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Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,

Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee,

And for thy maintenance; commits his body

To painful labour, both by sea and land; To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,

While thou liest warm at home, secure and safe;

And craves no other tribute at thy hands, But love, fair looks, and true obedience :-Too little payment for so great a debt. Such duty as the subject owes the prince, Even such a woman oweth to her husband:

And, when she's froward, peevish, sullen,

sour,

And not obedient to his honest will,

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Above their functions and their offices.
It adds a precious seeing to the eye:
A lover's eyes will gaze an eagle blind;
A lover's ear will hear the lowest sound,
When the suspicious head of theft is
stopp'd;

Love's feeling is more soft and sensible
Than are the tender horns of cockled
snails;

Love's tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross
in taste;

For valour, is not love a Hercules,
Still climbing trees in the Hesperides?
Subtle as sphinx ; as sweet and musical
As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his
hair;
[the gods
And, when love speaks, the voice of all
Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony,
Never durst poet touch a pen to write
Until his ink were temper'd with love's
sighs:

O, then his lines would ravage savage ears,
And plant in tyrants mild humility.

WINTER.

WHEN icicles hang by the wall,

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THE ABUSE OF AUTHORITY.

And Dick the shepherd blows his nail, COULD great men thunder

And Tom bears logs into the hall,

And milk comes frozen home i' the
pail;

When blood is nipt, and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
Tu-whoo!

Tu-whit; tu-whoo! a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

When all aloud the wind doth blow,
And coughing drown the parson's saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,
And Marion's nose looks red and raw;
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
Tu-whoo!

Tu-whit! tu-whoo! a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

SERENADE TO SYLVIA.
The Two Gentlemen of Verona.

WHO is Sylvia? what is she,
That all our swains commend her?

As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er
be quiet,

For every pelting, petty officer,
Would use his heaven for thunder; no-
thing but thunder-
Merciful Heaven!

Thou rather, with thy sharp and sul-
phurous belt,

Splitt'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak,

Than the soft myrtle : O, but man, proud

man!

Drest in a little brief authority

Most ignorant of what he's most assured,
His glassy essence,-like an angry ape,
Plays such fantastic tricks before high
heaven,

As make the angels weep.

THE FEAR OF DEATH. Ay, but to die, and go we know not where ;

To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot;

This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling regions of thick-ribb'd ice;
To be imprison'd in the viewless winds,
And blown with restless violence about
The pendent world; or to be worse than
worst

Of those, that lawless and incertain thoughts

Imagine howling!-'t is too horrible! The weariest and most loathed worldly life

That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment

Can lay on nature, is a paradise
To what we fear of death.

SLANDER.

Cymbeline.

No, 'tis slander; Whose edge is sharper than the sword: whose tongue

Outvenoms all the worms of Nile; whose breath

Rides on the posting winds, and doth belie

All corners of the world: kings, queens, and states,

Maids, matrons, nay, the secrets of the grave

This viperous slander enters.

HARK! HARK! THE LARK!
(CLOTEN'S SONG.)

HARK! hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings,

And Phoebus 'gins arise,

His steeds to water at those springs
On chalic'd flowers that lies;
And winking Mary-buds begin
To ope their golden eyes;
With every thing that pretty bin;
My lady sweet, arise.

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peace;

For since these arms of mine had seven years' pith,

Till now some nine moons wasted, they have used

Their dearest action in the tented field; And little of this great world can I speak, More than pertains to feats of broil and battle;

And therefore little shall I grace my cause,

In speaking for myself. Yet, by your

I will a round unvarnish'd tale deliver gracious patience, Of my whole course of love; what drugs, what charms,

What conjuration, and what mighty magic

(For such proceeding I am charged withal),

I won his daughter with.

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And sold to slavery; of my redemption OTHELLO'S SOLILOQUY BEFORE

thence,

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passing strange;

"Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful: She wish'd she had not heard it; yet she wish'd

That Heaven had made her such a man : she thank'd me ;

And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her,

I should but teach him how to tell my story,

And that would woo her. Upon this hint, I spake :

She loved me for the dangers I had pass'd;

And I loved her, that she did pity them. This only is the witchcraft I have used.

MURDERING HIS WIFE.
Desdemona discovered asleep; enter
Othello.

IT is the cause, it is the cause, my soul,Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars!

It is the cause.-Yet I'll not shed her blood;

Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow,

And smooth as monumental alabaster. Yet she must die, else she'll betray more

men.

Put out the light, and then-put out the light?

If I quench thee, thou flaming minister,
I can again thy former light restore,
Should I repent me :-but once put out
thine,

Thou cunningest pattern of excelling nature,

I know not where is that Promethean heat,

That can thy light relume.
When I have pluck'd thy rose,
I cannot give it vital growth again.

JEALOUSY.

TRIFLES, light as air,

Are, to the jealous, confirmations strong As proofs of holy writ.

SCENE BETWEEN OTHELLO

AND DESDEMONA. Desdemona. Alas, the heavy day!— Why do you weep?

Am I the occasion of these tears, my lord?

If, haply, you my father do suspect,
An instrument of this your calling back,
Lay not your blame on me; if you have
lost him,
Why, I have lost him too.
Öthello.
Had it pleas'd Heaven
To try me with affliction; had he rain'd
All kinds of sores and shames on my bare
head:

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EMILIA'S INDIGNATION

AGAINST SLANDERERS.

I WILL be hang'd, if some eternal villain,
Some busy and insinuating rogue,
Some cogging cozening slave, to get some
office,

Hath not devis'd this slander; I'll be hanged else.

The Moor's abus'd by some most villanous knave,

Some base notorious knave, some scurvy fellow -

O heaven, that such companions thou'dst unfold,

And put in every honest hand a whip, To lash the rascals naked through the world,

Even from the east to the west!

REPUTATION.

GOOD name, in man and woman, dear my lord,

Is the immediate jewel of their souls;

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