Strike, as thou didst at Cesar; for, I know,

When thou didst hate him worst, thou lov'dst him

better

Than ever thou lov'dst 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 yoked with a lamb

That carries anger as the flint bears file;
Who, much enforced, shows a hasty spark,
And straight is cold again.

Cas.
Hath Cassius liv'd
To be but mirth and laughter to his Brutus,
When grief, and blood ill-temper'd vexeth him?
Bru. When I spoke that, I was ill-tempered too
Cas. Do you confess so much? Give me
Bru. And my heart too.

Cas. Bru.

your

hand.

O Brutus!

What is the matter?

Cas. Have you not love enough to bear with me, When that rash huinour, which my mother gave me, Makes me forgetful?

Bru.

Yes, Cassius; and henceforth, When you are over-earnest with your Brutus, He'll think your mother chides, and leave you so.

*

*

Bru. O Cassius, I am sick of many griefs.

Cas. Of your philosophy you make no use,

If you give place to accidental evils.

Bru. No man bears sorrow better:-Portia is dead. Cas. Ha! Portia!

Bru. She is dead.

Cus. How 'scap'd I killing, when I cross'd you so?

O insupportable and touching loss!

Upon what sickness?
Bru.

Inpatient of my absence;

And grief, that young Octavius with Mark Antony
Have made themselves so strong;-for with her death
That tidings came.-With this she fell distract,
And, her attendants absent, swallow'd fire

Cas. And died so?

Bru. Even so.

Cas. O ye immortal gods!

Enter Lucius with Wine and Tapers.

Bru. Speak no more of her.-Give me a bowl of wine:

In this I'll bury all unkindness, Cassius. [Drinks. Cas. My heart is thirsty for that noble pledge: Fill, Lucius, till the wine o'erswell the cup;

I cannot drink too much of Brutus' love. [Drinks.

OPPORTUNITY TO BE SEIZED ON ALL OCCASIONS OF
LIFE.

There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune:
Omitted, all the voyage of their life

Is bound in shallows, and in miseries,
On such a full sea are we now afloat;

And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.

ACT V.

THE PARTING OF BRUTUS AND CASSIUS.

Bru. No, Cassius, no; think not, thou noble Ro

man,

That ever Brutus will go bound to Rome;
He bears too great a mind. But this same day
Must end that work, the ides of March begun;
And whether we shall meet again, I know not.
Therefore our everlasting farewell take:-
For ever, and for ever, farewell, Cassius!
If we do meet again, why we shall smile;
If not, why then this parting was well made.
Cas. For ever, and for ever, farewell Brutus!
If we do meet again, we'll smile indeed:
If not, 'tis true, this parting was well made.
Bru. Why, then, lead on.-O, that a man might
know

The end of this day's business, ere it come!
But it sufficeth, that the day will end,

And then the end is known.

MELANCHOLY THE PARENT OF ERROR.

O hateful error, melancholy's child;

Why dost thou show to the apt thoughts of men
The things that are not! O error soon conceiv'd,
Thou never com'st unto a happy birth,
But kill'st the mother that engender'd thee.
ANTONY'S CHARACTER OF BRUTUS.
This was the noblest Roman of them all:
All the conspirators, save only he,

Did that they did in envy of great Cesar:
He only, in a general honest thought,
And common good to all, made one of them.
His life was gentle; and the elements

So mix'd in him, that Nature might stand up,
And say to all the world, This was a man!

KING LEAR.

ACT I.

A FATHER'S ANGER.

LET it be

truth then be thy dower:

For, by the sacred radiance of the sun;
The mysteries of Hecate, and the night:
By all the operations of the orbs,

From whence we do exist, and cease to be;
Here I disclaim all my paternal care,

Propinquity and property of blood,

And as a stranger to my heart and me

Hold thee, from this, for ever. The barbarous Scy thian,

Or he that makes his generation‡ messes
To gorge his appetite, shall to my bosom
Be as well neighbour'd, pitied, and reliev'd,
As thou my sometime daughter.

BASTARDY.

Thou, nature, art my goddess; to thy law My services are bound: Wherefore should I Stand in the plague§ of custom; and permit *Kindred. † From this time. His children. § The injustice

The curiosity of nations to deprive me,

For that I am some twelve or fourteen moon-shines
Lag of a brother? Why bastard? wherefore base?
When my dimensions are as well compact,
My mind as generous, and my shape as true,
As honest madam's issue? Why brand they us
With base? with baseness? bastardy? base, base?
Who, in the lusty stealth of nature, take
More composition and fierce quality,
Than doth, within a dull, stale, tired bed,
Go to the creating a whole tribe of sops,
Got 'tween asleep and wake?

ASTROLOGY RIDICULED.

This is the excellent foppery of the world! that when we are sick in fortune (often the surfeit of our own behaviour,) we make guilty of our disasters, the sun, the moon, and the stars: as if we were villains by necessity: fools by heavenly compulsion: knaves, thieves, and treachers,† by spherical predominance: drunkards, liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on: An admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goat ish disposi tion to the change of star! My father compounded with my mother under the dragon's tail; and my nativity was under ursa major;‡ so that it follows, I am rough and lecherous.-Tut, I should have been that I am, had the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled at my bastardizing.

FILIAL INGRATITUDE.

Ingratitude! thou marble-hearted fiend,

More hideous, when thou show'st thee in a child, Than the sea-monster!

A FATHER'S CURSE ON HIS CHILD.

Hear, nature, hear;

Dear goddess, hear! Suspend thy purpose, if Thou didst intend to make this creature fruitful! Into her womb convey sterility!

Dry up in her the organs of increase;

* The nicety of civil institution.

† Traitors.

Great Bear, the constellation so named.

And from her derogate* body never spring
A babe to honour her! If she must teem,
Create her child of spleen; that it may live,
And be a thwart disnatur'd torment to her!
Let it stamp wrinkles on her brow of youth:
With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks,
Turn all her mother's pains, and benefits,
To laughter and contempt; that she may feel
How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
To have a thankless child!

ACT II.

FLATTERING SYCOPHANTS.

That such a slave as this should wear a sword, Who wears no honesty. Such smiling rogues as these,

Like rats, oft bite the holy cords atwain

Which are too intrinsic‡ t'unloose; smooth every passion

'That in the natures of their lords rebels;
Bring oil to fire, snow to their colder moods;
Renege,§ affirm, and turn their halcyon beaks
With every gale and vary of their masters,
As knowing nought, like dogs, but following.

PLAIN BLUNT MEN.

This is some fellow,

Who having been praised for bluntness, doth affect
A saucy roughness, and constrains the garb,
Quite from his nature: He cannot flatter, he!-
An honest mind and plain,--he must speak truth:
An' they will take it so; if not, he's plain.

'These kind of knaves I know, which in this plainnes Harbour more craft, and more corrupter ends, Then twenty silly¶ ducking observants,

That stretch their duties nicely.

* Degraded.

§ Disowned.

The bird called the king-fisher, which, when dried and hung up by a thread, is supposed to turn his bill to the point from whence the wind blows.

Simple or rustic

21*