with a French army to fight for her father against her sisters and their husbands.

Edgar, pretending to be mad, has also taken refuge in the shelter and the Fool, the mad king and the beggar are companions until Edgar finds his father wandering and in pain. Gloucester has been blinded

by Regan and Cornwall for his traitorous act in helping Lear. Cornwall has been killed by a servant after blinding Gloucester but Regan continues to rule with Edmund’s help. Not recognized by his father, Edgar leads him to the coast and helps him, during the journey, to come to an acceptance of his life. Gloucester meets the mad Lear on Dover beach, near Cordelia’s camp and, with Kent’s aid, Lear is rescued and re-united with Cordelia. Gloucester, although reconciled with Edgar, dies alone.

The French forces are defeated by Albany’s army led by Edmund, and Lear and Cordelia are captured. Goneril has poisoned Regan in jealous rivalry for Edmund’s attention but Edgar, disguised now as a loyal knight, challenges Edmund to a duel and wounds him mortally.

Seeing no way out, Goneril kills herself. The dying Edmund confesses his crimes, but it is too late to save Cordelia from the hangman. Lear, carrying her body, soon dies of a broken heart and Albany and Edgar are left to re-organize the kingdom.

18. Love’s Labor Lost: King Ferdinand, King of Navarre, decides to have a three year period of study and contemplation at his court. To avoid distraction he imposes a ban on women, who will not be allowed within a mile of the court. One of the courtiers, Berowne, has reservations about the ban on women. He reminds the King that he has an ambassadorial meeting on that very day with the Princess of France. As they prepare to meet the Princess the King sends his court fool, Costard to Don Armado to be punished for breaking the rules by dallying with a country girl, Jacquenetta.

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The Princess, refused entry to the court, is insulted by the ban, and in protest, she and her entourage camp in tents in front of the court.

They begin plotting ways of taking revenge. In the meantime, Don Armado, himself in love with Jacquenetta, lets Costard off his punishment in return for Costard delivering a love letter to her.

Before he can deliver it he is approached by Berowne, who asks him to take a letter to Rosaline. Some comic action is set up when Costard gets the letters mixed up.

The courtiers are all in love with some woman or other in the embassy, including Ferdinand, who is in love with the Princess. They pay a visit to the women’s camp in disguises but the women, in turn, greet them, also in disguise. There is great confusion and as the men return to the court the women make fun of them.

Having all broken the rules, including Ferdinand himself, they decide to stop the silly game. Just as they are all sitting down to a pageant, news comes that the King of France has died, so the Princess has to leave immediately. She tells Ferdinand that if he spends a full year in solitude in a hermitage, in penance for being an oath-breaker, she will consider his marriage proposal. The other women in the embassy tell their respective suitors that if they also do that penance they will return in a year and decide whether their lovers have been faithful before agreeing to marry them.

The play ends with the women departing for France to do their penance.

19. Macbeth: King Duncan’s generals, Macbeth and Banquo, encounter three strange women on a bleak Scottish moorland on their way home from quelling a rebellion. The women prophesy that Macbeth will be given the title of Thane of Cawdor and then become King of Scotland, while Banquo’s heirs shall be kings. The generals want to hear more but the weird sisters disappear. Duncan creates Macbeth Thane of Cawdor in thanks for his success in the recent battles and then proposes to make a brief visit to Macbeth’s castle.

Lady Macbeth receives news from her husband of the prophecy and his new title and she vows to help him become king by any means 177

she can. Macbeth’s return is followed almost at once by Duncan’s arrival. The Macbeths plot together and later that night, while all are sleeping and after his wife has given the guards drugged wine, Macbeth kills the King and his guards. Lady Macbeth leaves the bloody daggers beside the dead king. Macduff arrives and when the murder is discovered Duncan’s sons, Malcolm and Donalbain flee, fearing for their lives, but they are nevertheless blamed for the murder.

Macbeth is elected King of Scotland, but is plagued by feelings of guilt and insecurity. He arranges for Banquo and his son, Fleance to be killed, but the boy escapes the murderers. At a celebratory banquet Macbeth sees the ghost of Banquo and disconcerts the courtiers with his strange manner. Lady Macbeth tries to calm him but is rejected.

Macbeth seeks out the witches and learns from them that he will be safe until Birnam Wood comes to his castle, Dunsinane. They tell him that he need fear no-one born of woman, but also that the Scottish succession will come from Banquo’s son. Macbeth embarks on a reign of terror and many, including Macduff’s family are murdered, while Macduff himself has gone to join Malcolm at the court of the English king, Edward. Malcolm and Macduff decide to lead an army against Macbeth.

Macbeth feels safe in his remote castle at Dunsinane until he is told that Birnam Wood is moving towards him. The situation is that Malcolm’s army is carrying branches from the forest as camouflage for their assault on the castle. Meanwhile Lady Macbeth, paralyzed with guilt, walks in her sleep and gives away her secrets to a listening doctor. She kills herself as the final battle commences.

Macduff challenges Macbeth who, on learning his adversary is the child of a Caesarian birth, and not “born of a woman” realizes he is doomed. With one final act of denial about the witches’ prophecies, Macbeth leaps at Macduff and is slain and brings Macbeth’s head to Malcolm. The play ends with Malcolm being crowned the King of Scotland to everyone’s acclaim.

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20. Measure for Measure: Depravity and sexual licence have become an issue in Vienna and the Duke Vincentio, who has decided to take a break from ruling, appoints Angelo to rule in his absence, assisted by a trusted counselor, Escalus. The first thing Angelo does is pronounce that he is going to enforce the immorality laws to try and stamp out the epidemic of ‘loose’ living.

A citizen, Claudio, has got his fiancée, Juliet, pregnant. He is tried and sentenced to death. His sister, Isabella, who lives in a convent, about to take her vows as a nun, hears the news. She hurries to Angelo to beg for mercy on behalf of her brother. Angelo denies her request but as she persists he is overwhelmed by lust for her and tells her he will think about it, and that she should return the next day to hear his verdict. She goes back the next day and he tells her that he will pardon her brother if she will have sex with him.

The Duke Vincentio, in the meantime, has not left Vienna but disguised himself as an itinerant friar and is moving about among the people to observe the effect of Angelo’s rule. He tells Juliet to prepare for Claudio’s death, assuring her that there is no way around it.

Isabella is horrified by Angelo’s proposition and refuses. She visits Claudio in prison and tells him about it, making it clear that she will not subject herself to that, and that he will have to die. The Duke overhears their conversation and suggests a solution. He tells her that she should agree to it and he will arrange for Mariana, who has been jilted by Angelo because her dowry was lost at sea, to take Isabella’s place and sleep with Angelo, who will not know it isn’t Isabella in the dark.

Angelo is preparing to double-cross Isabella, however, and gives instructions for Claudio’s execution. The Duke, still disguised, persuades the prison governor to execute a long-term prisoner, Barnadine, instead, and deliver his head to Angelo as demanded, claiming that it is Claudio’s head. Barnadine refuses to agree so they decide to use the head of a prisoner who has just died.

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Marianna fulfils her part of the bargain, sleeping with Angelo, who believes that she is Isabella. The next day the ‘friar’ tells Isabella that Angelo has deceived her and had Claudio executed. He also announces his return, as the Duke, to Vienna. Isabella and Marianna decide to go together to greet him and complain about what has happened.

The Duke arrives in Vienna with a big public display. Isabella begs for justice. The two women tell their story and Angelo is exposed in public. He is forced to marry Marianna. Claudio and Juliet are reunited.

The play ends with the Duke proposing to Isabella.

21. The Merchant of Venice: A young Venetian, Bassanio, needs a loan of three thousand ducats so that he can woo Portia, a wealthy Venetian heiress. He approaches his friend Antonio, a merchant. Antonio is short of money because all his wealth is invested in his fleet, which is currently at sea. He goes to a Jewish money lender, Shylock, who hates Antonio because of Antonio’s anti-Semitic behavior towards him.

Shylock nevertheless agrees to make the short-term loan, but, in a moment of dark humor, he makes a condition – the loan must be repaid in three months or Shylock will exact a pound of flesh from Antonio. Antonio agrees, confident that his ships will return in time.

Because of the terms of Portia’s father’s will, all suitors must choose from among three caskets, one of which contains a portrait of her. If he chooses that he may marry Portia, but if doesn’t he must vow never to marry or court another woman. The Princes of Morocco and Arragon fail the test and are rejected. As Bassanio prepares to travel to Belmont for the test, his friend Lorenzo elopes with Shylock’s daughter, Jessica. Bassanio chooses the lead casket, which contains her picture, and Portia happily agrees to marry him immediately.

Meanwhile, two of Antonio’s ships have been wrecked and Antonio’s creditors are pressurising him for repayment. Word comes to Bassanio about Antonio’s predicament, and he hurries back to 180

Venice, leaving Portia behind. Portia follows him, accompanied by her maid, Nerissa. They are disguised as a male lawyer and his clerk.

When Bassanio arrives the date for the repayment to Shylock has passed and Shylock is demanding his pound of flesh. Even when Bassanio offers much more than the amount in repayment, Shylock, now infuriated by the loss of his daughter, is intent on seeking revenge on the Christians. The Duke refuses to intervene.

Portia arrives in her disguise to defend Antonio. Given the authority of judgment by the Duke, Portia decides that Shylock can have the pound of flesh as long as he doesn’t draw blood, as it is against the law to shed a Christian’s blood. Since it is obvious that to draw a pound of flesh would kill Antonio, Shylock is denied his suit.

Moreover, for conspiring to murder a Venetian citizen, Portia orders that he should forfeit all his wealth. Half is to go to Venice, and half to Antonio.

Antonio gives his half back to Shylock on the condition that Shylock bequeath it to his disinherited daughter, Jessica. Shylock must also convert to Christianity. A broken Shylock accepts. News arrives that Antonio’s remaining ships have returned safely. With the exception of Shylock, all celebrate a happy ending to the affair.

22. The Merry Wives of Windsor: Sir John Falstaff is in financial difficulties. On top of that, Justice Shallow and his youthful cousin, Slender, have come to Windsor because he has conned them out of money. Falstaff decides to woo the wives of two of Windsor’s leading merchants, Page, and Ford, to get money out of them. He sends his page, Robin, to each of the wives with a letter. The wives compare the letters and find that they are identical.

They decide to teach him a lesson and devise a plan. They invite him to Mistress Ford’s house at a time when Ford will be out bird shooting. Falstaff’s companions, Pistol and Nym, tell Ford about Falstaff’s intentions and Ford, a naturally jealous man, resolves to catch his wife out. He disguises himself as a shy man, Master Brook, with a passion for Mistress Ford, and goes to Falstaff and offers him money to woo her on his behalf. Falstaff tells him that a meeting has already been arranged and agrees to Master Brook’s request.

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Slender has made friends with a local clergyman, Parson Evans.

Slender has fallen for Page’s daughter, Anne, who is already secretly meeting a young courtier, Fenton, of whom Page disapproves.

Anne’s mother, Mistress Page, is determined that she will marry the French doctor, Caius. When Caius hears about Slender’s suit he challenges Parson Evans to a duel. The landlord of the Garter Inn confuses matters by setting different places for the duel, which results in the antagonists making up their differences.

Falstaff arrives at Mistress Ford’s house but his wooing is interrupted

by Mistress Page’s announcement that the men are returning. They hide Falstaff in a large laundry basket and he is carried out. Ford searches the house. Falstaff is tipped out on a muddy river bank. The wives, amused by the incident, decide to repeat the incident and invite Falstaff to come again. He is reluctant but Master Brook persuades him to accept and his visit is again interrupted by Ford’s return. Ford searches the laundry basket but this time Falstaff is disguised as the elderly aunt of one of the servants. When Ford finds nothing in the laundry basket he loses his temper and angrily beats the ‘aunt’ out of the house. The wives laughingly tell their husbands about the trick and Page suggests that they should publicly humiliate Falstaff to stop him from preying on honest wives.

Mistress Ford invites Falstaff to meet her at night in Windsor Park, disguised as Hearne the Hunter. Parson Evans organizes Anne and some children to dress as fairies. Anne plans to elope with Fenton, while her parents are plotting her kidnapping by Caius and a secret marriage to him. They all meet in the park and Falstaff is pinched and taunted by the fairies. Anne escapes and returns as Fenton’s wife, while Cauius and Slender both find that they have eloped with boys.

The play ends with the Pages giving their blessing to Anne’s marriage and everyone laughing at the evening’s antics and the humiliation of Falstaff.

23. A Midsummer’s Night Dream: Theseus, the Duke of Athens, is preparing for his marriage to Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons, A courtier seeks the Dukes intervention because his daughter, Hermia, will not agree to his choice of Demetrius as a husband: she’s in love with Lysander. The 182

Duke tells Hermia to obey her father, or either die or accept a life as a nun in Diana’s temple. Lysander and Hermia plan to elope, and they tell Helena, who is in love with Demetrius, but he hates her and loves Hermia. The lovers run away from Athens but get lost in the woods. They are followed by Demetrius, and then by Helena, who has told him of their intentions.

Oberon, king of the fairies, who lives in the woods, has quarrelled with his queen, Titania, over an Indian boy she refuses to give him.

Oberon overhears Helena and Demetrius arguing and sends his mischievous servant, Puck, to get a flower whose juice has the power to make people fall in love with the first creature they see when the juice is placed on their eyelids while asleep. He instructs Puck to put some drops on Demetrius’ eyes. Mistaking the Athenian he seeks, Puck puts the flower juice on the eyes of the sleeping Lysander so that when he is woken by Helena he immediately falls in love with her and rejects Hermia.

Some artisans are rehearsing a play about the tragic love-story of Pyramus and Thisbe to present before Theseus on his wedding day.

Bottom, the weaver, is to play the lover, Pyramus, while Flute, the bellows-mender, is to play Thisbe. The others play the parts of the Moon, the Wall and the Lion and they are directed by Quince, the carpenter. Puck overhears their rehearsals in the wood and he plays a trick on them by giving Bottom an ass’s head which frightens the others away. Bottom is lured towards the sleeping Titania whom Oberon has treated with the flower juice. On waking, she falls in love with the ass and entertains him with her fairies, but when Bottom falls asleep beside her, Oberon restores Titania’s sight and wakes her. She is appalled at the sight of what she has been in love with and is reunited with Oberon.

Puck removes the ass’s head and Bottom returns to Athens and rejoins his friends as they prepare to perform their play. Meanwhile the lovers’ arguments tire them out as they chase one another through the woods and when Demetrius rests, Oberon puts magic juice on his eyes so that both he and Lysander pursue Helena until the four lovers fall asleep, exhausted. Puck puts juice on Lysander’s eyes before the lovers are woken by Theseus and Hippolyta and their dawn hunting party. Happily reunited to each other, Lysander with 183

Hermia, Demetrius with Helena, they agree to share the Duke’s wedding day. The rustics perform the play of Pyramus and Thisbe before the wedding guests. As the three couples retire Puck and the fairies return to bless the palace and its people.

24. Much Ado About Nothing: In Messina, as Don Pedro, the Prince of Arragon, and his officers return from a recently concluded war, a message comes to Leonato that the prince intends to visit his house for a month. The Duke’s party arrives with Count Claudio, who had before the war been attracted by Leonato’s only daughter, Hero. Another of the visitors is Benedick, a bachelor, who enjoys speaking his mind in witty argument with Hero’scousin and companion, the Lady Beatrice.

Leonato holds a masked ball to celebrate the end of the war and the engagement of Claudio to Hero is arranged while the Duke’s brother, Don John, resenting the celebrations, seeks a way to spoil the general happiness. Don John plots with the soldiers, Borachio and Conrade, to deceive Claudio into believing Hero is false to him. As a result a trick is carried out with the unwitting assistance of Hero’s maid, Margaret, who talks from Hero’s bedroom window with Borachio at night while Claudio and the Duke watch secretly from a distance, under the delusion that the girl at the window is Hero.

Hero and Don Pedro meanwhile are convinced that Benedick and Beatrice are ideal partners and by means of overheard conversations the two realize they do indeed love one another.

At the wedding Claudio denounces Hero and leaves her apparently dead from shock, while her father, Beatrice and Benedick, amazed at the situation, decide that with the aid of the priest. Hero’s recovery should be concealed until her name can be cleared. Help is at hand as the village constable, Dogberry, and his assistants have arrested Borachio and Conrade after overhearing them boasting of their deception of Claudio and the Duke.

The play comes to a joyful conclusion when Dogberry’s information is, eventually, after some difficulty, given to Leonato and Don Pedro.

Claudio agrees to accept Leonato’s ‘niece’ whom he has never met, in place of Hero, whom he believes has been killed by his slander.

The ‘niece’ turns out to be Hero, and as the lovers are reunited Benedick and Beatrice announce that they will share the wedding 184

day. Don John has been captured while trying to escape and is left for future trial while the play ends with a merry dance.

25. Othello: The play takes place in Venice, Italy, the center of trade and banking.

Roderigo, who was a former suitor of Senator Brabantio’s daughter, Desdemona, and Iago, an ensign who was passed over for promotion

by Othello, tell Brabantio about Desdemona’s elopement with Othello.

Treacherous and vindictive Iago tells it in an alarming way and then runs off, pretending to be a friend of Othello, to inform/warn Othello. The eloping couple is brought before Duke of Venice where Brabantio claims witchcraft on the part of Othello but Desdemona claims love. The senators believe Desdemona. The Duke sends Othello to Cyprus to defend it from the Turks and Desdemona follows soon after in the same ship with Iago, and his wife Emilia, who is also a servant to Desdemona. Iago convinces Roderigo to come along as well telling him that Desdemona will soon tire of Othello.

Iago plans to make use of Cassio, who he believes got the promotion he felt he should have had, to destroy Othello. Iago arranges for a fight that gets Cassio demoted and then convinces Cassio that he could get reinstated if Desdemona pleaded his case to Othello and arranges a private meeting with the two in that regard. Othello and Iago see Cassio quickly departing that meeting, and Iago plants the seed in Othello’s mind that Cassio seems to be “avoiding” the Moor.

Desdemona, as agreed, pleads Cassio’s case to Othello.

Then Iago plants another seed that Desdemona is unfaithful and when Othello asks for proof he produces Desdemona’s handkerchief, which she had inadvertently dropped. Othello now believes that his wife is unfaithful and agrees with Iago that he will kill Desdemona and that Iago will kill Cassio. Desdemona still pleads Cassio’s case and when Othello accuses her she denies any infidelity. Iago convinces the gullible Rogirio that he still has a chance with Desdemona and gets him join him in an attack. During the attack, Cassio wounds Roderigo, but Iago stabs Cassio in the leg.

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Cassio’s cries are heard by Othello who thinks Cassio has been killed and moves to complete his part of the plot and goes and smothers Desdemona while she is in her bed, despite her protests of innocence. Emilia discovers the plot and raises the alarm to Montano and Gratiano, explains how the handkerchief innocently got into the hands of Casio and calls her husband Iago a liar and conniver. Refusing to be quiet, Iago stabs her. Cassio still wounded, confirms Emilia’s story.

Othello, out of honor as a good soldier, asks to be remembered as “one that loved not wisely but too well”, stabs himself, falls on the bed beside his wife and dies.

26. Pericles, Prince of Tyre: Pericles, the Prince of Tyre flees Antioch and goes back to Tyre because he knows that Antiochus, the King of Antioch, is having an incestuous affair with his daughter. Antiochus is determined to kill him and pursues him. Pericles flees again, first to Tyre and then to Pentopolis. He leaves Tyre in the care of his counselor, Helicanus. En route the ship is wrecked and Pericles is the only survivor.

While in Pentopolis, Pericles wins a tournament where the prize is Thaisa, the beautiful daughter of Simonides. They fall in love and Pericles marries her. Soon after that the news arrives that Antiochus is dead: also that the people of Tyre want their prince to return to them. Thaisa is pregnant now, and on the way to Tyre a storm at sea brings about the birth of her child, whom Pericles calls Marina.

Thaisa apparently dies in childbirth. The grieving Pericles seals her in a watertight coffin and buries her at sea.

The coffin floats on the sea and finally ends up on the coast of Ephesus. Cerimon revives Thaisa. She mistakenly believes that Pericles has been lost at sea and she commits herself as a votress (a nun) in the Temple of Diana. In the meantime, Pericles has visited Tarsus and left Marina with Cleon, the governor of Tarsus, and his wife, Dyonyza, who have undertaken to raise her.

There is a sixteen year gap in the action. Marina is now a beautiful young woman. Dionysa is jealous of her and makes up her mind to have her killed. She instructs a servant to take her out in a ship and 186

murder her but before he can do that she is captured by pirates. The servant returns and tells Dionyza that he’s killed her. Cleon builds a monument to her.

When Pericles visits Tarsus he sees the monument and falls into a pit of despair. In the meantime the pirates have sold Marina to a brothel in Mitylene but she is almost immediately freed by the governor, Lysismachus.

Pericles arrives in Mitylene and encounters her. He talks to her without at first knowing who she is. He soon recognizes her, however, and there is a joyful reunion. Lysismachus proposes to Marina and she accepts him. Pericles then has a dream in which he is instructed to go to Ephesus. He takes Marina with him. When they arrive they meet Thaisa, who is now the head priestess of Diana, and the family is happily reunited.

27. King Richard II: (1377-Deposed 1399) Henry Bolingbroke, son of the great John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, challenges Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, accusing him of being involved in the recent death of the King’s uncle, the Duke of Gloucester. The challenge is to be answered by a tournament at King Richard’s court in Coventry, but the wayward and uncertain Richard stops the contest as it is about to begin. He banishes Mowbray for life and, responding to Lancaster’s pleas, he commutes Bolingbroke’s exile to six years.

Richard enjoys the companionship of his cousin Aumerle, son of the Duke of York, and of Bushy, Bagot and Green, who are seen as hangers on, misleading him into the misgovernment of England.

Gaunt dies, finally broken by his son’s banishment, and by the state in which he sees the kingdom under Richard’s rule. Richard ignores Gaunt’s advice and, to the horror of his last surviving uncle, the Duke of York, claim’s Gaunt’s estates, using the money to fund an expedition against the Irish. He leaves York as regent in England.

Bolingbroke, angered that his inheritance has been confiscated, returns with an invading army and is welcomed by the English who are led by the powerful Earl of Northumberland, Henry Percy.

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Richard arrives back to find his Welsh allies have dispersed and that York, who has been unable to prevent Bolingbroke’s triumphant return, has joined the invader. Other friends have abandoned the king, and Bushy and Green have been executed on Bolingbroke’s orders. After taking refuge at Flint castle, Richard agrees to go to London where the case is considered in Parliament.

King Richard is persuaded to abdicate in favor of Henry Bolingbroke, who becomes Henry 1V. Aumerle joins with the Bishop of Carlisle and the Abbot of Westminster in a plot against Henry but is discovered by his father, York. Loyal to the new regime, York tells Bolingbroke of his son’s treachery and Aurmerle is saved only by his mother’s pleas to King Henry.

Richard is imprisoned in Pontefract castle and his Queen is sent home to France. Pierce of Exton, misinterpreting King Henry’s wishes, murders Richard and brings the body to London. The play ends with King Henry swearing to make reparation for his cousin’s death by going one day on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

28. Richard III: (1483-1485) Richard, Duke of Gloucester, is determined to gain the crown of England from his brother, the Yorkist King Edward IV. He woos the widow, Lady Ann at the funeral of her father-in-law, King Henry VI. She yields to his advances and marries him. In the meantime, Richard organizes the murder of his brother George, Duke of Clarence, whom he has had imprisoned in the Tower of London.

The king, Edward IV is ill and Richard, assisted by Lord Hastings, is appointed as regent. He places the young sons of Edward in the Tower and consolidates his power with the help of Buckingham, who gains the support of the Lord Mayor of London and his followers on Richard’s behalf. The king dies and Richard is proclaimed king. He has Hastings executed for attempting to frustrate his plans. The young princes are murdered in the Tower. Edward’s widow, Elizabeth, with the sons of her first marriage, fearing for their lives, flee. Buckingham is suspicious of Richard’s role in the murder of the young princes. He tries to blackmail Richard, demanding an earldom, and when his demand is denied he tries to raise an army against

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Richard. He is captured and executed. Richard plans to marry Edward IV’s daughter, Elizabeth.

Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, the heir to the Lancastrian claim to the throne, makes war on Richard. They meet at Bosworth. On the eve of the battle Richard is haunted by the ghosts of his victims. He is killed in the battle and Henry Tudor succeeds him, becoming Henry VII of England. The play ends with him planning to marry Elizabeth of York and end the Wars of the Roses.

29. Romeo and Juliet: On a hot morning fighting by young servants of the Capulet and Montague families is stopped by the Prince who tells them that the next person who breaks the peace will be punished with death.

Capulet plans a feast to introduce his daughter, Juliet, who is almost fourteen, to the Count Paris who would like to marry her. By a mistake of the illiterate servant Peter, Montague’s son, Romeo, and his friends Benvolio and the Prince’s cousin Mercutio, hear of the party and decide to go in disguise. Romeo hopes he will see his adored Rosaline but instead he meets and falls in love with Juliet.

Juliet’s cousin Tybalt recognizes the Montagues and they are forced to leave the party just as Romeo and Juliet have each discovered the other’s identity. Romeo lingers near the Capulet’s house and talks to Juliet when she appears on her balcony. With the help of Juliet’s Nurse the lovers arrange to meet next day at the cell of Friar Lawrence when Juliet goes for confession, and they are married by him.

Tybalt picks a quarrel with Mercutio and his friends and Mercutio is accidentally killed as Romeo intervenes to try to break up the fight.

Romeo pursues Tybalt in anger, kills him and is banished by the Prince for the deed. Juliet is anxious that Romeo is late meeting her and learns of the fighting from her Nurse. With Friar Lawrence’s help it is arranged that Romeo will spend the night with Juliet before taking refuge at Mantua.

To calm the family’s sorrow at Tybalt’s death the day for the marriage of Juliet to Paris is brought forward. Capulet and his wife

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are angry that Juliet does not wish to marry Paris, not knowing of her secret contract with Romeo.

Friar Lawrence helps Juliet by providing a sleeping potion that will make everyone think she’s dead. Romeo will then come to her tomb and take her away. When the wedding party arrives to greet Juliet next day they think she is dead. The Friar sends a colleague to warn Romeo to come to the Capulet’s family monument to rescue his sleeping wife but the message doesn’t get through and Romeo, hearing instead that Juliet is dead, buys poison in Mantua.

He returns to Verona and goes to the tomb where he surprises and kills the mourning Paris. Romeo takes the poison and dies just as Juliet awakes from her drugged sleep. She learns what has happened from Friar Lawrence but she refuses to leave the tomb and stabs herself as the Friar returns with the Prince, the Capulets and Romeo’s father. The deaths of their children lead the families to make peace, promising to erect gold statues of their dead children side by side of each other.

30. The Taming of the Shrew: In the English countryside, a poor tinker named Christopher Sly becomes the target of a prank by a local lord. Finding Sly drunk out of his wits in front of an alehouse, the lord has his men take Sly to his manor, dress him in his finery, and treat him as a lord. When Sly recovers, the men tell him that he is a lord and that he only believes himself to be a tinker because he has been insane for the past several years. Waking in the lord’s bed, Sly at first refuses to accept the men’s story, but when he hears of his “wife,” a pageboy dressed in women’s clothing, he readily agrees that he is the lord they purport him to be. Sly wants to be left alone with his wife, but the servants tell him that a troupe of actors has arrived to present a play for him. The play that Sly watches makes up the main story of The Taming of the Shrew.

In the Italian city of Padua, a rich young man named Lucentio arrives with his servants, Tranio and Biondello, to attend the local university.

Lucentio is excited to begin his studies, but his priorities change when he sees Bianca, a beautiful, mild young woman with whom 190

Lucentio instantly falls in love. There are two problems: first, Bianca already has two suitors, Gremio and Hortensio; second, Bianca’s father, a wealthy old man named Baptista Minola, has declared that no one may court Bianca until first her older sister, the vicious, illtempered Katherine, is married. Lucentio decides to overcome this problem by disguising himself as Bianca’s Latin tutor to gain an excuse to be in her company. Hortensio disguises himself as her music teacher for the same reason. While Lucentio pretends to be Bianca’s tutor, Tranio dresses up as Lucentio and begins to confer with Baptista about the possibility of marrying his daughter.

The Katherine problem is solved for Bianca’s suitors when Hortensio’s friend Petruchio, a brash young man from Verona, arrives in Padua to find a wife. He intends to marry a rich woman, and does not care what she is like as long as she will bring him a fortune. He agrees to marry Katherine sight unseen. The next day, he goes to Baptista’s house to meet her, and they have a tremendous duel of words. As Katherine insults Petruchio repeatedly, Petruchio tells her that he will marry her whether she agrees or not. He tells Baptista, falsely, that Katherine has consented to marry him on Sunday. Hearing this claim, Katherine is strangely silent, and the wedding is set.

On Sunday, Petruchio is late to his own wedding, leaving Katherine to fear she will become an old maid. When Petruchio arrives, he is dressed in a ridiculous outfit and rides on a broken-down horse.

After the wedding, Petruchio forces Katherine to leave for his country house before the feast, telling all in earshot that she is now his property and that he may do with her as he pleases. Once they reach his country house, Petruchio continues the process of “taming” Katherine by keeping her from eating or sleeping for several days—he pretends that he loves her so much he cannot allow her to eat his inferior food or to sleep in his poorly made bed.

In Padua, Lucentio wins Bianca’s heart by wooing her with a Latin translation that declares his love. Hortensio makes the same attempt with a music lesson, but Bianca loves Lucentio, and Hortensio resolves to marry a wealthy widow. Tranio secures Baptista’s approval for Lucentio to marry Bianca by proposing a huge sum of money to lavish on her. Baptista agrees but says that he must have this sum confirmed by Lucentio’s father before the marriage can take 191

place. Tranio and Lucentio, still in their respective disguises, feel there is nothing left to do but find an old man to play the role of Lucentio’s father. Tranio enlists the help of an old pedant, or schoolmaster, but as the pedant speaks to Baptista, Lucentio and Bianca decide to circumvent the complex situation by eloping.

Katherine and Petruchio soon return to Padua to visit Baptista. On the way, Petruchio forces Katherine to say that the sun is the moon and that an old man is really a beautiful young maiden. Since Katherine’s willfulness is dissipating, she agrees that all is as her husband says. On the road, the couple meets Lucentio’s father, Vincentio, who is on his way to Padua to see his son. In Padua, Vincentio is shocked to find Tranio masquerading as Lucentio. At last, Bianca and Lucentio arrive to spread the news of their marriage.

Both Vincentio and Baptista finally agree to the marriage.

At the banquet following Hortensio’s wedding to the widow, the other characters are shocked to see that Katherine seems to have been “tamed”—she obeys everything that Petruchio says and gives a long speech advocating the loyalty of wives to their husbands. When the three new husbands stage a contest to see which of their wives will obey first when summoned, everyone expects Lucentio to win.

Bianca, however, sends a message back refusing to obey, while Katherine comes immediately. The others acknowledge that Petruchio has won an astonishing victory, and the happy Katherine and Petruchio leave the banquet to go to bed.

31. The Tempest: Alonso, the king of Naples, is returning from his daughter’s wedding in Tunis. He is accompanied by his son, Ferdinand, his brother, Sebastain, and Antonio, the Duke of Milan. An old Milanese courtier, Gonzalo, is also on board. The ship is wrecked in a storm and all the passengers and crew are thrown into the furious sea.

Prospero, the former Duke of Milan, and his fifteen year-old daughter, Miranda, are watching the shipwreck from an island. He tells her, for the first time, how they came to be on the island.

Twelve years before, when he had been Duke of Milan, his brother Antonio, had usurped him, but with Gonzalo’s help he had escaped in a small boat with his baby daughter, Miranda, and his library of 192

books about magic. They had ended up on the island and Prospero had turned the only inhabitant, Caliban, a deformed and savage creature, into his slave. There are also spirits on the island. One of them, Ariel, had been imprisoned in a tree trunk by Caliban’s mother, the witch, Sycorax, who had then died. Prospero used his magic abilities to rescue him and he made the spirit swear to serve him.

The ship’s passengers are cast up on the island unharmed, and even their clothes are not wet or damaged. Alonso believes his son to be dead but Ferdinand has landed on another part of the island.

He encounters Miranda and they fall in love at first sight. He is the first man, apart from her father and Caliban that she has ever seen.

Prospero puts Ferdinand to work manually, controlling all his movements with magic. Ariel pesters Prospero for his freedom and Prospero promises it once he has done some things for him, regarding the newcomers.

Ariel leads the party towards Prospero’s cell. During this journey Antonio and Sebastian plan to kill Alonso so that Sebastian can be king. Two other members of the party, Trinculo, the court jester, and Stephano, a boisterous butler, are also wandering about on the island. Caliban recruits them to help him overthrow Prospero. They all get drunk then set off for Prospero’s cell. Ariel reports the plot to Prospero.

Prospero has released Ferdinand and given his blessing to the marriage of the two young people. When the three would-be usurpers arrive at his cell they are distracted by some brightly colored clothes that have been hung out for them, then they are chased away by a band of spirits who have taken on the form of dogs.

Ariel brings the party to the cell. Prospero renounces his magic and reveals himself. He forgives his brother and prepares to return to Milan to resume his dukedom. Miranda and Ferdinand are betrothed. Sailors arrive and announce that the ship hasn’t been wrecked after all, and is safely anchored off the island. Ariel is set free. Caliban and the drunken servants are also forgiven. There is a final celebration of their reunion.

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32. The Life of Timon of Athens: Timon, a kindly, friendly and generous Athenian nobleman, has many friends because of his generosity. He loves to spend money and holds frequent parties. A day comes, however, when he falls into debt and his many creditors put pressure on him to pay them what he owes. His steward, Flavius, tells him that he’s completely out of money. Timon sends servants to his friends to ask whether they can lend him the money he needs but they are met with excuses. Timon is disappointed and angered. He invites all his friends to a final feast, where he presents them with only warm water. He makes a speech denouncing them, and also harangues them with a bitter tirade against mankind generally.

Elsewhere, an Athenian army general, Alcibiades, is trying to get the senators to change their minds about the death sentence they have imposed on one of his men. They don’t like his persistence and he is banished. He decides to turn against them and to influence the army to join him. He hears about Timon, who has gone to live in isolation in a cave away from Athens.

Timon has, in the meantime, found a stash of gold as he was digging for roots to eat. When Alcibiades arrives Timon offers him gold if he will march on Athens. Alcibiades agrees and uses some of the gold to bribe the army. He then marches on Athens. A band of pirates visit Timon and he offers them gold to put pressure on Athens with pirate attacks. Timon sends his faithful steward away and is left completely on his own.

Alcibiades enters Athens and meets with little resistance. The Senate sends to Timon to intervene on their behalf but he refuses. He offers them the tree at the mouth of his cave, on which he tells them they can all hang themselves.

The senators then hand Alcibiades’ enemies over to him, as well as Timon’s former companions. Alcibiades then agrees to withdraw and promises peace in Athens. This is a victory for Timon but just at that point a soldier enters and informs them that Timon has died, all alone, in his cave thinking everyone hated him when in fact so many people admired him-and immensely.

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33. The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus: The Roman general, Titus Andronicus returns to a hero’s welcome after defeating the Goths in a ten-year campaign. Among his captives are the queen of the Goths, Tamora, and her three sons, Alarbus, Demetrius and Chiron. Also accompanying her is herlover Aaron, a Moor. Titus has lost many sons in the war.

To give them a fitting funeral, Lucius, one of Titus’s three surviving sons, suggests a human sacrifice. Titus singles out Alarbus, Tamora’s eldest son and although she pleads for her son’s life Titus is unrelenting. Lucius seizes Alarbus. And he and his men hew his limbs and make a sacrifice of him.

The emperor dies and the crown is available. When it is offered to Titus, he declines and recommends Saturninus, the oldest son of the dead emperor. He suggests that Saturninus take his beautiful daughter Lavinia as his wife and empress.

After Saturninus is crowned, he frees Tamora and her sons.

Bassianus, Saturninus’ brother objects, to the proposed marriage of Saturninus and Lavinia because Lavinia is already betrothed to him.

With the help of Lavinia’s brothers, he steals her away. Titus is angered and he kills his son Mucius when he tries to prevent Titus from pursuing thelovers. Later, Saturninus decides that he prefers Tamora to Lavinia, then marries Tamora and makes her empress.

Tamora begins plotting revenge against Titus for allowing the slaughter of her son. Before the palace, Tamora’s lover, Aaron, exalts Tamora and predicts that she will bring ruin to Rome .

Tamora’s sons Demetrius and Chiron have both fallen in love with Lavinia and they quarrel over her. Each claims the right to take her from Bassianus. After failing to dissuade them from pursuing her, Aaron suggests that they share the lovely Lavinia by taking turns raping her in the seclusion of a forest. The occasion will come during a hunt in the woods for game. Emperor Saturninus, Queen Tamora, and many others are to take part in the hunt. On the day of the hunt, Aaron and Tamora rendezvous in the woods. Aaron gives her a letter to present to Saturninus. Its contents will aid Tamora’s desire to bring down Titus.

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When Bassianus and Lavinia discover Aaron and Tamora together, Tamora fears that the intruders will tell the emperor. S he calls out for her sons. When they arrive, Tamora pretends Bassianus has threatened her. The sons kill Bassianusand throw him in a pit, then drag Lavinia off to rape her. Not only do they rape her, they also mutilate her, cutting off her hands and tearing out her tongue. Aaron leads Titus’s sons Quintus and Martius toward the pit where Bassianus lies dead. Martius falls in. While Aaron goes to fetch Saturninus, Quintus falls in, too, trying to rescue Martius. Saturninus arrives with Aaron. With them are Titus, Lucius, and attendants.

Martius, who has discovered the body, informs Saturninus that his brother, Bassianus, is dead. Tamora then presents Aaron’s letter to Saturninus. It falsely implicates Martius and Quintus in the murder of Bassianus.

Saturninus imprisons them and the court later sentences them to death in spite of Titus’s pleas on their behalf. Laviniacannot testify in their favor, for she has no tongue. When Titus, Lucius, and Titus’s brother Marcus discuss their options, the evil Aaron arrives and tells them that Saturninus will free the sons of Titus if Marcus, Lucius, or Titus cuts off his hand and sends it to the emperor. It is Titus, though, who allows Aaron to cut off his hand and take it to Saturninus. Within a half hour, however, the emperor returns the hand, together with the heads of Titus’s imprisoned sons, in a show of scorn and contempt. Titus orders his son Lucius to flee the city and enlist an army of Goths to overthrow Saturninus. The loss of his sons takes a severe toll on Titus. He begins to go mad. Then Lavinia informs Titus and others about her rape and mutilation by writing in sand with a stick held in her mouth.

Meanwhile, Tamora has a baby. It is obviously Aaron’s because it has the dark complexion of a Moor. Worried that the emperor will find out about it, Tamora wants it killed. Aaron has other plans. First, he kills the baby’s midwife and nurse to keep secret the baby’s existence. Next, he substitutes a white baby for his own, then leaves with his child to go to the Goths to have them raise it. By this time, Lucius is marching on Rome with his army of Goths. Aaron and his baby, who have been captured, appear. Aaron agrees to tell all he knows if his child is allowed to live. Titus cuts the throats of Tamora’s sons Demetrius and Chiron, then has a pie prepared of their flesh 196

and serves it to Saturninus and Tamora. He kills Lavinia to put her out of her misery, then kills Tamora. Saturninus kills Titus in retaliation, and Lucius kills Saturninus. Lucius takes command of Rome as the new emperor. Lucius orders Aaron to be buried up to his chest and starved to death.

34. Troilus and Cressida: The Greek king, Agamemnon, and his brother Menelaus, together with their counselors, Ulysses and the aged Nestor, are camped outside the Trojan walls. The problem is that the great military hero, Achilles, is sulking in his tent, refusing to fight, and talking only to his friend, Patroclus.

In Troy itself, King Priam and his sons, the general, Hector and his brother Paris, whose theft of Menelaus’ wife, Helen, had started the war seven years before, are arguing. Their priestess sister, Cassandra, prophesies destruction for all while their younger brother Troilus is not paying attention to the conflict as he has met and fallen in love with Cressida, whose father, Calchas, has defected to the Greek camp.

Cressida’s uncle, Pandarus, assists the lovers to consummate their union but on the same night there is an exchange of prisoners and despite her protests Cressida is sent to join her father in the Greek camp, swearing eternal loyalty to Troilus.

A challenge from Hector is answered by the Greek hero, Ajax, but Hector withdraws as Ajax is related to his family.

In the Greek camp Cressida is pursued by Diomedes. She is confused by what has happened and believes that she’ll never see Troilus again. Not knowing that Troilus has secretly left Troy to seek her, she responds to Diomedes. Troilus and Ulysses overhear their encounter and Troilus realizes that his love has turned against her vows of faithfulness, and he returns to the city to fight more determinedly against the Greeks.

In the final battle Hector kills Patroclus and Achilles is finally provoked by this death to join the fighting. At first overcome briefly

by Hector, but spared, Achilles succeeds in trapping the great 197

champion and Hector, unarmed, is slaughtered by Achilles’ troop of thuggish soldiers, the Myrmidons, who drag Hector’s body around the walls of Troy.

The play ends with the Trojan warriors retreating to mourn their fallen hero and with Troilus swearing revenge for his brother’s death, and mourning the end of his innocence with the loss of his beloved Cressida.

35. Twelfth Night: Orsino, the Duke of lllyria, is in love with his neighbor, the Countess Olivia. She has sworn to avoid men’s company for seven years while she mourns the death of her brother, so rejects him. Nearby a group of sailors arrive on shore with a young woman, Viola, who has survived a shipwreck in a storm at sea. Viola mourns the loss of her twin brother but decides to dress as a boy to get work as a page to Duke Orsino.

Despite his rejection Orsino sends his new page Cesario (Viola in disguise) to woo Olivia on his behalf. Viola goes unwillingly as she has already fallen in love at first sight with the duke. Olivia is attracted by the ‘boy’ and she sends her pompous steward, Malvolio, after him with a ring.

Olivia’s uncle, Sir Toby Belch, her servant Maria, and Sir Toby’s friend, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, who is also hoping to woo Olivia, and is being led on by Sir Toby, who is trying to fleece him of his money, all plot to expose the self-love of Malvolio. By means of a false letter they trick him into thinking his mistress Olivia loves him.

Malvolio appears in yellow stockings and cross-garters, smiling as they have told him to in the letter. Unaware of the trick the Countess is horrified and has Malvolio shut up in the dark as a madman.

Meanwhile Viola’s twin brother, Sebastian, who has also survived the shipwreck, comes to Illyria. His sea-captain friend, Antonio, is a wanted man for piracy against Orsino. The resemblance between Cesario and Sebastian leads the jealous Sir Andrew to challenge Cesario to a duel. Antonio intervenes to defend Cesario whom he thinks is his friend Sebastian, and is arrested. Olivia has in the meantime met and become betrothed to Sebastian.

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Cesario is accused of deserting both Antonio and Olivia when the real Sebastianarrives to apologize for fighting Sir Toby. Seeing both twins together, all is revealed to Olivia. Orsino’s fool, Feste, brings a letter from Malvolio and on his release the conspirators confess to having written the false letter. Malvolio, mad over the fact that he has been the brunt of practical jokes, departs promising revenge.

Maria and Sir Toby have married in celebration of the success of their device against the steward.

The play ends as Orsino welcomes Olivia and Sebastian and, realizing his own attraction to Cesario, he promises that once she is dressed as a woman again they, too, will be married.

36. The Two Gentlemen of Verona: Two close friends living in Verona, Valentine and Proteus, take leave of each other. Valentine is setting out on his travels on his own because Proteus will not leave his beloved Julia and has decided to stay in Verona. Julia is interested in Proteus’ attention and treasures the love letter he has sent her, but feigns a mild rather than a passionate interest.

Proteus’ father, Antonio, sends him on a mission to Milan, however.

When he arrives at the Duke of Milan’s court he finds that Valentine is there and has fallen in love with Silvia, the duke’s daughter. Silvia returns his love. Proteus, who has sworn love and fidelity to Julia falls in love with Silvia at first sight. In the meantime, the duke is planning the marriage of Silvia to the foolish Thurio. Valentine plans to elope with Silvia but the jealous Proteus tells the duke of the plot and Valentine is caught carrying a rope ladder to Silvia’s window. The duke banishes Velentine and Proteus woos Silvia with songs and declarations of love. She scorns him and reminds him about Julia.

Julia arrives in Milan, disguised as a pageboy, Sebastian. Proteus sends her (as a pageboy) with the ring that she, Julia, has given him.

Silvia has promised him a picture of herself although she is still devoted to the absent Valentine.

In the meantime, Valentine has been captured by a band of aristocratic outlaws who make him their chief. Silvia persuades a courtier, Sir Eglamour, to accompany her to Mantua to find 199

Velentine and she is also captured by the outlaws. The duke and Thurio go after her, taking Proteus with them. Julia, still disguised, follows him. Proteus rescues Silvia. He tries to force himself on her but Velentine prevents him. They quarrel and are reconciled. All this is heard by Julia and, misunderstanding, she thinks that Valentine is yielding his interest in Silvia to Proteus. She faints in front of them.

Proteus recognizes the ring he has given her and when her identity is revealed, Proteus’ love for her is revived.

The outlaws have captured the duke and Thurio. They trick Thurio into showing his cowardice by denying Silvia. The play ends with the duke suggesting a double marriage on the same day − Valentine to Silvia and Proteus to Julia to which they agree – and he pardoning the outlaws.

37. The Two Noble Kinsmen: Duke Theseus of Athens is marrying the Amazon queen Hyppolyta.

Immediately after three queens petition him to wage war on Thebes.

Its king, Creon has deprived their husbands of proper burial rites.

Two Thebian cousins, Palamon and Arcite decide to join their uncle, Creon’s campaign to defend Thebes, even though they hate Creon, who is an unpleasant tyrant. They perform heroically in the battle but Theseus is victorious. The cousins are imprisoned in Athens, and from their prison they see Hippolyta’s sister Emilia passing by. Both fall instantly in love with her.

Arcite is set free but rather than return to Thebes he disguises himself and stays in Athens. With the help of the jailor’s daughter, who has fallen in love with him, Palemon, he escapes. The cousins meet each other and decide together that they must fight each other to the death with the winner having the love of Emilia. Theseus discovers them and asks Emilia which of the two she wants but she is unable to decide. He decrees that there is to be a jousting tournament and the winner will marry Emilia. The loser will lose his head.

Before the tournament starts all three principals go to the temples of their particular favourite gods. Arcite prays to Mars, the god of war; Palemon to Venus, the goddess of love and Emilia to Diana, the 200

huntress, goddess of virgins, asking her to give victory to the one who loves her best. Arcite wins and Palemon is to be executed.

However, before that can happen Arcite is thrown from his horse and killed. As Arcite is dying he bequeaths Emilia to his cousin.

38. The Winter’s Tale: Polixenes, the King of Bohemia, has been visiting his old friend King Leontes in Sicily for nearly nine months but is ready to return to Bohemia. Leontes begs him to stay longer but Polixenes is anxious to go, and declines. When Leontes’ pregnant wife, Hermione, succeeds in persuading Polixenes to stay, Leontes becomes obsessed with the thought that his wife has been unfaithful with his friend. He asks his servant, Camillo, to poison Polixenes, Camilla warns Polixenes instead and they flee leaving Hermione and her little boy, Mamillius, to face the King’s displeasure.

Leontes imprisons Hermione and she delivers a baby girl there. A lady in waiting, Paulina, takes the baby to Leontes to try and persuade him to accept her. Instead. Leontes instructs Paulina’s husband, Antigonus, to take the baby into exile. Leonte’s puts Hermione on trial and she is vindicated by a message from the Delphic oracle to which Leontes had appealed. Her son Mamillius dies from heartbreak at his mother’s imprisonment and Hermione collapses and appears to die. The news of Mamillius’ death shocks Leontes back to reality and he becomes remorseful.

Antigonus places the baby on a beach in Bohemia but he is killed by a bear and the baby is left there. A shepherd and his son discover the child and take her to their home.

Sixteen years pass, during which time Leontes mourns the loss of his wife and children. In Bohemia, Polixenes’ son, Florizel, has met and fallen in love with a shepherd’s daughter, Perdita, while she’s organizing a sheep shearing feast. Polixenes and Camillo, in disguise, attend the feast where they are entertained by dancers and by the rogue Autolycus, who has previously tricked the young Shepherd and stolen his purse to provide himself with knick-knacks to sell at the feast. Polixenes reveals himself, reprimands his son, and threatens the shepherds for promoting Perdita’s friendship with the Prince.

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Camillo and Autolycus help Florizel and Perdita to run away to Sicily.

They are followed by the shepherds, who in turn are pursued by Polixenes and Camillo. At Leontes’ court Florizel introduces Perdita then, as Polixenes arrives, the revelations of the shepherds show Perdita to be the banished daughter of Leontes. Everyone goes with Paulina to see a newly completed statue of Hermione and the statue moves. Hermione has lived in seclusion in the belief that her daughter will be found.

The play ends with Florizel and Perdita being united. Leontes and Hermione are also united and, as a reward, Paulina is given Camillo as her new husband. *****

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y Index of Plays (By Type and Date Performed) # 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28.

Name All’s Well That Ends Well Antony and Cleopatra As You Like It The Comedy of Errors The Tragedy of Coriolanus The Tragedy of Cymbeline The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark Henry IV Part One Henry IV Part Two Henry V Henry VI Part One Henry VI Part Two Henry VI Part Three The Life of King Henry the VIII The Tragedy of Julius Caesar King John The Tragedy of King Lear Love's Labor Lost Macbeth Measure for Measure The Merchant of Venice The Merry Wives of Windsor A Midsummer's Night Dream Much Ado About Nothing Othello Pericles, Prince of Tyre King Richard the II Richard the III

Type Comedy Tragedy Comedy Comedy Tragedy Tragedy Tragedy

Performed 1602 1606 1599 1592 1607 1609 1600

History History History History History History History Tragedy History Tragedy Comedy Tragedy Comedy Comedy Comedy Comedy Comedy Tragedy Comedy History History

1597 1597 1598 1590 1590 1591 1612 1599 1596 1605 1594 1605 1604 1596 1600 1595 1598 1604 1608 1595 1592

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29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

34.

35.

36.

37.

38.

Romeo and Juliet The Taming of the Shrew The Tempest The Life of Timon of Athens The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus Troilus and Cressida Twelfth Night Two Gentlemen from Verona The Two Noble Kinsmen * The Winter's Tale Note: Shakespeare never published any of his original manuscripts *****

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Tragedy Comedy Comedy Tragedy Tragedy

1594 1593 1611 1607 1593

Comedy Comedy Comedy Comedy Comedy

1601 1599 1594 1612 1610

y Reigning Monarchs During Shakespeare’s Time Reining Kings/Queens Mary (House of Tudor)

Reign 1553-1558

Elizabeth I (House of Tudor)

1558-1603

James I (House of Stuart)

1603-1625

Lineage Henry VIII’s daughter by Queen Catherine Henry VIII’s daughter by Anne Boleyn Great-greatgrandson of Henry VII

*****

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