MOTHER'S MARRIAGE.

O THAT this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the everlasting had not fixed
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God!
O God!

How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable

Seem to me all the uses of this world! Fie on't! O fie! 'tis an unweeded garden, That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature

Possess it merely. That it should come

to this!

But two months dead!—nay, not so much, not two:

So excellent a king; that was, to this, Hyperion to a satyr: so loving to my mother,

That he might not beteem the winds of

heaven

Visit her face too roughly.

earth!

Heaven and

blasts from hell,

Be thy intents wicked or charitable,
Thou com'st in such a questionable shape,
That I will speak to thee; I'll call thee,
Hamlet,

King, father, royal Dane: O, answer me:
Let me not burst in ignorance! but tell
Why thy canoniz'd bones, hearsed in
death,

Have burst their cerements! why the sepulchre,

Wherein we saw thee quietly in-urn'd, Hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws,

To cast thee up again! What may this

mean,

That thou, dead corse, again, in complete
Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the mcon,
steel,
Making night hideous; and we fools of

nature,

So horribly to shake our disposition, With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?

A FAITHFUL LOVER.

Two Gentlemen of Verona.

His words are bonds, his oaths are oracles;

His love sincere, his thoughts immaculate; His tears pure messengers sent from his heart,

CASSIUS UPON CESAR.
Julius Cæsar.

WHY, man, he doth bestride the narrow world

Like a colossus; and we petty men Walk under his huge legs, and peep about

from earth.

fates:

2

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,

But in ourselves, that we are underlings. Brutus and Cæsar: What should be in that Cæsar?

Why should that name be sounded more than yours?

Write them together, yours is as fair a

name;

Sound them, it doth become the mouth as well;

Weigh them, it is as heavy; conjure with 'em,

Brutus will start a spirit as soon as Cæsar. Now, in the names of all the gods at

once,

Upon what meat doth this our Cæsar feed,

That he is grown so great? Age, thou art sham'd!

Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods!

When went there by an age since the great flood,

But it was fam'd with more than with one man?

When could they say, till now, that talk'd of Rome,

That her wide walks encompass'd but one man?

MARK ANTONY'S ORATION OVER THE BODY OF CÆSAR.

FRIENDS, Romans, countrymen, lend me

your ears:

I come to bury Cæsar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interréd with their bones;
So let it be with Cæsar! The noble
Brutus

Hath told you Cæsar was ambitious:
If it were so, it were a grievous fault;
And grievously hath Cæsar answer'd it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest
(For Brutus is an honourable man,
So are they all, all honourable men),
Come I to speak in Cæsar's funeral.

Who, you all know, are honourable men; I will not do them wrong; I rather choose

To wrong the dead, to wrong myself, and you,

Than I will wrong such honourable men.
But here's a parchment with the seal of
Cæsar,

I found it in his closet,-tis his will;
Let but the commons hear this testament

me;

But Brutus says he was ambitious?

And Brutus is an honourable man.

read),

And they would go and kiss dead Cæsar'a wounds,

And dip their napkins in his sacred blood;
Yea, beg a hair of him for memory,
And, dying, mention it within their wills,
Bequeathing it, as a rich legacy,
Unto their issue.

If you have tears, prepare to shed them

now.

You all do know this mantle ; I remember The first time ever Cæsar put it on ; "Twas on a summer's evening, in his tent; That day he overcame the Nervii. Look! in this place ran Cassius' dagger through;

See, what a rent the envious Casca made; Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabb'd;

And, as he pluck'd his cursed steel away, Mark how the blood of Cæsar followed it!

As rushing out of doors, to be resolv'd
If Brutus so unkindly knock'd, or no.
For Brutus, as you know, was Cæsar's
angel :

Judge, O you gods! how dearly Cæsar lov'd him!

This was the most unkindest cut of all; For, when the noble Cæsar saw him stab, Ingratitude, more strong than traitors'

arms,

Quite vanquish'd him: then burst his mighty heart;

And, in his mantle muffling up his face, Even at the base of Pompey's statue, Which all the while ran blood, great Cæsar fell.

O, what a fall was there, my countrymen! Then I, and you, and all of us fell down, Whilst bloody treason flourish'd over us, O, now you weep; and, I perceive, you feel

The dint of pity; these are gracious drops. Kind souls, what, weep you when you

but behold

Our Cæsar's vesture wounded? look you here,

Here is himself, marr'd, as you see, with traitors.

THE QUARREL OF BRUTUS
AND CASSIUS.
Cas. Come, Antony, and young Oc-
tavius, come,

Revenge yourselves alone on Cassius,
For Cassius is a-weary of the world;
Hated by one he loves; braved by his
brother;

Checked like a bondman; all his faults observed,

stir you up

To such a sudden flood of mutiny.

by rote,

To cast into my teeth. O, I could weep

know,

lovedst him better

Than ever thou lovedst Cassius.

Bru. Sheath your dagger. Be angry when you will, it shall have

scope;

Do what you will, dishonour shall be humour.

O Cassius, you are yokéd with a lamb,
That carries anger, as the flint bears fire;
Who, much enforcéd, shows a hasty
spark,

And straight is cold again.
Cas.
Hath Cassius lived
To be but mirth and laughter to his
Brutus,

When grief, and blood ill-tempered, vexeth him?

Bru. When I spoke that, I was illtempered too.

Cas. Do you confess so much? give me your hand.

Bru. And my heart too.

To plague the inventor: this even-handed justice

Commends the ingredients of our poison'd

chalice

To our own lips. He's here in double trust;

First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,

Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,

Who should against his murderer shut the door,

Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this

Duncan

Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath

been

So clear in his great office, that his virtues Will plead, like angels, trumpet-tongued, against

The deep damnation of his taking-off;
And pity, like a naked new-born babe