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A wretched foul, bruis'd with adverfity,
We bid be quiet, when we hear it cry;
But, were we burdened with like weight of
pain,
[plain.
As much or more we fhould ourselves com-
Defamation.

I fee, the jewel beft enamelled
Will lofe its beauty; and tho' gold bides ftill,
That others touch; yet often touching will
Wear gold. And fo no man that hath a name,
But falfehood and corruption doth it fhame.
Wife's Exhortation on a Hufband's Infidelity.
Ay, ay, Antipholus, look ftrange and frown;
Some other miftrefs hath thy fweet afpects:
I am not Adriana, nor thy wife. [wouldst vow,
The time was once when thou, unurged,
That never words were mufic to thine ear,
That never object pleafing in thine eye,
That never touch wellwelcome to thine hand,
That never meat fweet favour'd in thy tafte,
Unless I fpake, or look'd, or touch'd, or
carv'd to thee.
[comes it,
How comes it now, my hufband, Oh, how
That thou art then eftranged from thyself?
Thyfelf I call it, being strange to me:
That, undividable, incorporate,
Am better than thy dear felf's better part.
Ah, do not tear away thyfelf from me:
For know, my love, as eafy mayft thou fall
A drop of water in the breaking gulph,
And take unmingled thence that drop again,
Without addition or diminishing,

As take from me thyfelf, and not me too.
How dearly would it touch thee to the quick,
Should thou but hear I were licentious;
And that this body confecrate to thee,
By ruffian luft fhould be contaminate!
Wouldst thou not fpit at me, and fpurn at me,
And hurl the name of hufband in my face.
And tear the ftain'd fkin off my harlot brow,
And from my falfe hand cut the wedding-ring,
And break it with a deep divorcing vow?
I know thou canft; and therefore fee thoudo it.
Iam poffeft with an adulterate blot,
My blood is mingled with the crime of luft,
For if we two be one, and thou play false,
1 do digeft the poifon of thy flesh,
Being firumpeted by thy contagion.

4 Refped to Decency and the Opinion of the World,
an excellent Bulwark to our Virtues.

Against your yet ungalled reputation,
That may with foul intrufion enter in,
And dwell upon your grave when you are
For flander lives upon fucceffion; [dead
For ever hous'd where it once gets poffeffion.
Document for Wives, and the ill Effects af
Jealousy.

Abbefs. Hath he not loft much wealth by
wreck at fea.
[eye
Buried fome dear friend! Hath not elfe his
Stray'd his affection in unlawful love?
A fin prevailing much in youthful men,
Who give their eyes the liberty of gazing.
Which of thefe forrows is he fubject to ?
Adriana. To none of thefe, except it be
the laft?

Namely, fome love that drew him off from
home.
[ed him,
Abbess. You should for that have reprehend
Adriana. Why fo I did.

Abbefs. But not rough enough. [let me.
Adriana. Asroughly as my modefty would
Abbefs. Haply in private.

Adriana. And in affemblies too.
Abbes. But not enough.

[ence:
Adriana. It was the copy of our confer
In bed, he flept not for my urging it;
At board, he fed not for my urging it ;
Alone, it was the fubject of my theme;
In company, I often glanced at it:
Still did I tell him it was vile and bad.

Abbefs. And therefore came it that the man
was mad.

The venom clamours of a jealous woman
Poifon more deadly than a mad-dog's tooth.
It feems his fleeps were hinder'd by thy
railing:

And therefore comes it that his head is light.
Thou fay'ft his meat was fauc'd with thy up-
Unquiet meals make ill digeftions,[braidings;
Thereof the raging fire of fever bred;
And what's a fever, but a fit of madness?
Thou fay'ft his fports were hindered by thy

brawls:

Sweet recreation barr'd, what doth enfue
But moody and dull melancholy,

Kinfman to grim and comfortless defpair?
And, at her heels, a huge infectious troop
Of pale distemperatures and foes to life.

Ill Deeds and ill Words, double Wrong.

Have patience, Sir; O, let it not be fo;'Tis double wrong to truant with your bed,
Herein you war against your reputation,
And draw within the compafs of fufpect
Th'inviolated honour of your wife,
Once this-Your long experience of her wif-
Her fober virtues, years, and modefty, [dom,
Plead on her part fome caufe to you unknown;
And doubt not, Sir, but the will well excufe |
Why at this time the doors are made against
Berul'd by me; depart in patience, [you.
And let us to the Tiger all to dinner;
And, about evening, come yourself alone,
To know the reafon of this ftrange restraint.
Ifby ftrong hand you offer to break in,
Now in the ftirring paffage of the day,
Avulgar comment will be made of it;
And that fupposed by the common rout

And let her read it in your looks at board:
Shame hath a bastard fame well managed;
Ill deeds are doubled with an evil word.

Paffionate Lover's Addrefs to his Mistress.
Sing, Syren, for thyfelf, and I will dote;
Spread o'er the filver waves thygolden hairs:
And as a bed I'll take them, and there lie;
And in that glorious fuppofition think [diel__

He gains bydeath, that hath fuch means to
Defeription of a beggarly Conjurer, or a Fortune-
Teller.

A hungry, lean-fac'd villain,
A mere anatomy, a mountebank,
A thread-bare juggler, and a fortune teller,
A needy, hollow-ey'd, fharp-looking wretch,
A living dead-man: this pernicious slave,

For footh

Forfooth, took on him as a conjurer;
And gazing in my eyes, feeling my pulfe,
And with no face as 't were outfacing me,
Cries out, I was poffeft.

Old Age.

Not know my voice! O time's extremity, Haft thou fo crack'd and splitted my poor tongue,

In feven fhort years, that here my only fon
Knows not my feeble key of untun'd cares?
Though now this grained face of mine be hid
In fap-confuming winter's drizzled fnow,
And all the conduits of my blood froze up:
Yet hath my night of life fome memory;
My wafting lamp fome fading glimmer left;
My dull deaf ears a little ufe to hear:
All these old witneffes,-I cannot err,-
Tell me, thou art my fon, Antipholus.

4. LOVE'S LABOUR LOST.
SHAKSPEARE.
A laudable Ambition for Fame and true Conqueft
defcribed.
KingLET Fame, that all hunt after in their

lives,

Live regifter'd upon our brazen tombs,
And then grace us in the difgrace of death;
When, fpite of cormorant devouring time,
Th' endeavour of this prefent breath may buy
That honour which fhall bate his fcythe's
keen edge,

And make us heirs of all eternity.
Therefore, brave conquerors! for so you are
That war against your own affections,

---

And the huge army of the world's defires;-
Our late edict shall strongly stand in force.
Navarre fhall be the wonder of the world:
Our court fhall be a little academe.
Still and contemplative in living art.
Longaville. I am refolv'd; 'tis but a three
years' faft;

The mind fhall banquet though the bodypine..
Fat paunches have lean pates; and dainty bits
Make rich the ribs, but banker out the wits.
Dumain. My loving Lord, Dumain is mortifi-
The groffer manner of the world's delights[ed;
He throws upon the grofs world's bafer flaves--
To love, to wealth, to pomp, I pine and die:
With all thefe living in philofophy.

Vanity of Pleafures.

Why, all delights are vain: but that most
vain,
[pain,
Which, with pain purchas'd, doth inherit
On Study.
Stu ly is like the heaven's glorious fun, [looks;
That will not be deep fearch'd with faucy
Small have continual plodders ever won

Save bafe authority from others books:
Thefe earthly godfathers of heaven's lights,
That give a name to every fixed ftar,
Have no more profit of their fhining nights,
Than those that walk, and wot not what
they are.
[fame,
Too much to know, is to know nought but
And every godfather can give a name.
Again.

So ftudy evermore is overfhot;

While it doth study to have what it would,
It doth forget to do the things it thould:
And when it hath the thing it hunteth moff,
'Tis won, as towns with fire; fo won, fo loft.
Froft.

An envious fneaping froft,
That bites the first-born infants of the spring.
The Folly and Danger of making Vows.
Neceffity will make us all forfworn [(pace:
Three thousand times within thefe three years

For every man with his affects is born,
Not by might master'd, but by special grace:
If I break faith, this word fhall fpeak for me,
I am forfworn on mere neceflity.

A conceited Courtier, or Man of Compliments.
Our court, you know, is haunted

With a refined traveller of Spain;
A man in all the world's new fashionplanted,
That hath a mint of phrafes in his brain:
One whom the music of his own vain tongue
Doth ravish, like enchanting harmony:
A man of compliments, whom right and wrong
Have chofe as umpire of their mutiny.
This child of fancy, that Armado hight,
For interim to our ftudies, fhall relate
In high-born words the worthof manyaknight,

How you delight, my lords, I know not, l;
From tawny Spain, loft in the word's debate.
But, I proteft, I love to hear him lie,
And I will ufe him for my minitrelly.

Biron. Armado is a moft illuftrious wight,
A man of fire-new words, fashion's own knight,
Beauty.

My beauty though but mean,
Needs not the painted flourish of your praise:
Beauty is bought by judgment of the eye,
Nor uttered by bafe fale of chapmen's tongues
A Wit.

In Normandy faw I this Longaville:
A man of fovereign parts he is efteem'd;
Well fitted in the arts, glorious in arms:
Nothing becomes him ill, that he would well:
The only foil of his fair virtue's glofs
(If virtue's glofs will ftain with any foil)
Isa fharp wit match'd with too blunt a will
Whofe edge hath pow'r to cut, whofe will
[post.

ftill wills

[grow.

It should none fpare that come within his
Pri. Some merrymocking lord, belike; is'tfo
Mar. They fay fo moff, that moft his -
mours know.
Pri. Such fhort-liv'd wits do wither as they
A merry Man.
A merrier man,

Within the limit of becoming mirth,
I never fpent an hour 's talk withal,
His eye begets occafion for his wit;
For every object that the one doth catch
The other turns to a mirth-moving jelt;
Which his fair tongue (conceit's expofitor)
Delivers in fuch apt and gracious words,
That aged ears play truant at his tales,
And younger hearings are quite ravished;
So fweet and voluble is his difcourfe.

A comical Defcription of Cupid or Love.
O! and I forfooth, in lovel
I, that have been love's whip;

SA

very

5

A critic:

A domin

adle to a humorous figh:

nay, a night-watch constable; eering pedant o'er the boy,

Than wom no mortal more magnificent!
This wimpled, whining, purblind, way-
ard boy,

This Sig nior Julio's giant dwarf, Dan Cupid,
Regent of love-rhymes, lord of folded arms,
Th'anonted fovereign of fighs and groans;
Liege of all loiterers and malecontents;
Sole imperator, and great general
Of trotting paritors: (O my little heart)
And I to be a corporal of his file,

And wear his colours! like a tumbler's hoop!
What?! I love! I fue! I feek a wife!
A woman, that is like a German clock,
Still a-repairing; ever out of frame,
And never going right, being a watch,
But being watch'd, that it may still go right?
Il Deeds often done for the Sake of Fame.
A giving hand, though foul, fhall have
fair paife-
[kill,
But come, the bow:-Now mercy goes to
And fhooting well is then accounted ill.
Thus will fave my credit in the fhoot:
Not wounding, pity would not let me do't;
If wounding, then it was to fhew my skill,
That more for praife than purpose meant to
And, out of queftion, fo it is fometimes; [kill.
Glory grows guilty of detefted crimes; [part,
When, for fame's fake, for praife, an outward
We bend to that the working of the heart :
As I, for praife alone, now feek to fpill [ill.
The poor deer's blood that my heart means no
Sonnet.

Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye
(Gainft whom the world cannot hold argu.
Perfuade my heart to this falfe perjury; [ment)
Vows, for thee broke, deferve not punish-
A woman I forfwore; but I will prove [ment.
(Thou being a goddefs) I forfwore not thee.
My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love:
Thy grace being gain'd cures all difgrace in

me.

Vows are but breath, and breath a vapour is;
Then thou, fair fun, which on my earth doft
Exhal'ft this vapour vow; in thee it is: [fhine,
If broken then, it is no fault of mine;
If by me broke, what fool is not fo wife,
To lose an oath to win a paradife?
Another.

On a day, (alack the day!)
Love, whofe month is ever May,
Spy'd a bloffom palling fair
Playing in the wanton air:

Through the velvet leaves the wind,
All unfeen, 'gan paffage find;
That the lover, fick to death,
Wifh'd himself the heaven's breath.
Air, quoth he, thy cheeks may blow;→
Air, would I might triumph fo!
But, alack! my hand is fworn,
Ne'er to pluck thee from thy thorn.
Vow, alack! for youth unmeet,
Youth fo apt to pluck a fweet,
Do not call it fin in me,
That I am forfworn for thee;

Thou for whom ev'n Jove would fwear
Juno but an Ethiope were;
And deny himself for Jove,
Turning mortal for thy love.

Commanding Beauty.

-Who fees the heavenly Rofalind,
That, like a rude and favage man of Inde
At the first opening of the gorgeous caft,
Bows not his vaffal head, and, ftrucken blind,
Kiffes the bafe ground with obedient breast?
What peremptory eagle fighted eye
Dares look upon the heaven of her brow
That is not blinded by her majesty
The Power of Love.

Why univerfal plodding prifons up
The nimble fpirits in the arteries,
As motion and long during action tires
The finewy vigour of the traveller.

When would you, my liege,--or you or you
In leaden contemplation, have found out
Such fiery numbers, as the prompting eyes
Of beauteous tutors have enrich'd you with
Other flow arts entirely keep the brain;
And therefore finding barren practifers,
Scarce fhew a harvest of their heavy toil:
But love first learned in a lady's eyes,
Lives not alone immured in the brain;
But, with the motion of all elements,
Courfes as fwift as thought in every pow'r;
And gives to every pow'r a double pow'r
Above their functions and their offices,
It adds a precious feeing to the eye;
A lover's eyes will gaze an eagle blind:
A lover's ears will hear the lowest found,
When the fufpicious head of theft is ftopt.
Love's feeling is more foft and fenfible
Than are the tender horns of cockled fnails.
Love's tongue proves dainty Bacchus grofs in
For valour, is not love a Hercules. [tafte.
Still climbing trees in the Hefperides?
Subtle as Sphinx; as fweet and mufical
As bright Apollo's lute, ftrung with his hairs
And when love fpeaks, the voice of all the
Makes heaven drow fy with the harmony.[gods
Never durft poet touch a pen to write,
Until his ink were tempered with love's fighs:
O then his eyes would ravish savage ears,
And plant in tyrants mild humility.

From women's eyes this doctrine Í derive :
They sparkle ftill the right Promethean fire:
They are the books, the arts, the academes,
That fhew, contain, and nourish all the world;
Elfe, none at all in aught proves excellent.
Wife Men greatest Fools in Love.

Ri. None are fo furely caught, when they
are catch'd

As wit turn'd fool: folly in wifdom hatch'd,
Hath wisdom's warrant, and the help of school,
And wit's own grace to grace a learned fool.
Rofs. The blood of youth burns not with
fuch excefs

As gravity's revolt to wantonness,

[note,

Mar. Folly in fools bears not fo ftrange a
As foolery in the wife, when wit doth dote
Since all the power thereof it doth apply,
To prove by wit, worth in fimplicity.

Keennefs

Keennefs of Women's Tongues.
The tongues of mocking wenches are as
As is the razor's edge invifible.

Which party coloured prefence of loofe love, Put on by us, if, in your heavenly eyes, [keen'T hath mifbecom'd our oaths and gravities, Thofe heavenly eyes that look into thefe faults

Cutting a fmaller hair than may be seen ;
Above the sense of sense, so fenfible
Seemeth their conference; their conceit hath
wings
Fleeter than arrows, bullets, wind, thought,
fwifter things.

Ladies majk'd amd unmask'd.
Fair ladies mafk'd are rofes in the bud;
Dismask'd their damafk fweet commixture
shown,

Are angels vailing clouds, or roses blown.
A Lord Chamberlain or, Gentleman Usher.
This fellow pecks up wit,as pigeons peafe;
And utters it again when God doth please:
He is wit's pedlar; and retails his wares
At wakes, and waffels, meetings, markets, fairs.
And we that fell by grofs, the Lord doth
know,
[fhow,
Have not the grace to grace it with fuch
This gallant pins the wenches on his fleeve;
Had he been Adam he had tempted Eve.
He can carve too, and lifp: Why this is he
That kifs'd his hand away in courtely;
This is the ape of form, Monfieur the nice,
That when he plays at tables, chides the dice
In honourable terms: nay he can fing
A mean most meanly; and in ufhering
Mend him who can: the ladies call him fweet;

The stairs as he treads on them kifs his feet.
This is the flower that fmiles on every one,"
To fhow his teeth as white as whale his bone:
And confciences that will not die in debt,
Pay him the due of honey-tongu'd Boyet.

thou

See where it comes! Behaviour what wert
[now?
Till this man fhew'd thee? and what art thou
Elegant Compliment to a Lady.
Fair, gentle, fweet, [greet
Your wit makes wife things foolith: when we
With eyes beft feeing Heaven's fiery eye.
By light we lofe light: your capacity
Is of that nature, as to your huge ftore [poor.
Wife things feem foolish, and rich things but
Humble Zeal to pleafe. [how;
That fport beft pleafes that doth least know
When zeal ftrives to content, and the contents
Die in the zeal of that which it prefents,
Their form confounded makes moft form in
mirth,
[birth.
When great things labouring perish in their
The Effects of Love.

For your fair fakes have we neglected time,
Play'd foul play with our oaths; your beauty,
ladies,
[mours
Hath much deformed us, fashioning our hu.
Even to the oppofed end of our intents;
And what in us hath feem'd ridiculous-
As love is full of unbefitting ftrains,
All wanton as a child, fkipping and vain ;
Lorm'd by the eye; and therefore like the eye,
Full of ftrange fhapes, of habits, and of forms,
Varying in fabjects as the eye doth roll
To every vary'd objeét in his glance;

Suggested us to make them: therefore, ladies,
Our love being yours, the error that love
Is likewife yours.
(makes

Trial of Love.

If this auftere, infociable life
Change not your offer made in heat of blood;
Iffrofts, andfafts, hard lodging and thin weeds,
Nip not the gaudy bloffoms of your love,
But that it bear this trial, and last love;
Then, at the expiration of the year,
Come challenge me.

Feft and Fefter.

Rof. Oft have I heard of you, my lord Biron,
Before I faw you: and the world's large tongue
Proclaims you for a man replete with mocks
Full of comparifons, and wounding fouts;
Which you on all eftates will execute,
That lie within the mercy of your wit: [brain,
To weed this wormwood from your fruitful
And therewithal to win me, if you please,
(Without the which I am not to be won) [day,
You fhall this twelvemonth term, from day to
Vifit the fpeechlefs fick, and ftill converfe
With groaning wretches: and your task shall
With all the fierce endeavour of your wit, [be,
T'enforce the pained impotent to fmile.

Bir. To move wild laughter in the throat
of death?

It cannot be, it is impoffible:
Mirth cannot move a foul in agony. [fpirit,

Ref. Why, that's the way to choak a gibing
Whofe influence is begot of that loofe grace
Which fhallow laughing hearers give to fools:
A jeft's profperity lies in the ear
Of him that hears it, never in the tongue
Of him that makes it. Then, if fickly ears,
Deaft with the clamours of their own dear

groans,

Will hear your idle fcorns, continue then,
And I will have you, and that fault withal;
But if they will not, throw away that fpirit,
And I fhall find you empty of that fault,
Right joyful of your reformation.
Spring. A Song.
When daifies pied, and violets blue,
And lady-fmocks all filver white,
And cucków buds of yellow hue,

Do paint the meadows with delight:
The cuckow, then, on every tree,
Mocks married men; for thus fings he,
Cuckow!

Cuckow! Cuckow! O word of fear,
Unpleafing to a married ear!
When thepherd's pipe on oaten ftraws,
And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks:
When turtles tread, and rooks and daws;
And maidens bleach their fummer (mocks:
The cuckow then, on every tree,
Mocks married men; for thus fings he,
Cuckow!

Cuckow! Cuckow O werd of fear,
Unpleafing to a married ear!
M'inter

Winter. A Song. When icicles hang by the wall,

And Dick the thepherd blows his nail; And Tom bears logs into the hall,

And milk comes frozen home in pail ; When blood is nipt, and ways be foul, Then nightly fings the ftaring owl To.whoo!

Tu-whit, to-whoo, a merry note,
While greafy Joan doth keel the pot,
When all aloud the wind doth blow,
And coughing drowns the parfon's faw;
And birds fit brooding in the fnow,

And Marian's nofe looks red and raw :
When roafted crabs hifs in the bowl,
Then nightly fings the staring owl
To-whoo!

Tu-whit, to whoo, a merry note,
While greafy Joan doth keel the pot.

§ 5. MEASURE FOR MEASURE. SHAKSPEARE.

Virtue given to be exerted. THERE is a kind of character in thy life, That, to the obferver, doth thy hiftory Fully unfold: thy felf and thy belongings Are not thine own fo proper, as to waste Thyfelf upon thy virtues, them on thee. Heav'n doth with us as we with torches do, Not light them for themselves; for if our vir

tues

Did not go forth of us, twere all alike[touch'd,
As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely
But to fine iffues: nor nature never lends
The fmalleft fcruple of her excellence,
But, like a thrifty goddefs, the determines
Herfelf the glory of a creditor,
Both thanks and use.

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Authority.

Thus can the demi-god authority,
Make us pay down for our offence by weight.
The words of Heav'n: On whom it will, it will;
On whom it will not fo; yet still 'tis juft.

The Confequence of Liberty indulged. Lucio. Why how now, Claudio? whence comes this restraint?

Claud. From too much liberty, my Lucio, As furfeit is the father of much faft [liberty: So every fcope, by the immoderate ufe, Turns to restraint. Our natures do purfue, Like rats that raven down their proper bane, A thirsty evil; and when we drink we die. Neglected Laws.

This new governor, Awakes me all th'enrolled penalties, Which have, like unfcour'd armour hung by the wall [round, So long, that nineteen zodiacs have gone

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My holy Sir, none better knows than you How I have ever lov'd the life remov'd: And held in idle price to haunt affemblies Where youth, and cost, and witless bravery keeps.

thers

Licentioufnefs the Confequence of unexecuted Laws.
We have ftrict ftatutes, and most biting
laws.
[íteeds)
(The needful bits and curbs to head-strong
Which for thefe nineteen years we have let
Even like an o'ergrown lion in a cave,[fleep;
That goes not out to prey: now as fond fa-
birch,
Having bound up the threat'ning twigs of
Only to ftick it in their chitdren's light
For terror, not for ufe; in time the rod [crees,
Becomes more mock'd than fear'd; fo our de.
Dead to infliction, to themselves are dead;
And liberty plucks juftice by the nofe:
The baby beats the nurfe, and quite athwart
Goes all decorum.

Pardon, the Sanction of Wickedness.
For we bid this be done,
When evil deeds have their permiffive pafs,
And not the punishment.

A fevere faint-like Governor. Lord Angelo is precife: Stands at a guard with envy: fcarce confeffes That his blood flows, or that his appetite Is more to bread than itone: hence hallwe fee. If pow'r change purpose, what our feemers be. A Virgin addreffed.

Hail, virgin, if you be; as thofe cheek-rofes Proclaim you are no lefs!

Aveligious profeft.

I hold you as a thing enfky'd and fainted; By your renouncement, an immortal spirit, And to be talk'd with in fincerity, As with a faint.

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