RESOLUTION. Our doubts are traitors, And make us lose the good we oft might win, THE PRAYERS OF MAIDENS EFFECTUAL. Go to lord Angelo, And let him learn to know, when maidens sue, As they themselves would owe* them. MERCY FREQUENTLY MISTAKEN. Mercy is not itself that oft looks so; MERCY IN GOVERNORS COMMENDED. No ceremony that to great ones 'longs, THE DUTY OF MUTUAL FORGIVENESS. Alas! alas! Why, all the souls that were, were forfeit once; * Have. THE ABUSE OF AUTHORITY. O, it is excellent To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous Could great men thunder As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet, For every pelting, petty officer, Would use his heaven for thunder; nothing but Merciful Heaven! [thunder. Thou rather, with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt, Most ignorant of what he's most assured, Plays such fantastic tricks before high Heaven, THE PRIVILEGE OF AUTHORITY. Great men may jest with saints: 'tis wit in them; That in the captain's but a choleric word, TEMPORAL FAR BETTER THAN ETERNAL DEATH. Better it were a brother died at once, HOPE. The miserable have no other medicine, Isab. Ay, with such gifts, that Heaven shall share Lucio. You had marr'd all else. [with you, Isab. Not with fond shekels of the tested gold, Or stones, whose rates are either rich or poor, * Preserved from the corruption of the world. THE TERRORS OF DEATH MOST IN APPREHENSION. O, I do fear thee, Claudio; and I quake, REFLECTIONS ON THE VANITY OF LIFE. Reason thus with life, If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing, That none but fools would keep a breath thou art That does this habitation, where thou keep'st, : And yet runn'st toward him still thou art not noble; For all the accommodations that thou bear'st Are nursed by baseness: thou art by no means valiant; For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork Of a poor worm: thy best of rest is sleep, And that thou oft provokest; yet grossly fear'st Thy death, which is no more: thou art not thyself; That issue out of dust: happy thou art not; For what thou hast not, still thou strivest to get; And what thou hast, forgett'st thou art not certain; For thy complexion shifts to strange effects,* For, like an ass, whose back with ingots bows, *Affects, affections. And death unloads thee: friend hast thou none; Do curse the gout, serpigo,* and the rheum, For ending thee no sooner thou hast not youth nor age; But, as it were, an after-dinner's sleep, Dreaming on both for all thy blessed youth Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms Of palsied eld;† and when thou art old, and rich, Yet in this life Lie hid more thousand deaths: yet death we fear, VIRTUE AND GOODNESS. Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful. GREATNESS SUBJECT TO CENSURE. O place and greatness, millions of false eyes Make thee the father of their idle dream, And rack thee in their fancies. RESOLUTION FROM A SENSE OF HONOUR. Why give me this shame ? Think you I can a resolution fetch I will encounter darkness as a bride, Leprous eruptions. Old age. + Sallies. |