Doct.

What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely charged. —The disease is beyond my practice. Yet I have known those which have walked in their sleep who have died holily in their beds.

L. M. Wash your hands, put on your nightgown; look not so pale: I tell you yet again, Banquo's buried: he cannot come out on's grave. To bed, to bed; there's knocking at the gate: come, come, come, come, give me your hand: what's done cannot be undone to bed, to bed, to bed.

908

Tim.

Sen.

W. SHAKESPEARE

TIMON-SENATOR-FLAVIUS

'OMMEND me to my loving countrymen,

COM

and tell them, that, to ease them of their griefs, their fears of hostile strokes, their aches, losses, their pangs of love, with other incident throes that nature's fragile vessel doth sustain

in life's uncertain voyage, I will some kindness do
them:

I like this well; he will return again.
Tim. I have a tree which grows here in my close,

that mine own use invites me to cut down,
and shortly must I fell it; tell my friends,
tell Athens, in the sequence of degree,

from high to low throughout, that whoso please
to stop affliction, let him take his haste,
come hither, ere my tree hath felt the axe,

and hang himself:-I pray you, do my greeting. Flav. Trouble him no further; thus you still shall find him. Tim. Come not to me again: but say to Athens,

Timon hath made his everlasting mansion
upon the beachéd verge of the salt flood,
which once a day with his embosséd froth
the turbulent surge shall cover; thither come,
and let my grave-stone be your oracle.

W. SHAKESPEARE

909 ANDRUGIO DUKE OF GENOA IN HIS FALLEN

GREATNESS

Y thoughts are fixt in contemplation

Μ%

why this huge earth, this monstrous animal, that eates her children, should not have eyes and ears. Philosophie maintains that Nature's wise,

and forms no uselesse or unperfect thing.

Did Nature make the earth, or the earth Nature?
for earthly dust makes all things, makes the man,
moulds me up honour; and, like a cunning Dutchman,
paints me a puppet even with seeming breath,
and gives a sot appearance of a soule:
goe to, goe to; thou liest, Philosophie ;

Nature formes things unperfect, uselesse, vaine.
Why made she not the earth with eyes and eares?
that she might see desert, and hear men's plaints:
that when a soule is splicéd, sunke with griefe,
he might fall thus, upon the breast of earth,
and in her eare hallo his misery:

exclaiming thus: O thou all-bearing earth,

which men do gape for, till thou cramst their mouths,
and choakst their throts with dust: O chaune thy brest,
and let me sinke into thee. Looke who knocks;
Andrugio calls. But O, she's deafe and blinde:
a wretch but leane reliefe on earth can finde.

J. MARSTON

910

MARCELLA'S NARRATION OF THE MURDER OF

PORREX BY THE QUEEN HIS MOTHER

OUT hear his ruthful end:

B the noble prince, pierced with the sudden wound,

out of his wretched slumber hastily start,
whose strength now failing straight he overthrew,
when in the fall his eyes even now unclosed
beheld the queen, and cried to her for help;
we then, alas, the ladies, which that time
did there attend, seeing that heinous deed,
and hearing him oft call the wretched name
of mother, and to cry to her for aid,

whose direful hand gave him the mortal wound,
pitying, alas, (for nought else could we do)
his ruthful end, ran to the woeful bed,
despoiled straight his breast and all we might
wipéd in vain with napkins next at hand,
the sudden streams of blood that flushéd fast
out of the gaping wound: O, what a look!
O what a ruthful stedfast eye methought
he fixed upon my face, which to my death

will never part from me, when with a braide a deep fetched sigh he gave, and therewithal clasping his hands, to heaven he cast his sight, and straight pale death pressing within his face, the flying ghost his mortal corpse forsook. 911 O queen of adamant! O marble breast! if not the favour of his comely face, if not his princely cheer and countenance, his valiant active arms, his manly heart, if not his fair and seemly personage, his noble limbs in such proportion cast as would have wrapt a silly woman's thought : if this might not have moved thy bloody heart, and that most cruel hand the wretched weapon even to let fall, and kissed him in the face, with tears for ruth to reave such one by death; should nature yet consent to slay her son? O mother, thou to murder thus thy child!

Even Jove with justice must with lightening flames from heaven send down some strange revenge on thee. Ah, noble prince, how oft have I beheld

thee mounted on thy fierce and trampling steed

shining in armour bright before the tilt;
how oft in arms on horse to bend the mace,
how oft in arms on foot to break the sword,
which never now these eyes may see again!

T. SACKVILLE

912 A FATHER'S ADVICE TO HIS SON TO CHOOSE SOME

O

PROFESSION

! CLEON, cease to trifle thus with life:
a mind, so barren of experience,

can hoard up nought but misery, Believe me.
The shipwreckt mariner must sink outright,
who makes no effort to regain the shore:
the needy wretch, who never learnt a trade,
and will not work, must starve. What then?-you

cry

my riches-Frail security-My farms,

my houses, my estate--Alas! my friend,

fortune makes quick dispatch, and in a day

can strip you bare as beggary itself.

Grant that you now had piloted your bark
into good fortune's haven, anchor'd there,
and moor'd her safe as caution could devise;
yet if the headstrong passions seize the helm,
and turn her out to sea, the stormy gusts
shall rise and blow you out of sight of port,
never to reach prosperity again.--

What tell you me? have I not friends to fly to?
I have: and will not those kind friends protect me?
better it were you shall not need their service,
and so not make the trial: much I fear

your sinking hand would only grasp a shade.

R. CUMBERLAND

913 EXTON WITH THE COFFIN OF KING RICHARD II—

Ext.

BOLINGBROKE

REAT king within this coffin I present

GR

thy buried fear: herein all breathless lies

the mightiest of thy greatest enemies,

Richard of Bordeaux, by me hither brought.

Bol. Exton, I thank thee not: for thou hast wrought a deed of slander with thy fatal hand

upon my head and all this famous land.

Ext. From your own mouth, my lord, did I this deed.
Bol. They love not poison that do poison need,

nor do I thee; though I did wish him dead,
I hate the murderer, love him murderéd.
The guilt of conscience take thou for thy labour,
but neither my good word, nor princely favour:
with Cain go wander through the shades of night,
and never shew thy head by day nor light.—
Lords, I protest, my soul is full of woe,
that blood should sprinkle me to make me grow:
come, mourn with me for that I do lament,
and put on sullen black incontinent;

I'll make a voyage to the Holy Land,

to wash this blood off from my guilty hand :-
march sadly after: grace my mournings here,
in weeping after this untimely bier.

W. SHAKESPEARE

914

ANGELO-ESCALUS-PROVOST

Ang."Tanother thing to fall. I not deny.

IS one thing to be tempted, Escalus,

the jury, passing on the prisoner's life,

may, in the sworn twelve, have a thief or two
guiltier than him they try: what's open made

to justice, that justice seizes. What know the laws,
that thieves do pass on thieves? 'Tis very pregnant,
the jewel that we find, we stoop and take it,
because we see it; but what we do not see,

we tread upon, and never think of it.
You may not so extenuate his offence,

for I have had such faults; but rather tell me,
when I that censure him do so offend,

let mine own judgment pattern out my death, and nothing come in partial. Sir, he must die. Esc. Be it as your wisdom will.

Ang.

Where is the provost?

Pro. Here, if it like your honour.
Ang.

See that Claudio

be executed by nine to-morrow morning:
bring him his confessor; let him be prepared:
for that's the utmost of his pilgrimage.

Esc. Well, Heaven forgive him; and forgive us all!

W. SHAKESPEARE

915

Her.

Hel.

GOD

HERMIA-HELENA-LYSANDER

OD speed fair Helena! Whither away?
Call you
me fair? that fair again unsay.
Demetrius loves your fair: O happy fair!

your eyes are lode-stars: and your tongue's sweet air
more tuneable than lark to shepherd's ear,

when wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear. Sickness is catching; O, were favour so!

yours would I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go;

my ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye,
my tongue should catch your tongue's sweet melody.
Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated,
the rest I'd give to be to you translated.

O, teach me how you look; and with what art
you sway the motion of Demetrius' heart.

Her. I frown upon him, yet he loves me still.

Hel. O, that your frowns would teach my smiles such skill! Her. I give him curses, yet he gives me love.