unknown,) to lay apart their particular functions,
NOBLE ASPIRATIONS.
My lord, 'tis but a base ignoble mind
That mounts no higher than a bird can soar.
K. HENRY VI., PART II., A. 2, s. 1.
NOBLE MINDS HAVE NOBLE
BEARING.
Go thy ways, Kate:
That man i'the world, who shall report he has
A better wife, let him in nought be trusted,
For speaking false in that: Thou art, alone,
(If thy rare qualities, sweet gentleness,
Thy meekness saint-like, wife-like government,-
Obeying in commanding,—and thy parts
Sovereign and pious else, could speak thee out,)
The queen of earthly queens:-She is noble
born;
And, like her true nobility, she has
Carried herself towards me.
K. HENRY VIII., A. 2, s. 4.
To bathe my lips upon; this hand, whose touch, Whose every touch, would force the feeler's soul To the oath of loyalty; this object, which
Takes prisoner the wild motion of mine eye,
Fixing it only here: should I (damn'd then,)
Slaver with lips as common as the stairs
That mount the Capitol; join gripes with hands
Made hard with hourly falsehood (falsehood, as
With labour;) then lie peeping in an eye,
Base and unlustrous as the smoky light
That's fed with stinking tallow; it were fit,
That all the plagues of hell should at one time
Encounter such revolt.
NONE BUT A FATHER CAN FEEL
AS ONE.
TUSH, tush, man, never fleer and jest at me:
I speak not like a dotard, nor a fool;
As, under privilege of age, to brag
What I have done being young, or what would do.
Were I not old: Know, Claudio, to thy head, Thou hast so wrong'd mine innocent child and
That I am forc'd to lay my reverence by;
And, with grey hairs, and bruise of many days, Do challenge thee to trial of a man.
say, thou hast belied mine innocent child; Thy slander hath gone through and through her heart,
And she lies buried with her ancestors:
O! in a tomb where never scandal slept,
Save this of her's, fram'd by thy villainy.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, A. 5, s. 1.
NONE BUT A FATHER CAN LOVE SO PURELY AND YET SO DEEPLY.
WHY, doth not every earthly thing
Cry shame upon her? Could she here deny
The story that is printed in her blood ?—
Do not live, Hero; do not ope thine eyes:
For did I think thou would'st not quickly die,
Thought I thy spirits were stronger than thy
shames,
Myself would, on the rearward of reproaches,
Strike at thy life. Griev'd I, I had but one?
Chid I for that at frugal nature's frame?
O, one too much by thee! Why had I one?
Why ever wast thou lovely in my eyes?
Why had I not with charitable hand,
Took up a beggar's issue at my gates;
Who smirched thus, and mir'd with infamy,
I might have said, No part of it is mine,
This shame derives itself from unknown loins?
But mine, and mine I lov'd, and mine I prais'd,
And mine that I was proud on; mine so much,
That I myself was to myself not mine,
Valuing of her; why, she-O, she is fallen
Into a pit of ink! that the wide sea
Hath drops too few to wash her clean again;
And salt too little, which may season give
To her foul tainted flesh!
Confirm'd, confirm'd! O, that is stronger made,
Which was before barr'd up with ribs of iron!
Would the two princes lie? and Claudio lie?
Who lov'd her so, that, speaking of her foulness,
Wash'd it with tears? Hence from her.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, A. 4, s. 1.
NONE BUT THE WEAKEST COULD
SO BE WON.
WAS ever woman in this humour woo'd?
Was ever woman in this humour won ?
I'll have her, but I will not keep her long.
What! I, that kill'd her husband, and his father,
To take her in her heart's extremest hate;
With curses in her mouth, tears in her eyes,
The bleeding witness of her hatred by ;
With God, her conscience, and these bars against
And I no friends to back my suit withal,
But the plain devil, and dissembling looks,
And yet to win her,—all the world to nothing!
Ha!
Hath she forgot already that brave prince, Edward, her lord, whom I some three months since,
Stabb'd in my angry mood at Tewksbury?
A sweeter and a lovelier gentleman,-
Fram'd in the prodigality of nature,
Young, valiant, wise, and, no doubt, right royal,
The spacious world cannot again afford:
And will she yet abase her eyes on me,
That cropp'd the golden prime of this sweet prince,
And made her widow to a woful bed?
On me, whose all not equals Edward's moiety?
On me, that halt, and am mis-shapen thus ?
My dukedom to a beggarly denier,
I do mistake my person all this while :
Upon my life, she finds, although I cannot,
Myself to be a marvellous proper man.
I'll be at charges for a looking-glass;
And entertain a score or two of tailors,
To study fashions to adorn my body:
Since I am crept in favour with myself,
I will maintain it with some little cost.
But, first, I'll turn yon' fellow in his grave;
And then return lamenting to my love.-
Shine out, fair sun, till I have bought a glass,
That I
may see my shadow as I pass.
K. RICHARD III., A. 1, s. 2.
NOTING OF THE SOUL THROUGH THE FACE.
For I have only been silent so long,
And given way unto this course of fortune,
By noting of the lady: I have mark'd
A thousand blushing apparitions start
Into her face; a thousand innocent shames
In angel whiteness bear away those blushes;
And in her eye there hath appear'd a fire,
To burn the errors that these princes hold
Against her maiden truth :--Call me a fool;
Trust not my reading, nor my observations,
Which with experimental seal doth warrant
The tenour of my book; trust not my age,
My reverence, calling, nor divinity,
If this sweet lady lie not guiltless here
Under some biting error.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, A. 4, s. 1.
OATHS SHOULD BE ACCOMPANIED BY CONSCIENCE.
WHO should I swear by ? thou believ'st no god; That granted, how canst thou believe an oath ?
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