Shakespeare in Quotes

[Big brotheR]

this is originally a book in pdf format. I am sorry the layout will be awkward but i am using it now as an archive for future references.

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T H E A R D E N S H A K E S P E A R E
The Arden Dictionary of
hakespeare Quotations
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ISBN 0-17-443645-9
780174"436454
In this enjoyable addition to the renowned
Arden Shakespeare series, The Arden
Dictionary of Shakespeare Quotations,
compiled by Jane Armstrong, contains
approximately 3000 quotations, both familiar
and little-known, drawn from throughout
Shakespeare's work, both plays and poems.
The result is a rich and diverse collection
which testifies both to the linguistic subtlety
and the psychological insight displayed by
this most protean of writers. The selection»
ranges from single lines containing a
strikingly expressed thought or phrase, to
longer extracts which convey the
overwhelming beauty of Shakespeare's poetry,
or the fluidity and complexity of his thought.
Organized by topic and with a detailed
keyword index giving access to individual
phrases, The Arden Dictionary of
Shakespeare Quotations is both user-friendly
and enjoyable for the casual reader. Quotations
are selected for their intrinsic interest, with
both speaker and play reference, and the context
is explained where necessary. A separate index
lists all the entries by play title and a glossary
explains any unfamiliar terms.
• Brief general introduction outlining the
purpose and use of the volume
• Shakespeare biography
• Keyword index
• Full glossary
Visit the Arden website at
http://www.ardenshakespeare.com/
£15.00
Also available from The Arden Shakespeare
THE ARDEN SHAKESPEARE
COMPLETE WORKS
Available for the first time in a single
well-designed hardback volume, The Arden
Shakespeare Complete Works contains the
texts of all Shakespeare's plays plus the
Poems and Sonnets, as edited by leading
Shakespeare scholars for the renowned Arden
Shakespeare series. A general introduction by
the three Arden General Editors gives the
reader an overall view of perceptions of
Shakespeare at the millennium. Brief
introductions to each work outline its
contemporary context and the subsequent
performance history, and an extensive glossary
explains unfamiliar vocabulary.
Visit the Arden Shakespeare website at
http://www.ardenshakespeare.com
Cover design bv Pentacor, High Wycombe
The Arden Dictionary o£
Shakespeare Quotations
THE ARDEN
ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA
AS YOU LIKE IT
THE COMEDY OF ERRORS
CORIOLANUS
CYMBELINE
HAMLET
JULIUS CAESAR
KING HENRY IV, Parts 1 & 2
KING HENRY V
KING HENRY VI, Part 1
KING HENRY VI, Part 2
KING HENRY VI, Part 3
KING HENRY VIII
KING JOHN
KING LEAR
KING RICHARD II
KING RICHARD III
LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST
MACBETH
MEASURE FOR MEASURE
THE MERCHANT OF VENICE
THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
OTHELLO
PERICLES
THE POEMS
ROMEO AND JULIET
SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS
THE TAMING OF THE SHREW
THE TEMPEST
TIMON OF ATHENS
TITUS ANDRONICUS
TROILUS AND CRESSIDA
TWELFTH NIGHT
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA
THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN
THE WINTER'S TALE
H A K E S P E A R E
edited by G. K. Hunter*
edited by John Wilders
edited by Agnes Latham*
edited by R. A. Foakes*
edited by Philip Brockbank*
edited by J. M. Nosworthy*
edited by Harold Jenkins*
edited by David Daniell
edited by A. R. Humphreys*
edited by T. W. Craik
edited by Edward Burns
edited by Ronald Knowles
edited by A. S. Cairncross*
edited by R. A. Foakes
edited by E. A. J. Honigmann*
edited by R. A. Foakes
edited by Peter Ure*
edited by Antony Hammond*
edited by H. R. Woudhysen*
edited by Kenneth Muir*
edited by J. W. Lever*
edited by John Russell Brown*
edited by Giorgio Melchiori
edited by Harold F. Brooks*
edited by A. R. Humphreys*
edited by E. A. J. Honigmann
edited by F. D. Hoeniger*
edited by F. T. Prince*
edited by Brian Gibbons*
edited by Katherine Duncan-Jones
edited by Brian Morris*
edited by Virginia Mason
Vaughan and Alden T. Vaughan
edited by H. J. Oliver*
edited by Jonathan Bate
edited by David Bevington
edited by J. M. Lothian
and T. W. Craik*
edited by Clifford Leech*
edited by Lois Potter
edited by J. H. P. Pafford*
*Second Series
The Arden Dictionaiy of
Shak espeare Quotations
compiled by Jane Armstrong
M>
The Arden website is at
http://www.ardenshakespeare.com/
The Arden Dictionary of Shakespeare Quotationse
First published 1999 by Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd
Reprinted 2000 by Thomson Learning
Editorial matter © 1997 Jane Armstrong
Arden Shakespeare is an imprint of Thomson Learning
Thomson Learning
Berkshire House
168-173 High Holborn
London WC1V7AA
Typeset in Minion by Wyvern 21 Ltd, Bristol
Printed by Zrinski Printing & Publishing House, Croatia
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission
in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record has been requested
ISBN 0-17-443645-9 (hbk)
NPN 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
ISBN 0-17-443646-7 (pbk)
NPN 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
For Joe,
Eddo, Nick and Jim

i*%^%^%^« Cv^oonntteenntiss *%^%^%^%^
Preface xi
QUOTATIONS i
Life of Shakespeare 325
Glossary 329
Topic Index 342
Keyword Index 347
Index of References to Plays 392
vu

Jane Armstrong was born and brought up in North London. Her first
encounter with Shakespeare was through music, at an early performance
of Benjamin Britten's opera A Midsummer Night's Dream. She was
commissioning editor for the publishers of the Arden Shakespeare,
working on their literature list and founding their list in media and
cultural studies. She has worked on the Arden Shakespeare for a number
of years, as copy-editor, and later as editorial series manager and
commissioning editor for the current Third Series. She now combines
editorial work for the series with bringing up three young sons.

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A dictionary of Shakespeare hovers somewhere in an alternative world of
quoted or quotable Shakespeare: alongside a collection of the proverbial
wisdom which Shakespeare uses so frequently; Hamlet, almost entirely
'quotation'; and the innumerable references made by later authors in
their book titles, their chapter headings and their prose (the works of
P. G. Wodehouse are practically a dictionary in themselves). It is part of
the function of a book such as this to enable the reader to check out where
all those quoted or half-remembered lines come from, exactly how they
run, and perhaps what their role was in their original context. Lines which
are essentially proverbial, or which contain a single strikingly expressed
thought or resonant phrase, are the obvious candidates for inclusion, and
make up a large part of the content of the book.
Other aspects of the plays are less easily conveyed in extract but are
nonetheless a central part of our sense and recollection of 'Shakespeare'.
The overwhelming beauty of his poetry, expressed over the flow of a
paragraph or the whole verse of a song, as well as in a single phrase; the
fluidity and complexity of thought which moves through a complete
soliloquy; the sense of dramatic play within a speech; the counterpoint of
language between the vernacular and the elevated: all require space and
extent for their expression. Conversely, some of the moments of most
intense emotion, where language is reduced to a minimum or even falls
silent in the face of experience - some of the most memorable moments
for a Shakespeare audience - are hard (or indeed impossible) to convey
adequately in the context of a topic-based dictionary. I have quoted some
passages at length, therefore, not only because they are stuffed with
familiar phrases, but also because their complete form and structure are
familiar or outstanding in themselves. Other phrases are included which
can never, in extract, have the impact that they have in context, but which
are nonetheless often remembered, with their context luminous around
them.
The book is organized by topic - as were the 'commonplace books' in
which Shakespeare's contemporaries recorded memorable extracts from
their reading. A few passages appear in more than one place where
xi
xii I PREFACE
appropriate, and shorter passages or phrases are occasionally extracted
from longer extracts and quoted additionally elsewhere. Cross-references
often direct the reader to related passages. The organization by topic
provides minor interests in itself. It often clearly reveals the concentration
round a subject in a particular play; and on another dimension it
sometimes shows ideas recurring through Shakespeare's work, either
in similar form or in a progression from the more straightforwardly
expressed to the increasingly complex and embedded. Each entry is briefly
annotated, normally with a text reference and identification of the speaker
and addressee.
A keyword index gives locations for readers searching for a particular
phrase, and a separate index lists all the entries by play title. A glossary is
also provided at the end of the text.
Note on the text
The text and act/scene/line references are taken from the Arden
Shakespeare Complete Works (1998). Some speech prefixes have been
altered to make it clearer who is speaking (the King in Hamlet, for
example, appears as 'Claudius'); and -ed endings, which are abbreviated
(-'d) in verse when unstressed in the majority of the plays in that volume,
have been expanded to their full form in line with the current style for the
Arden Shakespeare series. The spacing of minor abbreviations (such as
iW) has also been regularized (though they have not been expanded).
Where an extract begins well into the second half of a line the first line is
indented; a half-line appearing by itself is not.
Jane Armstrong
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ABSENCE
1 This great gap of time
My Antony is away.
Antony and Cleopatra 1.5.5-6, CLEOPATRA TO CHARMIAN
2 I shall be loved when I am lacked.
Coriolanus 4.1.15, CORIOLANUS TO HIS WIFE AND MOTHER
3 How like a winter hath my absence been
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
Sonnet 97.1-2
4 From you have I been absent in the spring.
Sonnet 98.1
ACTION AND DEEDS
5 Action is eloquence.
Coriolanus 3.2.76, VOLUMNIA
6 We must not stint
Our necessary actions in the fear
To cope malicious censurers.
Henry VIII 1.2.76-8, CARDINAL WOLSEY TO HENRY
7 I have done the deed.
Macbeth 2.2.14, LADY MACBETH
8 Was not that nobly done? Ay, and wisely too.
Macbeth 3.6.13, LENOX TO ANOTHER LORD
9 PORTIA Good sentences, and well pronounced.
NERISSA They would be better if well followed.
Merchant of Venice 1.2.10-11
10 If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had
been churches, and poor men's cottages princes' palaces.
Merchant of Venice 1.2.12-14, PORTIA continues the conversation
1
2 I ACTION AND DEEDS
1 O, what men dare do! What men may do! What men daily do, not
knowing what they do!
Much Ado About Nothing 4.1.16-17, CLAUDIO to the assembled company
2 This is the night
That either makes me or fordoes me quite.
Othello 5.1.128-9, IAGO TO EMILIA
3 Talkers are no good doers.
Richard III 1.3.351, SECOND MURDERER TO RICHARD
4 What you cannot as you would achieve,
You must perforce accomplish as you may.
Titus Andronicus 1.1.606-7, AARON TO DEMETRIUS AND CHIRON, referring to rape
5 Things won are done; joy's soul lies in the doing.
Troilus and Cressida 1.2.287, CRESSIDA TO PANDARUS
ACTION, immediate
6 That we would do,
We should do when we would.
Hamlet 4.7.118-19, CLAUDIUS TO LAERTES
7 If it were done, when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly.
Macbeth 1.7.1-2, MACBETH; more at CRIMES
8 From this moment,
The very firstlings of my heart shall be
The firstlings of my hand.
Macbeth 4.1.146-8, MACBETH
9 Come, to the forge with it, then; shape it: I would not have things
cool.
Merry Wives of Windsor 4.2.13-14, MISTRESS PAGE TO MISTRESS FORD
ADVERSITY
10 O how full of briars is this working-day world!
As You Like It 1.3.11-12, ROSALIND TO CELIA
11 Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.
As You Like It 2.1.12-14, DUKE SENIOR TO HIS COMPANIONS in the Forest of Arden
ADVICE I 3
1 A wretched soul bruised with adversity,
We bid be quiet when we hear it cry;
But were we burdened with like weight of pain,
As much, or more, we should ourselves complain.
Comedy of Errors 2.1.34-7, ADRIANA TO LUCIANA
2 Who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th'oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of disprized love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office . . .
Hamlet 3.1.70-3, HAMLET; more at SUICIDE
3 Let me embrace thee, sour Adversity,
For wise men say it is the wisest course.
3 Henry VI 3.1.24-5, HENRY, about to be taken prisoner
4 Misery acquaints a man with strange bed-fellows.
Tempest 2.2.38-9, TRINCULO
See also MISFORTUNE; TROUBLE
ADVICE
5 Love all, trust a few,
Do wrong to none. Be able for thine enemy
Rather in power than use, and keep thy friend
Under thy own life's key.
All's Well That Ends Well 1.1.63-6, COUNTESS OF ROSSILLION TO BERTRAM
6 He that commends me to mine own content
Commends me to the thing I cannot get.
Comedy of Errors 1.2.33-4, ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE TO A MERCHANT
7 These few precepts in thy memory
Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportioned thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar;
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel,
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatched, unfledged courage. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,
Bear't that th'opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.
4 I ADVICE
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not expressed in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man,. . .
Neither a borrower nor a lender be,
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow as the night the day
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Hamlet 1.3.58-72, 75-80, POLONIUS' advice to LAERTES
1 Be something scanter of your maiden presence.
Hamlet 1.3.121, POLONIUS' advice to OPHELIA
2 No! - I defy all counsel.
King John 3.3.23, CONSTANCE TO PHILIP, KING OF FRANCE
3 Have more than thou showest,
Speak less than thou knowest,
Lend less than thou owest.
King Lear 1.4.116-18, FOOL TO LEAR
4 Let not the creaking of shoes, nor the rustling of silks, betray thy poor
heart to woman. Keep thy foot out of brothels, thy hand out of
plackets, thy pen from lenders' books, and defy the foul fiend.
King Lear 3.4.93-7, EDGAR, disguised as Poor Tom, to LEAR
5 Good counsellors lack no clients.
Measure for Measure 1.2.106-7, POMPEY TO MISTRESS OVERDONE
6 Men
Can counsel and speak comfort to that grief
Which they themselves not feel; but tasting it,
Their counsel turns to passion.
Much Ado About Nothing 5.1.20-3, LEONATO TO ANTONIO
AGE see OLD ACE; YOUTH
ALIENATION
7 I am myself alone.
3 Henry VI 5.6.83, RICHARD OF GLOUCESTER
See also IDENTITY
AMBITION I 5
ALLIANCE
1 The heart of brothers govern in our loves
And sway our great designs!
Antony and Cleopatra 2.2.156-7, ANTONY TO OCTAVIUS CAESAR
2 You shall find the band that seems to tie their friendship together will
be the very strangler of their amity.
Antony and Cleopatra 2.7.120-3, ENOBARBUS TO MENAS, of Mark Antony and Caesar
3 Never so few, and never yet more need.
2 Henry IV 1.1.215, NORTHUMBERLAND TO MORTON
4 One for all or all for one we gage.
Lucrèce 144
See also FRIENDS AND FRIENDSHIP
AMBITION
5 He married but his occasion here.
Antony and Cleopatra 2.6.131, ENOBARBUS assessing Antony's marriage to Octavia
6 Wilt thou be lord of the whole world?
Antony and Cleopatra 2.7.62, MENAS TO POMPEY
7 Who does i'th' wars more than his captain can,
Becomes his captain's captain.
Antony and Cleopatra 3.1.21-2, VENTIDIUS TO SILIUS
8 Thou art not for the fashion of these times,
Where none will sweat but for promotion.
As You Like It 2.3.59-60, ORLANDO to the faithful retainer ADAM
9 Who doth ambition shun
And loves to live i'th' sun.
As You Like It 2.5.35-6, AMIENS'S song
10 The very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.
Hamlet 2.2.259-60, GUILDENSTERN TO HAMLET
11 A . . . prince,
Whose spirit, with divine ambition puffed,
Makes mouths at the invisible event,
Exposing what is mortal and unsure
To all that fortune, death, and danger dare,
Even for an eggshell.
Hamlet 4.4.48-53, HAMLET, tormented by the example of Fortinbras
6 I AMBITION
1 O foolish youth!
Thou seek'st the greatness that will overwhelm thee.
2 Henry IV 4.5.96-7, HENRY TO PRINCE HAL
2 I spy advantage.
2 Henry VI 1.2.243, RICHARD OF YORK
3 Be that thou hop'st to be, or what thou art
Resign to death; it is not worth th'enjoying.
2 Henry VI 3.1.333-4, RICHARD OF YORK
4 For a kingdom any oath may be broken.
3 Henry VI 1.2.16, EDWARD TO RICHARD OF YORK
5 I do but dream on sovereignty;
Like one that stands upon a promontory
And spies a far-off shore where he would tread.
3 Henry VI 3.2.134-6, RICHARD OF GLOUCESTER
6 No man's pie is freed
From his ambitious finger.
Henry VIII 1.1.52-3, BUCKINGHAM TO NORFOLK, of Cardinal Wolsey
7 Fling away ambition,
By that sin fell the angels.
Henry VIII 3.2.440-1, CARDINAL WOLSEY TO CROMWELL
8 He was a man
Of an unbounded stomach, ever ranking
Himself with princes;...
His own opinion was his law: i'th' presence
He would say untruths, and be ever double
Both in his words and meaning.
Henry VIII 4.2.33-5, 37-9, KATHERINE OF ARAGON TO GRIFFITH, an usher, of Cardinal
Wolsey
9 Lowliness is young ambition's ladder
Whereto the climber-upward turns his face;
But when he once attains the upmost round,
He then unto the ladder turns his back,
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees
By which he did ascend.
Julius Caesar 2.1.22-7 y BRUTUS TO LUCIUS
ANGER I 7
1 As Caesar loved me, I weep for him; as he was fortunate, I rejoice at
it; as he was valiant, I honour him; but, as he was ambitious, I slew
him.
Julius Caesar 3.2.24-7, BRUTUS' oration on the death of Julius Caesar
2 Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.
Julius Caesar 3.2.93, MARK ANTONY'S oration on the death of Julius Caesar
3 I grow, I prosper.
King Lear 1.2.21, EDMUND
4 In venturing ill we leave to be
The things we are.
Lucrèce 148-9
5 That is a step
On which I must fall down, or else o'erleap.
For in my way it lies.
Macbeth 1.4.48-50, MACBETH
6 Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be
What thou art promised. - Yet do I fear thy nature:
It is too full o'th' milk of human kindness,
To catch the nearest way. Thou wouldst be great;
Art not without ambition, but without
The illness should attend it: what thou wouldst highly,
That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false,
And yet wouldst wrongly win.
Macbeth 1.5.14-21, LADY MACBETH, of Macbeth
7 Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself.
Macbeth 1.7.27, MACBETH
8 Arm thy heart and fit thy thoughts
To mount aloft.
Titus Andronicus 1.1.511-12, AARON
9 He rises on the toe; that spirit of his
In aspiration lifts him from the earth.
Troilus and Cressida 4.5.15-16, ULYSSES TO AGAMEMNON, of Diomedes
ANGER
10 This tiger-footed rage.
Coriolanus 3.1.311, MENENIUS TO BRUTUS
8 I ANGER
1 Come not between the dragon and his wrath!
King Lear 1.1.123, LEAR TO KENT, self-dramatizingly
2 Let grief
Convert to anger; blunt not the heart, enrage it.
Macbeth 4.3.228-9, MALCOLM TO MACDUFF
3 There is no following her in this fierce vein.
Midsummer Night's Dream 3.2.82, DEMETRIUS, of Hermia
4 I understand a fury in your words
But not the words.
Othello 4.2.32-3, DESDEMONA TO OTHELLO
5 Who is man that is not angry?
Timon of Athens 3.5.59, ALCIBIADES TO TWO SENATORS
6 Come not within the measure of my wrath.
Two Gentlemen of Verona 5.4.125, VALENTINE TO THURIO
ANIMALS
7 Pray you no more of this, 'tis like the howling of Irish wolves against
the moon.
As You Like It 5.2.109-10, ROSALIND TO ORLANDO, PHOEBE AND SILVIUS all vying to
declare their love
8 They will out of their burrows, like conies after rain.
Coriolanus 4.5.217-18; A SERVANT suggests that Coriolanus' friends will reappear
when his fortunes improve
9 The fox,
Who, never so tame, so cherished and locked up,
Will have a wild trick of his ancestors.
1 Henry IV 5.2.9-11, WORCESTER TO VERNON; he compares treason to a fox
10 So work the honey-bees,
Creatures that by a rule in nature teach
The act of order to a peopled kingdom.
They have a king and officers of sorts,
Where some like magistrates correct at home,
Others like merchants venture trade abroad,
Others like soldiers, armed in their stings,
Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds,
Which pillage they with merry march bring home
To the tent-royal of their emperor,
Who busied in his majesty surveys
ANTONY I 9
The singing masons building roofs of gold,
The civil citizens kneading up the honey,
The poor mechanic porters crowding in
Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate,
The sad-eyed justice, with his surly hum,
Delivering o'er to executors pale
The lazy yawning drone.
Henry V 1.2.187-204, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY TO HENRY AND EXETER
1 It is the bright day that brings forth the adder,
And that craves wary walking.
Julius Caesar 2.1.14-15; BRUTUS fears the rise of Julius Caesar
2 The poor beetle that we tread upon
In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great
As when a giant dies.
Measure for Measure 3.1.78-80, ISABELLA TO CLAUDIO
3 To hold opinion with Pythagoras,
That souls of animals infuse themselves
Into the trunks of men.
Merchant of Venice 4.1.131-3, GRATIANO
4 How he outruns the wind, and with what care
He cranks and crosses with a thousand doubles.
Venus and Adonis 681-2, of the hare
5 Exity pursued by a bear.
Winter's Tale 3.3.58, describing Antigonus on the desert shore of Bohemia. Possibly
the best-known stage direction in English drama.
See also BIRDS; CATS; DOGS; HORSES
ANTICIPATION
6 Time goes on crutches till love hath all his rites.
Much Ado About Nothing 2.1.336-7, CLAUDIO TO DON PEDRO, saying he plans to
marry Hero on the following day
7 Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,
Towards Phoebus' lodging.
Romeo and Juliet 3.2.1-2, JULIET
8 I am giddy: expectation whirls me round.
Troilus and Cressida 3.2.16, TROILUS, about to be brought to Cressida by Pandarus
ANTONY see MARK ANTONY
10 I ANXIETY
ANXIETY
1 Doubting things go ill often hurts more
Than to be sure they do.
Cymbeline 1.7.95-6, IMOGEN TO IACHIMO
2 O polished perturbation! golden care!
That keep'st the ports of slumber open wide
To many a watchful night!
2 Henry IV 4.5.22-4, PRINCE HAL, watching his father sleeping
3 Care is no cure, but rather corrosive,
For things that are not to be remedied.
1 Henry VI 3.3.3-4, PUCELLE (JOAN OF ARC) TO THE BASTARD
4 Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadows,
Which shows like grief itself.
Richard II 2.2.14-15, BUSHY TO QUEEN ISABEL
5 Fearful commenting
Is leaden servitor to dull delay.
Richard HI 4.3.51-2, RICHARD TO RATCLIFFE
6 A troubled mind drove me to walk abroad.
Romeo and Juliet 1.1.120, BENVOLIO TO ROMEO'S PARENTS
See also CARES; CONFUSION; FEAR; FOREBODING; MISGIVINGS
APPARITIONS
7 What, has this thing appeared again tonight?
Hamlet 1.1.24, HORATIO TO BARNARDO AND MARCELLUS
8 What art thou that usurp'st this time of night?
Hamlet 1.1.49, HORATIO questioning the ghost of Hamlet's father
9 But soft, behold. Lo, where it comes again.
I'll cross it though it blast me.
Hamlet 1.1.128-9, HORATIO on the reappearance of the ghost
10 BARNARDO It was about to speak when the cock crew.
HORATIO And then it started like a guilty thing
Upon a fearful summons. I have heard
The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,
Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat
Awake the god of day, and at his warning,
Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,
APPEARANCE | 11
Th'extravagant and erring spirit hies
To his confine.
Hamlet 1.1.152-60
1 HORATIO Look, my lord, it comes.
HAMLET Angels and ministers of grace defend us!
Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damned,
Bring with thee airs from heaven or 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.
Hamlet 1.4.38-45
2 I am thy father's spirit,
Doomed for a certain term to walk the night,
And for the day confined to fast in fires,
Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
Are burnt and purged away.
Hamlet 1.5.9-13, GHOST TO HAMLET; more at STORIES
3 Rest, rest, perturbed spirit.
Hamlet 1.5.190, HAMLET TO THE GHOST
4 Live you? or are you aught
That man may question?
Macbeth 1.3.42-3, BANQUO TO THE WITCHES
5 Is this a dagger, which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee: -
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Macbeth 2.1.33-5, MACBETH
See also FAIRIES; OMENS AND PORTENTS; SPIRITS; SUPERNATURAL, the;
WITCHES
APPEARANCE
6 An eye like Mars to threaten and command,
A station like the herald Mercury
New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill.
Hamlet 3.4.57-9, HAMLET reminds HIS MOTHER of his dead father's qualities
7 Thou art our admiral, thou bearest the lantern in the poop, but 'tis in
the nose of thee; thou art the Knight of the Burning Lamp.
1 Henry 7^3.3.25-7, FALSTAFF to the red-nosed BARDOLPH
12 I APPEARANCE
1 Let me have men about me that are fat,
Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep a-nights.
Julius Caesar 1.2.189-90, JULIUS CAESAR TO MARK ANTONY
2 Sir, 'tis my occupation to be plain:
I have seen better faces in my time
Than stands on any shoulder that I see
Before me at this instant.
King Lear 2.2.93-6, KENT TO CORNWALL
3 Your face, my Thane, is as a book, where men
May read strange matters.
Macbeth 1.5.61-2, LADY MACBETH TO MACBETH
4 His face is the worst thing about him.
Measure for Measure 2.1.152-3, POMPEY TO ESCALUS, of Froth
5 Mislike me not for my complexion.
Merchant of Venice 2.1.1, PRINCE OF MOROCCO TO PORTIA
6 Thou painted maypole.
Midsummer Night's Dream 3.2.296, HERMIA TO HELENA
7 Though she be but little, she is fierce.
Midsummer Night's Dream 3.2.325, HELENA'S retort
8 Why, what's the matter,
That you have such a February face,
So full of frost, of storm, and cloudiness?
Much Ado About Nothing 5.4.40-2, DON PEDRO TO BENEDICK
9 Was this face the face
That every day under his household roof
Did keep ten thousand men?
Richard II 4.1.281-3, RICHARD TO BOLINGBROKE AND NORTHUMBERLAND - a rather
poor echo of Christopher Marlowe's description of Helen of Troy in Doctor Faustus
(5.1.107): 'Was this the face that launched a thousand ships?'; see also SORROW
10 I, that am rudely stamped, and want love's majesty.
Richard III 1.1.16, RICHARD
11 His complexion is perfect gallows.
Tempest 1.1.29-30, GONZALO TO HIS COMPANIONS, of a boatswain
APPEARANCES | 13
1 There's nothing ill can dwell in such a temple:
If the ill spirit have so fair a house,
Good things will strive to dwell with 't.
Tempest 1.2.460-2, MIRANDA TO FERDINAND
2 Item, two lips indifferent red; item, two grey eyes, with lids to them;
item, one neck, one chin, and so forth.
Twelfth Night is-241-3, OLIVIA'S 'schedule' of herself to VIOLA
APPEARANCES
3 I took this lark for a bunting.
All's Well That Ends Well 2.5.5-6, LAFEW TO BERTRAM
4 Seems, madam? Nay, it is. I know not 'seems'.
Hamlet 1.2.76, HAMLET TO GERTRUDE
5 The devil hath power
T'assume a pleasing shape.
Hamlet 2.2.601-2, HAMLET
6 Ye have angels' faces, but heaven knows your hearts.
Henry VIII 3.1.144, KATHERINE OF ARAGON TO CARDINAL WOLSEY AND CARDINAL
CAMPEIUS
7 There's no art
To find the mind's construction in the face.
He was a gentleman on whom I built
An absolute trust.
Macbeth 1.4.11-14, DUNCAN TO MALCOLM, of the Thane of Cawdor - a title which
ironically will now be given to Macbeth
8 Sleek o'er your rugged looks;
Be bright and jovial among your guests to-night.
Macbeth 3.2.27-8, LADY MACBETH TO MACBETH
9 Let's write good angel on the devil's horn.
Measure for Measure 2.4.16, ANGELO
10 All that glisters is not gold.
Merchant of Venice 2.7.65, PRINCE OF MOROCCO
11 The world is still deceived with ornament.
Merchant of Venice 3.2.74, BASSANIO, while choosing a casket
12 I will wear my heart upon my sleeve.
Othello 1.1.63, IAGO TO RODERIGO
14 I APPEARANCES
1 I am not merry, but I do beguile
The thing I am by seeming otherwise.
Othello 2.1.122-3, DESDEMONA TO IAGO
2 By his face straight shall you know his heart.
Richard III 3.4.53, HASTINGS TO STANLEY AND THE BISHOP OF ELY, of Richard
3 O in what sweets dost thou thy sins enclose!
Sonnet 95.4
4 Degree being vizarded,
Th'unworthiest shows as fairly in the mask.
Troilus and Cressida 1.3.83-4, ULYSSES TO THE GREEK PRINCES; 'degree' here means
'rank', and 'vizarded', 'masked'
5 Cucullus non facit monachum; that's as much to say, as I wear not
motley in my brain.
Twelfth Night 1.5.52-4, FESTE TO OLIVIA; 'the hood does not make the monk' was
proverbial
6 I do believe thee:
I saw his heart in 's face.
Winter's Tale 1.2.446-7, POLIXENES TO CAMILLO
See also HYPOCRISY
ARGUMENT
7 O sir, we quarrel in print, by the book; as you have books for good
manners. I will name you the degrees. The first, the Retort Courteous;
the second, the Quip Modest; the third, the Reply Churlish; the fourth,
the Reproof Valiant; the fifth, the Countercheck Quarrelsome; the
sixth, the Lie with Circumstance; the seventh, the Lie Direct. All these
you may avoid but the Lie Direct; and you may avoid that too, with
an If.
As You Like It 5.4.88-96, TOUCHSTONE TO JAQUES
8 He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his
argument.
Love's Labour's Lost 5.1.16-17, HOLOFERNES TO NATHANIEL
See also QUARRELS
ARMIES
9 From camp to camp through the foul womb of night
The hum of either army stilly sounds,
That the fixed sentinels almost receive
AUTHORITY | 15
The secret whispers of each other's watch.
Fire answers fire, and through their paly flames
Each battle sees the other's umbered face.
Henry V 4.0.4-9, CHORUS; this passage and the following one describe the English
army before Agincourt
1 The poor condemned English,
Like sacrifices, by their watchful fires
Sit patiently and inly ruminate
The morning's danger.
Henry V 4.0.22-5, CHORUS
2 We are but warriors for the working-day;
Our gayness and our gilt are all besmirched
With rainy marching in the painful field.
Henry V 4.4.109-11, HENRY TO MONTJOY
See also SOLDIERS; WAR
ART
3 Art made tongue-tied by authority.
Sonnet 66.9
4 O, had I but followed the arts!
Twelfth Night 1.3.93, SIR ANDREW AGUECHEEK TO SIR TOBY BELCH
5 What fine chisel
Could ever yet cut breath?
Winter's Tale 5.3.78-9, LEONTES TO PAULINA
See also POETRY
AUTHORITY
6 KENT YOU have that in your countenance which I would fain call
master.
LEAR What's that?
KENT Authority.
King Lear 1.4.27-30
7 Thou hast seen a farmer's dog bark at a beggar? . . . And the creature
run from the cur - there thou mightst behold the great image of
authority - a dog's obeyed in office.
King Lear 4.6.150-1,153-5, LEAR TO GLOUCESTER
8 The demi-god, Authority.
Measure for Measure 1.2.120, CLAUDIO TO THE PROVOST
16 I AUTUMN
AUTUMN
1 The teeming autumn big with rich increase.
Sonnet 97.6
fc%^*%^%^%^ BI A k%^%^*%^%^
BABIES
2 The infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
As You Like It 2.7.143-4, from JAQUES'S 'Seven Ages of Man' speech
3 Poor inch of nature!
Pericles 3.1.34, PERICLES OF MARINA, born at sea in a storm
See also BIRTH AND CHILDBEARING
BAD BEHAVIOUR
4 Harsh rage,
Defect of manners, want of government,
Pride, haughtiness, opinion, and disdain,
The least of which haunting a nobleman
Loseth men's hearts.
1 Henry IV 3.1.177-81, WORCESTER admonishing HOTSPUR
5 To persist
In doing wrong extenuates not wrong,
But makes it much more heavy.
Troilus and Cressida 2.2.187-9, HECTOR TO TROJAN PRINCES
BAD NEWS see NEWS, bad
BAD PEOPLE
6 He will steal an egg out of a cloister.
All's Well That Ends Well 4.3.245, PAROLLES TO SOLDIERS
7 I fear your disposition.
King Lear 4.2.32, ALBANY TO GONERIL
8 I know thee well; a serviceable villain.
King Lear 4.6.247, EDGAR TO OSWALD
BEARDS I 17
1 Which is the villain? Let me see his eyes,
That when I note another man like him
1 may avoid him.
Much Ado About Nothing 5.1.251-3, LEONATO
See also EVIL PEOPLE
BAD TIMES
2 The time is out of joint. O cursed spite,
That ever I was born to set it right.
Hamlet 1.5.196-7, HAMLET TO THE GHOST
3 These days are dangerous.
Virtue is choked with foul Ambition,
And Charity chased hence by Rancour's hand.
2 Henry VI 3.1.142-4, GLOUCESTER TO HENRY
4 None but in this iron age would do it.
King John 3.3.60, the boy ARTHUR to HUBERT, who has admitted that he has sworn to
put out his eyes
5 The weight of this sad time we must obey,
Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.
The oldest hath borne most; we that are young
Shall never see so much, nor live so long.
King Lear 5.3.322-5, EDGAR
6 This is the time that the unjust man doth thrive.
Winter's Tale 4.4.675-6, AUTOLYCUS
See also DECLINE AND FALL
BEARDS
7 Nay, faith, let not me play a woman: I have a beard coming.
Midsummer Night's Dream 1.2.44-5, FRANCIS FLUTE, horrified at the idea of having to
act a female role
8 Lord, I could not endure a husband with a beard on his face! I had
rather lie in the woollen.
Much Ado About Nothing 2.1.26-8, BEATRICE TO LEONATO
9 Now Jove, in his next commodity of hair, send thee a beard!
Twelfth Night 3.1.45-6, FESTE TO VIOLA, disguised as the boy Cesario
See also MEN AND WOMEN
18 I BEAUTY
BEAUTY
1 O beauty,
Till now I never knew thee.
Henry VIII 1.4.75-6; HENRY catches sight of Anne Bullen (Boleyn)
2 Beauty itself doth of itself persuade
The eyes of men without an orator.
Lucrèce 29-30
3 Look on beauty,
And you shall see 'tis purchased by the weight.
Merchant of Venice 3.2.88-9, BASSANIO
4 Beauty is a witch.
Much Ado About Nothing 2.1.170, CLAUDIO
5 He hath a daily beauty in his life.
Othello 5.1.19, IAGO TO RODERIGO, of Cassio; see also RESENTMENT
6 O momentary grace of mortal men,
Which we more hunt for than the grace of God.
Richard III 3.4.96-7, HASTINGS TO RATCLIFFE
7 O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright.
It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
As a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear -
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear.
Romeo and Juliet 1.5.44-7, ROMEO catching sight of Juliet for the first time
8 Beauty herself is black.
Sonnet 132.13; Shakespeare's beloved is popularly known as the 'Dark Lady'
9 I see you what you are, you are too proud:
But if you were the devil, you are fair.
Twelfth Night 1.5.244-5, VIOLA TO OLIVIA
10 Beauty dead, black Chaos comes again.
Venus and Adonis 1020
See also APPEARANCE
BEGGARS
11 Bedlam beggars, who, with roaring voices,
Strike in their numbed and mortified bare arms
Pins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs of rosemary;
And with this horrible object, from low farms,
Poor pelting villages, sheepcotes and mills,
BETRAYAL | 19
Sometime with lunatic bans, sometime with prayers,
Enforce their charity.
King Lear 2.2.188-94, EDGAR
1 Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
Your looped and windowed raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these? O, I have ta'en
Too little care of this.
King Lear 3.4.28-33, LEAR
2 His poor self,
A dedicated beggar to the air,
With his disease of all-shunned poverty,
Walks like contempt, alone.
Timon of Athens 4.2.12-15, SERVANT TO OTHERS, of Timon
See also POVERTY
BETRAYAL
3 I know thee not, old man.
2 Henry iV 5.5.47, the new KING HENRY V to his former friend FALSTAFF
4 Et tu, Brute?
Julius Caesar 3.1.77', CAESAR TO BRUTUS: 'YOU too, Brutus?'
5 This was the most unkindest cut of all.
Julius Caesar 3.2.184, MARK ANTONY'S oration on the death of Julius Caesar
6 Take, o take those lips away
That so sweetly were forsworn.
Measure for Measure 4.1.1-2, song
7 The private wound is deepest.
Two Gentlemen of Verona 5.4.71, VALENTINE TO PROTEUS
8 Him I do not love that tells close offices
The foulest way nor names concealments in
The boldest language.
Two Noble Kinsmen 5.1.122-4, PALAMON
See also INFIDELITY; TREASON AND TREACHERY
20 I BETTER DAYS
BETTER DAYS
1 If ever you have looked on better days;
If ever been where bells have knolled to church;
If ever sat at any good man's feast;
If ever from your eyelids wiped a tear,
And know what 'tis to pity and be pitied,
Let gentleness my strong enforcement be.
As You Like It 2.7.113-18, ORLANDO TO DUKE SENIOR AND COMPANIONS
2 We have seen better days.
As You Like It 2.7.120, DUKE SENIOR TO ORLANDO
3 We have seen the best of our time.
King Lear 1.2.112, GLOUCESTER TO EDMUND; more at DECLINE AND FALL
4 I feel
The best is past.
Tempest 3.3.50-1, ALONSO TO GONZALO
5 Let's shake our heads, and say,. . .
'We have seen better days'.
Timon of Athens 4.2.25, 27, STEWARD TO SERVANTS
See also DECLINE AND FALL; PAST, the
BIRDS
6 Hark, hark, the lark at heaven's gate sings,
And Phoebus gins arise.
Cymbeline 2.3.20-1, song
7 This bird of dawning singeth all night long.
Hamlet 1.1.165, HORATIO'S description of the cock crowing at the holy time of
Christmas; more at CHRISTMAS
8 The croaking raven doth bellow for revenge.
Hamlet 3.2.256, HAMLET, encouraging the dumb show
9 A summer bird,
Which ever in the haunch of winter sings
The lifting up of day.
2 Henry IV 4.4.91-3, HENRY TO WESTMORELAND, who has just brought him good
news
10 This guest of summer,
The temple-haunting martlet.
Macbeth 1.6.3-4, BANQUO TO DUNCAN
BIRTH AND CHILDBEARING | 21
1 It was the owl that shrieked, the fatal bellman,
Which gives the stern'st good-night.
Macbeth 2.2.3-4, LADY MACBETH
2 A falcon, towering in her pride of place,
Was by a mousing owl hawked at, and killed.
Macbeth 2.4.12-13, OLD MAN TO ROSSE
3 Light thickens; and the crow
Makes wing to th* rooky wood.
Macbeth 3.2.50-1, MACBETH TO LADY MACBETH
4 The poor wren,
The most diminitive of birds, will fight,
Her young ones in her nest, against the owl.
Macbeth 4.2.9-11, LADY MACDUFF TO ROSSE
5 As wild geese that the creeping fowler eye,
Or russet-pated choughs, many in sort,
Rising and cawing at the gun's report,
Sever themselves, and madly sweep the sky.
Midsummer Night's Dream 3.2.20-3, PUCK TO OBERON
6 Let the bird of loudest lay
On the sole Arabian tree
Herald sad and trumpet be.
Phoenix and Turtle 1-3
7 Night-owls shriek where mounting larks should sing.
Richard II 3.3.183, RICHARD TO NORTHUMBERLAND
8 The lark at break of day arising,
From sullen earth sings hymns at heaven's gate.
Sonnet 29.11-12
See also MUSIC; OMENS AND PORTENTS
BIRTH AND CHILDBEARING
9 The pleasing punishment that women bear.
Comedy of Errors 1.1.46, EGEON TO THE DUKE OF EPHESUS
10 We came crying hither.
King Lear 4.6.174, LEAR TO GLOUCESTER
11 When we are born we cry that we are come
To this great stage of fools.
King Lear 4.6.178-9, LEAR TO GLOUCESTER
22 J BIRTH AND CHILDBEARING
1 I have given suck, and know
How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me.
Macbeth 1.7.54-5, LADY MACBETH TO MACBETH; see also, however, CRUELTY
2 She came in great with child; and longing . . . for stewed prunes.
Measure for Measure 2.1.87-8, POMPEY TO ESCALUS, of Mistress Elbow
3 But she, being mortal, of that boy did die.
Midsummer Night's Dream 2.1.135, TITANIA TO OBERON
4 A grievous burden was thy birth to me;
Tetchy and wayward was thy infancy.
Richard III 4.4.68-9, DUCHESS OF YORK TO RICHARD
See also BABIES; MOTHERS
BLOOD
5 He today that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother, be he ne'er so vile.
Henry V 4.3.61-2, HENRY TO WESTMORLAND
6 Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green one red.
Macbeth 2.2.59-62, MACBETH TO LADY MACBETH
7 Out, damned spot! out, I say!
Macbeth 5.1.36, LADY MACBETH
8 Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood
in him?
Macbeth 5.1.40-1, LADY MACBETH
9 Here's the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not
sweeten this little hand.
Macbeth 5.1.51-3, LADY MACBETH
BODY, the
10 On her left breast
A mole cinque-spotted: like the crimson drops
I'th' bottom of a cowslip.
Cymbeline 2.2.37-9, IACHIMO, illicitly observing Imogen in her sleep
11 O that this too too sullied flesh would melt.
Hamlet 1.2.129, HAMLET; more at SUICIDE
BOLDNESS I 23
1 Our bodies are gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners.
Othello 1.3.322-3, IAGO TO RODERIGO
See also MIND, the
BOLDNESS
2 They follow him / . . . with no less confidence
Than boys pursuing summer butterflies,
Or butchers killing flies.
Coriolanus 4.6.93-6, COMINIUS TO MENENIUS, describing the Volscians following
Coriolanus in battle
3 Boldness be my friend!
Cymbeline 1.7.18, IACHIMO
4 Young Fortinbras,
Of unimproved mettle, hot and full,
Hath...
Sharked up a list of lawless résolûtes
For food and diet to some enterprise
That hath a stomach in it.
Hamlet 1.1.98-103, HORATIO TO BARNARDO
5 By heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that lets me.
Hamlet 1.4.85, HAMLET TO HORATIO AND MARCELLUS ('lets' here means 'hinders')
6 Imitate the action of the tiger:
Stiffen up the sinews, conjure up the blood.
Henry V3.1.7-8, HENRY TO HIS FORCES
7 Be stirring as the time, be fire with fire,
Threaten the threat'ner.
King John 5.1.48-9, PHILIP THE BASTARD TO JOHN
8 Be bloody, bold, and resolute.
Macbeth 4.1.79, SECOND APPARITION TO MACBETH
9 Have you no modesty, no maiden shame,
No touch of bashfulness?
Midsummer Night's Dream 3.2.285-6, HELENA TO HERMIA
10 Things out of hope are compassed oft with venturing.
Venus and Adonis 567
24 I BOOKS
BOOKS
1 Painfully to pore upon a book
To seek the light of truth.
Love's Labour's Lost 1.1.73-4, BEROWNE TO HIS FRIENDS; he continues, 'while truth the
while / Doth falsely blind the eyesight of his look'
2 How well he's read, to reason against reading!
Love's Labour's Lost 1.1.94, KING OF NAVARRE TO HIS FRIENDS
3 For where is any author in the world
Teaches such beauty as a woman's eye?
Love's Labour's Lost 4-3-308-9, BEROWNE TO HIS FRIENDS
4 Knowing I loved my books, he furnished me
From mine own library with volumes that
I prize above my dukedom.
Tempest 1.2.166-8, PROSPERO TO MIRANDA
5 Burn his books.
Tempest 3.2.97, CALIBAN'S advice to STEPHANO, as the way to overcome Prospero
6 I love a ballad in print,... for then we are sure they are true.
Winter's Tale 4.4.261-2, the unsophisticated MOPSA to the SHEPHERD'S SON
See also EDUCATION; POETRY; READING; WRITING
BRAGGADOCIO
7 He speaks plain cannon, fire, and smoke, and bounce;
He gives the bastinado with his tongue.
King John 2.1.462-3, PHILIP THE BASTARD, of Hubert, a citizen of Angers
8 Thou coward, art thou bragging to the stars?
Midsummer Night's Dream 3.2.407, PUCK, imitating Lysander, to DEMETRIUS
9 ABRAM DO you bite your thumb at us, sir?
SAMPSON I do bite my thumb, sir.
Romeo and Juliet 1.1.44-5, bickering between Montagues and Capulets
BRAVADO
10 I'll set my teeth
And send to darkness all that stop me.
Antony and Cleopatra 3.13.186-7, ANTONY TO CLEOPATRA
11 The next time I do fight
I'll make Death love me, for I will contend
Even with his pestilent scythe.
Antony and Cleopatra 3.13.197-9, ANTONY TO CLEOPATRA
BRAVERY I
1 I dare damnation.
Hamlet 4.5.133, LAERTES TO CLAUDIUS
2 Men's eyes were made to look, and let them gaze.
I will not budge for no man's pleasure, I.
Romeo and Juliet 3.1.53-4, MERCUTIO TO BENVOLIO AND TYBALT
See also BOLDNESS; BRAGGADOCIO; BRAVERY; COURAGE
BRAVERY
3 He did look far
Into the service of the time, and was
Discipled of the bravest.
All's Well That Ends Well 1.2.26-8, KING OF FRANCE TO BERTRAM
4 It is held
That valour is the chiefest virtue and
Most dignifies the haver: if it be,
The man I speak of cannot in the world
Be singly counter-poised.
Coriolanus 2.2.83-7, COMINIUS TO MENENIUS; the man spoken of is Coriolanus
5 O noble English, that could entertain
With half their forces the full pride of France
And let another half stand laughing by,
All out of work and cold for action!
Henry V 1.2.111-14, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY TO THE BISHOP OF ELY
6 His soldiers, spying his undaunted spirit,
'A Talbot! a Talbot!' cried out amain,
And rushed into the bowels of the battle.
1 Henry VI 1.1.127-9, MESSENGER TO THE BISHOP OF WINCHESTER
7 A breathing valiant man
Of an invincible unconquered spirit.
1 Henry VI 4.2.31-2, GENERAL OF BORDEAUX admiring Talbot
8 I had rather have
Such men my friends than enemies.
Julius Caesar 5.4.28-9, MARK ANTONY TO LUCILIUS, of a prisoner taken on
battlefield
9 His horse is slain, and all on foot he fights,
Seeking for Richmond in the throat of death.
Richard III 5.4.4-5, CATESBY TO NORFOLK, of Richard at the battle of Bosworth
See also BOLDNESS; BRAVADO; COURAGE
26 I BRIBERY
BRIBERY see CORRUPTION
BRITAIN
1 Britain's a world by itself, and we will nothing pay for wearing our own
noses.
Cymbeline 3.1.13-14, the slow-witted CLOTEN to his mother the QUEEN
2 To you, the liver, heart and brain of Britain.
Cymbeline 5.5.14, CYMBELINE, TO BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS AND ARVIRAGUS
See also ENGLAND AND THE ENGLISH; SCOTLAND AND THE SCOTS; WALES
AND THE WELSH
BROTHERS
3 OLIVER I never loved my brother in my life.
DUKE FREDERICK More villain thou.
As You Like It 3.1.14-15
4 We came into the world like brother and brother,
And now let's go hand in hand, not one before another.
Comedy of Errors 5.1.425-6, DROMIO OF EPHESUS TO DROMIO OF SYRACUSE, closing the
play
5 I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers
Could not with all their quantity of love
Make up my sum.
Hamlet 5.1.269-71, HAMLET challenging LAERTES in Ophelia's grave
6 More than our brother is our chastity.
Measure for Measure 2.4.184; ISABELLA toughs it out, as her brother faces a death
sentence
BUSINESS
7 Sell when you can.
As You Like It 3.5.60, ROSALIND TO PHEBE
8 What with the war, what with the sweat, what with the gallows, and
what with poverty, I am custom-shrunk.
Measure for Measure 1.2.81-3, MISTRESS OVERDONE; her business is a brothel
9 Farewell: Othello's occupation's gone.
Othello 3.3.360, OTHELLO, with Iago
10 [He] ruminates like an hostess that hath no arithmetic but her brain to
set down her reckoning.
Troilus and Cressida 3.3.250-2, THERSITES TO ACHILLES, of Ajax
CATS I 27
1 You do as chapmen do,
Dispraise the thing that they desire to buy.
Troilus and Cressida 4.1.76-7, PARIS TO DIOMEDES
2 Let me have no lying: it becomes none but tradesmen.
Winter's Tale 4.4.724-5, AUTOLYCUS TO THE SHEPHERD'S SON
See also CONTRACTS; WORK
^Q^^^^Ç^^Q^ C1 *£Q$<££^^^
CAESAR see JULIUS CAESAR
CARES
3 So shaken as we are, so wan with care.
1 Henry IV 1.1.1, HENRY TO LORDS, opening the play
4 It keeps on the windy side of care.
Much Ado About Nothing 2.1.295-6, BEATRICE TO DON PEDRO, describing her 'merry
heart'
5 What though care killed a cat, thou hast mettle enough in thee to kill
care.
Much Ado About Nothing 5.1.133-4, CLAUDIO TO DON PEDRO
See also ANXIETY
CATS
6 I could endure anything before but a cat.
All's Well That Ends Well 4.3.233, BERTRAM
7 I am as vigilant as a cat to steal cream.
1 Henry IV 4.2.57-8, FALSTAFF TO WESTMORELAND
8 I come, Graymalkin!
Macbeth 1.1.8, SECOND WITCH; more at WITCHES
9 Thrice the brinded cat hath mewed.
Macbeth 4.1.1, FIRST WITCH
10 A harmless necessary cat.
Merchant of Venice 4.1.55, SHYLOCK
28 I CAUSES
CAUSES
1 What need we any spur but our own cause
To prick us to redress?
Julius Caesar 2.1.122-4, BRUTUS TO CASSIUS
CAUTION
2 Some craven scruple
Of thinking too precisely on th'event.
Hamlet 4.4.40-1, HAMLET ('event' here means outcome)
3 Show me one scar charactered on thy skin:
Men's flesh preserved so whole do seldom win.
2 Henry VI 3.1.300-1, RICHARD OF YORK TO SOMERSET
CEREMONY
4 What have kings that privates have not too,
Save ceremony, save general ceremony?
Henry V 4.1.234-5, HENRY; more below, and at KINGSHIP AND RULE; SLEEP AND
SLEEPLESSNESS
5 'Tis not the balm, the sceptre and the ball,
The sword, the mace, the crown imperial,
The intertissued robe of gold and pearl,
The farced title running 'fore the king,
The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp
That beats upon the high shore of this world,
No, not all these, thrice-gorgeous ceremony.
Henry V 4.1.256-62, HENRY; more at SLEEP AND SLEEPLESSNESS
6 Ceremony was but devised at first
To set a gloss on faint deeds.
Timon of Athens 1.2.15-16, TIMON TO LORDS
See also CUSTOM
CERTAINTY
7 Certainties / . . . are past remedies.
Cymbeline 1.7.96-7, IMOGEN TO IACHIMO
8 Be sure of it, give me the ocular proof.
Othello 3.3.363, the desperate OTHELLO to IAGO
CHASTITY I 29
CHANCE
1 If Chance will have me King, why, Chance may crown me
Without my stir.
Macbeth 1.3.144-5, MACBETH
2 The slaves of chance, and flies
Of every wind that blows.
Winter's Tale 4.4.542-3, FLORIZEL TO CAMILLO, of himself and Perdita
See also FORTUNE; LUCK
CHANGE
3 Presume not that I am the thing I was.
2 Henry iV 5.5.56, the new KING HENRY V to FALSTAFF
4 The case is altered.
3 Henry VI 4.1.31, WARWICK 'the Kingmaker', changing allegiance
5 Bless thee, Bottom, bless thee! Thou art translated.
Midsummer Night's Dream 3.1.112-13, PETER QUINCE TO BOTTOM
6 Sui e this robe of mine
Does change my disposition.
Winter's Tale 4.4.134-5, PERDITA TO FLORIZEL; she is dressed as the queen of the
sheep-shearing feast
CHASTITY
7 I thought her
As chaste as unsunned snow.
Cymbeline 2.4.164-5, POSTHUMUS, of Imogen
8 Keep you in the rear of your affection
Out of the shot and danger of desire.
The chariest maid is prodigal enough
If she unmask her beauty to the moon.
Hamlet 1.3.34-7, LAERTES TO OPHELIA
9 Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape
calumny.
Hamlet 3.1.137-8, HAMLET TO OPHELIA
10 Th'impression of keen whips I'd wear as rubies,
And strip myself to death as to a bed
That longing have been sick for, ere Fd yield
My body up to shame.
Measure for Measure 2.4.101-4, ISABELLA TO ANGELO, defending herself in somewhat
ambiguous language
30 I CHASTITY
1 Earthlier happy is the rose distilled
Than that which, withering on the virgin thorn,
Grows, lives, and dies, in single blessedness.
Midsummer Night's Dream 1.1.76-8, THESEUS TO HERMIA, recommending marriage
in preference to virginity
2 The nobleman would have dealt with her like a nobleman, and she sent
him away as cold as a snowball.
Pericles 4.6.136-8, BOULT TO THE BAWD
3 Beauty starved with her severity
Cuts beauty off from all posterity.
Romeo and Juliet 1.1.219-20, ROMEO TO BENVOLIO
4 I am bride-habited,
But maiden-hearted.
Two Noble Kinsmen 5.1.150-1, EMILIA
CHILDHOOD
5 Two lads that thought there was no more behind,
But such a day to-morrow as to-day,
And to be boy eternal.
Winter's Tale 1.2.63-5, POLIXENES TO HERMIONE, of his childhood friendship with
Leontes
CHILDREN
6 Then, the whining school-boy with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school.
As You Like It 2.7.145-7, from JAQUES'S 'Seven Ages of Man' speech
7 The limbs of Limehouse.
Henry VIII 5.3.61, A PORTER TO HIS MAN, of young troublemakers
8 How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
To have a thankless child.
King Lear 1.4.280-1, LEAR TO ALBANY, angered by Goneril
9 Pitchers have ears.
Richard 7772.4.37, QUEEN ELIZABETH TO THE DUCHESS OF YORK, in the presence of the
boy Duke of York; proverbial (see also RUMOUR)
10 Thou art thy mother's glass, and she in thee
Calls back the lovely April of her prime.
Sonnet 3.9-10
CHOICE I 31
1 He makes a July's day as short as December.
Winter's Tale 1.2.169, POLIXENES TO LEONTES, of his boy Florizel, who keeps him
busy
See also BIRTH AND CHILDBEARINC; DAUGHTERS; FATHERS; MOTHERS; PARENTS
AND CHILDREN
CHILDREN, having or not having
2 Get thee to a nunnery. Why, wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?
Hamlet 3.1.121-2, HAMLET TO OPHELIA
3 The world must be peopled.
Much Ado About Nothing 2.3.232-3, BENEDICK, coming round to the idea of
marriage
4 From fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty's rose might never die.
Sonnet 1.1-2
5 Die single, and thine image dies with thee.
Sonnet 3.14
6 Herein lives wisdom, beauty and increase;
Without this, folly, age and cold decay.
Sonnet 11.5-6, on having children
7 You are the cruellest she alive
If you will lead these graces to the grave
And leave the world no copy.
Twelfth Night 1.5.235-7, VIOLA TO OLIVIA
CHOICE
8 Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice
And could of men distinguish her election,
Sh'ath sealed thee for herself.
Hamlet 3.2.64-6, HAMLET TO HORATIO
9 Take her or leave her.
King Lear 1.1.203, L£AR TO BURGUNDY, offering him Cordelia without a dowry
10 Who chooseth me, shall gain what many men desire.
Who chooseth me, shall get as much as he deserves.
Who chooseth me, must give and hazard all he hath.
Merchant of Venice 2.7.5, 7» 9> PRINCE OF MOROCCO, reading the inscriptions on the
gold, silver and lead caskets, one of which will award him Portia's hand in marriage
32 I CHRISTIANS
CHRISTIANS
1 What these Christians are,
Whose own hard dealings teaches them suspect
The thoughts of others!
Merchant of Venice 1.3.159-61, SHYLOCK
CHRISTMAS
2 Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
This bird of dawning singeth all night long;
And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad,
The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallowed and so gracious is that time.
Hamlet 1.1.163-9, MARCELLUS TO HORATIO
CITIES
3 They say this town is full of cozenage,
As nimble jugglers that deceive the eye,
Dark-working sorcerers that change the mind,
Soul-killing witches that deform the body,
Disguised cheaters, prating mountebanks,
And many such-like liberties of sin.
Comedy of Errors 1.2.97-102, ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE TO DROMIO OF EPHESUS, of the
city of Ephesus
4 Cloud-kissing Ilion.
Lucrèce 1370; Ilion is Troy
5 Here in Vienna,
Where I have seen corruption boil and bubble
Till it o'errun the stew.
Measure for Measure 5.1.315-17, DUKE, disguised as a friar, to ESCALUS
6 Two households both alike in dignity
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene.
Romeo and Juliet Prologue 1-2, CHORUS
7 Fair Padua, nursery of arts.
Taming of the Shrew 1.1.2, LUCENTIO TO TRANIO
See also DEMOCRACY; ROME AND THE ROMANS
CLEOPATRA | 33
CLASS, social
1 Lord Hamlet is a prince out of thy star.
Hamlet 2.2.141, POLONIUS reports to CLAUDIUS how he advised Ophelia
2 If this had not been a gentlewoman, she should have been buried out
o' Christian burial.
Hamlet 5.1.23-5, GRAVEDIGGER; suicides such as Ophelia were not normally permitted
to be buried in sacred ground
3 Dost know this waterfly?... He hath much land and fertile . . . Tis a
chuff, but, as I say, spacious in the possession of dirt.
Hamlet 5.2.83-4, 87, 89-90; HAMLET categorizes Osric as a useless member of the
landed gentry
4 It never was merry world in England since gentlemen came up.
2 Henry VI 4.2.8-9, JOHN HOLLAND TO GEORGE BEVIS, both participators in Jack
Cade's rebellion
5 That in the captain's but a choleric word,
Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.
Measure for Measure 2.2.131-2, ISABELLA TO ANGELO
6 The wealthy, curled darlings of our nation.
Othello 1.2.68, BRABANTIO TO OTHELLO, describing the superior persons Desdemona
shunned, in her dislike of the idea of marriage
See also EDUCATION; EQUALITY; PEOPLE, the; WORKING PEOPLE
CLEANLINESS
7 Bid them wash their faces
And keep their teeth clean.
Coriolanus 2.3.60-1, CORIOLANUS TO MENENIUS, of the citizenry
8 A little water clears us of this deed.
Macbeth 2.2.66, LADY MACBETH TO MACBETH, not knowing what is in store
9 What, will these hands ne'er be clean?
Macbeth 5.1.44, LADY MACBETH; more at BLOOD
CLEOPATRA
10 ANTONY She is cunning past man's thought.
ENOBARBUS Alack, sir, no; her passions are made of nothing but the
finest part of pure love.
Antony and Cleopatra 1.2.150-2
11 My serpent of old Nile.
Antony and Cleopatra 1.5.26, CLEOPATRA, recalling what Antony calls her
34 I CLEOPATRA
1 Think on me
That am with Phoebus' amorous pinches black
And wrinkled deep in time. Broad-fronted Caesar,
When thou wast here above the ground, I was
A morsel for a monarch.
Antony and Cleopatra 1.5.28-32, CLEOPATRA TO CHARMIAN
2 The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne
Burned on the water; the poop was beaten gold;
Purple the sails, and so perfumed that
The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver,
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
The water which they beat to follow faster,
As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,
It beggared all description: she did lie
In her pavilion, cloth-of-gold of tissue,
O'erpicturing that Venus where we see
The fancy outwork nature. On each side her
Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling cupids,
With divers-coloured fans, whose wind did seem
To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,
And what they undid did.
Antony and Cleopatra 2.2.201-15, ENOBARBUS describing Cleopatra
3 Rare Egyptian!
Antony and Cleopatra 2.2.228, AGRIPPA TO ENOBARBUS; at 2.6.126 she is described by
Enobarbus as Antony's 'Egyptian dish'
4 Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety. Other women cloy
The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry,
Where most she satisfies.
Antony and Cleopatra 2.2.245-8, ENOBARBUS TO MAECENAS
5 She looks like sleep,
As she would catch another Antony
In her strong toil of grace.
Antony and Cleopatra 5.2.344-6, OCTAVIUS CAESAR
COLD
6 'Tis bitter cold,
And I am sick at heart.
Hamlet 1.1.8-9, FRANCISCO TO BARNARDO
COMPARISONS I 35
1 HAMLET The air bites shrewdly, it is very cold.
HORATIO It is a nipping and an eager air.
Hamlet 1.4.1-2
2 Poor Tom's a-cold.
King Lear 3.4.143, EDGAR, disguised as Poor Tom, to GLOUCESTER
3 This place is too cold for Hell.
Macbeth 2.3.16-17, PORTER
See also WEATHER; WINTER
COMFORT
4 That comfort comes too late,
'Tis like a pardon after execution.
Henry VIII 4.2.120-1, KATHERINE OF ARAGON TO CAPUCHIUS
5 I do not ask you much,
I beg cold comfort.
King John 5.7.41-2, JOHN TO PRINCE HENRY; in a similar but more down-to-earth
phrase, Sebastian says of Gonzalo (Tempest 2.1.10-11), 'He receives comfort like cold
porridge.'
6 Let no comforter delight mine ear
But such a one whose wrongs do suit with mine.
Much Ado About Nothing 5.1.6-7, LEONATO TO ANTONIO
COMMUNICATION
7 If our virtues
Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike
As if we had them not.
Measure for Measure 1.1.33-5, DUKE TO ANGELO
8 No man is the lord of anything,
Though in and of him there bè much consisting,
Till he communicate his parts to others.
Troilus and Cressida 3.3.115-17, ULYSSES TO ACHILLES
COMPARISONS
9 So excellent a king, that was to this
Hyperion to a satyr.
Hamlet 1.2.139-40, HAMLET'S comparison of his father with Claudius
10 My father's brother - but no more like my father
Than I to Hercules.
Hamlet 1.2.152-3, HAMLET
36 I COMPARISONS
1 Comparisons are odorous.
Much Ado About Nothing 3.5.15, DOGBERRY TO VERGES AND LEONATO
2 My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red.
Sonnet 130.1-2; the poet rejects standard poetic comparisons
COMPASSION
3 I have suffered
With those that I saw suffer!
Tempest 1.2.5-6, MIRANDA TO PROSPERO
COMPROMISE
4 I would dissemble with my nature where
My fortunes and my friends at stake required
I should do so in honour.
Coriolanus 3.2.62-4, VOLUMNIA TO CORIOLANUS; an ambitious mother's advice to her
son
COMRADESHIP
5 Gallants, lads, boys, hearts of gold, all the titles of good fellowship
come to you! What, shall we be merry?
1 Henry IV 2.4.273-5, FALSTAFF TO HIS COMPANIONS
6 We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.
Henry V 4.3.60, HENRY TO WESTMORLAND
CONFUSION
7 My thoughts are whirled like a potter's wheel:
I know not where I am, nor what I do.
1 Henry VI 1.5.19-20, TALBOT
8 My mind is troubled, like a fountain stirred,
And I myself see not the bottom of it.
Troilus and Cressida 3.3.306-7, ACHILLES TO THERSITES; Thersites comments, T had
rather be a tick in a sheep than such a valiant ignorance.'
CONSCIENCE
9 Conscience does make cowards of us all.
Hamlet 3.1.83, HAMLET
10 A peace above all earthly dignities,
A still and quiet conscience.
Henry VIII 3.2.379-80, WOLSEY TO CROMWELL
CONTENTMENT | 37
1 Disputation
'Tween frozen conscience and hot burning will.
Lucrèce 246-7
2 We will proceed no further in this business.
Macbeth 1.7.31, MACBETH TO LADY MACBETH, referring to the 'business' of murdering
Duncan
3 The worm of conscience still begnaws thy soul.
Richard III 1.3.222, QUEEN MARGARET TO RICHARD
4 Some certain dregs of conscience are yet within me.
Richard HI 1.4.120-1, SECOND MURDERER TO FIRST MURDERER; these dregs of
conscience are, however, overcome a moment later: 'Zounds, he dies! I had forgot
the reward.'
5 It makes a man a coward. A man cannot steal but it accuseth him; a
man cannot swear but it checks him; a man cannot lie with his
neighbour's wife but it detects him. 'Tis a blushing, shamefaced spirit,
that mutinies in a man's bosom. It fills a man full of obstacles; it made
me once restore a purse of gold that by chance I found. It beggars any
man that keeps it.
Richard III 1.4.132-9, SECOND MURDERER TO FIRST MURDERER
6 Every man's conscience is a thousand men.
Richard HI 5.2.17, OXFORD TO COMPANIONS IN ARMS
7 Coward conscience.
Richard HI 5.3.180, RICHARD after dreaming of the ghosts of those he has murdered
8 My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
And every tongue brings in a several tale,
And every tale condemns me for a villain.
Richard HI 5.3.194-6, RICHARD after dreaming of the ghosts of those he has murdered
9 Conscience is but a word that cowards use,
Devised at first to keep the strong in awe.
Richard III 5.3.310-11, RICHARD TO NORFOLK
CONTENTMENT
10 I seek not to wax great by others' waning,
Or gather wealth I care not with what envy.
2 Henry VI 4.10.20-1, IDEN, a gentleman of Kent
38 I CONTENTMENT
1 My crown is called content;
A crown it is that seldom kings enjoy.
3 Henry VI 3.1.64-5, HENRY to two keepers who are taking him prisoner; they reply
that he must therefore 'be contented / To go along with us'
2 All places that the eye of heaven visits
Are to a wise man ports and happy havens.
Richard II 1.3.275, JOHN OF GAUNT TO BOLINGBROKE
See also COUNTRY LIFE; HAPPINESS; HUMBLE LIFE
CONTRACTS
3 If you repay me not on such a day
In such a place, such sum or sums as are
Expressed in the condition, let the forfeit
Be nominated for an equal pound
Of your fair flesh, to be cut off and taken
In what part of your body pleaseth me.
Merchant of Venice 1.3.145-50, SHYLOCK'S agreement with ANTONIO
4 I like not fair terms, and a villain's mind.
Merchant of Venice 1.3.178, BASSANIO TO ANTONIO
5 Let him look to his bond! he was wont to call me usurer, let him look
to his bond!
Merchant of Venice 3.1.43-4, SHYLOCK TO SALERIO
6 I cannot find it, 'tis not in the bond.
Merchant of Venice 4.1.260, SHYLOCK TO PORTIA
7 Let every eye negotiate for itself,
And trust no agent.
Much Ado About Nothing 2.1.169-70, CLAUDIO
8 I have no joy of this contract tonight:
It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden.
Romeo and Juliet 2.2.117-18, JULIET TO ROMEO
CORRUPTION
9 Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
Hamlet 1.4.90, MARCELLUS TO HORATIO
10 In the corrupted currents of this world
Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice,
And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself
Buys out the law.
Hamlet 3.3.57-60, CLAUDIUS
CORRUPTION I 39
1 It will but skin and film the ulcerous place,
Whiles rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unseen.
Hamlet 3.4.149-51, HAMLET TO GERTRUDE, advising against self-delusion
2 Corruption wins not more than honesty.
Henry VIII 3.2.444, CARDINAL WOLSEY TO CROMWELL
3 Who so firm that cannot be seduced?
Julius Caesar 1.2.308, CASSIUS TO BRUTUS
4 You yourself
Are much condemned to have an itching palm,
To sell and mark your offices for gold
To undeservers.
Julius Caesar 4.3.9-12, BRUTUS to his brother-in-law CASSIUS
5 Shall we now
Contaminate our fingers with base bribes,
And sell the mighty space of our large honours
For so much trash as may be grasped thus?
I had rather be a dog, and bay the moon,
Than such a Roman.
Julius Caesar 4.3.23-8, BRUTUS TO CASSIUS
6 There's not a one of them but in his house
I keep a servant fee'd.
Macbeth 3.4.130-1, MACBETH TO LADY MACBETH
7 I have supped full with horrors:
Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts,
Cannot once start me.
Macbeth 5.5.13-15, MACBETH TO SEYTON, describing his moral corruption
8 Preferment goes by letter and affection
And not by old gradation.
Othello 1.1.35-6, IAGO TO RODERIGO
9 Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.
Sonnet 94.14
10 Though authority be a stubborn bear, yet he is oft led by the nose with
gold.
Winter's Tale 4.4.804-5, SHEPHERD'S SON TO THE SHEPHERD
40 I COUNSEL, keeping your own
COUNSEL, keeping your own
1 I hear, yet say not much, but think the more.
3 Henry VI 4.1.82, RICHARD OF GLOUCESTER
COUNTRY LIFE
2 I am a woodland fellow, that always loved a great fire.
All's Well That Ends Well 4.5.46-7, LAVATCH
3 Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
More free from peril than the envious court?...
And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.
As You Like It 2.1.2-4, i5-i7> DUKE SENIOR TO HIS COMPANIONS in the Forest of Arden
4 Under the greenwood tree,
Who loves to lie with me,
And turn his merry note
Unto the sweet bird's throat,
Come hither, come hither, come hither.
Here shall he see
No enemy,
But winter and rough weather.
Who doth ambition shun,
And loves to live i'th' sun,
Seeking the food he eats,
And pleased with what he gets,
Come hither, come hither, come hither.
As You Like It 2.5.1-8, 35-9, AMIENS'S song
5 Let us every one go home,
And laugh this sport o'er by a country fire.
Merry Wives of Windsor 5.5.237-8, MISTRESS PAGE TO HER HUSBAND
6 The queen of curds and cream.
Winter's Tale 4.4.161, CAMILLO'S description to POLIXENES of Perdita
See also HUMBLE LIFE
COURAGE J 41
COURAGE
1 Like an eagle in a dove-cote, I
Fluttered your Volscians in Corioles.
Alone I did it.
Coriolanus 5.6.114-16, CORIOLANUS TO THE VOLSCIANS
2 Confident against the world in arms.
1 Henry IV 5.1.117, PRINCE HAL describes Douglas and Hotspur to his father KING
HENRY
3 We are ready to try our fortunes
To the last man.
2 Henry IV 4.2.43-4, MOWBRAY TO HASTINGS
4 Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Julius Caesar 2.2.32-3, JULIUS CAESAR TO CALPHURNIA
5 Courage mounteth with occasion.
King John 2.1.82, DUKE OF AUSTRIA TO PHILIP, KING OF FRANCE; 'with occasion' means
'when it is needed'
6 MACBETH If we should fail?
LADY MACBETH We fail?
But screw your courage to the sticking-place,
And we'll not fail.
Macbeth 1.7.59-62
7 Infirm of purpose!
Give me the daggers.
Macbeth 2.2.51-2, LADY MACBETH TO MACBETH
8 To horse, to horse! urge doubts to them that fear.
Richard II 2.1.299, Ross TO LORDS
9 But one fiend at a time,
I'll fight their legions o'er.
Tempest 3.3.102-3, SEBASTIAN TO ALONSO
10 She did show favour to the youth . . . only to exasperate you, to awake
your dormouse valour, to put fire in your heart, and brimstone in your
liver.
Twelfth Night 3.2.17-20, FABIAN TO SIR ANDREW AGUECHEEK
11 Never dream on infamy, but go.
Two Gentlemen of Verona 2.7.64, LUCETTA TO JULIA; 'infamy' meaning getting a bad
name
42 I COURTIERS
COURTIERS
1 I have trod a measure, I have flattered a lady, I have been politic with
my friend, smooth with mine enemy, I have undone three tailors, I
have had four quarrels, and like to have fought one.
As You Like Jf 5.4.43-6, TOUCHSTONE TO JAQUES
2 ROSENCRANTZ Take you me for a sponge, my lord?
HAMLET Ay, sir, that soaks up the King's countenance, his rewards, his
authorities.
Hamlet 4.2.14-16
3 O how wretched
Is that poor man that hangs on princes' favours!
There is betwixt that smile we would aspire to,
That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin,
More pangs and fears than wars or women have.
Henry VIII 3.2.366-70, CARDINAL WOLSEY, on his fall from favour
4 You shall mark
Many a duteous and knee-crooking knave,
That, doting on his own obsequious bondage,
Wears out his time much like his master's ###,
For nought but provender, and when he's old, cashiered.
Othello 1.1.43-7, IAGO TO RODERIGO
See also FLATTERY; POLITICS AND POLITICIANS
COWARDICE
5 I am pigeon-livered and lack gall
To make oppression bitter.
Hamlet 2.2.579-80, HAMLET
6 There's no more valour in that Poins than in a wild duck.
1 Henry IV 2.2.99-100, FALSTAFF, encouraging thieves
7 He which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart.
Henry V 4.3.35-6, HENRY TO WESTMORLAND
8 Would'st thou have that
Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life,
And live a coward in thine own esteem,
Letting 'I dare not' wait upon 'I would,'
Like the poor cat i'th' adage?
Macbeth 1.7.41-5, LADY MACBETH TO MACBETH
CRIMES I 43
1 Foul-spoken coward, that thunderest with thy tongue,
And with thy weapon nothing dar'st perform.
Titus Andronicus 1.1.557-8, CHIRON TO DEMETRIUS
CRIMES
2 All is not well.
I doubt some foul play.
Hamlet 1.2.255-6, HAMLET
3 Foul deeds will rise,
Though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes.
Hamlet 1.2.257-8, HAMLET
4 'Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard,
A serpent stung me - so the whole ear of Denmark
Is by a forged process of my death
Rankly abused - but know, thou noble youth,
The serpent that did sting thy father's life
Now wears his crown.
Hamlet 1.5.35-40, GHOST TO HAMLET
5 These pickers and stealers.
Hamlet 3.2.337, HAMLET TO ROSENCRANTZ (refers to the Church catechism; 'To keep
my hands from picking and stealing')
6 Now could I drink hot blood
And do such bitter business as the day
Would quake to look on.
Hamlet 3.2.391-3, HAMLET
7 With all his crimes broad-blown, as flush as May.
Hamlet 3.3.81, HAMLET, of Claudius
8 The work we have in hand,
Most bloody, fiery, and most terrible.
Julius Caesar 1.3.129-30, CASSIUS TO CASCA
9 Between the acting of a dreadful thing
And the first motion, all the interim is
Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream:...
and the state of man,
Like to a little kingdom, suffers then
The nature of an insurrection.
Julius Caesar 2.1.63-5, 67-9, BRUTUS
44 I CRIMES
1 What you have charged me with, that have I done,
And more, much more, the time will bring it out.
Tis past and so am I.
King Lear 5.3.160-2, EDMUND TO ALBANY
2 Now stole upon the time the dead of night:...
pure thoughts are dead and still,
While lust and murder wakes to stain and kill.
Lucrèce 162,167-8
3 If th'assassination
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch
With his surcease success; that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all.
Macbeth 1.7.2-5, MACBETH
4 Thou sure and firm-set earth,
Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
Thy very stones prate of my where-about.
Macbeth 2.1.56-8, MACBETH
5 I go, and it is done: the bell invites me.
Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell
That summons thee to Heaven, or to Hell.
Macbeth 2.1.62-4, MACBETH
6 Ere the bat hath flown
His cloistered flight; ere to black Hecate's summons
The shard-born beetle, with his drowsy hums,
Hath rung Night's yawning peal, there shall be done
A deed of dreadful note.
Macbeth 3.2.40-4, MACBETH TO LADY MACBETH
7 I am in blood
Stepped in so far, that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o'er.
Macbeth 3.4.135-7, MACBETH TO LADY MACBETH
8 That would hang us, every mother's son.
Midsummer Night's Dream 1.2.74, MECHANICALS; the envisaged crime being
frightening the ladies of the court
9 When rich villains have need of poor ones, poor ones may make what
price they will.
Much Ado About Nothing 3.3.110-12, BORACHIO TO CONRADE
CRUELTY I 45
1 This will out.
Richard III 1.4.279, FIRST MURDERER TO SECOND MURDERER
2 I am in
So far in blood that sin will pluck on sin.
Richard III 4.2.63-4, RICHARD
See also ACTION AND DEEDS; LIES; MURDER; THIEVES; TYRANNY
CRITICISM
3 That's an ill phrase, a vile phrase, 'beautified' is a vile phrase.
Hamlet 2.2.110-11, POLONIUS commenting on Hamlet's love letter to Ophelia
4 FIRST PLAYER But who - ah woe! - had seen the mobbled queen -
HAMLET 'The mobbled queen'.
POLONIUS That's good.
Hamlet 2.2.503-5; a rare moment of disinterested harmony between Polonius and
Hamlet
5 Better a little chiding than a great deal of heartbreak.
Merry Wives of Windsor 5.3.9-10, MISTRESS PAGE TO DOCTOR CAIUS
CRUELTY
6 Let me be cruel, not unnatural.
I will speak daggers to her, but use none.
Hamlet 3.2.396-7, HAMLET, preparing to confront Gertrude
7 Why, madam, if I were your father's dog
You should not use me so.
King Lear 2.2.136-7, KENT TO REGAN
8 Out, vile jelly,
Where is thy lustre now?
King Lear 3.7.82-3, CORNWALL, tearing out Gloucester's eye
9 Come, you Spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full
Of direst cruelty! . . .
Come to my woman's breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murth'ring ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on Nature's mischief! Come, thick Night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of Hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
46 I CRUELTY
Nor Heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry, 'Hold, hold!'
Macbeth 1.5.39-42, 46-53, LADY MACBETH
1 I have given suck, and know
How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me:
I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums,
And dashed the brains out, had I so sworn
As you have done to this.
Macbeth 1.7.54-9, LADY MACBETH TO MACBETH
CURSES
2 Melt Egypt into Nile, and kindly creatures
Turn all to serpents!
Antony and Cleopatra 2.5.78-9, CLEOPATRA TO CHARMIAN
3 You common cry of curs! whose breath I hate
As reek oW rotten fens, whose loves I prize
As the dead carcasses of unburied men
That do corrupt my air: I banish you!
Coriolanus 3.3.120-3, CORIOLANUS TO THE PLEBEIANS
4 For you, be that you are, long; and your misery increase with your age!
Coriolanus 5.2.104-5, MENENIUS TO WATCHMEN
5 The south-fog rot him!
Cymbeline 2.3.132, CLOTEN
6 Hang thyself in thine own heir-apparent garters!
1 Henry IV 2.2.43-4, FALSTAFF TO PRINCE HAL
7 Die and be damned, and fico for thy friendship!
Henry V 3.6.57, PISTOL TO FLUELLEN
8 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,
And from her derogate body never spring
A babe to honour her.
King Lear 1.4.267-73, LEAR curses Goneril
CUSTOM I 47
1 The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon!
Where gott'st thou that goose look?
Macbeth 5.3.11-12, MACBETH TO A SERVANT bringing bad news
2 Go thou and fill another room in hell.
Richard II 5.1.107, RICHARD TO HIS MURDERER
3 Despair and die.
Richard III 5.3, a number of times, as a succession of GHOSTS curses RICHARD before
the battle of Bosworth
4 A plague o' both your houses.
Romeo and Juliet 3.1.92, MERCUTIO, having received his death wound {see
WOUNDS), to CAPULETS and MONTAGUES alike
5 All the infections that the sun sucks up
From bogs, fens, flats, on Prosper fall, and make him
By inch-meal a disease!
Tempest 2.2.1-3, CALIBAN
6 War and lechery confound all!
Troilus and Cressida 2.3.77, THERSITES TO ACHILLES
CUSTOM
7 What custom wills, in all things should we do't,
The dust on antique time would lie unswept
And mountainous error be too highly heaped
For truth to o'erpeer.
Coriolanus 2.3.117-20, CORIOLANUS' bitter attack on the stifling effects of custom
8 To my mind, though I am a native here
And to the manner born, it is a custom
More honoured in the breach than the observance.
Hamlet 1.4.14-16, HAMLET TO HORATIO
9 Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood
With solemn reverence; throw away respect,
Tradition, form and ceremonious duty.
Richard II 3.2.171-3, RICHARD TO AUMERLE AND SCROOPE
10 Dwellers on form and favour.
Sonnet 125.5
D J * % ^ % ^ % ^ % ^ I I fc%^%^*%^%^
DANCING
1 I am for other than dancing measures.
As You Like It 5.4.191, JAQUES TO HIS COMPANIONS, retiring from the general
celebrations at the end of the play
2 MARGARET God match me with a good dancer!
BALTHASAR Amen.
MARGARET And God keep him out of my sight when the dance is
done.
Much Ado About Nothing 2.1.99-102
3 You and I are past our dancing days.
Romeo and Juliet 1.5.32, CAPULET, Juliet's father, to a COUSIN
4 Faith, I can cut a caper.
Twelfth Night 1.3.117, SIR ANDREW AGUECHEEK TO SIR TOBY BELCH
5 When you do dance, I wish you
A wave o'th' sea, that you might ever do
Nothing but that,...
And own no other function.
Winter's Tale 4.4.140-3, FLORIZEL TO PERDITA
DANGER
6 Why, man, they did make love to this employment.
Hamlet 5.2.57, HAMLET telling HORATIO that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern courted
their own deaths through their spying activities
7 Wake not a sleeping wolf.
2 Henry IV 1.2.153-4, LORD CHIEF JUSTICE TO FALSTAFF
8 I must go and meet with danger there,
Or it will seek me in another place,
And find me worse provided.
2 Henry IV 2.3.48-50, NORTHUMBERLAND TO LADY NORTHUMBERLAND AND LADY
PERCY
48
DANGEROUS PEOPLE | 49
1 'Tis true that we are in great danger;
The greater therefore should our courage be.
Henry V 4.1.1-2, HENRY TO GLOUCESTER before the battle of Agincourt
2 Where we are,
There's daggers in men's smiles.
Macbeth 2.3.139-40, DONALBAIN TO MALCOLM
3 We have scorched the snake, not killed it.
Macbeth 3.2.14, MACBETH TO LADY MACBETH; 'scorched', the reading from the First
Folio, is often amended to 'scotched'
4 There the grown serpent lies; the worm, that's fled,
Hath nature that in time will venom breed,
No teeth for th' present.
Macbeth 3.4.28-30, MACBETH TO A MURDERER: Banquo has been killed, but his son
Fleance has escaped
5 Men must not walk too late.
Macbeth 3.6.7, LENOX TO ANOTHER LORD
6 She loved me for the dangers I had passed.
Othello 1.3.168, OTHELLO TO THE DUKE OF VENICE AND BRABANTIO, of Desdemona
DANGEROUS PEOPLE
7 A dangerous and lascivious boy.
All's Well That Ends Well 4.3.216, PAROLLES TO SOLDIERS, of Bertram
8 Though I am not splenative and rash,
Yet have I in me something dangerous.
Hamlet 5.1.259-60, HAMLET TO LAERTES
9 Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous . . .
He reads much,
He is a great observer, and he looks
Quite through the deeds of men. He loves no plays,
As thou dost, Antony; he hears no music.
Seldom he smiles, and smiles in such a sort
As if he mocked himself, and scorned his spirit
That could be moved to smile at any thing.
Such men as he be never at heart's ease
Whiles they behold a greater than themselves,
And therefore are they very dangerous.
Julius Caesar 1.2.191-2,198-207, JULIUS CAESAR TO MARK ANTONY
50 I DANGEROUS PEOPLE
1 Thou hast entertained
A fox, to be shepherd of thy lambs.
Two Gentlemen of Verona 4.4.90-1, JULIA
DARKNESS
2 By th' clock 'tis day,
And yet dark night strangles the travelling lamp.
Macbeth 2.4.6-7, ROSSE TO AN OLD MAN
3 The old fantastical duke of dark corners.
Measure for Measure 4.3.156-7, Lucio, of the Duke, to the DUKE, disguised as a friar
4 This thing of darkness I
Acknowledge mine.
Tempest 5.1.275-6, PROSPERO, of Caliban
See also NIGHT
DAUGHTERS
5 Still harping on my daughter.
Hamlet 2.2.187-8, POLONIUS
6 Those pelican daughters.
King Lear 3-4-74> LEAR TO KENT
7 Tigers, not daughters.
King Lear 4.2.41, ALBANY TO GONERIL
8 My daughter! O my ducats! O my daughter!
Fled with a Christian! O my Christian ducats!
Justice, the law, my ducats, and my daughter!
Merchant of Venice 2.8.15-17, SOLANIO, describing Shylock in a rage
See also CHILDREN; PARENTS AND CHILDREN
DAWN see MORNING
DEATH
9 She hath such a celerity in dying.
Antony and Cleopatra 1.2.149, ENOBARBUS, of Cleopatra
10 I will be
A bridegroom in my death and run into't
As to a lover's bed.
Antony and Cleopatra 4.14.100-2, ANTONY TO EROS
DEATH I 51
1 The crown o'tW earth doth melt...
O withered is the garland of the war,
The soldier's pole is fallen; young boys and girls
Are level now with men; the odds is gone
And there is nothing left remarkable
Beneath the visiting moon.
Antony and Cleopatra 4.15.65-70, CLEOPATRA, at the death of Antony
2 Finish, good lady. The bright day is done
And we are for the dark.
Antony and Cleopatra 5.2.192-3, CHARMIAN TO CLEOPATRA
3 A great reckoning in a little room.
As You Like #3.3.14, TOUCHSTONE TO AUDREY; this phrase may reflect Shakespeare's
feelings about the violent early death of his admired contemporary, the poet and
playwright Christopher Marlowe
4 Death, that dark spirit.
Coriolanus 2.1.160, VOLUMNIA TO MENENIUS
5 Death by inches.
Coriolanus 5.4.40, MESSENGER
6 All lovers young, all lovers must
Consign to thee and come to d u s t . ..
Quiet consummation have
And renowned be thy grave!
Cymbeline 4.2.274-5, 280-1, GUIDERIUS' AND ARVIRAGUS' song; more at MORTALITY
7 The ground that gave them first has them again:
Their pleasures here are past, so is their pain.
Cymbeline 4.2.289-90, BELARIUS
8 The sure physician, Death.
Cymbeline 5.4.7, POSTHUMUS
9 To die - to sleep,
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to: 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep;
To sleep, perchance to dream - ay, there's the rub:
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
52 I DEATH
Must give us pause - there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
Hamlet 3.1.60-9, HAMLET
1 Death,
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns.
Hamlet 3.1.78-80, HAMLET
2 How should I your true love know
From another one?
By his cockle hat and staff
And his sandal shoon.
He is dead and gone, lady,
He is dead and gone,
At his head a grass-green turf,
At his heels a stone.
Hamlet 4.5.23-6, 29-32, a song sung by the mad OPHELIA
3 Down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide,
And mermaid-like awhile they bore her up,
Which time she chanted snatches of old l a u d s , . . .
But long it could not be
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.
Hamlet 4.7.174-7,180-3, GERTRUDE tells LAERTES of Ophelia's death
4 This fell sergeant, Death.
Hamlet 5.2.344, HAMLET, near death
5 Kings and mightiest potentates must die,
For that's the end of human misery.
1 Henry IV3.2.137-8, TALBOT TO BURGUNDY
6 Doomsday is near; die all, die merrily.
1 Henry JV 4.1.134, HOTSPUR TO VERNON, before battle
7 Death, as the Psalmist saith, is certain to all, all shall die.
2 Henry IV 3.2.38-9, SHALLOW TO SILENCE; a commonplace, referring to Psalm 89.47
8 A man can die but once, we owe God a death.
2 Henry IV3.2.233-4, FEEBLE TO BARDOLPH
DEATH I 53
1 A' parted ev'n just between twelve and one, ev'n at the turning o'th'
tide. For after I saw him fumble with the sheets and play wi'th' flowers
and smile upon his fingers' ends, I knew there was but one way; for his
nose was as sharp as a pen, and a' babbled of green fields. cHow now,
Sir John?' quoth I: 'what, man! be o' good cheer.' So a' cried out 'God,
God, God!' three or four times. Now I, to comfort him, bid him a'
should not think of God; I hoped there was no need to trouble himself
with any such thoughts yet. So a' bade me lay more clothes on his feet.
I put my hand into the bed and felt them, and they were as cold as any
stone. Then felt to his knees, and so up'ard, and up'ard, and all was as
cold as any stone.
Henry V 2.3.12-25, HOSTESS QUICKLY relates the death of Falstaff
2 Death's dishonourable victory.
1 Henry VI 1.1.20, EXETER to assembled LORDS, on the death of Henry V
3 He dies, and makes no sign.
2 Henry VI 3.3.29, HENRY TO WARWICK AND SALISBURY, on the dying Cardinal
Beaufort
4 So bad a death argues a monstrous life.
2 Henry VI 3.3.30, WARWICK'S reply
5 Forbear to judge, for we are sinners all.
Close up his eyes, and draw the curtain close;
And let us all to meditation.
2 Henry V7 3.3.31-3, HENRY'S conclusion
6 As dead as a door-nail.
2 Henry VI 4.10.39, JACK CADE threatening ALEXANDER IDEN, a country gentleman, in
a common saying
7 The sands are numbered that makes up my life.
3 Henry VI 1.4.25, RICHARD OF YORK
8 Here burns my candle out.
3 Henry VI 2.6.1, CLIFFORD, wounded
9 Of all my lands
Is nothing left me but my body's length.
Why, what is pomp, rule, reign, but earth and dust?
And live we how we can, yet die we must.
3 Henry VI 5.2.25-8, WARWICK TO EDWARD IV
54 I DEATH
1 Death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.
Julius Caesar 2.2.36-7, JULIUS CAESAR TO CALPHURNIA
2 BRUTUS That we shall die, we know; 'tis but the time
And drawing days out, that men stand upon.
CASCA Why, he that cuts off twenty years of life
Cuts off so many years of fearing death.
Julius Caesar 3.1.99-102
3 Live a thousand years,
I shall not find myself so apt to die.
Julius Caesar 3.1.159-60, MARK ANTONY TO BRUTUS
4 When the noble Caesar saw him stab,
Ingratitude, more strong than traitors' arms,
Quite vanquished 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 Caesar fell.
O, what a fall was there, my countrymen!
Julius Caesar 3.2.185-91, MARK ANTONY'S oration on the death of Julius Caesar
5 An empty casket, where the jewel of life
By some damned hand was robbed and ta'en away.
King John 5.1.40-1, PHILIP THE BASTARD describing the body of the boy Arthur to
JOHN
6 Tis strange that death should sing.
I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan
Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death
And from the organ-pipe of frailty sings
His soul and body to their lasting rest.
King John 5.7.20-4, PRINCE HENRY TO SALISBURY, at the death of his father
7 No further, sir; a man may rot even here.
King Lear 5.2.8, GLOUCESTER TO EDGAR (not recognizing him as his son)
8 Men must endure
Their going hence even as their coming hither.
Ripeness is all.
King Lear 5.2.9-11, EDGAR TO GLOUCESTER
9 I know when one is dead and when one lives;
She's dead as earth.
King Lear 5.3.258-9, LEAR, of Cordelia
DEATH I 55
1 Is this the promised end?
King Lear 5.3.261, KENT, with Edgar, Albany and Lear
2 Vex not his ghost; O, let him pass. He hates him
That would upon the rack of this tough world
Stretch him out longer.
King Lear 5.3.312-14, KENT TO EDGAR, of Lear
3 I have a journey, sir, shortly to go;
My master calls me, I must not say no.
King Lear 5.3.320-1, KENT TO ALBANY
4 Beat not the bones of the buried; when he breathed, he was a man.
Love's Labour's Lost 5.2.656-7, ARMADO TO HIS COMPANIONS, of Hector
5 Nothing in his life
Became him like the leaving it: he died
As one that had been studied in his death,
To throw away the dearest thing he owed,
As 'twere a careless trifle.
Macbeth 1.4.7-11, MALCOLM TO DUNCAN, of the traitor, the Thane of Cawdor
6 Death and Nature do contend about them,
Whether they live or die.
Macbeth 2.2.7-8, LADY MACBETH, of the drugged grooms guarding Duncan
7 Duncan is in his grave;
After life's fitful fever he sleeps well.
Macbeth 3.2.22-3, MACBETH TO LADY MACBETH
8 MACBETH Wherefore was that cry?
SEYTON The Queen, my Lord, is dead.
MACBETH She should have died hereafter.
Macbeth 5.5.15-17
9 Be absolute for death: either death or life
Shall thereby be the sweeter.
Measure for Measure 3.1.5-6, DUKE, disguised as a friar, to CLAUDIO
10 Thou art Death's fool;
For him thou labour'st by thy flight to shun,
And yet run'st toward him still.
Measure for Measure 3.1.11-13, DUKE, disguised as a friar, to CLAUDIO
56 I DEATH
1 Dar'st thou die?
The sense of death is most in apprehension.
Measure for Measure 3.1.76-7, ISABELLA TO CLAUDIO
2 If I must die,
I will encounter darkness as a bride
And hug it in mine arms.
Measure for Measure 3.1.82-4, CLAUDIO TO ISABELLA
3 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 bath in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice;
To be imprisoned in the viewless winds
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendent world.
Measure for Measure 3.1.117-25, CLAUDIO TO ISABELLA; compare with Hamlet's speech
at SUICIDE
4 O, death's a great disguiser; and you may add to it.
Measure for Measure 4.2.173-4, DUKE, disguised as a friar, to the PROVOST,
recommending he falsify a corpse as evidence
5 Put out the light, and then put out the light!
Othello 5.2.7, OTHELLO; more at LIFE
6 Cold, cold, my girl,
Even like thy chastity.
Othello 5.2.275-6, OTHELLO, of the dead Desdemona
7 More are men's ends marked than their lives before.
The setting sun, and music at the close,
As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last,
Writ in remembrance more than things long past.
Richard II 2.1.11-14, JOHN OF GAUNT TO YORK
8 The ripest fruit first falls, and so doth he;
His time is spent, our pilgrimage must be.
So much for that.
Richard II 2.1.153-5, RICHARD TO YORK AND NORTHUMBERLAND, of John of Gaunt
9 The worst is death, and death will have his day.
Richard II 3.2.103, RICHARD TO SCROOPE AND AUMERLE
1 Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs,
Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.
Let's choose executors and talk of wills.
And yet not so - for what can we bequeath
Save our deposed bodies to the ground?
Richard II 3.2.145-50, RICHARD TO AUMERLE AND SCROOPE
2 Nothing can we call our own but death.
Richard II 3.2.152, RICHARD TO AUMERLE AND SCROOPE
3 For God's sake let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings:
How some have been deposed, some slain in war,
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed,
Some poisoned by their wives, some sleeping killed,
All murthered - for within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps Death his court, and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchize, be feared, and kill with looks;
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh which walls about our life
Were brass impregnable; and, humoured thus,
Comes at the last, and with a little pin
Bores thorough his castle wall, and farewell king!
Richard II 3.2.155-70, RICHARD TO AUMERLE AND SCROOPE
4 Death lies on her like an untimely frost
Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.
Romeo and Juliet 4.5.28-9, CAPULET TO LADY CAPULET, of Juliet
5 This sight of death is as a bell
That warns my old age to a sepulchre.
Romeo and Juliet 5.3.207-8, LADY CAPULET TO CAPULET
6 Barren rage of death's eternal cold.
Sonnet 13.12
7 Tired with all these for restful death I cry.
Sonnet 66.1
58 I DEATH
1 He that dies pays all debts.
Tempest 3.2.133, STEPHANO TO TRINCULO
2 Ling'ring perdition - worse than any death
Can be at once - shall step by step attend
You.
Tempest 3.3.77-9, ARIEL TO VILLAINS
3 Hector is dead: there is no more to say.
Troilus and Cressida 5.10.22, TROILUS TO COMPANIONS, in a phrase that embodies the
weary anti-heroics of the play
4 Come away, come away death,
And in sad cypress let me be laid.
Twelfth Night 2.4.51-2, FESTE'S song
5 Tell me what blessings I have here alive,
That I should fear to die.
Winter's Tale 3.2.106-7, HERMIONE TO LEONTES, at her trial
See also COURAGE; DYING WORDS; ELEGIES; ENDS AND ENDINGS; GRIEF; LIFE;
MORTALITY; SUICIDE
DECEPTIVENESS
6 Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep.
2 Henry VI 3.1.53, SUFFOLK TO LORDS; this play is full of secret plotting and
machination
DECLINE AND FALL
7 We have seen better days.
As You Like It 2.7.120, DUKE SENIOR TO ORLANDO
8 O Hamlet, what a falling off was there.
Hamlet 1.5.47, GHOST TO HAMLET
9 O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!
Hamlet 3.1.151, OPHELIA; more at FASHION
10 PRINCE HAL NOW . . . for a true face and good conscience.
FALSTAFF Both of which I have had, but their date is out, and therefore
I'll hide me.
1 Henry IV 2.4.494-7
11 When he falls, he falls like Lucifer,
Never to hope again.
Henry VIII 3.2.371-2, CARDINAL WOLSEY
DECLINE AND FALL | 59
1 O mighty Caesar! dost thou lie so low?
Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils,
Shrunk to this little measure?
Julius Caesar 3.1.148-50, MARK ANTONY
2 Love cools, friendship falls off, brothers divide: in cities, mutinies; in
countries, discord; in palaces, treason; and the bond cracked 'twixt son
and father.
King Lear 1.2.106-9, GLOUCESTER TO EDMUND
3 We have seen the best of our time. Machinations, hollowness,
treachery and all ruinous disorders follow us disquietly to our graves.
King Lear 1.2.112-14, GLOUCESTER TO EDMUND
4 O ruined piece of nature, this great world
Shall so wear out to naught.
King Lear 4.6.130-1, GLOUCESTER TO LEAR
5 This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,
Dear for her reputation through the world,
Is now leased out - I die pronouncing it -
Like to a tenement or pelting farm.
England, bound in with the triumphant sea,
Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege
Of wat'ry Neptune, is now bound in with shame.
Richard II 2.1.57-63, JOHN OF GAUNT, on his deathbed, to YORK; more at
ENGLAND AND THE ENGLISH
6 I see thy glory like a shooting star
Fall to the base earth from the firmament.
Thy sun sets weeping in the lowly west,
Witnessing storms to come, woe, and unrest.
Richard II 2.4.19-22, SALISBURY TO A CAPTAIN
7 Down, down I come, like glist'ring Phaeton,
Wanting the manage of unruly jades.
In the base court? Base court, where kings grow base,
To come at traitors' calls, and do them grace!
In the base court? Come down? Down, court! down, king
For night-owls shriek where mounting larks should sing.
Richard II 3.3.178-83, RICHARD TO NORTHUMBERLAND
8 Every fair from fair sometime declines.
Sonnet 18.7
60 J DECLINE AND FALL
See also BETTER DAYS; FATE; FORTUNE; GREATNESS; ROME AND THE ROMANS;
WORLD, the
DEDICATIONS
1 To the only begetter of these ensuing sonnets, Mr W.H.
Sonnets Dedication, source of much speculation as to Mr W.H.'s identity
2 The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise.
Sonnet 38.14
DELAY
3 I do not know
Why yet I live to say this thing's to do,
Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means
To do't
Hamlet 4.4.43-6, HAMLET
4 Advantage feeds him fat while men delay.
1 Henry IV3.2.180, HENRY TO BLUNT ('him' means 'itself)
5 Defer no time, delays have dangerous ends.
1 Henry VI 3.2.34, REIGNIER TO CHARLES, DAUPHIN OF FRANCE, AND THE BASTARD
6 Letting 'I dare not' wait upon 'I would/
Like the poor cat i'th' adage.
Macbeth 1.7.44-5, LADY MACBETH TO MACBETH
7 Dull not device by coldness and delay.
Othello 2.3.376, IAGO
See also ACTION, immediate; TIME, wasting
DELUSION
8 My life stands in the level of your dreams.
Winter's Tale 3.2.80, HERMIONE TO LEONTES; 'my life is at the mercy of your
delusions'
DEMOCRACY
9 In Greece . . .
Though there the people had more absolute power -
I say they nourished disobedience, fed
The ruin of the state.
Coriolanus 3.1.114,116-18, CORIOLANUS' attack on democracy, to MENENIUS
10 What is the city but the people?
Coriolanus 3.I.199, SlCINIUS TO SENATORS AND PLEBEIANS
DESIRES J 6l
1 The beast with many heads.
Coriolanus 4.1.1-2, CORIOLANUS' description (to HIS WIFE AND MOTHER) of the people,
who have rejected him
2 Let desert in pure election shine,
And . . . fight for freedom in your choice.
Titus Andronicus 1.1.16-17, BASSIANUS TO TRIBUNES
See also PEOPLE, the; PUBLIC OPINION
DEPRESSION
3 How is it that the clouds still hang on you?
Hamlet 1.2.66, CLAUDIUS TO HAMLET
4 O God! God!
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Hamlet 1.2.132-4, HAMLET; more at WORLD, the
5 I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth, forgone all
custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition
that this goodly frame the earth seems to me a sterile promontory, this
most excellent canopy the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging
firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it
appeareth nothing to me but a foul and pestilent congregation of
vapours.
Hamlet 2.2.297-305, HAMLET TO ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN; more at
HUMANKIND
6 Cassius is aweary of the world.
Julius Caesar 4.3.94, CASSIUS TO BRUTUS
See also DESPAIR; WEARINESS
DESIRES
7 This ambitious foul infirmity,
In having much, torments us with defect
Of that we have: so then we do neglect
The thing we have.
Lucrèce 150-3
8 What win I if I gain the thing I seek?
A dream, a breath, a froth of fleeting joy.
Who . . . sells eternity to get a toy?
Lucrèce 211-12,14
62 I DESIRES
1 The sweets we wish for turn to loathed sours
Even in the moment that we call them ours.
Lucrèce 867-8
2 Stars, hide your fires!
Let not light see my black and deep desires;
The eye wink at the hand; yet let that be,
Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see.
Macbeth 1.4.50-3, MACBETH
3 Nought's had, all's spent,
Where our desire is got without content.
Macbeth 3.2.4-5, LADY MACBETH TO A SERVANT
4 To have what we would have, we speak not what we mean.
Measure for Measure 2.4.118, ISABELLA TO ANGELO
5 All things that are,
Are more with spirit chased than enjoyed.
Merchant of Venice 2.6.12-13, GRATIANO TO SALERIO
6 Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy Will,
And Will to boot, and Will in overplus.
Sonnets 135.1-2; Shakespeare puns on his own name
See also SEX AND LUST
DESPAIR
7 CLEOPATRA What shall we do, Enobarbus?
ENOBARBUS Think, and die.
Antony and Cleopatra 3.13.1
8 I found him under a tree like a dropped acorn.
As You Like It 3.2.231-2, CELIA TO ROSALIND, of Orlando
9 Past hope, and in despair, that way past grace.
Cymbeline 1.2.68, IMOGEN TO CYMBELINE
10 All's cheerless, dark and deadly.
King Lear 5.3.288, KENT TO LEAR
11 Never, never, never, never, never.
King Lear 5.3.307, LEAR
12 The king was weeping-ripe for a good word.
Love's Labour's Lost 5.2.274, ROSALINE TO THE PRINCESS OF FRANCE
DISORDER I 63
1 O now for ever
Farewell the tranquil mind, farewell content!
Othello 3.3.350-1, OTHELLO TO IAGO; more at WAR
2 Call it not patience,. . . it is despair.
Richard II 1.2.29, DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER TO JOHN OF GAUNT
3 I shall despair. There is no creature loves me,
And if I die, no soul will pity me.
Richard HI 5.3.201-2, RICHARD after his dream
4 Tempt not a desperate man.
Romeo and Juliet 5.3.59, ROMEO TO PARIS
DEVIL, the
5 The prince of darkness is a gentleman.
King Lear 3.4.139, EDGAR, disguised as Poor Tom, to GLOUCESTER
6 What! can the Devil speak true?
Macbeth 1.3.107, BANQUO, horrified by the witches
7 The Devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
Merchant of Venice 1.3.96, ANTONIO TO BASSANIO, referring to Shylock
8 The fiend is at mine elbow, and tempts me.
Merchant of Venice 2.2.2-3, LAUNCELOT GOBBO
DISAPPOINTMENT see EXPECTATION
DISCRETION
9 The better part of valour is discretion, in the which better part I have
saved my life.
1 Henry IV 5.1.118-20, FALSTAFF, who has feigned death in battle to avoid injury
DISORDER
10 The times are wild; contention, like a horse
Full of high feeding, madly hath broke loose,
And bears down all before him.
2 Henry IV 1.1.9-11, NORTHUMBERLAND TO LORD BARDOLPH
11 Let order die!
2 Henry IV 1.1.154, NORTHUMBERLAND TO LORD BARDOLPH AND MORTON
12 Shame and confusion! all is on the rout:
Fear frames disorder, and disorder wounds
Where it should guard.
2 Henry VI 5.1.31-3, YOUNG CLIFFORD, in battle
64 I DISORDER
1 Confusion now hath made his masterpiece!
Macbeth 2.3.66, MACDUFF TO MACBETH AND LENOX, at the discovery of Duncan's
murder
2 Though you untie the winds, and let them fight
Against the Churches; though the yesty waves
Confound and swallow navigation up;
Though bladed corn be lodged, and trees blown down;
Though castles topple on their warders' heads;
Though palaces, and pyramids, do slope
Their heads to their foundations; though the treasure
Of Nature's germens tumble all together,
Even till destruction sicken, answer me
To what I ask you.
Macbeth 4.1.52-61, MACBETH TO THE WITCHES
3 The ox hath therefore stretched his yoke in vain,
The ploughman lost his sweat, and the green corn
Hath rotted ere his youth attained a beard;
The fold stands empty in the drowned field,
And crows are fatted with the murrion flock;
The nine-men's-morris is filled up with mud,
And the quaint mazes in the wanton green
For lack of tread are undistinguishable.
Midsummer Night's Dream 2.1.93-100, TITANIA TO OBERON, describing the effects their quarrel; see also SEASONS, the
DIVINITY
4 There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will.
Hamlet 5.2.10-11, HAMLET TO HORATIO
See also FATE; PROVIDENCE
DOCTORS AND MEDICINE
5 A rascally yea-forsooth knave.
2 Henry IV 1.2.36, FALSTAFF, of his doctor
6 Kill thy physician, and thy fee bestow
Upon the foul disease.
King Lear 1.1.164-5, KENT TO LEAR
7 Our foster nurse of nature is repose.
King Lear 4.4.12, A GENTLEMAN'S advice to CORDELIA on what Lear needs
DOGS I 65
1 Let me have surgeons,
I am cut to the brains.
King Lear 4.6.188-9, LEAR TO A GENTLEMAN
2 O you kind gods!
Cure this great breach in his abused nature;
King Lear 4.7.14-15, CORDELIA TO A GENTLEMAN, of Lear
3 Restoration hang
Thy medicine on my lips.
King Lear 4.7.26-7, CORDELIA kisses LEAR
4 This disease is beyond my practice.
Macbeth 5.1.60, DOCTOR TO A GENTLEWOMAN, of Lady Macbeth's affliction
5 Throw physic to the dogs; I'll none of it.
Macbeth 5.3.47, MACBETH TO HIS DOCTOR
6 With the help of a surgeon he might yet recover, and prove an ###.
Midsummer Nighfs Dream 5.1.305-6, THESEUS TO HIS COMPANIONS, of Bottom
performing the part of Pyramus
7 Now put it, God, into the physician's mind
To help him to his grave immediately!
Richard II 1.4.59-60, RICHARD TO BUSHY, of John of Gaunt
8 O true apothecary,
Thy drugs are quick.
Romeo and Juliet 5.3.119-20, ROMEO takes the fatal draught
9 Testy sick men, when their deaths be near,
No news but health from their physicians know.
Sonnet 140.7-8
10 Trust not the physician;
His antidotes are poison.
Timon of Athens 4.3.433-4, TIMON TO BANDITS
See also ILLNESS AND DISEASE; MADNESS
DOCS
11 RAMBURES That island of England breeds very valiant creatures: their
mastiffs are of unmatchable courage.
ORLEANS Foolish curs, that run winking into the mouth of a Russian
bear and have their heads crushed like rotten apples.
Henry V 3.7.142-6
66 I DOGS
1 The little dogs and all,
Trey, Blanch and Sweetheart, see, they bark at me.
King Lear 3.6.60-1, LEAR TO EDGAR
2 Ask my dog: if he say 'ay', it will; if he say 'no', it will; if he shake his
tail, and say nothing, it will.
Two Gentlemen of Verona 2.5.31-2, LAUNCE TO SPEED
3 Nay, I'll be sworn I have sat in the stocks, for puddings he hath stolen,
otherwise he had been executed.
Two Gentlemen of Verona 4.4.29-31, LAUNCE, of his dog, whom at 4.4.2-3 he
describes as 'One that I brought up of a puppy.'
DREAMS
4 O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of
infinite space - were it not that I have bad dreams.
Hamlet 2.2.255-7, HAMLET TO ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN
5 There is some ill a-brewing towards my rest,
For I did dream of money-bags tonight.
Merchant of Venice 2.5.17-18, SHYLOCK TO LAUNCELOT GOBBO
6 And by the way let us recount our dreams.
Midsummer Night's Dream 4.1.198, DEMETRIUS TO HIS FRIENDS
7 I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream, past the wit of man
to say what dream it was. Man is but an ### if he go about to expound
this dream. Methought I was - there is no man can tell what.
Methought I was - and methought I had - but man is but a patched
fool if he will offer to say what methought I had. The eye of man hath
not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man's hand is not able to
taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream
was. I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream: it shall be
called 'Bottom's Dream', because it hath no bottom.
Midsummer Night's Dream 4.1.203-14, BOTTOM'S dream
8 I have passed a miserable night,
So full of fearful dreams, of ugly sights,
That, as I am a Christian faithful man,
I would not spend another such a night
Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days.
Richard III 1.4.2-6, CLARENCE TO THE KEEPER OF THE TOWER
9 Dream on, dream on.
Richard III5.3.172, GHOST OF BUCKINGHAM TO RICHARD, continuing, 'of bloody deeds
and death'
DRINKING J 67
1 In dreaming,
The clouds methought would open, and show riches
Ready to drop upon me; that, when I waked,
I cried to dream again.
Tempest 3.2.142-5, CALIBAN TO STEPHANO AND TRINCULO
2 We are such stuff
As dreams are made on.
Tempest 4.1.156-7, PROSPERO TO MIRANDA; more at LIFE; PLAYS, PLAYERS AND
PLAYHOUSES
See also SLEEP AND SLEEPLESSNESS
DRINKING
3 Falser than vows made in wine.
As You Like It 3.5.73, ROSALIND TO PHEBE
4 You come in faint for want of meat, depart reeling with too much
drink: sorry that you have paid too much, and sorry that you are paid
too much: purse and brain, both empty.
Cymbeline 5.4.160-4, GAOLER TO POSTHUMUS
5 We'll teach you to drink deep ere you depart.
Hamlet 1.2.175, HAMLET to his friend HORATIO
6 If sack and sugar be a fault, God help the wicked!
1 Henry IV 2.4.464-5, FALSTAFF TO PRINCE HAL
7 Doth it not show vilely in me to desire small beer?
2 Henry IV 2.2.5-6, PRINCE HAL TO POINS
8 A good sherris-sack . . . ascends me into the brain, dries me there all
the foolish and dull and crudy vapours which environ it, makes it
apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of nimble, fiery, and delectable
shapes, which delivered o'er to the voice, the tongue, which is the
birth, becomes excellent wit.
2 Henry IV 4.3.95-101, part of a much longer speech by FALSTAFF on the benefits of
alcohol to the system
9 Was the hope drunk,
Wherein you dressed yourself? Hath it slept since?
Macbeth 1.7.35-6, LADY MACBETH TO MACBETH
10 That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold.
Macbeth 2.2.1, LADY MACBETH
68 I DRINKING
1 Faith, Sir, we were carousing till the second cock.
Macbeth 2.3.23-4, PORTER TO MACBETH
2 [Drink] provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance.
Macbeth 2.3.29-30, PORTER TO MACBETH
3 We'll have a posset for 't soon at night, in faith, at the latter end of a
sea-coal fire.
Merry Wives of Windsor 1.4.7-8, MISTRESS QUICKLY TO RUGBY
4 I have very poor and unhappy brains for drinking. I could well wish
courtesy would invent some other custom of entertainment.
Othello 2.3.30-2, CASSIO TO IAGO
5 Drunk? and speak parrot? and squabble? swagger? swear? and
discourse fustian with one's own shadow?
Othello 2.3.270-2, CASSIO TO IAGO
6 Good wine is a good familiar creature, if it be well used: exclaim no
more against it.
Othello 2.3.299-300, IAGO TO CASSIO
7 They were red-hot with drinking;
So full of valour that they smote the air
For breathing in their faces.
Tempest 4.1.171-3, ARIEL TO PROSPERO
8 OLIVIA What's a drunken man like, fool?
FESTE Like a drowned man, a fool, and a madman: one draught above
heat makes him a fool, the second mads him, and a third drowns him.
Twelfth Night 1.5.127-30
DUTY
9 Every subject's duty is the King's, but every subject's soul is his own.
Henry V 4.1.174-5, HENRY, incognito, to MICHAEL WILLIAMS and JOHN BATES
10 Never anything can be amiss
When simpleness and duty tender it.
Midsummer Night's Dream 5.1.82-3, THESEUS TO PHILOSTRATE AND HIS COMPANIONS
11 I do perceive here a divided duty.
Othello 1.3.181, DESDEMONA, torn between husband and father, to BRABANTIO
12 We must obey the time.
Othello 1.3.302, OTHELLO TO DESDEMONA
DYING WORDS | 69
DYING WORDS
1 I am dying, Egypt, dying. Only
I here importune death awhile until
Of many thousand kisses the poor last
I lay upon thy lips.
Antony and Cleopatra 4.15.19-22, ANTONY TO CLEOPATRA
2 Come, thou mortal wretch,
With thy sharp teeth this knot intrinsicate
Of life at once untie.
Antony and Cleopatra 5.2.301-3, CLEOPATRA to the asp which kills her
3 If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart,
Absent thee from felicity awhile,
And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain
To tell my story.
Hamlet 5.2.354-7, HAMLET TO HORATIO
4 The rest is silence.
Hamlet 5.2.367, HAMLET TO HORATIO
5 An old man, broken with the storms of state,
Is come to lay his weary bones among ye.
Give him a little earth for charity.
Henry VIII 4.2.21-3, GRIFFITH, an usher, to KATHERINE OF ARAGON, repeating the
words of Cardinal Wolsey
6 Et tu, Brute?
Julius Caesar 3.1.77, JULIUS CAESAR TO BRUTUS: 'YOU too, Brutus?'
7 Heaven take my soul, and England keep my bones.
King John 4.3.10, the boy ARTHUR, having leaped from his prison walls
8 Now my soul hath elbow-room.
King John 5.7.28, JOHN TO HIS COMPANIONS
9 There is so hot a summer in my bosom,
That all my bowels crumble up to dust:
I am a scribbled form, drawn with a pen
Upon a parchment, and against this fire
Do I shrink up.
King John 5.7.30-4, JOHN TO HIS COMPANIONS
10 Pray you undo this button.
King Lear 5.3.308, LEAR TO EDGAR
70 I DYING WORDS
1 Now am I dead
Now am I fled;
My soul is in the sky.
Tongue, lose thy light;
Moon, take thy flight!
Now die, die, die, die, die.
Midsummer Night's Dream 5.1.295-300, the death of PYRAMUS (BOTTOM);
Shakespeare makes fun of his less talented contemporaries
2 The tongues of dying men
Inforce attention like deep harmony.
Richard II 2.1.5-6, JOHN OF GAUNT, near death, to YORK
3 Convey me to my bed, then to my grave -
Love they to live that love and honour have.
Richard II 2.1.137-8, JOHN OF GAUNT TO RICHARD
4 Mount, mount, my soul! thy seat is up on high,
Whilst my gross flesh sinks downward, here to die.
Richard II 5.5.111-12, RICHARD
>t%^t%^%^%^ r fc%^*%^%^%^
EAST, the
5 I'th' East my pleasure lies.
Antony and Cleopatra 2.3.29, ANTONY
6 The beds i'th' East are soft.
Antony and Cleopatra 2.6.50, ANTONY TO OCTAVIUS CAESAR AND POMPEY
EASY LIFE
7 Who doth ambition shun
And loves to live i'th' sun.
As You Like It 2.5.35-6, AMIENS'S song
8 I were better to be eaten to death with a rust than to be scoured to
nothing with perpetual motion.
2 Henry IV 1.2.217-19, FALSTAFF TO THE LORD CHIEF JUSTICE
EDUCATION I 71
ECCENTRICITY
1 And in his brain,
Which is as dry as the remainder biscuit
After a voyage, he hath strange places crammed
With observation, the which he vents
In mangled forms.
As You Like It 2.7.38-42, JAQUES TO DUKE SENIOR
2 Put thyself into the trick of singularity.
Twelfth Night 2.5.146-7, MALVOLIO reads the anonymous letter which he believes is
from Olivia
ECOLOGY
3 My flocks feed not, my ewes breed not,
My rams speed not, all is amiss . . .
Clear wells spring not, sweet birds sing not,
Green plants bring not forth their dye.
Passionate Pilgrim 17.1-2, 25-6
4 You have fed upon my signories,
Disparked my parks and felled my forest woods.
Richard II 3.1.22-3, BOLINGBROKE TO BUSHY AND GREENE
5 Naught so vile that on the earth doth live
But to the earth some special good doth give;
Nor aught so good but, strained from that fair use,
Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse.
Romeo and Juliet 2.3.13-16, FRIAR LAURENCE
6 Traffic confound thee!
Timon of Athens 1.1.240, APEMANTUS TO A MERCHANT
7 This is an art
Which does mend nature - change it rather - but
The art itself is nature.
Winter's Tale 4.4.95-7, POLIXENES TO PERDITA; this is the argument for improving
('mending') crops by selective cross-breeding
EDUCATION
8 Thou art a scholar, speak to it, Horatio.
Hamlet 1.1.45, MARCELLUS
9 He can speak French; and therefore he is a traitor.
2 Henry VI 4.2.161-2, JACK CADE TO THE BUTCHER, of Lord Stafford
72 I EDUCATION
1 Away with him! away with him! he speaks Latin.
2 Henry VI 4-7-55> JACK CADE TO THE BUTCHER, of Lord Say
2 He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one,
Exceeding wise, fair-spoken and persuading.
Henry VIII 4.2.51-2, GRIFFITH, an usher, to KATHERINE OF ARAGON, of Cardinal
Wolsey
3 A little academe,
Still and contemplative in living art.
Love's Labour's Lost 1.1.13, KING OF NAVARRE TO HIS FRIENDS
4 These are barren tasks, too hard to keep,
Not to see ladies, study, fast, not sleep.
Love's Labour's Lost 1.1.48, BEROWNE TO HIS FRIENDS
5 Study is like the heaven's glorious sun,
That will not be deep-searched with saucy looks;
Small have continual plodders ever won,
Save base authority from others' books.
These earthly godfathers of heaven's lights,
That give a name to every fixed star,
Have no more profit of their shining nights
Than those that walk and wot not what they are.
Love's Labour's Lost 1.1.84-91, BEROWNE TO HIS FRIENDS
6 He hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in a book. He hath not
eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink: his intellect is not
replenished.
Love's Labour's Lost 4.1.23-4, NATHANIEL TO HOLOFERNES, of Dull
7 I smell false Latin.
Love's Labour's Lost 5.1.74, HOLOFERNES TO ARMADO
8 Those that do teach young babes
Do it with gentle means and easy tasks.
Othello 4.2.113-14, DESDEMONA TO IAGO
9 Study what you most affect.
Taming of the Shrew 1.1.40, TRANIO TO LUCENTIO; 'affect' here means 'enjoy'
10 Th'art a scholar; let us therefore eat and drink.
Twelfth Night 2.3.13, SIR TOBY BELCH TO SIR ANDREW AGUECHEEK
ELEGIES I 73
ELEGIES
1 His legs bestrid the ocean; his reared arm
Crested the world; his voice was propertied
As all the tuned spheres, and that to friends;
But when he meant to quail and shake the orb,
He was as rattling thunder. For his bounty,
There was no winter in't: an autumn it was
That grew the more by reaping. His delights
Were dolphin-like: they showed his back above
The element they lived in. In his livery
Walked crowns and crownets; realms and islands were
As plates dropped from his pocket.
Antony and Cleopatra 5.2.81-91, CLEOPATRA, of Antony
2 Now boast thee, Death, in thy possession lies
A lass unparalleled.
Antony and Cleopatra 5.2.313-14, CHARMIAN, of Cleopatra
3 Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, of most
excellent fancy.
Hamlet 5.1.182-3, HAMLET TO HORATIO, looking at Yorick's skull
4 Lay her i'th' earth,
And from her fair and unpolluted flesh
May violets spring. I tell thee, churlish priest,
A minist'ring angel shall my sister be
When thou liest howling.
Hamlet 5.1.236-40, LAERTES to the PRIEST burying Ophelia
5 Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince,
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.
Hamlet 5.2.368-9, HORATIO at the death of Hamlet
6 Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them,
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar.
Julius Caesar 3.2.74-8, MARK ANTONY'S oration on the death of Julius Caesar; despite
his opening claim, this is the first of a sequence of speeches in which he does indeed
set out to praise Caesar to the skies, and disparage Brutus
7 This was the noblest Roman of them all.
Julius Caesar 5.5.68, MARK ANTONY, of Brutus
74 I ELEGIES
1 Soft you, a word or two before you go.
I have done the state some service, and they know't:
No more of that. I pray you, in your letters,
When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,
Speak of me as I am. Nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice. Then must you speak
Of one that loved not wisely, but too well;
Of one not easily jealous, but being wrought,
Perplexed in the extreme; of one whose hand,
Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away
Richer than all his tribe: of one whose subdued eyes,
Albeit unused to the melting mood,
Drops tears as fast as the Arabian trees
Their medicinable gum. Set you down this,
And say besides that in Aleppo once,
Where a malignant and a turbaned Turk
Beat a Venetian, and traduced the state,
I took by th' throat the circumcised dog
And smote him - thus!
Othello 5.2.338-56; OTHELLO kills himself
2 Beauty, truth and rarity,
Grace in all simplicity,
Here enclosed, in cinders lie.
Phoenix and Turtle 53-5
3 If you read this line, remember not
The hand that writ it.
Sonnet 71.5-6
4 This ditty does remember my drowned father.
Tempest 1.2.408, FERDINAND, listening to Ariel's song {see SEA, the)
5 When he lived, his breath and beauty set
Gloss on the rose, smell to the violet.
Venus and Adonis 935-6, VENUS
ELIZABETH I
6 This royal infant (heaven still move about her)
Though in her cradle, yet now promises
Upon this land a thousand thousand blessings,
Which time shall bring to ripeness: she shall be . . .
ENDS AND ENDINGS | 75
A pattern to all princes living with her,
And all that shall succeed.
Henry VIII 5.4.17-20, 22-3, CRANMER TO HENRY, of the infant Elizabeth
1 Truth shall nurse her,
Holy and heavenly thoughts still counsel her;
She shall be loved and feared.
Henry VIII 5.4.28-30, CRANMER TO HENRY, of the infant Elizabeth
2 The bird of wonder . . . the maiden phoenix.
Henry VIII 5.4.40, CRANMER TO HENRY, of the infant Elizabeth
EMOTION
3 Give me that man
That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart,
As I do thee.
Hamlet 3.2.72-5, HAMLET TO HORATIO
4 You are not wood, you are not stones, but men.
Julius Caesar 3.2.143, MARK ANTONY whipping up feeling in the plebeians
5 That deep torture may be called a hell,
When more is felt than one hath power to tell.
Lucrèce 1287-8
ENDS AND ENDINGS
6 All's well that ends well; still the fine's the crown.
Whate'er the course, the end is the renown.
All's Well That Ends Well 4.4.35-6, HELENA TO DIANA
7 Unarm, Eros. The long day's task is done
And we must sleep.
Antony and Cleopatra 4.14.35-6, ANTONY TO EROS
8 O sun,
Burn the great sphere thou mov'st in! Darkling stand
The varying shore o'th' world!
Antony and Cleopatra 4.15.10-12, CLEOPATRA TO ANTONY
9 That it should come to this!
Hamlet 1.2.137, HAMLET
10 Let the end try the man.
2 Henry IV 2.2.45, PRINCE HAL TO POINS
76 I ENDS AND ENDINGS
1 Let time shape, and there an end.
2 Henry IV 3.2.326-7, FALSTAFF
2 Is this the promised end?
King Lear 5.3.261, KENT, with Edgar, Albany and Lear
3 So quick bright things come to confusion.
Midsummer Night's Dream 1.1.149, LYSANDER TO HERMIA (of love)
4 Jack shall have Jill
Nought shall go ill;
The man shall have his mare again, and all shall be well.
Midsummer Night's Dream 3.2.461-3, PUCK, applying the juice of the magic flower
(and quoting two proverbs)
5 The true beginning of our end.
Midsummer Night's Dream 5.1.111, PETER QUINCE in his prologue
6 Now I want
Spirits to enforce, Art to enchant;
And my ending is despair.
Tempest Epilogue 13-15, PROSPERO; more at PRAYER
7 The end crowns all.
Troilus and Cressida 5.1.223, HECTOR TO ULYSSES AND ACHILLES
ENEMIES
8 I do believe
(Induced by potent circumstances) that
You are mine enemy, and make my challenge
You shall not be my judge.
Henry VIII 2.4.74-7, KATHERINE TO WOLSEY
9 I have been feasting with mine enemy.
Romeo and Juliet 2.3.45, ROMEO TO FRIAR LAURENCE
ENGLAND AND THE ENGLISH
10 HAMLET Why was he sent into England?
GRAVEDIGGER Why, because a was mad. A shall recover his wits there.
Or if a do not, 'tis no great matter there.
HAMLET Why?
GRAVEDIGGER 'Twill not be seen in him there. There the men are as
mad as he.
Hamlet 5.1.148-54
ENGLAND AND THE ENGLISH | 77
1 O England, model to thy inward greatness,
Like little body with a mighty heart,
What mightst thou do, that honour would thee do,
Were all thy children kind and natural!
Henry V 2.0.16-19, CHORUS
2 On, on, you noble English!
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof
Fathers that like so many Alexanders
Have in these parts from morn till even fought,
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument.
Dishonour not your mothers; now attest
That those whom you called fathers did beget you.
Henry V 3.1.18-24, HENRY TO HIS FORCES
3 Is not their climate foggy, raw and dull?
Henry V3.5.16, CONSTABLE OF FRANCE TO THE DUKE OF BRITAIN
4 That island of England breeds very valiant creatures: their mastiffs are
of unmatchable courage.
Henry V 3.7.142-3, RAMBURES TO ORLEANS AND THE CONSTABLE OF FRANCE
5 Give them great meals of beef and iron and steel, they will eat like
wolves and fight like devils.
Henry V 3.7.150-2, CONSTABLE OF FRANCE TO RAMBURES AND ORLEANS
6 How are we parked and bounded in a pale -
A little herd of England's timorous deer, -
Mazed with a yelping kennel of French curs!
1 Henry VI 4.2.45-7, TALBOT
7 Let us be backed with God and with the seas
Which he hath given for fence impregnable.
3 Henry VI 4.1.42-3, HASTINGS TO MONTAGUE
8 That pale, that white-faced shore,
Whose foot spurns back the ocean's roaring tides.
King John 2.1.23-4, DUKE OF AUSTRIA TO LEWIS, DAUPHIN OF FRANCE
9 This England never did, nor never shall,
Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror.
King John 5.7.112-13, PHILIP THE BASTARD TO PRINCE HENRY
10 Nought shall make us rue
If England to itself do rest but true!
King John 5.7.117-18, PHILIP THE BASTARD TO PRINCE HENRY
78 I ENGLAND AND THE ENGLISH
1 Where'er I wander boast of this I can,
Though banished, yet a true-born Englishman.
Richard II 1.3.308-9, BOLINGBROKE TO JOHN OF GAUNT
2 This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands;
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.
Richard II 2.1.40-50, JOHN OF GAUNT, on his deathbed, to YORK
3 This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings.
Richard II 2.1.51, JOHN OF GAUNT, on his deathbed, to YORK
4 England, that was wont to conquer others,
Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.
Richard II 2.1.65-6, JOHN OF GAUNT, on his deathbed, to YORK; more at DECLINE
AND FALL
See also BRITAIN
ENNUI
5 Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this pretty pace from day to day.
Macbeth 5.5.19-20, MACBETH, with Seyton
6 Thou wilt needs thrust thy neck into a yoke . . . and sigh away Sundays.
Much Ado About Nothing 1.1.191-2, BENEDICK TO CLAUDIO, on the tedium of the
married state
ENTHUSIASM
7 To business that we love we rise betime
And go to't with delight.
Antony and Cleopatra 4.4.20-1, ANTONY TO A SOLDIER
ENVY
8 When envy breeds unkind division:
There comes the ruin, there begins confusion.
1 Henry IV 4.1.193-4, EXETER
EVENTS I 79
1 Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least.
Sonnet 29.7-8
See also JEALOUSY; RESENTMENT; RIVALRY
EQUALITY
2 Our bloods,
Of colour, weight, and heat, poured all together,
Would quite confound distinction . . .
Good alone is good,
Without a name.
All's Well That Ends Well 2.3.119-21, 129-30, KING OF FRANCE TO BERTRAM
(by 'a name' is meant an honorific title or ancient name)
3 There's place and means for every man alive.
AWs Well That Ends Well 4.3.233, PAROLLES
4 We came into the world like brother and brother,
And now let's go hand in hand, not one before another.
Comedy of Errors 5.1.425-6, DROMIO OF EPHESUS TO DROMIO OF SYRACUSE, closing the
play
5 I think the King is but a man, as I am.
Henry V 4.1.101, HENRY, incognito, to MICHAEL WILLIAMS, a soldier; ironically, since
of course he is indeed the King
6 Distribution should undo excess
And each man have enough.
King Lear 4.1.73-4, GLOUCESTER TO EDGAR (whom he does not recognize)
7 Is black so base a hue?
Titus Andronicus 4.2.73, AARON to his child's NURSE
8 The selfsame sun that shines upon his court
Hides not his visage from our cottage, but
Looks on all alike.
Winter's Tale 4.4.446-8, PERDITA TO POLIXENES
See also HUMANKIND; PEOPLE, the
EVENTS
9 We see which way the stream of time doth run,
And are enforced from our most quiet there
By the rough torrent of occasion.
2 Henry IV 4.1.70-2, ARCHBISHOP OF YORK TO WESTMORELAND
80 I EVIL
EVIL
1 It is not, nor it cannot come to good.
Hamlet 1.2.158, HAMLET
2 The evil that men do lives after them,
The good is oft interred with their bones.
Julius Caesar 3.2.76-7, MARK ANTONY TO PLEBEIANS
3 And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,
The instruments of Darkness tell us truths;
Win us with honest trifles.
Macbeth 1.3.123-5, BANQUO TO MACBETH
4 Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill.
Macbeth 3.2.55, MACBETH TO LADY MACBETH
5 By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.
Macbeth 4.1.44-5, SECOND WITCH
6 They that touch pitch will be defiled.
Much Ado About Nothing 3.3.55-6, DOGBERRY TO THE WATCH; proverbial, drawn
ultimately from Ecclesiastes 13.1
See also CRIMES; EVIL DEEDS; EVIL PEOPLE; TYRANNY; WITCHES
EVIL DEEDS
7 This is no place: this house is but a butchery.
As You Like It 2.3.27; ADAM warns ORLANDO that his brother means to kill him
8 A deed without a name.
Macbeth 4.1.49, WITCHES in reply to MACBETH'S question 'What is't you do?'
See also CRIMES; MURDER; TYRANNY
EVIL PEOPLE
9 O villain, villain, smiling damned villain!
My tables. Meet it is I set it down
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain.
Hamlet 1.5.106-8, HAMLET
10 Bloody, bawdy villain !
Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, landless villain!
Hamlet 5.5.582-3, HAMLET
11 Why, I can smile, and murder whiles I smile.
3 Henry VI 3.2.182, RICHARD OF GLOUCESTER; more at HYPOCRISY
EXCESS I 8l
1 This gilded serpent.
King Lear 5.3.85, ALBANY, of his wife Goneril
2 We are but young in deed.
Macbeth 3.4.143, MACBETH TO LADY MACBETH; there is worse to come
3 Bloody,
Luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful,
Sudden, malicious, smacking of every sin
That has a name.
Macbeth 4.3.57-60, MALCOLM TO MACDUFF, of Macbeth
4 Since I cannot prove a l o v e r , . . .
I am determined to prove a villain.
Richard III 1.1.28, 30, RICHARD
5 When he fawns, he bites; and when he bites
His venom tooth will rankle to the death.
Richard III 1.3.290-1, QUEEN MARGARET TO BUCKINGHAM, of Richard
6 Her life was beastly and devoid of pity.
Titus Andronicus 5.3.198, Lucius, ofTamora
See also BAD PEOPLE; RICHARD III; TYRANNY
EXCESS
7 That was laid on with a trowel.
As You Like It 1.2.100, CELIA TO TOUCHSTONE
8 To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw a perfume on the violet,
To smooth the ice, or add another hue
Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light
To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.
King John 4.2.11-16, SALISBURY TO PEMBROKE
9 Boundless intemperance
In nature is a tyranny; it hath been
Th'untimely emptying of the happy throne,
And fall of many kings.
Macbeth 4.3.66-9, MACDUFF TO MALCOLM
10 They are as sick that surfeit with too much, as they that starve with
nothing.
Merchant of Venice 1.2.5-6, NERISSA TO PORTIA
82 I EXCUSES
EXCUSES
1 Nay, pray you seek no colour for your going,
But bid farewell and go.
Antony and Cleopatra 1.3.33-4, CLEOPATRA TO ANTONY
2 Lay not that flattering unction to your soul.
Hamlet 3.4.147, HAMLET TO GERTRUDE
3 I must be cruel only to be kind.
Hamlet 3.4.180, HAMLET TO GERTRUDE
4 Company, villainous company, hath been the spoil of me.
1 Henry IV 3.3.9-10, FALSTAFF TO BARDOLPH
5 If his cause be wrong, our obedience to the King wipes the crime of it
out of us.
Henry V 4.1.129-31, MICHAEL WILLIAMS TO JOHN BATES; the classic excuse of those
who serve tyrants
6 Oftentimes excusing of a fault
Doth make the fault the worse by th'excuse.
King John 4.2.30-1, PEMBROKE TO SALISBURY
7 My business was great, and in such a case as mine a man may strain
courtesy.
Romeo and Juliet 2.4.50-1, ROMEO TO MERCUTIO
8 The excuse that thou dost make in this delay
Is longer than the tale thou dost excuse.
Romeo and Juliet 2.5.33-4, JULIET TO HER NURSE
9 CI am,' quoth he, 'expected of my friends.'
Venus and Adonis 718, ADONIS' excuse for trying to leave Venus
10 I will but look upon the hedge and follow you.
Winter's Tale 4.4.828-9; AUTOLYCUS uses a call of nature as an excuse to escape the
company of the shepherd and his son, whom he has just cheated
EXILE
11 Our exiled friends abroad
That fled the snares of watchful tyranny.
Macbeth 5.9.32-3, MALCOLM TO THANES
12 Save back to England, all the world's my way.
Richard II 1.3.207, MOWBRAY TO BOLINGBROKE
13 The bitter bread of banishment.
Richard II 3.1.21, BOLINGBROKE TO BUSHY AND GREENE
FACTION I 83
EXPECTATION
1 Oft expectation fails, and most oft there
Where most it promises.
All's Well That Ends Well 2.1.141-2, HELENA TO THE KING OF FRANCE
2 To mock the expectation of the world.
2 Henry IV 5.2.126, HENRY V, in his grief and determination on acceding to the
throne at his father's death
3 Now sits expectation in the air.
Henry V 2.0.8, CHORUS
EXPERIENCE
4 To have seen much and to have nothing is to have rich eyes and poor
hands.
As You Like It 4.1.22-3, ROSALIND TO JAQUES
5 I had rather have a fool to make me merry than experience to make me
sad, and to travel for it too!
As You Like It 4.1.25-7, ROSALIND TO JAQUES
6 I talk of that, that know it.
Coriolanus 3.3.85, BRUTUS TO CORIOLANUS, referring to his service to Rome
7 O woe is me
T'have seen what I have seen, see what I see.
Hamlet 3.1.161-2, OPHELIA
8 Experience is by industry achieved,
And perfected by the swift course of time.
Two Gentlemen of Verona 1.3.22-3, ANTONIO TO PANTHINO
9 His years but young, but his experience old.
Two Gentlemen of Verona 2.4.68, VALENTINE TO THE DUKE
5 ^ % ^ % ^ % ^ % ^ 1^ j)t%^%^%^3^
FACTION
10 Civil dissension is a viperous worm
That gnaws the bowels of the commonwealth.
1 Henry VI 3.1.72-3, HENRY TO LORDS
84 I FACTION
1 Civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
Romeo and Juliet Prologue 3, CHORUS
See also WAR, civil
FAILURE
2 We are not the first
Who with best meaning have incurred the worst.
King Lear 5.3.3-4, CORDELIA TO EDMUND AND LEAR
3 MACBETH If we should fail?
LADY MACBETH We fail?
But screw your courage to the sticking-place,
And we'll not fail.
Macbeth 1.7.59-62
4 Th'attempt and not the deed
Confounds us.
Macbeth 2.2.10-11, LADY MACBETH, fearing discovery in a failed attempt
5 A greater power than we can contradict
Hath thwarted our intents.
Romeo and Juliet 5.3.153-4, FRIAR LAURENCE TO JULIET
6 How my achievements mock me!
Troilus and Cressida 4.2.71, TROILUS TO AENEAS
FAIRIES
7 They are fairies; he that speaks to them shall die.
Merry Wives of Windsor 5.5.47, FALSTAFF
8 Fairies use flowers for their charactery.
Merry Wives of Windsor 5.5.73, MISTRESS QUICKLY to her team of disguised FAIRIES
9 PUCK HOW now, spirit! Whither wander you?
FAIRY Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough briar,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire,
I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moon's sphere;
And I serve the Fairy Queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green.
The cowslips tall her pensioners be,
In their gold coats spots you see;
FAIRIES I 85
Those be rubies, fairy favours,
In those freckles live their savours.
I must go seek some dew-drops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.
Midsummer Night's Dream 2.1.1-15
1 I am that merry wanderer of the night.
Midsummer Night's Dream 2.1.43, PUCK TO A FAIRY
2 And never, since the middle summer's spring,
Met we on hill, in dale, forest or mead,
By paved fountain, or by rushy brook,
Or in the beached margent of the sea,
To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind,
But with thy brawls thou has disturbed our sport.
Midsummer Night's Dream 2.1.82-7, TITANIA TO OBERON
3 I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine.
There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,
Lulled in these flowers with dances and delight;
And there the snake throws her enamelled skin,
Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in.
Midsummer Night's Dream 2.1.249-56, OBERON TO PUCK
4 FIRST FAIRY YOU spotted snakes with double tongue,
Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen;
Newts and blind-worms, do no wrong,
Come not near our fairy queen.
CHORUS Philomel, with melody,
Sing in our sweet lullaby.
Midsummer Night's Dream 2.2.9-14
5 Be kind and courteous to this gentleman;
Hop in his walks, and gambol in his eyes;
Feed him with apricocks and dewberries,
With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries;
The honey-bags steal from the humble-bees,
And for night-tapers crop their waxen thighs,
And light them at the fiery glow-worms' eyes.
Midsummer Night's Dream 3.1.156-62, TITANIA TO HER ATTENDANTS
86 J FAIRIES
1 We fairies, that do run . . .
Following darkness like a dream,
Now are frolic; not a mouse
Shall disturb this hallowed house.
I am sent with broom before
To sweep the dust behind the door.
Midsummer Night's Dream 5.1.368, 371-5, PUCK
2 O then I see Queen Mab hath been with you.
She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate stone
On the forefinger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomi
Over men's noses as they lie asleep.
Her chariot is an empty hazelnut
Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,
Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers;
Her waggon-spokes made of long spinners' legs,
The cover of the wings of grasshoppers,
Her traces of the smallest spider web,
Her collars of the moonshine's watery beams,
Her whip of cricket's bone, the lash of film,
Her waggoner a small grey-coated gnat,
Not half so big as a round little worm
Pricked from the lazy finger of a maid;
And in this state she gallops night by night
Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;
O'er courtiers' knees, that dream on curtsies straight;
O'er lawyers' fingers who straight dream on fees;
O'er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream.
Romeo and Juliet 1.4.53-74, MERCUTIO TO ROMEO
3 This is that very Mab
That plaits the manes of horses in the night
And bakes the elf-locks in foul sluttish hairs,
Which, once untangled, much misfortune bodes.
Romeo and Juliet 1.4.88-91, MERCUTIO TO ROMEO
4 Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves;
And ye that on the sands with printless foot
Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him
When he comes back; you demi-puppets that
FALSTAFF | 87
By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make,
Whereof the ewe not bites; and you whose pastime
Is to make midnight mushrooms.
Tempest 5.1.33-9, PROSPERO
1 Where the bee sucks, there suck I:
In a cowslip's bell I lie;
There I couch when owls do cry.
On the bat's back I do fly
After summer merrily.
Merrily, merrily shall I live now
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.
Tempest 5.1.88-94, ARIEL'S song
See also MAGIC; SPIRITS
FAITHFULNESS
2 Play fast and loose with faith.
King John 3.1.168, PHILIP, KING OF FRANCE, TO CARDINAL PANDULPH
3 'As true as Troilus.'
Troilus and Cressida 3.2.179, TROILUS telling CRESSIDA how he would like to be
remembered; see also INFIDELITY
FALSTAFF
4 That trunk of humours, that bolting-hutch of beastliness, that swollen
parcel of dropsies, that huge bombard of sack, that stuffed cloak-bag of
guts, that roasted Manningtree ox with the pudding in his belly, that
reverend vice, that grey iniquity, that father ruffian, that vanity in
years.
2 Henry IV 2.4.443-8, PRINCE HAL TO FALSTAFF
5 Banish plump Jack, and banish all the world.
1 Henry IV 2.4.473-4, FALSTAFF TO PRINCE HAL; Hal replies, 'I do, I will.'
6 I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men.
2 Henry IV 1.2.9-10, FALSTAFF TO HIS PAGE
7 Jack Falstaff with my familiars, John with my brothers and sisters, and
Sir John with all Europe.
2 Henry IV 2.2.125-7, FALSTAFF signing off a letter to Prince Hal
8 Nay, sure, he's not in hell; he's in Arthur's bosom, if ever man went to
Arthur's bosom.
Henry V 2.3.9-10, HOSTESS QUICKLY; for more from this speech see DEATH
88 I FAME
FAME
1 Too famous to live long.
i Henry VI 1.1.6, BEDFORD TO OTHER LORDS
2 Let those who are in favour with their stars
Of public honour and proud titles boast.
Sonnet 25.1-2
3 He lives in fame that died in honour's cause.
Titus Andronicus 1.1.395, MARCUS' AND TITUS' SONS
See also FORTUNE; HONOUR; REPUTATION
FAMILIARITY
4 Sweets grown common lose their dear delight.
Sonnet 102.12
FAMILY
5 A little more than kin, and less than kind.
Hamlet i.2.6% HAMLET'S famous equivocating opening remark to his uncle CLAUDIUS
6 Wife and child
Those precious motives, those strong knots of love.
Macbeth 4.3.26-7, MALCOLM TO MACDUFF
See also CHILDREN; DAUGHTERS; FATHERS; MOTHERS; PARENTS AND
CHILDREN
FAREWELLS
7 Comforted . . .
That there is this jewel in the world
That I may see again.
Cymbeline 1.2.21-3, IMOGEN, parting from her husband POSTHUMUS
8 Good night, ladies, good night. Sweet ladies, good night, good night.
Hamlet 4.5.72-3, the mad OPHELIA
9 Good night, sweet prince.
Hamlet 5.2.366, HORATIO; more at ELEGIES
10 Come, I'll be friends with thee, Jack, thou art going to the wars, and
whether I shall ever see thee again or no there is nobody cares.
2 Henry IV 2.4.63-6, DOLL TEARSHEET TO FALSTAFF
11 So part we sadly in this troublous world,
To meet with joy in sweet Jerusalem.
3 Henry VI 4.4.7, QUEEN MARGARET TO HER IMPRISONED ALLIES
FASHION
1 Whether we shall meet again I know not.
Therefore our everlasting farewell take.
Julius Caesar 5.1.115-16, BRUTUS TO CASSIUS
2 The last of all the Romans, fare thee well!
Julius Caesar 5.3.99, BRUTUS TO CATO
3 Enough: hold, or cut bow-strings.
Midsummer Night's Dream 1.2.105, BOTTOM TO HIS COMPANIONS
4 Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.
Midsummer Night's Dream 5.1.422-3, PUCK, closing the play
5 Farewell, thou art too dear for my possessing,
And like enough thou knowst thy estimate.
Sonnet 87.1-2
6 As many farewells as be stars in heaven,
With distinct breath and consigned kisses to them,
[Time] fumbles up into a loose adieu,
And scants us with a single famished kiss
Distasted with the salt of broken tears.
Troilus and Cressida 4.4.43-7, TROILUS TO CRESSIDA; see also TIME
See also DISMISSALS; EXCUSES; PARTINGS
FASHION
7 The soul of this man is his clothes.
All's Well That Ends Well 2.5.43-4, LAFEW TO BERTRAM, of Parolles
8 What's the new news at the new court?
As You Like It 1.1.94-5, OLIVER TO CHARLES, of the usurper Duke Frederick'
9 Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not expressed in fancy; rich, not gaudy,
For the apparel oft proclaims the man.
Hamlet 1.3.70-2, POLONIUS' advice to LAERTES (more at ADVICE)
10 Th'expectancy and rose of the fair state,
The glass of fashion and the mould of form,
Th'observed of all observers.
Hamlet 3.1.153-5, OPHELIA describing Hamlet before his apparent madness
11 Fashion's own knight.
Love's Labour's Lost 1.1.176, BEROWNE TO THE KING OF NAVARRE, of Armado
90 I FASHION
1 He wears his faith but as the fashion of his hat, it ever changes with the
next block.
Much Ado About Nothing 1.1.71-3, BEATRICE TO A MESSENGER AND LEONATO, of
Benedick; 'faith' is faithfulness in friendship
2 The fashion is the fashion.
Much Ado About Nothing 3.3.119, CONRADE TO BORACHIO
3 What a deformed thief this fashion is.
Much Ado About Nothing 3.3.127-8, BORACHIO TO CONRADE
4 The fashion wears out more apparel than the man.
Much Ado About Nothing 3.3.135-6, CONRADE TO BORACHIO
5 See, where she comes apparelled like the spring.
Pericles 1.1.13, PERICLES, of Antiochus' daughter
6 These strange flies, these fashion-mongers, these 'pardon-meY, who
stand so much on the new form that they cannot sit at ease on the old
bench.
Romeo and Juliet 2.4.33-6, MERCUTIO TO BENVOLIO
7 Old fashions please me best. I am not so nice
To change true rules for odd inventions.
Taming of the Shrew 3.1.78-9, BIANCA TO HORTENSIO
8 What's this? A sleeve? 'Tis like a demi-cannon.
What, up and down, carved like an apple tart?
Taming of the Shrew 4.3.88-9, PETRUCHIO TO A TAILOR AND KATHERINA
9 Sure this robe of mine
Does change my disposition.
Winter's Tale 4.4.134-5, PERDITA TO FLORIZEL; she is dressed as the queen of the
sheep-shearing feast
See also IDOLS
FATE
10 My fate cries out.
Hamlet 1.4.81, HAMLET TO HORATIO
11 Our wills and fates do so contrary run
That our devices still are overthrown.
Hamlet 3.2.213-14, PLAYER KING TO PLAYER QUEEN
12 Let Hercules himself do what he may,
The cat will mew, and dog will have his day.
Hamlet 5.1.291-2, HAMLET to the company assembled at Ophelia's grave
FATHERS I 91
1 Not a whit. We defy augury. There is special providence in the fall of a
sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be
now; if it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all.
Hamlet 5.2.218-21, HAMLET TO HORATIO (including an impressively long
monosyllabic sentence)
2 O God, that one might read the book of fate,
And see the revolution of the times
Make mountains level, and the continent,
Weary of solid firmness, melt itself
Into the s e a , . ..
O, if this were seen,
The happiest youth, viewing his progress through,
What perils past, what crosses to ensue,
Would shut the book and sit him down and die.
2 Henry IV 3.1.45-9, 53-6, HENRY TO WARWICK AND SURREY
3 It is the stars,
The stars above us govern our conditions.
King Lear 4.3.33-4, A GENTLEMAN TO KENT
4 The wheel is come full circle.
King Lear 5.3.172, EDMUND TO EDGAR
5 Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going.
Macbeth 2.1.42, MACBETH to the dagger
6 Then I defy you, stars!
Romeo and Juliet 5.1.24, ROMEO, with Balthasar
7 I find my zenith doth depend upon
A most auspicious star.
Tempest 1.2.181-2, PROSPERO TO MIRANDA
8 My stars shine darkly over me.
Twelfth Night 2.1.3-4, SEBASTIAN TO ANTONIO
See also DIVINITY; FORTUNE; JUSTICE; LIFE
FATHERS
9 I would thou hadst told me of another father.
As You Like It 1.2.219, DUKE FREDERICK TO ORLANDO, on being told that Orlando's
father was an enemy of his
10 For this the foolish over-careful fathers
Have broke their sleep with thoughts,
92 I FATHERS
Their brains with care, their bones with industry.
2 Henry IV 4.5.67-9, HENRY, incensed at his son's apparent thankless greed for the
crown
1 'Tis a happy thing
To be the father unto many sons.
3 Henry VI 3.2.104-5, KING EDWARD TO RICHARD OF GLOUCESTER
2 Had he not resembled
My father as he slept, I had done't.
Macbeth 2.2.12-13, LADY MACBETH, on not murdering Duncan
3 He loves us not:
He wants the natural touch.
Macbeth 4.2.8-9, LADY MACDUFF, of Macduff, who has gone into exile leaving his
family unprotected
4 MACDUFF He has no children. - All my pretty ones?
Did you say all? - O Hell-kite! - All?
What, all my pretty chickens, and their dam,
At one fell swoop?
MALCOLM Dispute it like a man.
MACDUFF I shall do so;
But I must also feel it as a man:
I cannot but remember such things were,
That were most precious to me.
Macbeth 4.3.216-23; Macduff shows 'the natural touch' (see above). His wife and
children have been murdered by Macbeth's henchmen; 'he' in 1. 216 is Malcolm.
5 He shall not knit a knot in his fortunes with the finger of my substance;
if he take her, let him take her simply: the wealth I have waits on my
consent, and my consent goes not that way.
Merry Wives of Windsor 3.2.69-72, PAGE TO THE HOST OF THE GARTER, speaking his
mind about Fenton as a potential suitor for his daughter Anne
6 To you your father should be as a god:
One that composed your beauties, yea, and one
To whom you are but as a form in wax
By him imprinted, and within his power
To leave the figure, or disfigure it.
Midsummer Night's Dream 1.1.46-50, THESEUS TO HERMIA
7 Who would be a father?
Othello 1.1.162, BRABANTIO, Desdemona's father, to RODERIGO
See also CHILDREN; DAUGHTERS; PARENTS AND CHILDREN
FEAR I 93
FAULTS
1 Do you smell a fault?
King Lear 1.1.15, GLOUCESTER TO KENT
2 Men's faults do seldom to themselves appear.
Lucrèce 633
FEAR
3 In time we hate that which we often fear.
Antony and Cleopatra 1.3.13; CHARMIAN advises CLEOPATRA not to be too cruel to
Antony
4 To be furious
Is to be frighted out of fear.
Antony and Cleopatra 3.13.200-1, ANTONY TO CLEOPATRA
5 How now, Horatio? You tremble and look pale.
Hamlet 1.1.56, BARNARDO TO HORATIO, who has just addressed the ghost
6 ALBANY YOU may fear too far.
GONERIL Safer than trust too far.
King Lear 1.4.321-2
7 Extreme fear can neither fight nor fly.
Lucrèce 230
8 To be thus is nothing, but to be safely thus.
Macbeth 3.1.47, MACBETH; he continues 'Our fears in Banquo / Stick deep'
9 I am cabined, cribbed, confined, bound in
To saucy doubts and fears.
Macbeth 3.4.23-4, MACBETH TO A MURDERER
10 Thou shalt not live;
That I may tell pale-hearted fear it lies,
And sleep in spite of thunder.
Macbeth 4.1.84-6, MACBETH, vowing to kill Macduff
11 Be not afraid of shadows.
Richard III 5.3.216, RATCLIFFE TO RICHARD, after his dream and before the battle of
Bosworth
12 I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins
That almost freezes up the heat of life.
Romeo and Juliet 4.3.15-16, JULIET
See also ANXIETY; FOREBODING; IMAGINATION; MISGIVINGS
94 I FIGHTING
FIGHTING
1 As two spent swimmers, that do cling together
And choke their art.
Macbeth 1.2.8-9, CAPTAIN describing a close-fought battle to DUNCAN and MALCOLM
2 So they
Doubly redoubled strokes upon the foe:
Except they meant to bathe in reeking wounds,
Or memorize another Golgotha,
I cannot tell.
Macbeth 1.2.38-42, CAPTAIN TO DUNCAN
3 Point against point, rebellious arm 'gainst arm,
Curbing his lavish spirit.
Macbeth 1.2.57-8, ROSSE TO DUNCAN, describing Macbeth's struggle with the King of
Norway
4 I have no words;
My voice is in my sword.
Macbeth 5.8.6-7, MACDUFF TO MACBETH
5 Lay on, Macduff;
And damned be him that first cries, 'Hold, enough!'
Macbeth 5.8.33-4, MACBETH TO MACDUFF
See also QUARRELS; SOLDIERS; WAR
FLATTERY
6 Why should the poor be flattered?
No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp,
And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee
Where thrift may follow fawning.
Hamlet 3.2.60-3, HAMLET TO HORATIO
7 This might be my Lord Such-a-one, that praised my Lord Such-a-one's
horse when a meant to beg it.
Hamlet 5.1.83-6, HAMLET TO HORATIO, examining skulls in the graveyard
8 To dance attendance on their lordships' pleasures.
Henry VIII 5.2.30, HENRY TO DOCTOR BUTTS
9 When I tell him he hates flatterers,
He says he does, being then most flattered.
Julius Caesar 2.1.207-8, DECIUS TO FELLOW CONSPIRATORS, of Julius Caesar
FLIRTATION AND SEDUCTION | 95
1 That which melteth fools - I mean sweet words,
Low-crooked curtsies, and base spaniel fawning.
Julius Caesar 3.1.42-3, JULIUS CAESAR TO THE SENATE
2 To deliver
Sweet, sweet, sweet poison for the age's tooth.
King John 1.1.212-13, PHILIP THE BASTARD
3 Better thus, and known to be contemned
Than still contemned and flattered.
King Lear 4.1.1-2, EDGAR, disguised as Poor Tom
4 Flattery is the bellows blows up sin.
Pericles 1.2.40, HELICANUS TO PERICLES AND TWO LORDS
5 A thousand flatterers sit within thy crown,
Whose compass is no bigger than thy head.
Richard II 2.1.100-1, JOHN OF GAUNT TO RICHARD
6 He that loves to be flattered is worthy o'th' flatterer.
Timon of Athens 1.1.229-30, APEMANTUS TO A POET AND TIMON
7 O that men's ears should be
To counsel deaf, but not to flattery.
Timon of Athens 1.2.256-7, APEMANTUS TO TIMON
8 When the means are gone that buy this praise,
The breath is gone whereof this praise is made.
Timon of Athens 2.2.174-5, STEWARD TO TIMON
See also COURTIERS
FLIRTATION AND SEDUCTION
9 She knew her distance and did angle for me,
Madding my eagerness with her restraint,
As all impediments in fancy's course
Are motives of more fancy.
AlVs Well That Ends Well 5.3.212-15, BERTRAM TO THE KING OF FRANCE
10 Tricks he hath had in him, which gentlemen have . . . He did love her,
sir as a gentleman loves a woman . . . He loved her, sir, and loved her
not.
AWs Well That Ends Well 5.3.239-48 (extracts), PAROLLES TO THE KING OF FRANCE, of
Bertram
96 I FLIRTATION AND SEDUCTION
1 CHARMIAN In each thing give him way; cross him in nothing.
CLEOPATRA Thou teachest like a fool, the way to lose him.
Antony and Cleopatra 1.3.10-11
2 O times!
I laughed him out of patience, and that night
I laughed him into patience, and next morn,
Ere the ninth hour, I drunk him to his bed.
Antony and Cleopatra 2.5.18-21, CLEOPATRA TO CHARMIAN
3 I spy entertainment in her: she discourses, she carves, she gives the leer
of invitation.
Merry Wives of Windsor 1.3.42-3, FALSTAFF TO PISTOL, of Mistress Ford
4 There's language in her eye, her cheek, her lip -
Nay, her foot speaks; her wanton spirits look out
At every joint and motive of her body.
Troilus and Cressida 4.5.55-7, ULYSSES TO THE GREEK PRINCES, of Cressida
FLOWERS AND PLANTS
5 And winking Mary-buds begin to ope their golden eyes.
Cymbeline 2.3.24, song
6 A violet in the youth of primy nature,
Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting.
Hamlet 1.3.7-8, LAERTES TO OPHELIA, warning her to treat Hamlet's love to her with
caution
7 There's rosemary, that's for remembrance - pray you, love, remember.
And there is pansies, that's for thoughts . . . There's fennel for you, and
columbines. There's rue for you. And here's some for me. We may call
it herb of grace a Sundays. You must wear your rue with a difference.
There's a daisy. I would give you some violets, but they withered all
when my father died . . . For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.
Hamlet 4.5.173-5,178-84, OPHELIA distributing flowers in her madness
8 There is a willow grows askant the brook
That shows his hoary leaves in the glassy stream.
Therewith fantastic garlands did she make
Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples,
That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them.
Hamlet 4.7.166-71, GERTRUDE TO LAERTES, describing the mad Ophelia; for the rest of
this speech see DEATH
FLOWERS AND PLANTS 97
1 Sweets to the sweet.
Hamlet 5.1.241, GERTRUDE scattering flowers on Ophelia's grave
2 As mad as the vexed sea, singing aloud,
Crowned with rank fumiter and furrow-weeds,
With burdocks, hemlock, nettles, cuckoo-flowers,
Darnel and all the idle weeds that grow
In our sustaining corn.
King Lear 4.4.2-6, CORDELIA describing Lear, in his madness, to a GENTLEMAN
3 When daisies pied and violets blue
And lady-smocks all silver-white
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue
Do paint the meadows with delight.
Love's Labour's Lost 5.2.887-90, song; more at INFIDELITY; WINTER
4 Yet marked I where the bolt of Cupid fell:
It fell upon a little western flower,
Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound:
And maidens call it 'love-in-idleness'.
Midsummer Night's Dream 2.1.165-8, OBERON TO PUCK
5 I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine.
Midsummer Night's Dream 2.1.249-52, OBERON TO PUCK; more at FAIRIES
6 Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May.
Sonnet 18.3; more at SUMMER
7 The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
For that sweet odour which doth in it live.
Sonnet 54.3-4
8 Primrose, first-born child of Ver,
Merry springtime's harbinger,
With harebells dim.
Oxlips in their cradles growing,
Marigolds on deathbeds blowing,
Lark's-heels trim.
Two Noble Kinsmen 1.1.7-12, BOY, singing
9 Fair flowers that are not gathered in their prime
Rot, and consume themselves in little time.
Venus and Adonis 131-2; a commonplace
98 I FLOWERS AND PLANTS
1 For you, there's rosemary, and rue; these keep
Seeming and savour all the winter long.
Winter's Tale 4.4.74-5, PERDITA TO CAMILLO AND POLIXENES in disguise
2 The fairest flowers o'th' season
Are our carnations and streaked gillyvors.
Winter's Tale 4.4.81-2, PERDITA TO CAMILLO AND POLIXENES in disguise
3 Here's flowers for you:
Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram,
The marigold, that goes to bed wi'th' sun
And with him rises, weeping.
Winter's Tale 4.4.103-6, PERDITA TO CAMILLO AND POLIXENES in disguise
4 O Proserpina,
For the flowers now that, frighted, thou let'st fall
From Dis's waggon!
Winter's Tale 4.4.116-18, PERDITA TO FLORIZEL
5 Daffodils,
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty.
Winter's Tale 4.4.118-20, PERDITA TO FLORIZEL
6 Violets, dim,
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes
Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses,
That die unmarried, ere they can behold
Bright Phoebus in his strength . . .
bold oxlips and
The crown imperial; lilies of all kinds,
The flower-de-luce being one.
Winter's Tale 4.4.120-7, PERDITA TO FLORIZEL
See also FAIRIES; NAMES; SPRING
FOOD
7 Tie up the libertine in a field of feasts,
Keep his brain fuming; Epicurean cooks
Sharpen with cloyless sauce his appetite.
Antony and Cleopatra 2.1.23-5, POMPEY TO MENAS
8 Eight wild boars roasted whole at a breakfast, and but twelve persons
there. Is this true?
Antony and Cleopatra 2.2.189-90, MAECENAS TO ENOBARBUS
FOOD I 99
1 This is not yet an Alexandrian feast.
Antony and Cleopatra 2.7.95, POMPEY TO COMPANIONS
2 Unquiet meals make ill digestions.
Comedy of Errors 5.1.74, ABBESS TO ADRIANA, her daughter-in-law
3 Sweetness, whereof a little
More than a little is by much too much.
1 Henry IV3.2.72-3, KING HENRY to his son PRINCE HAL
4 He hath eaten me out of house and home.
2 Henry IV 2.1.74, HOSTESS QUICKLY TO THE LORD CHIEF JUSTICE, in her attempt to
have Falstaff arrested
5 Now, good digestion wait on appetite,
And health on both!
Macbeth 3.4.37-8, MACBETH, just before the appearance of Banquo's ghost
6 I will make an end of my dinner; there's pippins and cheese to come.
Merry Wives of Windsor 1.2.11-12, EVANS TO SIMPLE
7 He is a very valiant trencher-man; he hath an excellent stomach.
Much Ado About Nothing 1.1.49-50, BEATRICE, of Benedick
8 The daintiest last, to make the end most sweet.
Richard II 1.3.68, BOLINGBROKE TO RICHARD
9 Things sweet to taste prove in digestion sour.
Richard II 1.3.236, JOHN OF GAUNT TO RICHARD
10 'Tis an ill cook that cannot lick his own fingers.
Romeo and Juliet 4.2.6-7, SERVANT TO CAPULET
11 I am a great eater of beef, and I believe that does harm to my wits.
Twelfth Night 1.3.84-5, SIR ANDREW AGUECHEEK TO SIR TOBY BELCH AND MARIA
12 Though the chameleon Love can feed on the air, I am one that am
nourished by my victuals; and would fain have meat.
Two Gentlemen of Verona 2.1.167-9, SPEED TO VALENTINE
13 I must have saffron to colour the warden pies; mace; dates, none -
that's out of my note; nutmegs, seven; a race or two of ginger, but that
I may beg; four pound of prunes, and as many of raisins o'th' sun.
Winter's Tale 4.3.45-9; the SHEPHERD'S SON goes over his shopping list
See also DRINKING; HOSPITALITY AND PARTIES
100 I FOOLS AND FOOLISHNESS
FOOLS AND FOOLISHNESS
1 I met a fool i'th' forest,
A motley fool.
As You Like It 2.7.12-13, JAQUES TO DUKE SENIOR
2 LEAR Dost thou call me fool, boy?
FOOL All thy other titles thou hast given away; that thou wast born
with.
King Lear 1.4.141-3
3 Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.
Twelfth Night 1.5.34-5, FESTE TO OLIVIA
4 There is no slander in an allowed fool, though he do nothing but rail.
Twelfth Night 1.5.90-2, OLIVIA TO FESTE
5 This fellow is wise enough to play the fool
Twelfth Night 3.1.60, VIOLA, of Feste
FOREBODING
6 The blood weeps from my heart when I do shape
In forms imaginary th'unguided days
And rotten times that you shall look upon
When I am sleeping with my ancestors.
2 Henry IV 4.4.58-61, HENRY to his son THOMAS, DUKE OF CLARENCE
7 O God, I have an ill-divining soul!
Romeo and Juliet 3.5.54, JULIET TO ROMEO
See also MISGIVINGS; OMENS AND PORTENTS
FORGETFULNESS
8 Second childishness and mere oblivion.
As You Like It 2.7.165, the state of extreme old age; from JAQUES'S 'Seven Ages of Man'
speech to DUKE SENIOR AND HIS COMPANIONS in the Forest of Arden
9 And then, sir, does a this - a does - what was I about to say? By the
mass, I was about to say something. Where did I leave?
Hamlet 2.1.50-3, POLONIUS TO REYNALDO
10 What we do determine, oft we break.
Purpose is but the slave to memory.
Hamlet 3.2.189-90, PLAYER KING TO PLAYER QUEEN
11 Old men forget.
Henry V 4.3.49, HENRY TO WESTMORLAND; more at WAR
FORTUNE I 101
See also MEMORY AND REMEMBERING
FORGIVENESS
1 Pray you now, forget and forgive; I am old and foolish.
King Lear 4.7.83-4, LEAR TO CORDELIA
2 Let's purge this choler without letting blood . . .
Deep malice makes too deep incision.
Forget, forgive, conclude and be agreed.
Richard II 1.1.153,155-6, RICHARD TO MOWBRAY AND BOLINGBROKE
FORTITUDE
3 Blow, wind! come, wrack!
At least we'll die with harness on our back.
Macbeth 5.5.51-2, MACBETH TO SEYTON AND A MESSENGER
FORTUNE
4 My fortunes have
Corrupted honest men!
Antony and Cleopatra 4.5.16-17, ANTONY TO A SOLDIER
5 'Tis paltry to be Caesar.
Not being Fortune, he's but Fortune's knave.
Antony and Cleopatra 5.2.2-3, CLEOPATRA TO HER COMPANIONS
6 In the secret parts of Fortune? O most true, she is a strumpet.
Hamlet 2.2.235-6, HAMLET TO ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN
7 The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
Hamlet 3.1.58, HAMLET; more at SUICIDE
8 A man that Fortune's buffets and rewards
Hast ta'en with equal thanks.
Hamlet 3.2.68-9, HAMLET complimenting HORATIO
9 Blest are those
Whose blood and judgment are so well commeddled
That they are not a pipe for Fortune's finger
To sound what stop she please.
Hamlet 3.2.69-72, HAMLET TO HORATIO
10 The great man down, you mark his favourite flies;
The poor advanced makes friends of enemies.
Hamlet 3.2.206-7, PLAYER KING TO PLAYER QUEEN
102 FORTUNE
1 111 blows the wind that profits nobody.
3 Henry VI 2.5.55, A SON who has killed a man but not yet realized that his victim is
his father; proverbial
2 Yield not thy neck
To Fortune's yoke, but let thy dauntless mind
Still ride in triumph over all mischance.
3 Henry VI 3.3.16-18, KING LEWIS OF FRANCE TO QUEEN MARGARET
3 He comes upon a wish. Fortune is merry
And in this mood will give us anything.
Julius Caesar 3.2.267-8, MARK ANTONY TO A SERVANT
4 The times conspire with you.
King John 3.3.146, CARDINAL PANDULPH TO LEWIS, DAUPHIN OF FRANCE
5 A good man's fortune may grow out at heels.
King Lear 2.2.158, KENT TO LEAR
6 Fortune, good night: smile once more; turn thy wheel.
King Lear 2.2.175, KENT
7 Fortune, that arrant whore,
Ne'er turns the key to the poor.
King Lear 2.2.245-6, FOOL
8 Fortune, on his damned quarrel smiling,
Showed like a rebel's whore.
Macbeth 1.2.14-15, CAPTAIN TO DUNCAN AND MALCOLM, reporting a battle
9 Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.
Measure for Measure 2.1.38, ESCALUS TO ANGELO
10 Fortune thy foe.
Merry Wives of Windsor 3.3.61, FALSTAFF TO MISTRESS FORD
11 O, I am fortune's fool.
Romeo and Juliet 3.1.137, ROMEO TO BENVOLIO
See also CHANCE; FATE; LUCK
FRANCE AND THE FRENCH
12 My thoughts and wishes bend again toward France.
Hamlet 1.2.55, LAERTES TO CLAUDIUS
13 This best garden of the world,
Our fertile France.
Henry V 5.2.36-7, BURGUNDY TO THE KING AND QUEEN OF FRANCE
FRIENDS AND FRIENDSHIP | 103
1 Done like a Frenchman!
1 Henry VI3.3.85, PUCELLE (JOAN OF ARC), commenting unfavourably on Burgundy's
behaviour in defeat; she continues 'Turn and turn again.'
2 Remember where we are:
In France, amongst a fickle wavering nation.
1 Henry VI 4.1.137-8, HENRY TO LORDS
FREEDOM
3 I must have liberty
Withal, as large a charter as the wind,
To blow on whom I please.
As You Like It 2.7.47-9, JAQUES'S plea for freedom of speech
4 I had as lief not be as live to be
In awe of such a thing as I myself.
I was born free as Caesar; so were you.
Julius Caesar 1.2.94-6, CASSIUS TO BRUTUS
5 Every bondman in his own hand bears
The power to cancel his captivity.
Julius Caesar 1.3.101-2, CASCA TO CASSIUS; even a slave can take his own life
6 Liberty! Freedom! Tyranny is dead!
Julius Caesar 3.1.78, CINNA'S cry on the death of Julius Caesar
7 Who is here so base, that would be a bondman?
Julius Caesar 3.2.29-30, BRUTUS' speech on the death of Julius Caesar
8 'Ban, 'Ban, Cacaliban
Has a new master: - get a new man.
Freedom, high-day! high-day, freedom! freedom, high-day, freedom!
Tempest 2.2.182-5, CALIBAN
9 To the elements
Be free, and fare thou well!
Tempest 5.1.320-1, PROSPERO'S farewell to ARIEL
See also REBELLION AND REVOLUTION
FRIENDS AND FRIENDSHIP
10 Keep thy friend
Under thy own life's key.
All's Well That Ends Well 1.1.65-6, COUNTESS OF ROSSILLION TO BERTRAM; more at
ADVICE
104 I FRIENDS AND FRIENDSHIP
1 Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel.
Hamlet 1.3.62-3, POLONIUS TO LAERTES; more at ADVICE
2 Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice
And could of men distinguish her election,
Sh'ath sealed thee for herself.
Hamlet 3.2.64-6, HAMLET TO HORATIO
3 I could have better spared a better man.
1 Henry IV 5.4.102-3, PRINCE HAL, mistakenly thinking Falstaff has been killed in
battle
4 A friend should bear his friend's infirmities.
Julius Caesar 4.3.85, CASSIUS TO BRUTUS
5 I see, lady, the gentleman is not in your books.
Much Ado About Nothing 1.1.74-5, MESSENGER'S response to BEATRICE
6 Friendship is constant in all other things
Save in the office and affairs of love.
Much Ado About Nothing 2.1.166-7, CLAUDIO
7 I count myself in nothing else so happy
As in a soul remembering my good friends.
Richard II 2.3.46-7, BOLINGBROKE TO PERCY
8 I would not wish
Any companion in the world but you.
Tempest 3.1.54-5, MIRANDA TO FERDINAND
FRIENDS, false
9 My two schoolfellows,
Whom I will trust as I will adders fanged.
Hamlet 3.4.204-5, HAMLET TO GERTRUDE, of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
FUTURE, the
10 We know what we are, but know not what we may be.
Hamlet 4.5.43-4, the mad OPHELIA
11 There are many events in the womb of time, which will be delivered.
Othello 1.3.369-70, IAGO TO RODERIGO
12 The prophetic soul
Of the wide world, dreaming on things to come.
Sonnet 107.1-2
GARDENS AND GARDENING | 105
1 You should have feared false times when you did feast.
Timon of Athens 4.3.516, STEWARD TO TIMON
See also PROPHECIES; TOMORROW; UNCERTAINTY
fc%^%^%^« GI w » t % ^ % ^ 4 ^ %^
GARDENS AND GARDENING
2 'Tis an unweeded garden
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely.
Hamlet 1.2.135-7, HAMLET'S view of the world
3 Do not spread the compost on the weeds
To make them ranker.
Hamlet 3.4.153-4, HAMLET TO GERTRUDE
4 Most subject is the fattest soil to weeds.
2 Henry IV 4.4.54, HENRY to his son THOMAS, DUKE OF CLARENCE, referring to his
other son Prince Hal, who, 'the noble image of my youth, / Is overspread with them'
5 Covering discretion with a coat of folly,
As gardeners do with ordure hide those roots
That shall first spring and be most delicate.
Henry V 2.4.39-41, CONSTABLE OF FRANCE TO THE DAUPHIN
6 Now 'tis the spring, and weeds are shallow-rooted;
Suffer them now, and they'll o'ergrow the garden,
And choke the herbs for want of husbandry.
2 Henry VI 3.1.31-3, QUEEN MARGARET TO HENRY
7 Adam was a gardener.
2 Henry VI 4.2.129, JACK CADE TO STAFFORD AND HIS BROTHER
8 Our bodies are gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners.
Othello 1.3.322-3, IAGO TO RODERIGO
9 Our sea-walled garden, the whole land,
Is full of weeds, her fairest flowers choked up,
Her fruit-trees all unpruned, her hedges ruined,
106 J GARDENS AND GARDENING
Her knots disordered, and her wholesome herbs
Swarming with caterpillars.
Richard II 3.4.43-7, GARDENER'S MAN TO THE GARDENER
1 Superfluous branches
We lop away, that bearing boughs may live.
Richard 7/3.4.63-4, GARDENER TO HIS MAN
2 Small herbs have grace, great weeds do grow apace.
Richard III 2.4.13, the boy DUKE OF YORK reports his uncle Richard's ominous
remark on his rapid growth to his MOTHER and GRANDMOTHER
See also ECOLOGY
GENDER
3 I could find in my heart to disgrace my man's apparel and to cry like a
woman. But I must comfort the weaker vessel, as doublet and hose
ought to show itself courageous to petticoat.
As You Like It 2.4.4-7, ROSALIND TO TOUCHSTONE AND CELIA
4 Alas the day, what shall I do with my doublet and hose?
As You Like It 3.2.216-17, ROSALIND, in love with Orlando but dressed as a man
5 It is not the fashion to see the lady the epilogue; but it is no more
unhandsome than to see the lord the prologue.
As You Like It 5.4.199-200, ROSALIND
6 A woman's face with nature's own hand painted
Hast thou, the master mistress of my passion.
Sonnets 20.1-2
See also MEN AND WOMEN
GENETICS
7 How hard it is to hide the sparks of Nature!
Cymbeline 3.3.79, BELARIUS, of the royal brothers Guiderius and Arviragus, brought
up as peasants
8 So, oft it chances in particular men
That for some vicious mole of nature in them,
As in their birth, wherein they are not guilty
(Since nature cannot choose his origin),
By their o'ergrowth of some complexion,
Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason,
Or by some habit, that too much o'erleavens
The form of plausive manners - that these men,
GIRLS I 107
Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect,
Being Nature's livery or Fortune's star,
His virtues else, be they as pure as grace,
As infinite as man may undergo,
Shall in the general censure take corruption
From that particular fault.
Hamlet 1.4.23-36, HAMLET TO HORATIO
1 If I chance to talk a little wild, forgive me;
I had it from my father.
Henry VIII 1.4.26-7, LORD SANDS TO ANNE BULLEN (BOLEYN)
2 A devil, a born devil, on whose nature
Nurture can never stick.
Tempest 4.1.188-9, PROSPERO'S view of Caliban
GHOSTS see APPARITIONS
GIFTS AND GIVING
3 Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.
Hamlet 3.1.101, OPHELIA returning Hamlet's gifts
4 Dost thou not wish in heart
The chain were longer and the letter shorter?
Love's Labour's Lost 5.2.55-6, PRINCESS OF FRANCE TO MARIA, who has been sent a
pearl necklace with a letter
5 My good will is great, though the gift small.
Pericles 3.4.16, THAISA TO CERIMON
6 I am not in the giving vein today.
Richard III 4.2.116, RICHARD, losing himself an ally in Buckingham
7 He's the very soul of bounty.
Timon of Athens 1.2.212, A LORD, of Timon
GIRLS
8 An unlessoned girl, unschooled, unpractised,
Happy in this, she is not yet so old
But she may learn.
Merchant of Venice 3.2.159-61, PORTIA, TO BASSANIO, of herself
9 In maiden meditation, fancy-free.
Midsummer Night's Dream 2.1.164, OBERON TO PUCK (of the moon goddess)
108 I GIRLS
1 She was a vixen when she went to school.
Midsummer Night's Dream 3.2.324, HELENA TO DEMETRIUS AND LYSANDER, of Hermia
2 What pushes are we wenches driven to
When fifteen once has found us!
Two Noble Kinsmen 2.4.6-7, JAILER'S DAUGHTER
GOD
3 This all lies within the will of God.
Henry V 1.2.290, HENRY TO HIS COURT AND AMBASSADORS
4 We are in God's hand, brother, not in theirs.
Henry V 3.6.170, HENRY TO GLOUCESTER, 'they' being the French army at Agincourt
5 O God, thy arm was here.
Henry V 4.7.105, HENRY, giving thanks for the unlooked-for survival of his officers
and men at Agincourt
6 God is our fortress.
1 Henry VI 2.1.26, TALBOT TO LORDS; an echo of several biblical references
7 God defend the right!
2 Henry VI 2.3.55, HENRY TO HIS COURT
8 He was the author, thou the instrument.
3 Henry VI 4.6.18, HENRY TO WARWICK
9 God, the widow's champion and defence.
Richard II 1.2.43, JOHN OF GAUNT TO THE DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER
GOOD AND GOODNESS
10 I never did repent for doing good,
Nor shall not now.
Merchant of Venice 3.4.10-11, PORTIA TO LORENZO
11 That light we see is burning in my hall.
How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
Merchant of Venice 5.1.89-91, PORTIA TO NERISSA
See also VIRTUE
GOOD INTENTIONS
12 I have not kept my square, but that to come
Shall all be done by th' rule.
Antony and Cleopatra 2.3.6-7, ANTONY TO OCTAVIA
CRAVES I 109
GOOD NEWS see NEWS, good
GOOD TIMES
1 If sack and sugar be a fault, God help the wicked! If to be old and merry
be a sin, then many an old host that I know is damned.
1 Henry IV 2.4.264-6, FALSTAFF TO PRINCE HAL
2 Now stand you on the top of happy hours.
Sonnet 16.5
3 Dost thou think because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more
cakes and ale?
Twelfth Night 3.2.113-14, SIR TOBY BELCH TO MALVOLIO
4 Not to be abed after midnight, is to be up betimes.
Twelfth Night 2.3.1-2, SIR TOBY BELCH TO SIR ANDREW AGUECHEEK
See also EASY LIFE; OLD TIMES
GRAFFITI
5 These trees shall be my books,
And in their barks my thoughts Til character.
As You Like It 3.2.5-6, ORLANDO
GRAVES
6 With wild wood-leaves and weeds I ha' strewed his grave
And on it said a century of prayers.
Cymbeline 4.2.390-1, IMOGEN TO LUCIUS
7 There is no ancient gentlemen but gardeners, ditchers, and gravemakers
- they hold up Adam's profession.
Hamlet 5.1.29-31, ONE GRAVEDIGGER TO ANOTHER
8 The houses he makes last till doomsday.
Hamlet 5.1.59, ONE GRAVEDIGGER TO ANOTHER, of his profession
9 Gaunt am I for the grave, gaunt as a grave.
Richard II 2.1.82, JOHN OF GAUNT TO RICHARD
10 A little little grave, an obscure grave.
Richard II 3.3.154, RICHARD TO AUMERLE
11 Here lies Juliet, and her beauty makes
This vault a feasting presence, full of light.
Romeo and Juliet 5.3.86, ROMEO
110 I GRAVES
1 The earth can yield me but a common grave.
Sonnet 81.7
2 Lie where the light foam of the sea may beat
Thy grave-stone daily.
Timon of Athens 4.3.381-2, TIMON TO APEMANTUS
GREATNESS
3 Give me my robe. Put on my crown. I have
Immortal longings in me.
Antony and Cleopatra 5.2.278-9, CLEOPATRA, at her death
4 I have touched the highest point of all my greatness,
And from that full meridian of my glory
I haste now to my setting. I shall fall
Like a bright exhalation in the evening,
And no man see me more.
Henry VIII 3.2.223-7, CARDINAL WOLSEY; Shakespeare's contribution to this coauthored
play came at the close of his career
5 Farewell? A long farewell to all my greatness.
This is the state of man; to-day he puts forth
The tender leaves of hopes, to-morrow blossoms,
And bears his blushing honours thick upon him:
The third day comes a frost, a killing frost,
And when he thinks, good easy man, full surely
His greatness is a-ripening, nips his root,
And then he falls as I do. I have ventured
Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders,
This many summers in a sea of glory,
But far beyond my depth: my high-blown pride
At length broke under me, and now has left me,
Weary and old with service, to the mercy
Of a rude stream that must for ever hide me.
Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye;
I feel my heart new opened. O how wretched
Is that poor man that hangs on princes' favours!
There is betwixt that smile we would aspire to,
That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin,
More pangs and fears than wars or women have;
And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer,
Never to hope again.
Henry VIII 3.2.351-72, CARDINAL WOLSEY
GREETINGS | 111
1 Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve
greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em.
Twelfth Night 2.5.139-41; MALVOLIO reads the anonymous letter which he believes is
from Olivia
See also JULIUS CAESAR; KINGSHIP AND RULE; TRANSIENCE
GREED
2 Sweep on you fat and greasy citizens.
As You Like It 2.1.55, JAQUES'S reported address to a herd of deer
3 See, sons, what things you are,
How quickly nature falls into revolt
When gold becomes her object.
2 Henry IV 4.5.64-6, HENRY TO HIS SONS THE DUKES OF GLOUCESTER AND CLARENCE
4 THIRD FISHERMAN I marvel how the fishes live in the sea.
FIRST FISHERMAN Why, as men do a-land: the great ones eat up the little
ones.
Pericles 2.1.26-9
GREETINGS
5 FIRST WITCH All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, Thane of Glamis!
SECOND WITCH All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor!
THIRD WITCH All hail, Macbeth! that shalt be King hereafter.
Macbeth 1.3.48-50
6 Knock, knock, knock. Who's there, i'th' name of Belzebub?
Macbeth 2.3.3-4, PORTER
7 ISABELLA What hoa! Peace here; grace and good company!
PROVOST Who's there? Come in; the wish deserves a welcome
Measure for Measure 3.1.44-5
8 Where are these lads? Where are these hearts?
Midsummer Night's Dream 4.2.25, BOTTOM hearing his friends approach
9 BOLINGBROKE My gracious uncle -
YORK Grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle.
Richard II 2.3.85-6
10 To thee no star be dark!
Two Noble Kinsmen 1.4.1, FIRST QUEEN TO TWO OTHERS
11 Welcome hither,
As is the spring to th'earth.
Winter's Tale 5.1.150-1, LEONTES TO FLORIZEL AND PERDITA
1 1 2 I GRIEF
GRIEF
1 Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead; excessive grief the
enemy to the living.
All's Well That Ends Well 1.1.54-5, LAFEW TO HELENA
2 To persever
In obstinate condolement is a course
Of impious stubbornness, 'tis unmanly grief,
It shows a will most incorrect to heaven,
A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,
An understanding simple and unschooled.
Hamlet 1.2.92-7, CLAUDIUS lectures HAMLET
3 This is the poison of deep grief.
Hamlet 4.5.75, CLAUDIUS, of Ophelia when she has gone mad
4 Honest plain words best pierce the ear of grief.
Love's Labour's Lost 5.2.746, BEROWNE TO THE PRINCESS OF FRANCE
5 Wild,
Like an unpractised swimmer plunging still,
With too much labour drowns for want of skill.
Lucrèce 1097-^9
6 Every one can master a grief but he that has it.
Much Ado About Nothing 3.2.26-7, BENEDICK TO LEONATO
7 Grief makes one hour ten.
Richard II 1.3.261, BOLINGBROKE TO JOHN OF GAUNT
8 You may my glories and my state depose,
But not my griefs, still I am king of those.
Richard II 4.1.192-3, RICHARD TO BOLINGBROKE
9 Day doth daily draw my sorrows longer,
And night doth nightly make griefs length seem stronger.
Sonnet 28.13-14
10 He's something stained
With grief (that's beauty's canker).
Tempest 1.2.417-18, PROSPERO TO MIRANDA
11 O, grief and time,
Fearful consumers, you will all devour!
Two Noble Kinsmen 1.1.69-70, THESEUS TO FIRST QUEEN
GRIEF, expressions of | 113
1 Extremity, that sharpens sundry wits,
Makes me a fool.
Two Noble Kinsmen 1.1.118-19, THIRD QUEEN TO EMILIA
2 What's gone and what's past help
Should be past grief.
Winter's Tale 3.2.220-1, PAULINA TO A LORD
See also ELEGIES; FATHERS; GRIEF, expressions of; SORROW
GRIEF, expressions of
3 I have that within which passes show,
These but the trappings and the suits of woe.
Hamlet 1.2.85-6, HAMLET TO GERTRUDE
4 O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,
That I am meek and gentle with these butchers.
Thou art the ruins of the noblest man
That ever lived in the tide of times.
Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood!
Julius Caesar 3.1.254-8, MARK ANTONY mourning Julius Caesar
5 My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar.
Julius Caesar 3.2.107, MARK ANTONY'S oration on the death of Julius Caesar
6 I will instruct my sorrows to be proud,
For grief is proud an't makes his owner stoop.
King John 2.2.68-9, CONSTANCE TO SALISBURY
7 Grief fills the room up of my absent child,
Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,
Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,
Remembers me of all his gracious parts,
Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form.
King John 3.3.93-7, CONSTANCE TO PHILIP, KING OF FRANCE, AND CARDINAL PANDULPH
8 My old heart is cracked, it's cracked.
King Lear 2.1.90, GLOUCESTER TO REGAN
9 Better I were distract;
So should my thoughts be severed from my griefs,
And woes by wrong imaginations lose
The knowledge of themselves.
King Lear 4.6.275-8, GLOUCESTER
114 I GRIEF, expressions of
1 Howl, howl, howl, howl! O, you are men of stones!
Had I your tongues and eyes, I'd use them so
That heaven's vault should crack: she's gone for ever.
King Lear 5.3.255-7, LEAR, carrying the dead Cordelia
2 And my poor fool is hanged. No, no, no life!
Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life
And thou no breath at all?
King Lear 5.3.304-6, LEAR TO ALBANY, EDGAR AND KENT
3 I was a journeyman to grief.
Richard II 1.3.272, BOLINGBROKE TO JOHN OF GAUNT
4 My grief lies all within,
And these external manners of lament
Are merely shadows to the unseen grief
That swells with silence in the tortured soul.
Richard II 4.1.295-8, RICHARD TO BOLINGBROKE
5 Cry, Trojans, cry.
Troilus and Cressida 2.2.98, CASSANDRA, foreseeing Troy's fate
6 Cease; thou know'st
He dies to me again, when talked of.
Winter's Tale 5.1.118-19, LEONTES TO PAULINA, of his son Mamillius
See also ELEGIES
GUILT
7 And then it started like a guilty thing
Upon a fearful summons.
Hamlet 1.1.153-4, HORATIO TO BARNARDO AND MARCELLUS, of the ghost
8 Leave her to heaven,
And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge
To prick and sting her.
Hamlet 1.5.86-8, GHOST TO HAMLET
9 You were sent for, and there is a kind of confession in your looks,
which your modesties have not craft enough to colour.
Hamlet 2.2.280-2, HAMLET TO ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN
10 The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
Hamlet 3.2.232, GERTRUDE TO HAMLET, of the Player Queen in the dumb show
11 What, frighted with false fire?
Hamlet 3.2.268, HAMLET, of Claudius' reaction to the dumb show
GULLIBILITY | 115
1 O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven;
It hath the primal eldest curse upon't -
A brother's murder.
Hamlet 3.3.36-8, CLAUDIUS
2 Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind.
3 Henry VI 5.6.11, RICHARD OF GLOUCESTER TO KING HENRY; he means that a guilty
person always suspects a trap and fears discovery
3 One cried, cGod bless us!' and, 'Amen,' the other,
As they had seen me with these hangman's hands.
Macbeth 2.2.26-7, MACBETH TO LADY MACBETH
4 These deeds must not be thought
After these ways: so, it will make us mad.
Macbeth 2.2.32-3, LADY MACBETH TO MACBETH
5 Condemn the fault, and not the actor of it?
Why, every fault's condemned ere it be done.
Measure for Measure 2.2.37-8, ANGELO TO ISABELLA
6 They that set you on
To do this deed will hate you for the deed.
Richard III 1.4.251-2; CLARENCE tries to dissuade his MURDERERS from their task
7 All several sins, all used in each degree,
Throng to the bar, crying all, 'Guilty, guilty!'
Richard HI 5.3.199-200, RICHARD, finally a prey to guilt
See also BLOOD; CRIMES; MURDER
GULLIBILITY
8 The Moor is of a free and open nature
That thinks men honest that but seem to be so,
And will as tenderly be led by th' nose
As asses are.
Othello 1.3.397-400, IAGO, of Othello
9 They'll take suggestion as a cat laps milk.
Tempest 2.1.289, ANTONIO TO SEBASTIAN
116 I HABIT
H fc%^%^%^%^ I I >^^$t%^%^)^«
HABIT
1 Refrain tonight,
And that shall lend a kind of easiness
To the next abstinence, the next more easy;
For use almost can change the stamp of nature.
Hamlet 3.4.167-70, HAMLET TO GERTRUDE
2 HAMLET Has this fellow no feeling of his business a sings in gravemaking?
HORATIO Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness.
Hamlet 5.1.65-8
3 How use doth breed a habit in a man!
Two Gentlemen of Verona 5.4.1, VALENTINE
See also CUSTOM
HAIR
4 There's many a man hath more hair than wit.
Comedy of Errors 2.2.81-2, ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE TO DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
5 Thou canst not say, I did it: never shake
Thy gory locks at me.
Macbeth 3.4.49-50, MACBETH TO BANQUO'S GHOST
6 I am such a tender ###, if my hair do but tickle me, I must scratch.
Midsummer Night's Dream 4.125-6, BOTTOM, wearing the ###'s head, to Titania's
HAPPINESS
7 Happy man be his dole.
1 Henry IV 2.2.76, FALSTAFF; proverbial, meaning 'good luck to you', or, more
literally, 'may his fortune be that of a happy man'. Also in Taming of the Shrew
1.1.138, HORTENSIO TO GREMIO, and Winter's Tale 1.2.163, LEONTES TO MAMILLIUS.
8 As merry as crickets.
1 Henry IV 2.4.88, POINS TO PRINCE HAL
116
HASTE J 117
1 As merry as the day is long.
Much Ado About Nothing 2.1.45, BEATRICE TO LEONATO; also in King John 4.1.17, the
boy ARTHUR, imprisoned, to HUBERT; more at SINGLE LIFE, the
2 Silence is the perfectest herald of joy; I were but little happy, if I could
say how much.
Much Ado About Nothing 2.1.288-9, CLAUDIO TO BEATRICE
3 There was a star danced, and under that was I born.
Much Ado About Nothing 2.1.316, BEATRICE TO DON PEDRO
4 If it were now to die
'Twere now to be most happy, for I fear
My soul hath her content so absolute
That not another comfort, like to this
Succeeds in unknown fate.
Othello 2.1.187-91, OTHELLO TO DESDEMONA
5 Happiness courts thee in her best array.
Romeo and Juliet 3.3.142, FRIAR LAURENCE TO ROMEO
See also CONTENTMENT; HUMBLE LIFE; JOY; MERRIMENT; PRISON
HARDSHIP
6 Plenty and peace breeds cowards: hardness ever
Of hardiness is mother.
Cymbeline 3.6.21-2, IMOGEN
HASTE
7 O most wicked speed! To post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!
It is not, nor it cannot come to good.
Hamlet 1.2.156-8, HAMLET
8 Not so hot!
King Lear 5.3.67, GONERIL to her rival REGAN
9 But yet I run before my horse to market.
Richard III 1.1.160, RICHARD
10 It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden,
Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be
Ere one can say 'It lightens'.
Romeo and Juliet 2.2.118-20, JULIET TO ROMEO, of their love
11 Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast.
Romeo and Juliet 2.3.90, FRIAR LAURENCE TO ROMEO
118 HASTE
1 Who cannot condemn rashness in cold blood?
Timon of Athens 3.5.55, ALCIBIADES TO TWO SENATORS
See also MARRIAGE; SPEED
HATRED
2 In time we hate that which we often fear.
Antony and Cleopatra 1.3.13; CHARMIAN advises CLEOPATRA not to be too cruel to
Antony
3 How like a fawning publican he looks!
I hate him for he is a Christian . . .
He hates our sacred nation, and he rails . . .
On me, my bargains, and my well-won thrift,
Which he calls interest: cursed be my tribe
If I forgive him!
Merchant of Venice 1.3.39-40, 46, 48-50, SHYLOCK
4 Deep malice makes too deep incision.
Richard II 1.1.155, RICHARD to the bitterly quarrelling MOWBRAY and BOLINGBROKE, on
the dangers of hatred
5 I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.
Sonnet 147.13-14
6 Hate all, curse all, show charity to none.
Timon of Athens 4.3.530, TIMON TO HIS STEWARD
HELEN OF TROY
7 A Grecian queen, whose youth and freshness
Wrinkles Apollo's, and makes stale the morning.
Troilus and Cressida 2.2.79-80, TROILUS TO HECTOR
8 Why, she is a pearl
Whose price hath launched above a thousand ships.
Troilus and Cressida 2.2.82-3, TROILUS TO HECTOR; Shakespeare quotes his
contemporary, Christopher Marlowe, in Doctor Faustus (5.1.107): 'Was this the face
that launched a thousand ships?'
9 For every false drop in her bawdy veins
A Grecian's life hath sunk.
Troilus and Cressida 4.1.70-1, DIOMEDES TO PARIS
HELL
10 The flow'ry way that leads to the broad gate and the great fire.
AlVs Well That Ends We//4.5.53-4, CLOWN
HENRY V J 119
1 I had thought to have let in some of all professions, that go the
primrose way to th'everlasting bonfire.
Macbeth 2.3.17-19, PORTER
2 Whip me, ye devils,
From the possession of this heavenly sight!
Blow me about in winds, roast me in sulphur,
Wash me in steep-down gulfs of liquid fire!
Othello 5.2.277-80, OTHELLO, at Desdemona's deathbed
3 Avaunt, thou dreadful minister of hell!
Richard III 1.2.46, ANNE TO RICHARD
HENRY V
4 I know you all, and will awhile uphold
The unyoked humour of your idleness.
Yet herein will I imitate the sun,
Who doth permit the base contagious clouds
To smother up his beauty from the world,
That, when he please again to be himself,
Being wanted he may be more wondered at
By breaking through the foul and ugly mists
Of vapours that did seem to strangle him.
1 Henry IV 1.2.190-8, PRINCE HAL, speaking of his low-life companions, but looking
into the future
5 They take it already upon their salvation, that though I be but Prince
of Wales, yet I am the king of courtesy, and tell me flatly I am no
proud Jack like Falstaff, but a Corinthian, a lad of mettle, a good
boy (by the Lord, so they call me!), and when I am King of England
I shall command all the good lads in Eastcheap.
1 Henry IV 2.4.8-14, PRINCE HAL TO POINS
6 The nimble-footed madcap Prince of Wales.
1 Henry IV 4.1.95, HOTSPUR TO VERNON
7 I saw young Harry with his beaver on,
His cushes on his thighs, gallantly armed,
Rise from the ground like feathered Mercury,
And vaulted with such ease into his seat
As if an angel dropped down from the clouds
To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus,
And witch the world with noble horsemanship.
1 Henry JV 4.1.104-10, VERNON TO HOTSPUR
120 I HENRY V
1 The mirror of all Christian kings.
Henry V 2.0.6, CHORUS
2 A little touch of Harry in the night.
Henry V 4.0.47, CHORUS; Henry walks amongst his troops before the battle of
Agincourt
3 Henry the Fifth, too famous to live long.
1 Henry VI 1.1.6, BEDFORD TO OTHER LORDS
HISTORY
4 There is a history in all men's lives
Figuring the nature of the times deceased;
The which observed, a man may prophesy,
With a near aim, of the main chance of things
As yet not come to life.
2 Henry IV 3.1.80-4, WARWICK TO HENRY
5 The chronicle of wasted time.
Sonnet 106.1
6 ORSINO And what's her history?
VIOLA A blank, my lord: she never told her love.
Twelfth Night 2.4.110-11; more at LOVE
HOLIDAYS
7 If all the year were playing holidays,
To sport would be as tedious as to work;
But when they seldom come, they wished-for come.
1 Henry IV 1.2.199-201, PRINCE HAL
8 Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare,
Since seldom coming in the long year set,
Like stones of worth they thinly placed are,
Or captain jewels in the carcanet.
Sonnet 52.5-8
HONESTY
9 Speak to me home; mince not the general tongue;
Name Cleopatra as she is called in Rome.
Antony and Cleopatra 1.2.109-10, ANTONY TO A MESSENGER
10 To plainness honour's bound
When majesty falls to folly.
King Lear 1.1.149-50, KENT TO LEAR
HONOUR I 121
1 I can keep honest counsel, ride, run, mar a curious tale in telling it and
deliver a plain message bluntly.
King Lear 1.4.32-4, KENT TO LEAR
2 Where I could not be honest
I never yet was valiant.
King Lear 5.1.3-4, ALBANY TO EDMUND AND REGAN
3 The weight of this sad time we must obey,
Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.
King Lear 5.3.322-3, EDGAR
4 What his heart thinks his tongue speaks.
Much Ado About Nothing 3.2.13, DON PEDRO TO CLAUDIO, of Benedick
5 Men should be what they seem.
Othello 3.3.129, IAGO TO OTHELLO
6 To be direct and honest is not safe.
Othello 3.3.381, IAGO TO OTHELLO, with a different view of one of his favourite topics
7 Every man has his fault, and honesty is his.
Timon of Athens 3.1.29-30, LUCULLUS TO FLAMINIUS
8 Ha, ha! what a fool Honesty is!
Winter's Tale 4.4.597, AUTOLYCUS, who sets no store by it himself
9 Though I am not naturally honest, I am so sometimes by chance.
Winter's Tale 4.4.714-15, AUTOLYCUS
See also APPEARANCES; HYPOCRISY
HONOUR
10 Honours thrive
When rather from our acts we them derive
Than our foregoers.
All's Well That Ends Well 2.3.136-8, KING OF FRANCE TO BERTRAM; our 'foregoers' are
our forebears
11 'Tis not my profit that does lead mine honour;
Mine honour, it.
Antony and Cleopatra 1.7.76-7, POMPEY TO MENAS
12 If I lose mine honour,
I lose myself.
Antony and Cleopatra 3.4.22-3, ANTONY TO OCTAVIA
122 HONOUR
1 Rightly to be great
Is not to stir without great argument,
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
When honour's at the stake.
Hamlet 4.4.53-6, HAMLET
2 By heaven, methinks it were an easy leap
To pluck bright honour from the pale-faced moon.
1 Henry IV 1.3.199-200, HOTSPUR TO NORTHUMBERLAND
3 Can honour set to a leg? No. Or an arm? No. Or take away the grief of
a wound? No. Honour hath no skill in surgery then? No. What is
honour? A word. What is in that word honour? What is that honour?
Air. A trim reckoning! Who hath it? He that died a-Wednesday. Doth
he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? No. Tis insensible, then? Yea, to the
dead. But will it not live with the living? No. Why? Detraction will not
suffer it. Therefore I'll none of it. Honour is a mere scutcheon - and so
ends my catechism.
1 Henry IV 5.1.131-41, FALSTAFF TO PRINCE HAL
4 The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
Henry V 4.3.22, HENRY TO WESTMORLAND
5 If it be a sin to covet honour
I am the most offending soul alive.
Henry V 4.3.28-9, HENRY TO WESTMORLAND
6 A load [that] would sink a navy, too much honour.
Henry VIII 3.2.383, CARDINAL WOLSEY to his rival CROMWELL, claiming to be relieved
at his own fall
7 I love
The name of honour more than I fear death.
Julius Caesar 1.2.87-8, BRUTUS TO CASSIUS
8 Honour is the subject of my story.
Julius Caesar 1.2.91, CASSIUS TO BRUTUS
9 For Brutus is an honourable man,
So are they all, all honourable men.
Julius Caesar 3.2.83-4, MARK ANTONY'S oration on the death of Julius Caesar
10 As jewels lose their glory if neglected,
So princes their renowns if not respected.
Pericles 2.2.12-13, SIMONIDES TO THAISA
HORSES I 123
1 Take honour from me, and my life is done.
Richard II 1.1.183, MOWBRAY TO RICHARD
2 High sparks of honour in thee have I seen.
Richard II 5.6.29, BOLINGBROKE TO PERCY
3 Take the instant way;
For honour travels in a strait so narrow
Where one but goes abreast.
Troilus and Cressida 3.3.153-5, ULYSSES TO ACHILLES
See also EQUALITY; FAME; PERSEVERANCE; REPUTATION
HOPE
4 The tender leaves of hopes.
Henry VIII 3.2.353, CARDINAL WOLSEY
5 The miserable have no other medicine
But only hope.
Measure for Measure 3.1.2-3, CLAUDIO TO THE DUKE disguised as a friar
6 Cozening Hope - he is a flatterer,
A parasite, a keeper-back of Death,
Who gently would dissolve the bands of life,
Which false Hope lingers in extremity.
Richard II 2.2.69-72, QUEEN ISABEL TO BUSHY
HORSES
7 O happy horse, to bear the weight of Antony!
Antony and Cleopatra 1.5.22, CLEOPATRA TO CHARMIAN; later in the scene Antony's
horse is described as 'an arm-gaunt steed' (1.5.50)
8 For O, for O, the hobby-horse is forgot.
Hamlet 3.2.132, HAMLET TO OPHELIA; a popular refrain expressing lament - the hobby
horse was a figure from morris dancing. This phrase also occurs at Love's Labour's
Lost 2.1.28-9.
9 Hollow pampered jades of Asia,
Which cannot go but thirty mile a day.
2 Henry IV 2.4.162-3, PISTOL TO HOSTESS QUICKLY AND BARDOLPH; Pistol parodies
Christopher Marlowe's famous description of Tamburlaine urging on the captive
kings who drag his chariot - 'Holla, ye pampered jades of Asia! / What, can ye draw
but twenty miles a day?'
10 When I bestride him, I soar, I am a hawk. He trots the air. The earth
sings when he touches i t ; . . . he is pure air and fire . . . It is the prince
of palfreys.
Henry V 3.7.15-16, 21, 27, DAUPHIN TO THE CONSTABLE OF FRANCE
124 I HORSES
1 I had rather have my horse to my mistress.
Henry V 3.7.58-9, DAUPHIN TO THE CONSTABLE OF FRANCE
2 Duncan's horses . . .
Beauteous and swift, the minions of their race,
Turned wild in nature, broke their stalls, flung out,
Contending 'gainst obedience, as they would make
War with mankind.
Macbeth 2.4.14-18, ROSSE TO AN OLD MAN
3 He doth nothing but talk of his horse.
Merchant of Venice 1.2.39-40, PORTIA TO NERISSA, of one of her suitors
4 Rode he on Barbary?
Richard 7/5.5.81, RICHARD TO A GROOM, of his rival Bolingbroke riding his favourite
horse
5 A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!
Richard HI 5.4.7 and 13, RICHARD at the battle of Bosworth
6 His horse hipped - with an old mothy saddle and stirrups of no
kindred - besides, possessed with the glanders and like to mose in the
chine, troubled with the lampass, infected with the fashions, full of
windgalls, sped with spavins, rayed with the yellows, past cure of the
fives, stark spoiled with the staggers, begnawn with the bots, swayed in
the back and shoulder-shotten, near-legged before, and with a halfcheeked
bit and a headstall of sheep's leather, which, being restrained
to keep him from stumbling, hath been often burst and new-repaired
with knots; one girth six times pieced, and a woman's crupper of
velure, which hath two letters for her name fairly set down in studs,
and here and there pieced with pack-thread.
Taming of the Shrew 3.2.48-62, BIONDELLO TO TRANIO AND BAPTISTA, describing the
horse on which Petruchio arrives for his wedding
7 Round-hoofed, short-jointed, fetlocks shag and long,
Broad breast, full eye, small head, and nostril wide,
High crest, short ears, straight legs and passing strong,
Thin mane, thick tail, broad buttock, tender hide.
Venus and Adonis 295-8; a superior horse
8 The colt that's backed and burdened being young,
Loseth his pride, and never waxeth strong.
Venus and Adonis 419-20
See also DISORDER; HENRY V
HUMAN FRAILTY | 125
HOSPITALITY AND PARTIES
1 Come,
Let's have one other gaudy night. Call to me
All my sad captains. Fill our bowls once more.
Let's mock the midnight bell.
Antony and Cleopatra 3.13.186-9, ANTONY TO CLEOPATRA
2 Small cheer and great welcome makes a merry feast.
Comedy of Errors 3.1.26, BALTHASAR TO ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS
3 What! in our house?
Macbeth 2.3.86; LADY MACBETH expresses horror at the murder of Duncan
4 Ourself will mingle with-society,
And play the humble host.
Macbeth 3.4.3-4, MACBETH TO LORDS
5 Mirth becomes a feast.
Pericles 2.3.7, SIMONIDES TO HIS KNIGHTS ('becomes' meaning 'suits' or 'graces')
6 At my poor house look to behold this night
Earth-treading stars that make dark heaven light.
Romeo and Juliet 1.2.24-5, CAPULET TO PARIS
7 Madam, the guests are come, supper served up, you called, my young
lady asked for, the Nurse cursed in the pantry, and everything in
extremity.
Romeo and Juliet 1.3.100-3, SERVINGMAN TO LADY CAPULET
8 A fashionable host
That slightly shakes his parting guest by th' hand,
And with his arms out-stretched, as he would fly,
Grasps in the comer.
Troilus and Cressida 3.3.165-8, ULYSSES TO ACHILLES, making a comparison with
Time
See also DRINKING; FOOD; HOLIDAYS
HUMAN FRAILTY
9 So it should be that none but Antony
Should conquer Antony.
Antony and Cleopatra 4.15.17-18, CLEOPATRA TO ANTONY
10 Frailty, thy name is woman.
Hamlet 1.2.146, HAMLET
126 I HUMAN FRAILTY
1 We are all men,
In our own natures frail, and capable
Of our flesh; few are angels.
Henry VIII 5.2.44-6, LORD CHANCELLOR TO CRANMER AND GARDINER
2 We are all frail.
Measure for Measure 2.4.121, ANGELO TO ISABELLA
3 Sometimes we are devils to ourselves,
When we will tempt the frailty of our powers.
Troilus and Cressida 4.4.93-4, TROILUS TO CRESSIDA
HUMANKIND
4 What piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in
faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action
how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god: the beauty of the
world, the paragon of animals - and yet, to me, what is this
quintessence of dust? Man delights not me - nor woman neither,
though by your smiling you seem to say so.
Hamlet 2.2.305-12, HAMLET TO ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN (the more familiar
version in the First Folio begins 'What a piece of work...'; more at DEPRESSION)
5 What is a man
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed?
Hamlet 4.4.33-5, HAMLET; more at REASON AND UNREASON
6 Is man no more than this?
King Lear 3.4.101-2, LEAR considering Edgar in his disguise as Poor Tom
7 Thou art the thing itself. Unaccommodated man is no more but such
a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art.
King Lear 3.4.105-7, LEAR considering Edgar in his disguise as Poor Tom
8 But man, proud man,
Dressed 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 makes the angels weep.
Measure for Measure 2.2.118-23, ISABELLA TO ANGELO
9 But, stay, I smell a man of middle earth!
Merry Wives of Windsor 5.5.80, EVANS, disguised as a fairy, of Falstaff
HUMBLE LIFE | 127
1 Lord, what fools these mortals be!
Midsummer Night's Dream 3.2.115, PUCK TO OBERON
2 NURSE What a man are you?
ROMEO One . . . that God hath made, himself to mar.
Romeo and Juliet 2.4.113-15
3 What have we here? a man or a fish? dead or alive?
Tempest 2.2.24-5, TRINCULO, finding Caliban
4 O, wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in 't!
Tempest 5.1.181-4, MIRANDA TO HER FRIENDS
5 One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.
Troilus and Cressida 3.3.174, ULYSSES TO ACHILLLES
6 As we are men,
Thus should we do; being sensually subdued,
We lose our human title.
Two Noble Kinsmen 1.1.231-3, THESEUS TO THE THREE QUEENS
HUMBLE LIFE
7 Doth it not show vilely in me to desire small beer?... But indeed, these
humble considerations make me out of love with greatness.
2 Henry IV 2.2.5-6,11-12, PRINCE HAL TO POINS
8 Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade
To shepherds looking on their silly sheep,
Than doth a rich embroidered canopy
To kings that fear their subjects' treachery?
3 Henry VI 2.5.42-5, HENRY
9 'Tis better to be lowly born,
And range with humble livers in content,
Than to be perked up in a glist'ring grief
And wear a golden sorrow.
Henry VIII 2.3.19-22, ANNE BULLEN (BOLEYN) TO HER COMPANION
10 The blessedness of being little.
Henry VIII 4.2.66, GRIFFITH, an usher, to KATHERINE OF ARAGON
11 Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits.
Two Gentlemen of Verona 1.1.2, VALENTINE TO PROTEUS
128 I HUMILITY
HUMILITY
1 She is not yet so old
But she may learn.
Merchant of Venice 3.2.160-1, PORTIA TO BASSANIO
2 Happy are they that hear their detractions and can put them to
mending.
Much Ado About Nothing 2.3.220-1, BENEDICK
HUNTING
3 The game is up.
Cymbeline 3.3.107, BELARIUS; the phrase originally meant that the hunt was starting.
An alternative version of this - 'The game's afoot' - occurs at Henry V 3.1.32, at the
close of Henry's speech before Harfleur.
4 My love shall hear the music of my hounds.
Uncouple in the western valley; let them go.
Midsummer Night's Dream 4.1.105-6, THESEUS TO ATTENDANTS
5 The hunt is up, the morn is bright and grey,
The fields are fragrant and the woods are green.
Titus Andronicus 2.1.1-2, TITUS TO HIS SONS
HUSBANDS AND WIVES
6 'Tis but the shadow of a wife you see;
The name and not the thing.
AIVs Well That Ends Well 5.3.306-7, HELENA TO THE KING OF FRANCE
7 What, says the married woman you may go?
Antony and Cleopatra 1.3.21, CLEOPATRA railing against ANTONY'S attachment to his
wife
8 The third o'th' world is yours, which with a snaffle
You may pace easy, but not such a wife.
Antony and Cleopatra 2.2.68, ANTONY TO JULIUS CAESAR, referring to his own wife
Fulvia
9 The fittest time to corrupt a man's wife is when she's fallen out with
her husband.
Coriolanus 4.3.32-4, NICANOR TO ADRIAN (implying that the same holds for public
affairs)
10 So loving to my mother
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly.
Hamlet 1.2.140-2, HAMLET, of his parents; see also SEX AND LUST
HUSBANDS AND WIVES | 129
1 I would your highness would depart the field:
The Queen hath best success when you are absent.
3 Henry VI 2.2.73-4, A MESSENGER TO HENRY, in the presence of Queen Margaret, a
striking example of a tyrannical wife of a man in power
2 Am I your self
But, as it were, in sort or limitation,
To keep with you at meals, comfort your bed,
And talk to you sometimes? Dwell I but in the suburbs
Of your good pleasure? If it be no more,
Portia is Brutus' harlot, not his wife.
Julius Caesar 2.1.282-7, PORTIA TO BRUTUS
3 You are my true and honourable wife.
Julius Caesar 2.1.288, BRUTUS' reply
4 My dearest partner of greatness.
Macbeth 1.5.10, MACBETH TO LADY MACBETH, in a letter
5 The Thane of Fife had a wife: where is she now?
Macbeth 5.1.43-4, LADY MACBETH
6 I crave no other nor no better man.
Measure for Measure 5.1.423, MARIANA, turning down the idea of an alternative
husband to the disgraced Angelo
7 A light wife doth make a heavy husband.
Merchant of Venice 5.1.130, PORTIA TO BASSANIO
8 I will rather trust a Fleming with my butter, Parson Hugh the
Welshman with my cheese, an Irishman with my aqua-vitae bottle, or
a thief to walk my ambling gelding, than my wife with herself.
Merry Wives of Windsor 2.2.291-5, FORD
9 Wives may be merry and yet honest too.
Merry Wives of Windsor 4.2.99, MISTRESS PAGE TO MISTRESS FORD: the wives' reply
10 Our great captain's captain.
Othello 2.1.74, CASSIO TO MONTANO, of Desdemona
11 Our general's wife is now the general.
Othello 2.3.304-5, IAGO TO CASSIO
12 Let husbands know
Their wives have sense like them: they see, and smell,
And have their palates both for sweet and sour
As husbands have. What is it that they do
130 I HUSBANDS AND WIVES
When they change us for others? Is it sport?
I think it is. And doth affection breed it?
I think it doth. Is't frailty that thus errs?
It is so too. And have not we affections?
Desires for sport? and frailty, as men have?
Then let them use us well: else let them know,
The ills we do, their ills instruct us so.
Othello 4.3.92-102, EMILIA TO DESDEMONA
1 I am he am born to tame you, Kate,
And bring you from a wild Kate to a Kate
Conformable as other household Kates.
Taming of the Shrew 2.1.270-2, PETRUCHIO TO KATE (punning on 'cat')
2 I will be master of what is mine own.
She is my goods, my chattels, she is my house,
My household stuff, my field, my barn,
My horse, my ox, my ###, my any thing.
Taming of the Shrew 3.2.228-31, PETRUCHIO, on marriage
3 Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee.
Taming of the Shrew 5.2.147-8, KATHERINA to assembled HUSBANDS and WIVES
4 Such duty as the subject owes the prince
Even such a woman oweth to her husband.
Taming of the Shrew 5.2.156-7, KATHERINA to assembled HUSBANDS and WIVES
5 Fools are as like husbands as pilchards are to herrings, the husband's
the bigger.
Twelfth Night 3.1.34-6, FESTE TO VIOLA
See also MARRIAGE; MEN AND WOMEN
HYPOCRISY
6 Do not as some ungracious pastors do,
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven,
Whiles like a puffed and reckless libertine
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
And recks not his own rede.
Hamlet 1.3.47-51, OPHELIA TO LAERTES
HYPOCRISY I 131
1 With devotion's visage
And pious action we do sugar o'er
The devil himself.
Hamlet 3.1.47-9, POLONIUS TO OPHELIA
2 Why, I can smile, and murder whiles I smile,
And cry 'Content!' to that that grieves my heart,
And wet my cheeks with artificial tears,
And frame my face to all occasions.
3 Henry VI 3.2.182-5, RICHARD OF GLOUCESTER
3 Thou, rascal beadle, hold thy bloody hand;
Why dost thou lash that whore? Strip thine own back,
Thou hotly lusts to use her in that kind
For which thou whipp'st her.
King Lear 4.6.156-9, LEAR TO GLOUCESTER
4 False face must hide what the false heart doth know.
Macbeth 1.7.83, MACBETH TO LADY MACBETH
5 To show an unfelt sorrow is an office
Which the false man does easy.
Macbeth 2.3.136-7, MALCOLM TO DONALBAIN
6 Out on thee, seeming!
Much Ado About Nothing 4.1.55, CLAUDIO TO HERO
7 Thus I clothe my naked villainy
With odd old ends stoPn forth of Holy Writ.
Richard III 1.3.336-7, RICHARD
8 Nor more can you distinguish of a man
Than of his outward show, which - God He knows -
Seldom or never jumpeth with the heart.
Richard III 3.1.9-11, RICHARD (ironically) warns his nephew PRINCE EDWARD to
beware of hypocritical uncles
See also APPEARANCES
132 I IDENTITY
^^^ç^^^^ç^ I ^ ? ^ ^ ^ % ^ %^
IDENTITY
1 Simply the thing I am
Shall make me live.
All's Well That Ends Well 4.3.237-8, PAROLLES
2 This is I,
Hamlet the Dane.
Hamlet 5.1.255-6, HAMLET, struggling with LAERTES in Ophelia's grave
3 I am myself alone.
3 Henry VI 5.6.83, RICHARD OF GLOUCESTER
4 Who is it that can tell me who I am?
King Lear 1.4.221, LEAR TO FOOL
5 Thus play I in one person many people,
And none contented.
Richard II 5.5.31-2, RICHARD
6 What do I fear? Myself?
Richard III 5.3.183, RICHARD
7 What is your substance, whereof are you made?
Sonnet 53.1
8 I am that I am.
Sonnet 121.9; near-blasphemously, Shakespeare quotes, referring to himself, God's
words to Moses at Exodus 3.14. See, by contrast, Iago's 'I am not what I am', at
Othello 1.1.64.
See also ALIENATION; ILLEGITIMACY
IDOLS
9 He was indeed the glass
Wherein the noble youth did dress themselves.
2 Henry IV 2.3.21-2, LADY PERCY TO THE NORTHUMBERLANDS, of her husband
ILLEGITIMACY | 133
1 Thy gracious self,
Which is the god of my idolatry.
Romeo and Juliet 2.2.113-14, JULIET TO ROMEO
2 Tis mad idolatry
To make the service greater than the god.
Troilus and Cressida 2.2.57-8, HECTOR TO TROILUS
IGNORANCE
3 Ignorance is the curse of God.
2 Henry VI 4.7.70, LORD SAY TO JACK CADE
4 O! thou monster Ignorance.
Love's Labour's Lost 4.2.23, HOLOFERNES TO DULL
5 Dull unfeeling barren ignorance.
Richard II 1.3.168, MOWBRAY TO RICHARD
6 There is no darkness but ignorance.
Twelfth Night 4.2.42-3, FESTE teasing MALVOLIO
ILL TREATMENT
7 She, poor soul,
Knows not which way to stand, to look, to speak,
And sits as one new risen from a dream.
Taming of the Shrew 4.1.172-4, CURTIS TO GRUMIO, of Katherina
8 He hath been most notoriously abused.
Twelfth Night 5.1.371, OLIVIA TO ORSINO, of Malvolio
ILL WILL
9 Thy ancient malice.
Coriolanus 4.5.99, CORIOLANUS to his enemy AUFIDIUS
10 Rancour will out.
2 Henry VI 1.3.141, GLOUCESTER TO CARDINAL BEAUFORT
11 Shall I be plain? I wish the bastards dead.
Richard III 4.2.18, RICHARD, of his nephews
ILLEGITIMACY
12 I am I, howe'er I was begot.
King John 1.1.175, PHILIP THE BASTARD TO JOHN
134 I ILLEGITIMACY
1 Though this knave came something saucily to the world before he was
sent for, yet was his mother fair, there was good sport at his making.
King Lear 1.1.20-3, GLOUCESTER TO KENT, of his son Edmund
2 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?
King Lear 1.2.6-10, EDMUND
3 Now, gods, stand up for bastards!
King Lear 1.2.22, EDMUND
4 I should have been that I am had the maidenliest star in the firmament
twinkled on my bastardizing.
King Lear 1.2.131-3, EDMUND
5 I am a bastard, too: I love bastards. I am bastard begot, bastard
instructed, bastard in mind, bastard in valour, in everything illegitimate.
Troilus and Cressida 5.7.16-18, THERSITES TO MARGARELON, a bastard son of Priam's
ILLNESS AND DISEASE
6 Like the owner of a foul disease
To keep it from divulging, let it feed
Even on the pith of life.
Hamlet 4.1.21-3, CLAUDIUS TO GERTRUDE
7 Diseases desperate grown
By desperate appliance are relieved,
Or not at all.
Hamlet 4.3.9-11, CLAUDIUS TO LORDS
8 In poison there is physic.
2 Henry IV 1.1.137, NORTHUMBERLAND TO MORTON
9 Abstinence engenders maladies.
Love's Labour's Lost 4.3.292, BEROWNE TO HIS FRIENDS
10 There was never yet philosopher
That could endure the toothache patiently.
Much Ado About Nothing 5.1.35-6, LEONATO TO ANTONIO
See also DOCTORS AND MEDICINE; MADNESS
IMAGINATION | 135
IMAGINATION
1 Nature wants stuff
To vie strange forms with fancy.
Antony and Cleopatra 5.2.96-7, CLEOPATRA TO HER COMPANIONS
2 My imaginations are as foul
As Vulcan's stithy.
Hamlet 3.2.84-5, HAMLET TO HORATIO; Vulcan was the god of blacksmiths, a figure
of darkness, and Venus' cuckolded husband
3 Give me an ounce of civet, good apothecary, to sweeten my imagination.
King Lear 4.6.126-7, LEAR TO GLOUCESTER
4 Present fears
Are less than horrible imaginings.
Macbeth 1.3.137-8, MACBETH, unable to resist the idea of murder
5 These things seem small and undistinguishable,
Like far-off mountains turned into clouds.
Midsummer Night's Dream 4.1.186-7, DEMETRIUS TO HIS FRIENDS
6 Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.
Midsummer Night's Dream 5.1.4-6, THESEUS TO HIS COMPANIONS
7 The lunatic, the lover, and the poet
Are of imagination all compact.
Midsummer Nighfs Dream 5.1.7-8, THESEUS TO HIS COMPANIONS; see also POETS
8 O, who can hold a fire in his hand
By thinking on the frosty Caucasus?
Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite
By bare imagination of a feast?
Richard II 1.3.294-7, BOLINGBROKE TO JOHN OF GAUNT, in reply to his father's lecture
on stoicism
9 My souPs imaginary sight.
Sonnet 27.9
10 So full of shapes is fancy,
That it alone is high fantastical.
Twelfth Night 1.1.14-15, ORSINO TO CURIO
11 Prove true, imagination, O prove true.
Twelfth Night 3.4.374, VIOLA
136 I IMAGINATION
See also POETS
IMPATIENCE
1 Do it, England; / . . . Till I know 'tis done,
Howe'er my haps, my joys were ne'er begun.
Hamlet 4.3.68, 70-1, CLAUDIUS desiring the murder of Hamlet by the English
authorities
See also ANTICIPATION
IMPETUOSITY
2 Who can be wise, amazed, temperate and furious,
Loyal and neutral, in a moment?
Macbeth 2.3.106-7, MACBETH TO MACDUFF, excusing his killing the grooms who
attended Duncan
INACTION
3 Thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.
Hamlet 3.1.84-8, HAMLET
4 I do not know
Why yet I live to say this thing's to do,
Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means
To do't.
Hamlet 4.4.43-6, HAMLET
5 Nothing will come of nothing.
King Lear 1.1.90, LEAR TO CORDELIA
See also ACTION AND DEEDS; DELAY; INDECISION
INADEQUACY
6 Why do you dress me
In borrowed robes?
Macbeth 1.3.108-9, MACBETH TO ROSSE, who has greeted him with his new title,
Thane of Cawdor
7 Now does he feel his title
Hang loose about him, like a giant's robe
Upon a dwarfish thief.
Macbeth 5.2.20-2, ANGUS TO COMPANIONS, of Macbeth
INFIDELITY | 137
INDECISION
1 We would, and we would not.
Measure for Measure 4.4.35, ANGELO
INEXPERIENCE
2 He jests at scars that never felt a wound.
Romeo and Juliet 2.2.1, ROMEO
INFIDELITY
3 Take thou no scorn to wear the horn,
It was a crest ere thou wast born.
Thy father's father wore it,
And thy father bore it.
As You Like It 4.2.14-17, song of the LORDS in the Forest of Arden
4 If we two be one, and thou play false,
I do digest the poison of thy flesh,
Being strumpeted by thy contagion.
Comedy of Errors 2.2.141-3, ADRIANA TO ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE, whom she
imagines to be her husband
5 Alas, poor women, make us but believe
. . . that you love us;
Though others have the arm, show us the sleeve.
Comedy of Errors 3.2.21-3, Adriana's sister LUCIANA, to ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
6 And yet within a month -
Let me not think on't - Frailty, thy name is woman -
A little month, or ere those shoes were old
With which she followed my poor father's body,
Like Niobe, all tears - why, she -
O God, a beast that wants discourse of reason
Would have mourned longer - married with my uncle,
My father's brother - but no more like my father
Than I to Hercules. Within a month,
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
She married.
Hamlet 1.2.145-56, HAMLET
7 Such an act
That blurs the grace and blush of modesty,
Calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the rose
138 I INFIDELITY
From the fair forehead of an innocent love
And sets a blister there, makes marriage vows
As false as dicers' oaths.
Hamlet 3.4.40-5; HAMLET accuses HIS MOTHER
1 The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men; for thus sings he,
Cuckoo;
Cuckoo, cuckoo: O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear!
Love's Labour's Lost 5.2.891-5, song; more at FLOWERS AND PLANTS; WINTER
2 Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
Men were deceivers ever.
Much Ado About Nothing 2.3.61-2, BALTHASAR'S song
3 It is thought abroad that 'twixt my sheets
He's done my office.
Othello 1.3.385-6, IAGO TO RODERIGO
4 In Venice they do let God see the pranks
They dare not show their husbands; their best conscience
Is not to leave't undone, but keep't unknown.
Othello 3.3.205-7, IAGO TO OTHELLO
5 She's gone, I am abused, and my relief
Must be to loathe her.
Othello 3.3.271-2, OTHELLO
6 Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits
When I am sometime absent from thy heart,
Thy beauty and thy years full well befits.
Sonnet 41.1-3; the poet tries to suppress his jealousy
7 For thee watch I, whilst thou dost wake elsewhere,
From me far off, with others all too near.
Sonnet 61.13-14
8 More water glideth by the mill
Than wots the miller of, and easy it is
Of a cut loaf to steal a shive.
Titus Andronicus 1.1.585-7, DEMETRIUS TO AARON
9 'As false as Cressid.'
Troilus and Cressida 3.2.193, CRESSIDA TO TROILUS; this is how she swears she will be
remembered if the seemingly impossible happens and she is unfaithful to him
INGRATITUDE | 139
1 If beauty have a soul, this is not she.
Troilus and Cressida 5.2.136, TROILUS, with Thersites
2 This is, and is not, Cressid.
Troilus and Cressida 5.2.144, TROILUS, with Thersites
3 And many a man there is . . .
holds his wife by th'arm,
That little thinks she has been sluiced in's absence
And his pond fished by his next neighbour, by
Sir Smile, his neighbour.
Winter's Tale 1.2.192-6, LEONTES
INGRATITUDE
4 Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude.
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.
Heigh-ho, sing heigh-ho, unto the green holly
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly.
Then heigh-ho, the holly,
This life is most jolly.
Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
That dost not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot.
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp,
As friend remembered not.
As You Like It 2.7.174-89, AMIENS'S song
5 Ingratitude is monstrous.
Coriolanus 2.3.9, CITIZEN TO OTHERS
6 Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend.
King Lear 1.4.251, LEAR TO ALBANY, angered by Goneril
7 How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
To have a thankless child.
King Lear 1.4.280-1, LEAR TO ALBANY, angered by Goneril
140 I INGRATITUDE
1 I hate ingratitude more in a man
Than lying, vainness, babbling drunkenness,
Or any taint of vice whose strong corruption
Inhabits our frail blood.
Twelfth Night 3.4.353-6, VIOLA TO ANTONIO
INNOCENCE
2 Some innocents 'scape not the thunderbolt.
Antony and Cleopatra 2.5.77, CLEOPATRA TO CHARMIAN
3 I am a man
More sinned against than sinning.
King Lear 3.2.59-60, LEAR TO KENT
4 God and our innocence defend and guard us!
Richard III 3.5.20, BUCKINGHAM TO RICHARD
5 What we changed
Was innocence for innocence: we knew not
The doctrine of ill-doing, nor dreamed
That any did.
Winter's Tale 1.2.68-71, POLIXENES TO HERMIONE, of his boyhood friendship with
Leontes
6 The silence often of pure innocence
Persuades, when speaking fails.
Winter's Tale 2.2.41-2, PAULINA TO EMILIA - sadly wrong, at this point in the play
7 If powers divine
Behold our human actions (as they do),
I doubt not then but innocence shall make
False accusation blush.
Winter's Tale 3.2.27-30, HERMIONE, defending herself at her trial for infidelity
INSPIRATION
8 Or I could make a prologue to my brains,
They had begun the play.
Hamlet 5.2.30-1, HAMLET TO HORATIO; 'or' here means 'before'
9 O for a muse of fire!
Henry V Prologue 1, CHORUS; more at PLAYS, PLAYERS AND PLAYHOUSES
INSULTS
10 You are not worth another word, else I'd call you knave.
All's Well That Ends Well 2.3.262-3, LAFEW TO PAROLLES
INSULTS J 141
1 I do desire we may be better strangers.
As You Like It 3.2.255, ORLANDO TO JAQUES
2 Thou clay-brained guts, thou knotty-pated fool, thou whoreson
obscene greasy tallow-catch.
1 Henry IV2.4.222-4, PRINCE HAL TO FALSTAFF; one example among many in this play
3 There's no more faith in thee than in a stewed prune.
1 Henry IV 3.3.112-13, FALSTAFF TO HOSTESS QUICKLY
4 Thou honeysuckle villain.
2 Henry IV 2.1.50-1, HOSTESS QUICKLY TO FALSTAFF
5 Heap of wrath, foul indigested lump.
As crooked in thy manners as thy shape!
2 Henry VI 5.1.157-8, CLIFFORD TO RICHARD OF YORK
6 You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!
Julius Caesar 1.1.36, MARULLUS TO THE COMMONERS OF ROME
7 This is a slight unmeritable man,
Meet to be sent on errands.
Julius Caesar 4.1.12-13, MARK ANTONY TO OCTAVIUS, of Lepidus, supposed to be his
ally
8 Thou whoreson zed, thou unnecessary letter!
King Lear 2.2.64, KENT TO OSWALD
9 Some carry-tale, some please-man, some slight zany,
Some mumble-news, some trencher-knight, some Dick . . .
Told our intents before.
Love's Labour's Lost 5.2.463-4, 467, BEROWNE accusing BOYET of giving the game
away
10 FIRST MURDERER We are men, my Liege.
MACBETH Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men.
Macbeth 3.1.90-1
11 Thou lily-livered boy.
Macbeth 5.3.15, MACBETH TO A SERVANT
12 You Banbury cheese!
Merry Wives of Windsor 1.1.120, BARDOLPH TO SLENDER
13 Hang off, thou cat, thou burr!
Midsummer Night's Dream 3.2.260, LYSANDER to the clinging HERMIA
142 I INSULTS
1 KATHERINA Asses are made to bear, and so are you.
PETRUCHIO Women are made to bear, and so are you.
Taming of the Shrew 2.1.200-1
2 Such an injury would vex a saint.
Taming of the Shrew 3.2.28, BAPTISTA; 'injury' here means 'insult'
3 A whoreson beetle-headed, flap-eared knave!
Taming of the Shrew 4.1.145, PETRUCHIO TO KATHERINA, of a servant whom he has just
struck
4 Thou flea, thou nit, thou winter-cricket thou!
Taming of the Shrew 4.3.109, PETRUCHIO TO A TAILOR
5 Thou deboshed fish, thou.
Tempest 3.2.26-7, TRINCULO TO CALIBAN
See also APPEARANCE; CURSES
INTEGRITY
6 His nature is too noble for the world:
He would not flatter Neptune for his trident,
Or Jove for's power to thunder.
Coriolanus 3.1.255-7, MENENIUS, of Coriolanus
7 Would you have me
False to my nature? Rather say I play
The man I am.
Coriolanus 3.2.14-16, CORIOLANUS TO HIS MOTHER AND A NOBLEMAN
8 Not to be other than one thing.
Coriolanus 4.7.42, AUFIDIUS TO HIS LIEUTENANT, of Coriolanus
9 This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow as the night the day
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Hamlet 1.3.78-80, POLONIUS' advice to LAERTES; more at ADVICE
10 Where is truth if there be no self-trust?
Lucrèce 158
INTELLIGENCE, low
11 I am slow of study.
Midsummer Night's Dream 1.2.64, SNUG the joiner
12 Thou sodden-witted lord, thou hast no more brain than I have in mine
elbows.
Troilus and Cressida 2.1.43-4, THERSITES TO AIAX
JEALOUSY J 143
1 Ajax, who wears his wit in his belly and his guts in his head.
Troilus and Cressida 2.1.74-5, THERSITES TO ACHILLES, in the presence of Ajax
2 Here's Agamemnon: an honest fellow enough, . . . but he has not so
much brain as ear-wax.
Troilus and Cressida 5.1.51-3, THERSITES
ITALY AND THE ITALIANS
3 Those girls of Italy, take heed of them;
They say our French lack language to deny
If they demand.
All's Well That Ends Well 1.3.19-21, KING OF FRANCE
4 Proud Italy,
Whose manners still our tardy-apish nation
Limps after in base imitation.
Richard II 2.1.21-3, YORK TO JOHN OF GAUNT
Fruitful Lombardy,
5 The pleasant garden of great Italy.
Taming of the Shrew 1.1.3-4, LUCENTIO TO TRANIO
See also CITIES
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ y ^ ^ ^ I 5 ^ % ^ % ^ % ^ %^
JEALOUSY
6 Can Fulvia die?
Antony and Cleopatra 1.3.59, CLEOPATRA'S jealousy of Antony's wife
7 How many fond fools serve mad jealousy?
Comedy of Errors 2.1.117, LUCIANA TO ADRIANA
8 Green-eyed jealousy.
Merchant of Venice 3.2.110, PORTIA
9 It is my nature's plague
To spy into abuses, and oft my jealousy
Shapes faults that are not.
Othello 3.3.149-51, IAGO TO OTHELLO
144 I JEALOUSY
1 Beware . . . of jealousy!
It is the green-eyed monster, which doth mock
The meat it feeds on.
Othello 3.3.167-9, IAGO TO OTHELLO
2 Trifles light as air
Are to the jealous confirmations strong
As proofs of holy writ.
Othello 3.3.325-7, IAGO
3 Jealous souls will not be answered so:
They are not ever jealous for the cause,
But jealous for they're jealous. It is a monster
Begot upon itself, born on itself.
Othello 3.4.159-62, EMILIA TO DESDEMONA
4 One not easily jealous, but being wrought,
Perplexed in the extreme.
Othello 5.2.345-6, OTHELLO, of himself, to his colleagues before killing himself
5 Thou dost love her, because thou knowst I love her.
Sonnet 42.6
6 I must dance barefoot on her wedding-day,
And for your love to her lead apes in hell.
Taming of the Shrew 2.1.33-4, KATHERINA TO BAPTISTA, jealous of her sister; childless
women were supposed to lead apes into hell since they had no children to lead them
to heaven
7 Where love reigns, disturbing jealousy
Doth call himself affection's sentinel.
Venus and Adonis 649-50, VENUS
8 My heart dances,
But not for joy - not joy.
Winter's Tale 1.2.110-11, LEONTES
9 Inch-thick, knee-deep, o'er head and ears a forked one.
Winter's Tale 1.2.186, LEONTES, suspecting his wife Hermione of infidelity
10 Is whispering nothing?
Is leaning cheek to cheek? is meeting noses?
Kissing with inside lip? stopping the career
Of laughter with a sigh (a note infallible
Of breaking honesty)? horsing foot on foot?
Skulking in corners? wishing clocks more swift?
Winter's Tale 1.2.284-9, LEONTES TO CAMILLO
JOKES I 145
See also ENVY; INFIDELITY
JEWELS
1 It was my turquoise, I had it of Leah when I was a bachelor: I would
not have given it for a wilderness of monkeys.
Merchant ofVenice 3.1.112-15, SHYLOCK TO TUBAL
2 Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,
All scattered in the bottom of the sea.
Richard III 1.4.26-8, CLARENCE recounting his dream to the KEEPER OF THE TOWER
3 Dumb jewels often in their silent kind,
More than quick words, do move a woman's mind.
Two Gentlemen of Verona 3.1.90-1, VALENTINE TO THE DUKE
JEWS AND JEWISHNESS
4 SufPranee is the badge of all our tribe.
Merchant of Venice 1.3.108, SHYLOCK TO ANTONIO
5 You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog,
And spit upon my Jewish gaberdine.
Merchant of Venice 1.3.109-10, SHYLOCK TO ANTONIO
6 He hath disgraced me, and hindered me half a million, laughed at my
losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains,
cooled my friends, heated mine enemies, - and what's his reason? I am
a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions,
senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same
weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means,
warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is?
- if you prick us do we not bleed? if you tickle us do we not laugh? if
you poison us do we not die? and if you wrong us shall we not revenge?
- if we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that.
Merchant of Venice 3.1.50-63, SHYLOCK TO SALERIO
See also CHRISTIANS; DAUGHTERS; HATRED; RELIGION; USURY
JOKES
7 It would be argument for a week, laughter for a month, and a good jest
forever.
1 Henry IV 2.2.95, PRINCE HAL TO POINS, in the middle of a youthful escapade
146 I JOKES
1 O jest unseen, inscrutable, invisible,
As a nose on a man's face, or a weathercock on a steeple!
Two Gentlemen of Verona 2.1.132-3, SPEED
See also PLOTS; WIT
JOY
2 They threw their caps
As they would hang them on the horns of the moon.
Coriolanus 1.1.211-12, CORIOLANUS TO MENENIUS, of the people
3 Give me a gash, put me to present pain,
Lest this great sea of joys rushing upon me
O'erbear the shores of my mortality,
And drown me with their sweetness.
Pericles 5.1.192-5, PERICLES TO HELICANUS
4 Come what sorrow can,
It cannot countervail the exchange of joy
That one short minute gives me in her sight.
Romeo and Juliet 2.6.3-5, ROMEO TO FRIAR LAURENCE
5 They seemed almost, with staring on one another, to tear the cases of
their eyes: there was speech in their dumbness, language in their very
gesture; they looked as they had heard of a world ransomed, or one
destroyed.
Winter's Tale 5.2.12-16, GENTLEMAN TO AUTOLYCUS, of Leontes and Camillo when
Perdita is found
JUDGEMENT, good and bad
6 1*11 yet follow
The wounded chance of Antony, though my reason
Sits in the wind against me.
Antony and Cleopatra 3.10.35-7, ENOBARBUS
JUDGES AND JUDGEMENT
7 And then, the justice,
In fair round belly, with good capon lined,
With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws, and modern instances.
As You Like It 2.7.153-6, from JAQUES'S 'Seven Ages of Man' speech
8 See how yon justice rails upon yon simple thief. Hark in thine ear:
change places and handy-dandy, which is the justice, which is the thief.
King Lear 4.6.147-50, LEAR TO GLOUCESTER
JULIUS CAESAR | 147
1 When the judge is robbed, the prisoner dies.
Lucrèce 1652
2 I not deny
The jury passing on the prisoner's life
May in the sworn twelve have a thief, or two,
Guiltier than him they try.
Measure for Measure 2.1.18-21, ANGELO TO ESCALUS
3 How would you be
If He, which is the top of judgement, should
But judge you as you are?
Measure for Measure 2.2.75-7, ISABELLA TO ANGELO
4 A Daniel come to judgement: yea a Daniel!
Merchant of Venice 4.1.221, SHYLOCK, of Portia disguised as a lawyer
5 You are a worthy judge,
You know the law, your exposition
Hath been most sound
Merchant of Venice 4.1.234-6, SHYLOCK, of Portia disguised as a lawyer
6 The court awards it, and the law doth give it.
Merchant of Venice 4.1.298, PORTIA
7 An upright judge, a learned judge!
Merchant of Venice 4.1.321, GRATIANO, mocking SHYLOCK
8 It boots thee not to be compassionate;
After our sentence plaining comes too late.
Richard II 1.3.174-5, RICHARD, turning aside MOWBRAY'S 'compassionate'
(passionate) pleading
JULIET see ROMEO AND JULIET
JULIUS CAESAR
9 Caesar's ambition,
Which swelled so much that it did almost stretch
The sides o'th' world.
Cymheline 3.1.49-51, CYMBELINE TO CLOTEN AND HIS COURT
10 He doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs, and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves.
Julius Caesar 1.2.133-6, CASSIUS TO BRUTUS
148 I JULIUS CAESAR
1 Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed,
That he is grown so great?
Julius Caesar 1.2.147-8, CASSIUS TO BRUTUS
2 Caesar must bleed for it.
Julius Caesar 2.1.171, BRUTUS TO THE CONSPIRATORS
See much more at ELEGIES
JUSTICE
3 Use every man after his desert, and who shall scape whipping?
Hamlet 2.2.530-1, HAMLET TO POLONIUS; more at MANNER AND MANNERS
4 The enginer
Hoist with his own petard.
Hamlet 3.4.208-9, HAMLET TO GERTRUDE
5 Where th'offence is, let the great axe fall.
Hamlet 4.5.215, CLAUDIUS
6 As a woodcock to mine own springe,
1 am justly killed with mine own treachery.
Hamlet 5.2.315-16, LAERTES, who dies from the poisoned foil with which he meant to
kill Hamlet
7 Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just,
And he but naked, though locked up in steel,
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.
2 Henry VI 3.2.322-4, HENRY TO QUEEN MARGARET
8 Measure for measure must be answered.
3 Henry VI 2.6.55, WARWICK TO THE SONS OF RICHARD OF YORK; a reference to
Matthew 7.1-2: 'Judge not, that ye be not judged . . . With what measure ye mete, it
shall be measured to you again.' See also 149.1 below.
9 Be just, and fear not.
Henry VIII 3.2.446, CARDINAL WOLSEY TO CROMWELL
10 Ambition's debt is paid.
Julius Caesar 3.1.83, BRUTUS, on the death of Julius Caesar
11 The gods are just and of our pleasant vices
Make instruments to plague us.
King Lear 5.3.168-9, EDGAR TO EDMUND
12 Liberty plucks Justice by the nose.
Measure for Measure 1.3.29, DUKE TO FRIAR THOMAS
KINGSHIP AND RULE | 149
1 Like doth quit like, and Measure still for Measure.
Measure for Measure 5.1.407, DUKE TO ISABELLA
2 In the course of justice, none of us
Should see salvation.
Merchant of Venice 4.1.197-8, PORTIA
3 Since what I am to say, must be but that
Which contradicts my accusation, and
The testimony on my part, no other
But what comes from myself, it shall scarce boot me
To say 'not guilty'.
Winter's Tale 3.2.21-5, HERMIONE, conducting her own defence
See also FATE; JUDGES AND JUDGEMENT; MERCY
JUSTIFICATION
4 I have in equal balance justly weighed
What wrongs our arms may do, what wrongs we suffer,
And find our griefs heavier than our offences.
2 Henry IV 4.1.67-9, ARCHBISHOP OF YORK TO WESTMORELAND
5 To do a great right, do a little wrong.
Merchant of Venice 4.1.214, BASSANIO TO PORTIA
>^^S)t%^%:0^« Kl \ >^^S3t%^%:0^?<«
KINGSHIP AND RULE
6 The death of Antony
Is not a single doom; in the name lay
A moiety of the world.
Antony and Cleopatra 5.1.17-19, OCTAVIUS CAESAR TO DERCETUS
7 Our queen,
Th'imperial jointress to this warlike state.
Hamlet 1.2.8-9, CLAUDIUS, of Gertrude
8 His greatness weighed, his will is not his own.
For he himself is subject to his birth:
150 I KINGSHIP AND RULE
He may not, as unvalued persons do,
Carve for himself, for on his choice depends
The sanity and health of this whole state.
Hamlet 1.3.17-21, LAERTES TO OPHELIA
1 The cess of majesty
Dies not alone, but like a gulf doth draw
What's near with it.
Hamlet 3.3.15-17, ROSENCRANTZ flattering CLAUDIUS
2 Never alone
Did the King sigh, but with a general groan.
Hamlet 3.3.22-3, ROSENCRANTZ, from the same speech
3 There's such divinity doth hedge a king
That treason can but peep to what it would.
Hamlet 4.5.123-4, CLAUDIUS
4 Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky c r i b s , . . .
Than in the perfumed chambers of the great.
2 Henry IV 3.1.9,12, HENRY
5 Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.
2 Henry IV 3.1.31, HENRY
6 But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning
to make when all those legs and arms and heads chopped off in a
battle shall join together at the latter day and cry all 'We died at such a
place'.
Henry V 4.1.132-6, MICHAEL WILLIAMS, a soldier, to HENRY incognito
7 What infinite heart's ease
Must kings neglect that private men enjoy!
Henry V 4.1.232-3, HENRY; more at CEREMONY; SLEEP AND SLEEPLESSNESS
8 Nice customs curtsey to great kings.
Henry V 5.2.266, HENRY TO KATHERINE
9 How sweet a thing it is to wear a crown,
Within whose circuit is Elysium.
3 Henry VI 1.2.29-30, RICHARD, son of Richard of York, to HIS FATHER
10 I would not be a queen
For all the world.
Henry VIII 2.3.45-6, ANNE BULLEN (BOLEYN) TO HER COMPANION
KINGSHIP AND RULE | 151
1 When beggars die there are no comets seen;
The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.
Julius Caesar 2.2.30-1, CALPHURNIA TO JULIUS CAESAR
2 Every inch a king.
King Lear 4.6.106, LEAR, in his madness
3 Why should the private pleasure of some one
Become the public plague of many moe?
Lucrèce 1478-9, referring to Paris and Helen of Troy; cmoe' is 'more'
4 So doth the greater glory dim the less -
A substitute shines as brightly as a king
Until a king be by.
Merchant of Venice 5.1.93-5, PORTIA TO NERISSA
5 Kings are earth's gods; in vice their law's their will;
And if Jove stray, who dares say Jove doth ill?
Pericles 1.1.104-5, PERICLES TO ANTIOCHUS
6 We were not born to sue, but to command.
Richard II 1.1.196, RICHARD TO BOLINGBROKE AND MOWBRAY
7 Such is the breath of kings.
Richard II 1.3.215, BOLINGBROKE TO RICHARD, on the power of a king's words
8 Not all the water in the rough rude sea
Can wash the balm off from an anointed king.
Richard II 3.2.54-5, RICHARD TO AUMERLE
9 I live with bread like you, feel want,
Taste grief, need friends - subjected thus,
How can you say to me, I am a king?
Richard II 3.2.175-7, RICHARD TO AUMERLE AND SCROOPE; more at DEATH
10 What must the king do now? Must he submit?
The king shall do it. Must he be deposed?
The king shall be contented. Must he lose
The name of king? a God's name, let it go.
Richard II 3.3.143-6, RICHARD TO AUMERLE; more at RENUNCIATION
11 What subject can give sentence on his king?
Richard II 4.1.121, BISHOP OF CARLISLE TO BOLINGBROKE
12 Give me the crown. Here, cousin, seize the crown.
Here, cousin,
152 I KINGSHIP AND RULE
On this side my hand, and on that side thine.
Now is this golden crown like a deep well
That owes two buckets, filling one another,
The emptier ever dancing in the air,
The other down, unseen, and full of water.
That bucket down and full of tears am I,
Drinking my griefs, whilst you mount up on high.
Richard II 4.1.181-9, RICHARD TO BOLINGBROKE
1 O that I were a mockery king of snow,
Standing before the sun of Bolingbroke,
To melt myself away in water-drops!
Richard II 4.1.260-2, RICHARD TO NORTHUMBERLAND
See also CONTENTMENT; SLEEP AND SLEEPLESSNESS
KISSES AND KISSING
2 Nay, you were better speak first, and when you were gravelled for lack
of matter, you might take occasion to kiss.
As You Like It 4.1.69-71, ROSALIND TO ORLANDO
3 I kissed thee ere I killed thee: no way but this,
Killing myself, to die upon a kiss.
Othello 5.2.358-9, OTHELLO, dying
4 On the touching of her lips I may
Melt and no more be seen.
Pericles 5.3.42-3, PERICLES to his long-lost wife THAISA
5 Teach not thy lip such scorn; for it was made
For kissing.
Richard III 1.2.175-6, RICHARD TO ANNE
6 My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
Romeo and Juliet 1.5.95-6, ROMEO TO JULIET
7 Saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.
Romeo and Juliet 1.5.99-100, JULIET'S reply to ROMEO
8 You kiss by th' book.
Romeo and Juliet 1.5.110, JULIET TO ROMEO
LAW AND LAWYERS | 153
1 Lips, O you
The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss
A dateless bargain to engrossing Death.
Romeo and Juliet 5.3.113-15; ROMEO kisses JULIET before dying
2 Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty:
Youth's a stuff will not endure.
Twelfth Night 2.3.51-2, FESTE'S song; more at LOVE
3 I'll smother thee with kisses.
Venus and Adonis 18
4 She murders with a kiss.
Venus and Adonis 54, of Venus
5 Incorporate then they seem, face grows to face.
Venus and Adonis 540
KNOWLEDGE
6 I know you what you are.
King Lear 1.1.271, CORDELIA TO HER SISTERS
7 Ask me not what I know.
King Lear 5.3.158, EDMUND TO ALBANY
8 Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck,
Till thou applaud the deed.
Macbeth 3.2.45-6, MACBETH TO LADY MACBETH
9 Seek to know no more.
Macbeth 4.1.103, WITCHES TO MACBETH
10 Come sir, I know what I know.
Measure for Measure 3.2.146, Lucio TO THE DUKE, disguised as a friar
^3C^%^%^5«
LAW AND LAWYERS
11 The law's delay.
Hamlet 3.1.72, HAMLET
L ^o^^^y^^^
154 I LAW AND LAWYERS
1 Why, may not that be the skull of a lawyer? Where be his quiddities
now, his quillities, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks?
Hamlet 5.1.98-100, HAMLET TO HORATIO, examining skulls in the graveyard
2 Old father Antic the law.
1 Henry IV 1.2.59, FALSTAFF TO PRINCE HAL
3 An honest man, sir, is able to speak for himself, when a knave is not.
2 Henry iV 5.1.44-5, DAVY TO SHALLOW
4 These nice sharp quillets of the law.
1 Henry VI 2.4.17, WARWICK TO LORDS (at the scene of the affiliation to the red rose
and the white)
5 The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.
2 Henry VI 4.2.74, BUTCHER TO JACK CADE, leader of a popular rebellion
6 What makes robbers bold but too much lenity?
3 Henry VI 2.6.22, CLIFFORD
7 His own opinion was his law.
Henry VIII 4.2.37, KATHERINE OF ARAGON TO GRIFFITH, the usher, of Cardinal Wolsey
8 We have strict statutes and most biting laws.
Measure for Measure 1.3.19, DUKE TO FRIAR THOMAS
9 We must not make a scarecrow of the law,
Setting it up to fear the birds of prey,
And let it keep one shape till custom make it
Their perch, and not their terror.
Measure for Measure 2.1.1-4, ANGELO TO ESCALUS
10 The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept.
Measure for Measure 2.2.91, ANGELO TO ISABELLA
11 In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt,
But being seasoned with a gracious voice,
Obscures the show of evil?
Merchant of Venice 3.2.75-7, BASSANIO
12 I will make a Star Chamber matter of it.
Merry Wives of Windsor 1.1.1-2, SHALLOW TO SLENDER
13 Let's choose executors and talk of wills.
Richard II 3.2.148, RICHARD TO LORDS
LETTERS I 155
1 Do as adversaries do in law,
Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.
Taming of the Shrew 1.2.274-5, TRANIO TO GRUMIO AND BIONDELLO
2 Pity is the virtue of the law.
Timon of Athens 3.5.8, ALCIBIADES TO TWO SENATORS
3 The law, which is past depth
To those that, without heed, do plunge into't.
Timon of Athens 3.5.12-13, ALCIBIADES TO TWO SENATORS
4 Still you keep o'th' windy side of the law.
Twelfth Night 3.4.163, FABIAN TO SIR TOBY BELCH
5 Let the law go whistle.
Winter's Tale 4.4.700, SHEPHERD'S SON TO THE SHEPHERD
See also CONTRACTS; JUDGES AND JUDGEMENT; JUSTICE
LAZINESS see EASY LIFE
LEADERSHIP
6 The choice and master spirits of this age.
Julius Caesar 3.1.163, MARK ANTONY TO BRUTUS
7 Those he commands move only in command,
Nothing in love.
Macbeth 5.2.19-20, ANGUS TO COMPANIONS
8 We cannot all be masters.
Othello 1.1.42, IAGO TO RODERIGO
LETTERS
9 There are some shrewd contents in yond same paper
That steals the colour from Bassanio's cheek.
Merchant of Venice 3.2.242-3, PORTIA
10 Here are a few of the unpleasant'st words
That ever blotted paper!
Merchant of Venice 3.2.250-1, BASSANIO TO PORTIA
11 I warrant he hath a thousand of these letters, writ with blank space for
different names.
Merry Wives of Windsor 2.1.68-9, MISTRESS PAGE TO MISTRESS FORD, of Falstaff and
his love letters
156 I LIES
LIES
1 Falsehood
Is worse in kings than beggars.
Cymbeline 3.6.13-14, IMOGEN
2 It is as easy as lying.
Hamlet 3.2.359, HAMLET TO GUILDENSTERN
3 Give me leave to tell you you lie in your throat.
2 Henry IV 1.2.84-5, SERVANT TO FALSTAFF
4 Lord, Lord, how subject we old men are to this vice of lying!
2 Henry iV 3.2.298-9, FALSTAFF; one comment on lying, amongst many from him
5 Shall Caesar send a lie?
Julius Caesar 2.2.65, JULIUS CAESAR TO CALPHURNIA
6 Detested kite, thou liest.
King Lear 1.4.254, LEAR TO GONERIL
7 She was as false as water.
Othello 5.2.132, OTHELLO TO EMILIA. Jacob (Genesis 49.4) calls his eldest son Reuben
'unstable as water', which, as here, seems to imply both general unreliability and
sexual betrayal.
8 Perjury, perjury, in the highest degree.
Richard III 5.3.197, RICHARD, finally a prey to guilt
9 At lovers' perjuries
They say Jove laughs.
Romeo and Juliet 2.2.92-3, JULIET TO ROMEO
10 There's no trust,
No faith, no honesty in men. All perjured,
All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers.
Romeo and Juliet 3.2.85-7, NURSE TO JULIET
11 When my love swears that she is made of truth,
I do believe her, though I know she lies.
Sonnet 138.1-2
See also APPEARANCES; HYPOCRISY; POLICE; TALK
LIFE
12 The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together.
All's Well That Ends Well 4.3.68-9, ONE LORD TO ANOTHER
LIFE I 157
1 I love long life better than figs.
Antony and Cleopatra 1.2.33, CHARMIAN TO A SOOTHSAYER; 'figs' has a sexual
implication
2 All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Then, the whining school-boy with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then, a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden, and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then, the justice,
In fair round belly, with good capon lined,
With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws, and modern instances,
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side,
His youthful hose well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
As You Like It 2.7.139-166, JAQUES'S 'Seven Ages of Man' speech to DUKE SENIOR and
HIS COMPANIONS in the Forest of Arden
3 I do not set my life at a pin's fee.
Hamlet 1.4.65, HAMLET TO HORATIO
4 POLONIUS My lord, I will take my leave of you.
HAMLET YOU cannot, sir, take from me anything that I will not more
willingly part withal - except my life, except my life, except my life.
Hamlet 2.2.213-17
158 I LIFE
1 Lambkins, we will live.
Henry V 2.1.126, life in the face of death; PISTOL TO FALSTAFF'S OTHER COMPANIONS,
giving them heart as they go to console him on his deathbed
2 As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods,
They kill us for their sport.
King Lear 4.1.38-9, GLOUCESTER TO AN OLD MAN
3 When we are born we cry that we are come
To this great stage of fools.
King Lear 4.6.178-9, LEAR TO GLOUCESTER
4 Had I but died an hour before this chance,
I had lived a blessed time; for, from this instant,
There's nothing serious in mortality;
All is but toys: renown, and grace, is dead;
The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees
Is left this vault to brag of.
Macbeth 2.3.89-94, MACBETH, publicly lamenting the death of Duncan
5 Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Macbeth 5.5.19-28, MACBETH TO SEYTON
6 Thou hast nor youth, nor age,
But as it were an after-dinner's sleep
Dreaming on both; for all thy blessed youth
Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms
Of palsied eld: and when thou art old and rich,
Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty
To make thy riches pleasant. What's yet in this
That bears the name of life?
Measure for Measure 3.1.32-9, DUKE, disguised as a friar, to CLAUDIO
7 Put out the light, and then put out the light!
If I quench thee, thou flaming minister,
LOSS I 159
I can again thy former light restore
Should I repent me. But once put out thy light,
Thou cunning'st pattern of excelling nature,
I know not where is that Promethean heat
That can thy light relume.
Othello 5.2.7-13, OTHELLO, contemplating the sleeping Desdemona
1 The music of men's lives.
Richard II 5.5.44, RICHARD; more at MUSIC
2 Nativity, once in the main of light,
Crawls to maturity.
Sonnet 60.5-6
3 We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
Tempest 4.1.156-8, PROSPERO TO MIRANDA AND FERDINAND
4 Life's uncertain voyage.
Timon of Athens 5.1.202, TIMON TO SENATORS
See also BIRTH AND CHILDBEARINC; EASY LIFE; FATE; FORTUNE; LIFE, making
the most of; TRANSIENCE; WEARINESS
LIFE, making the most of
5 The time of life is short!
To spend that shortness basely were too long
If life did ride upon a dial's point,
Still ending at the arrival of an hour.
1 Henry iV 5.2.81-4, HOTSPUR TO A MESSENGER
LOOKING
6 In silent wonder of still-gazing eyes.
Lucrèce 84; Tarquin sets eyes on Lucrèce
7 Looks kill love, and love by looks reviveth.
Venus and Adonis 464
LOSS
8 We have kissed away
Kingdoms and provinces.
Antony and Cleopatra 3.10.7-8, SCARUS TO ENOBARBUS
9 Othello's occupation's gone.
Othello 3.3.360, OTHELLO, with Iago
160 I LOSS
1 O you gods!
Why do you make us love your goodly gifts,
And snatch them straight away?
Pericles 3.1.22-4, PERICLES
2 Time will come and take my love away.
This thought is as a death, which cannot choose
But weep to have that which it fears to lose.
Sonnet 64.12-14
3 VIOLA What country, friends, is this?
CAPTAIN This is Illyria, lady.
VIOLA And what should I do in Illyria?
My brother he is in Elysium.
Twelfth Night 1.2.1-4
LOVE
4 'Twere all one
That I should love a bright particular star
And think to wed it, he is so above me.
All's Well That Ends Well 1.1.86-8, HELENA
5 Love that comes too late.
All's Well That Ends Well 4.3.57, KING OF FRANCE
6 There's beggary in the love that can be reckoned.
Antony and Cleopatra 1.1.15, ANTONY TO CLEOPATRA
7 Eternity was in our lips and eyes,
Bliss in our brows' bent; none our parts so poor
But was a race of heaven.
Antony and Cleopatra 1.3.36-8, CLEOPATRA TO ANTONY
8 If thou remember'st not the slightest folly
That ever love did make thee run into,
Thou hast not loved.
As You Like It 2.4.32-4, SILVIUS TO CORIN
9 ROSALIND Not true in love?
CELIA Yes, when he is in, but I think he is not in.
As You Like It 3.4.25-6
10 The sight of lovers feedeth those in love.
As You Like It 3.4.54, ROSALIND TO CORIN AND CELIA
LOVE I l 6 l
1 This is the very ecstasy of love,
Whose violent property fordoes itself
And leads the will to desperate undertakings.
Hamlet 2.1.103-5, POLONIUS TO OPHELIA
2 What shall Cordelia speak? Love, and be silent.
King Lear 1.1.62, CORDELIA, when she hears her sister speaking grandiloquently of her
love for her father
3 Adieu, valour! rust, rapier! be still, drum! for your manager is in love.
Love's Labour's Lost 1.2.175-6, ARMADO
4 This wimpled, whining, purblind, wayward boy.
Love's Labour's Lost 3.1.180, BEROWNE TO COSTARD, of Cupid
5 Love, first learned in a lady's eyes,
Lives not alone immured in the brain,
But, with the motion of all elements,
Courses as swift as thought in every power,
And gives to every power a double power,
Above their functions and their offices.
Love's Labour's Lost 4.3.323-8, BEROWNE TO HIS FRIENDS
6 A heart to love, and in that heart
Courage, to make's love known.
Macbeth 2.3.115-16, MACBETH TO MACDUFF
7 Tell me where is Fancy bred,
Or in the heart, or in the head?
How begot, how nourished?
It is engendered in the eyes . . .
Merchant of Venice 3.2.63-5, 67, song
8 I have pursued her as love hath pursued me; which hath been on the
wing of all occasions.
Merry Wives of Windsor 2.2.194-6, FORD, in disguise, to FALSTAFF, of his own wife
9 The course of true love never did run smooth.
Midsummer Night's Dream 1.1.134, LYSANDER TO HERMIA
10 Brief as the lightning in the collied night.
Midsummer Night's Dream 1.1.145, LYSANDER TO HERMIA, on love
11 Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.
Midsummer Night's Dream 1.1.234-5, HELENA
162 I LOVE
1 Cupid is a knavish lad
Thus to make poor females mad!
Midsummer Night's Dream 3.2.440-1, PUCK
2 Speak low, if you speak love.
Much Ado About Nothing 2.1.91, DON PEDRO TO HERO
3 Let every eye negotiate for itself,
And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch
Against whose charms faith melteth into blood.
Much Ado About Nothing 2.1.169-71, CLAUDIO
4 Loving goes by haps:
Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.
Much Ado About Nothing 3.1.105-6, HERO
5 She loved me for the dangers I had passed
And I loved her that she did pity them.
Othello 1.3.168-9, OTHELLO TO THE DUKE OF VENICE
6 One that loved not wisely, but too well.
Othello 5.2.344, OTHELLO, of himself, to HIS COLLEAGUES, before killing himself
7 Love and constancy is dead;
Phoenix and the Turtle fled
In a mutual flame from hence.
So they loved, as love in twain
Had the essence but in one:
Two distincts, division none.
Phoenix and Turtle 22-7
8 O heavy lightness, serious vanity,
Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms!
Romeo and Juliet 1.1.178-9, ROMEO TO BENVOLIO - before he has met Juliet
9 Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs;
Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes;
Being vexed, a sea nourished with lovers' tears;
What is it else? A madness most discreet,
A choking gall, and a preserving sweet.
Romeo and Juliet 1.1.190-4, ROMEO TO BENVOLIO
10 Is love a tender thing? It is too rough,
Too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn.
Romeo and Juliet 1.4.25-6, ROMEO TO MERCUTIO
1 What love can do, that dares love attempt.
Romeo and Juliet 2.2.68, ROMEO TO JULIET
2 This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath,
May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.
Romeo and Juliet 2.2.121-2, JULIET TO ROMEO
3 It is a greater grief
To bear love's wrong, than hate's known injury.
Sonnet 40.11-12
4 The prize of all-too-precious you.
Sonnet 86.2
5 Let not my love be called idolatry.
Sonnet 105.1
6 Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments.
Sonnet 116.1-2
7 Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no, it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark.
Sonnet 116.2-7; more at TIME
8 Two loves I have, of comfort and despair.
Sonnet 144.1
9 Love is too young to know what conscience is.
Sonnet 151.1
10 Spirit of love, how quick and fresh art thou.
Twelfth Night 1.1.9, ORSINO TO CURIO
11 O mistress mine, where are you roaming?
O stay and hear, your true love's coming,
That can sing both high and low.
Trip no further, pretty sweeting:
Journeys end in lovers meeting,
Every wise man's son doth know.
Twelfth Night 2.3.39-44, FESTE'S song; more at PRESENT, the
164 I LOVE
1 She never told her love,
But let concealment like a worm i'th' bud
Feed on her damask cheek. She pined in thought,
And with a green and yellow melancholy
She sat like Patience on a monument,
Smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed?
Twelfth Night 2.4.111-16, VIOLA, as Cesario, to ORSINO, of herself
2 JULIA They do not love that do not show their love.
LUCETTA O, they love least that let men know their love.
Two Gentlemen of Verona 1.2.31-2; a classic dilemma
3 O, how this spring of love resembleth
The uncertain glory of an April day,
Which now shows all the beauty of the sun,
And by and by a cloud takes all away.
Two Gentlemen of Verona 1.3.84-7, PROTEUS
4 Love will not be spurred to what it loathes.
Two Gentlemen of Verona 5.3.7, JULIA
5 Love keeps his revels where there are but twain.
Venus and Adonis 123
6 Love is a spirit all compact of fire.
Venus and Adonis 149
7 Prosperity's the very bond of love,
Whose fresh complexion and whose heart together
Affliction alters.
Winter's Tale 4.4.575-7, CAMILLO TO FLORIZEL AND PERDITA
See also FLIRTATION AND SEDUCTION; LOVE, being in; LOVE, cooling; LOVE,
expressions of; LOVE, falling in; SEX AND LUST
LOVE, being in
8 What did he when thou saw'st him? What said he? How looked he?
Wherein went he? What makes he here? Did he ask for me? Where
remains he? How parted he with thee? And when shalt thou see him
again? Answer me in one word.
As You Like It 3.2.217-21, ROSALIND TO CELIA
9 JAQUES What stature is she of?
ORLANDO Just as high as my heart.
As You Like It 3.2.265-6
LOVE, cooling | 165
1 The worst fault you have is to be in love.
As You Like It 3.2.278, JAQUES TO ORLANDO
2 Then your hose should be ungartered, your bonnet unhanded, your
sleeve unbuttoned, your shoe untied, and everything about you
demonstrating a careless desolation.
As You Like It 3.2.369-74, ROSALIND TO ORLANDO
3 O coz, coz, coz, my pretty little coz, that thou didst know how many
fathom deep I am in love!
As You Like It 4.1.197-8, ROSALIND TO CELIA
4 Love hath made thee a tame snake.
As You Like It 4.3.69-70, ROSALIND TO SILVIUS
5 Thinking of nothing else, putting all affairs else in oblivion, as if there
were nothing else to be done but to see him.
2 Henry IV 5.5.25-7, FALSTAFF describing himself to SHALLOW and PISTOL, as he waits
to greet the new King Henry V (who will reject him; see BETRAYAL)
6 My mistress with a monster is in love.
Midsummer Night's Dream 3.2.6, PUCK TO OBERON
7 My Oberon! what visions have I seen!
Methought I was enamoured of an ###.
Midsummer Night's Dream 4.1.75-6, TITANIA TO OBERON
8 Alas, poor hurt fowl, now will he creep into sedges.
Much Ado About Nothing 2.1.191-2, BENEDICK, of Claudio
9 I will not be sworn but love may transform me to an oyster.
Much Ado About Nothing 2.3.23-4, BENEDICK on the transforming powers of love
10 What a pretty thing man is when he goes in his doublet and hose and
leaves off his wit!
Much Ado About Nothing 5.1.195-6, DON PEDRO TO CLAUDIO, of Benedick
11 I am to wait, though waiting so be hell.
Sonnet 58.13
LOVE, cooling
12 I did love you once.
Hamlet 3.1.115, HAMLET TO OPHELIA
13 Time qualifies the spark and fire of it.
Hamlet 4.7.113, CLAUDIUS, referring to love
166 I LOVE, cooling
1 That time . . .
When love, converted from the thing it was,
Shall reasons find of settled gravity.
Sonnet 49.5, 7-8
2 Tell me thou lov'st elsewhere; but in my sight,
Dear heart, forbear to glance thine eye aside.
Sonnet 139.5-6
3 I was adored once too.
Twelfth Night 2.3.178, SIR ANDREW AGUECHEEK TO SIR TOBY BELCH
LOVE, expressions of
4 Hang there like fruit, my soul,
Till the tree die.
Cymbeline 5.5.263-4, POSTHUMUS TO IMOGEN
5 Doubt thou the stars are fire,
Doubt that the sun doth move,
Doubt truth to be a liar,
But never doubt I love.
Hamlet 2.2.115-18, POLONIUS, reading a letter from Hamlet to Ophelia (with some
scorn at his poor poetical ability)
6 I know no ways to mince it in love but directly to say T love you.'
Henry V 5.2.125-6, HENRY TO KATHERINE
7 You have witchcraft in your lips.
Henry V 5.2.273, HENRY TO KATHERINE
8 For where thou art, there is the world itself,...
And where thou art not, desolation.
2 Henry VI 3.2.361, 363, SUFFOLK TO QUEEN MARGARET
9 I do love you . . .
Dearer than eyesight, space and liberty.
King Lear 1.1.55-6, GONERIL TO LEAR
10 What's mine is yours, and what is yours is mine.
Measure for Measure 5.1.533, DUKE TO ISABELLA
11 You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant.
Midsummer Night's Dream 2.1.195, HELENA TO DEMETRIUS
12 I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man sweai he loves me.
Much Ado About Nothing 1.1.126-7, BEATRICE TO BENEDICK
LOVE, expressions of | 167
1 I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried in thy eyes; and
moreover, I will go with thee to thy uncle's.
Much Ado About Nothing 5.2.95-7, BENEDICK TO BEATRICE
2 Excellent wretch! perdition catch my soul
But I do love thee! and when I love thee not
Chaos is come again.
Othello 3.3.90-2, OTHELLO, with lago, referring to Desdemona
3 See how she leans her cheek upon her hand.
O that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek.
Romeo and Juliet 2.2.23-5, ROMEO
4 You alone are you.
Sonnet 84.2
5 My five wits, nor my five senses, can
Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee.
Sonnet 141.9-10
6 Who taught thee how to make me love thee more,
The more I hear and see just cause of hate?
Sonnet 150.9-10
7 Kiss me, Kate, we will be married o' Sunday.
Taming of the Shrew 2.1.318, PETRUCHIO TO KATHERINA
8 Hear my soul speak:
The very instant that I saw you, did
My heart fly to your service.
Tempest 3.1.63-5, FERDINAND TO MIRANDA
9 ARIEL DO you love me, master? No?
PROSPERO Dearly, my delicate Ariel.
Tempest 4.1.48-9
10 What light is light, if Silvia be not seen?
What joy is joy, if Silvia be not by?. . .
Except I be by Silvia in the night,
There is no music in the nightingale.
Two Gentlemen of Verona 3.1.174-5,178-9, VALENTINE
See also ROMEO AND JULIET
168 I LOVE, falling in
LOVE, falling in
1 What think you of falling in love?
As You Like It 1.2.24, ROSALIND TO CELIA
2 Dead shepherd, now I find thy saw of might,
'Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?'
As You Like It 3.5.81-2, PHEBE TO SILVIUS; the second reference to Christopher
Marlowe - the 'dead shepherd' - Shakespeare's recently murdered contemporary, in
a short space; this is to his Hero and Leander (1.176). See also POETRY.
3 For your brother and my sister no sooner met, but they looked; no
sooner looked, but they loved; no sooner loved, but they sighed; no
sooner sighed, but they asked one another the reason; no sooner knew
the reason, but they sought the remedy.
As You Like It 5.2.32-7, ROSALIND TO ORLANDO
4 Are you a god? would you create me new?
Comedy of Errors 3.2.39; ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE falls in love with his twin brother's
wife's sister
5 FERDINAND My prime request,
Which I do last pronounce, is, O you wonder!
If you be maid or no?
MIRANDA NO wonder, sir;
But certainly a maid.
Tempest 1.2.428-31
6 At the first sight
They have changed eyes.
Tempest 1.2.443-4, PROSPERO, observing the exchange above
7 The very instant that I saw you, did
My heart fly to your service.
Tempest 3.1.64-5, FERDINAND TO MIRANDA
8 I was won . . . / With the first glance.
Troilus and Cressida 3.2.115-16, CRESSIDA TO TROILUS
LOVERS
9 And then the lover,
Sighing like a furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow.
As You Like It 2.7.147-9, from JAQUES'S 'Seven Ages of Man' speech
10 Lovers ever run before the clock.
Merchant of Venice 2.6.4, GRATIANO TO SALERIO
LUCK I 169
1 Love is blind, and lovers cannot see
The pretty follies that themselves commit.
Merchant of Venice 2.6.36-7, JESSICA TO LORENZO
2 BOTTOM What is Pyramus? A lover, or a tyrant?
QUINCE A lover, that kills himself most gallant for love.
Midsummer Night's Dream 1.2.20-1
3 A pair of star-crossed lovers.
Romeo and Juliet Prologue 6, CHORUS
4 Lovers can see to do their amorous rites
By their own beauties.
Romeo and Juliet 3.2.8-9, JULIET
5 Lovers break not hours,
Unless it be to come before their time.
Two Gentlemen of Verona 5.1.4-5, EGLAMOUR
See also LOVE; ROMEO AND JULIET
LOYALTY
6 Is old dog my reward? Most true, I have lost my teeth in your service.
As You Like Jt 1.1.80-1, old ADAM, to OLIVER who insults him
7 O! where is faith? O! where is loyalty?
2 Henry VI 5.1.166, HENRY TO LORDS
8 A jewel in a ten-times barred-up chest
Is a bold spirit in a loyal breast.
Richard II 1.1.180-1, MOWBRAY TO RICHARD
LUCK
9 The very dice obey him.
Antony and Cleopatra 2.3.32, ANTONY, of Ventidius
10 I bear a charmed life.
Macbeth 5.8.12, MACBETH TO MACDUFF
11 As good luck would have it.
Merry Wives of Windsor 3.5.89, FALSTAFF TO FORD
12 This is the third time; I hope good luck lies in odd numbers . . . They
say there is divinity in odd numbers, either in nativity, chance, or
death.
Merry Wives of Windsor 5.1.1-4, FALSTAFF TO MISTRESS QUICKLY
170 I LUCK
1 'Tis a lucky day, boy, and we'll do good deeds on 't.
Winter's Tale 3.3.134-5, SHEPHERD TO HIS SON
See also CHANCE; FORTUNE
j)t%^%^%^%^ / \ / 1 fc%^*%^%^%^
MADNESS
2 An antic disposition.
Hamlet 1.5.180, HAMLET TO HORATIO; he proposes to behave strangely to confuse
those around him
3 POLONIUS Do you know me, my lord?
HAMLET Excellent well. You are a fishmonger.
Hamlet 2.2.173-4
4 Though this be madness, yet there is method in't.
Hamlet 2.2.205-6, POLONIUS
5 I am but mad north-north-west. When the wind is southerly, I know a
hawk from a handsaw.
Hamlet 2.2.379-80, HAMLET TO ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN
6 O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!
Hamlet 3.1.151, OPHELIA, of Hamlet
7 Now see that noble and most sovereign reason
Like sweet bells jangled out of tune and harsh,
That unmatched form and feature of blown youth
Blasted with ecstasy.
Hamlet 3.1.158-61, OPHELIA, of Hamlet
8 Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.
Hamlet 3.1.189, CLAUDIUS
9 HAMLET DO you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel?
POLONIUS By th' mass and 'tis - like a camel indeed.
HAMLET Methinks it is like a weasel.
POLONIUS It is backed like a weasel.
HAMLET Or like a whale.
MADNESS I 171
POLONIUS Very like a whale . . .
HAMLET [aside] They fool me to the top of my bent.
Hamlet 3.2.377-84, 386
1 His madness is poor Hamlet's enemy.
Hamlet 5.2.238, HAMLET TO LAERTES AND CLAUDIUS
2 I am not mad: I would to heaven I were!
For then 'tis like I should forget myself.
King John 3.3.48-9, CONSTANCE, who has lost her son, to PHILIP, KING OF FRANCE and
CARDINAL PANDULPH
3 O let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven! I would not be mad.
King Lear 1.5.43-4, LEAR
4 My wits begin to turn.
King Lear 3.2.67, LEAR TO KENT
5 That way madness lies.
King Lear 3.4.21, LEAR TO KENT, thinking about Goneril and Regan
6 Trouble him not; his wits are gone.
King Lear 3.6.85, KENT TO GLOUCESTER, of Lear
7 Matter and impertinency mixed,
Reason in madness.
King Lear 4.6.170-1, EDGAR, of Lear in his madness
8 These deeds must not be thought
After these ways: so, it will make us mad.
Macbeth 2.2.32-3, LADY MACBETH TO MACBETH
9 Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,
Raze out the written troubles of the brain,
And with some sweet oblivious antidote
Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart?
Macbeth 5.3.40-5, MACBETH TO THE DOCTOR
10 As mad as a March hare.
Two Noble Kinsmen 3.5.74, ONE COUNTRYMAN TO ANOTHER; proverbial
11 You, that are thus so tender o'er his follies,
Will never do him good.
Winter's Tale 2.3.127-8, PAULINA TO LEONTES' ATTENDANTS
172 I MADNESS
See also DOCTORS AND MEDICINE; ILLNESS AND DISEASE; IMAGINATION
MAGIC
1 This rough magic
1 here abjure.
Tempest 5.1.50-1, PROSPERO; more at RETIREMENT
2 The charm dissolves apace.
Tempest 5.1.64, PROSPERO
See also APPARITIONS; FAIRIES; SUPERNATURAL, the; WITCHES
MANIPULATION
3 You would play upon me, you would seem to know my stops, you
would pluck out the heart of my mystery, you would sound me from
my lowest note to the top of my compass;... 'Sblood, do you think I
am easier to be played on than a pipe?
Hamlet 3.2.366-9, 371-2, HAMLET TO GUILDENSTERN
MANNER AND MANNERS
4 Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Hamlet 1.3.61, POLONIUS' advice to LAERTES; more at ADVICE
5 Use them after your own honour and dignity: the less they deserve, the
more merit is in your bounty.
Hamlet 2.2.532-3, HAMLET TO POLONIUS, of the players; more at JUSTICE
6 It is certain that either wise bearing or ignorant carriage is caught, as
men take diseases, one of another; therefore let men take heed of their
company.
2 Henry IV 5.1.74-7, FALSTAFF
7 We are the makers of manners, Kate, and the liberty that follows our
places stops the mouth of all find-faults.
Henry V 5.2.268-70, HENRY TO KATHERINE, on the benefits of high position
8 Exceeding wise, fair-spoken and persuading;
Lofty and sour to them that loved him not,
But to those men that sought him, sweet as summer.
Henry VIII 4.2.52-4, GRIFFITH, an usher, to KATHERINE OF ARAGON, of Cardinal
Wolsey
9 Civil as an orange, and something of that jealous complexion.
Much Ado About Nothing 2.1.276-7, BEATRICE TO DON PEDRO, of Claudio
10 We must be gentle, now we are gentlemen.
Winter's Tale 5.2.152-3, SHEPHERD TO HIS SON
MARRIAGE | 173
MARK ANTONY
1 Our courteous Antony,
Whom ne'er the word of 'No' woman heard speak,
Being barbered ten times o'er, goes to the feast.
Antony and Cleopatra 2.2.232-4, ENOBARBUS TO AGRIPPA
2 O Antony! O thou Arabian bird!
Antony and Cleopatra 3.2.12, AGRIPPA TO ENOBARBUS
3 Not Caesar's valour hath o'erthrown Antony,
But Antony's hath triumphed on itself.
Antony and Cleopatra 4.15.15-16, ANTONY TO CLEOPATRA
4 He is given
To sports, to wildness, and much company.
Julius Caesar 2.1.188-9, BRUTUS, rejecting the idea of Mark Antony as a danger
MARRIAGE
5 Get thee a good husband, and use him as he uses thee.
AIVs Well That Ends Well 1.1.214-15, PAROLLES TO HELENA
6 If men could be contented to be what they are, there were no fear in
marriage.
AIVs Well That Ends Well 1.3.50-1, CLOWN TO COUNTESS OF ROSSILLION
7 Wars is no strife
To the dark house and the detested wife.
AIVs Well That Ends Well 2.3.290-1, BERTRAM TO PAROLLES; 'to' means 'in
comparison with'
8 A young man married is a man that's marred.
AIVs Well That Ends Well 2.3.297, PAROLLES' contribution to the same debate
9 Hath homely age th'alluring beauty took
From my poor cheek? then he hath wasted it.
Comedy of Errors 2.1.90-1, ADRIANA, the married sister, to the unmarried LUCIANA
10 Thou say'st his meat was sauced with thy upbraidings;
Unquiet meals make ill digestions;...
Thou say'st his sports were hindered by thy brawls;
Sweet recreation barred, what doth ensue
But moody and dull melancholy?
Comedy of Errors 5.1.74-5, 77-9, ABBESS TO ADRIANA, her daughter-in-law
11 With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage.
Hamlet 1.2.12, CLAUDIUS excusing his marriage to Gertrude
174 I MARRIAGE
1 The instances that second marriage move
Are base respects of thrift, but none of love.
Hamlet 3.2.184-5, PLAYER QUEEN TO PLAYER KING
2 Marriage is a matter of more worth
Than to be dealt in by attorneyship.
1 Henry VI5-5-55-6, SUFFOLK TO OTHER LORDS
3 For what is wedlock forced but a hell,
An age of discord and continual strife?
Whereas the contrary bringeth bliss,
And is a pattern of celestial peace.
1 Henry VI 5.5.62-5, SUFFOLK TO OTHER LORDS
4 Hasty marriage seldom proveth well.
3 Henry VI 4.1.18, RICHARD OF GLOUCESTER TO KING EDWARD IV, his brother
5 I am o l d , . ..
And all the fellowship I hold now with him
Is only my obedience.
Henry VIII 3.1.119-21, KATHERINE OF ARAGON TO CARDINAL WOLSEY AND CARDINAL
CAMPEIUS
6 Hanging and wiving goes by destiny.
Merchant of Venice 2.9.84, NERISSA TO PORTIA
7 In love the heavens themselves do guide the state;
Money buys lands, and wives are sold by fate.
Merry Wives of Windsor 5.5.226-7', FORD TO FENTON
8 In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke.
Much Ado About Nothing 1.1.245-6, DON PEDRO TO BENEDICK, proverbially and
prophetically
9 Time goes on crutches till love hath all his rites.
Much Ado About Nothing 2.1.336-7, CLAUDIO TO DON PEDRO, saying he plans to
marry Hero on the following day
10 Thou art sad; get thee a wife, get thee a wife!
Much Ado About Nothing 5.4.121, BENEDICK, the convert, to LEONATO
11 A fellow almost damned in a fair wife.
Othello 1.1.20, IAGO TO RODERIGO
12 O curse of marriage
That we can call these delicate creatures ours
And not their appetites!
Othello 3.3.272-4, OTHELLO
MATURITY I 175
1 Thinkest t h o u , . . . though her father be very rich, any man is so very a
fool to be married to hell?
Taming of the Shrew 1.1.122-4, GREMIO TO HORTENSIO
2 To wive and thrive as best I may.
Taming of the Shrew 1.2.55, PETRUCHIO TO HORTENSIO AND GRUMIO
3 I come to wive it wealthily in Padua;
If wealthily, then happily in Padua.
Taming of the Shrew 1.2.74-5, PETRUCHIO TO HORTENSIO AND GRUMIO
4 Who wooed in haste and means to wed at leisure.
Taming of the Shrew 3.2.11, KATHERINA TO BAPTISTA, of Petruchio; proverbial
5 To me she's married, not unto my clothes.
Taming of the Shrew 3.2.116, PETRUCHIO TO BAPTISTA; for the state of the horse on
which he rides to his wedding, see HORSES
6 This is a way to kill a wife with kindness.
Taming of the Shrew 4.1.196, PETRUCHIO
7 Peace . . . , and love, and quiet life,
An awful rule, and right supremacy.
Taming of the Shrew 5.2.109-10, PETRUCHIO TO HORTENSIO AND LUCENTIO, describing
his concept of a proper marriage; for Katherina's concurrence, see HUSBANDS AND
WIVES
8 Honour, riches, marriage-blessing,
Long continuance, and increasing,
Hourly joys be still upon you!
Tempest 4.1.106-8, JUNO (goddess of marriage) to MIRANDA and FERDINAND
See also AMBITION; ANTICIPATION; HUSBANDS AND WIVES; INFIDELITY; MEN
AND WOMEN; SINGLE LIFE, the; WOMEN
MATURITY
9 For nature crescent does not grow alone
In thews and bulk, but as this temple waxes,
The inward service of the mind and soul
Grows wide withal.
Hamlet 1.3.11-14, LAERTES TO OPHELIA
10 Consideration like an angel came
And whipped th'offending Adam out of him.
Henry V 1.1.28-9, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY TO THE BISHOP OF ELY, of Hal/Henry
11 Ripeness is all.
King Lear 5.2.11, EDGAR TO GLOUCESTER
176 I MEDICINE
MEDICINE see DOCTORS AND MEDICINE
MELANCHOLY
1 CELIA Why cousin, why Rosalind! Cupid have mercy, not a word?
ROSALIND Not one to throw at a dog.
As You Like It 1.3.1-3
2 I can suck melancholy out of a song, as a weasel sucks eggs.
As You Like It 2.5.11-12, JAQUES TO AMIENS
3 I have neither the scholar's melancholy, which is emulation; nor the
musician's, which is fantastical; nor the courtier's, which is proud; nor
the soldier's, which is ambitious; nor the lawyer's, which is politic; nor
the lady's, which is nice; nor the lover's, which is all these; but it is a
melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, extracted
from many objects, and indeed the sundry contemplation of my
travels, in which my often rumination wraps me in a most humorous
sadness.
As You Like It 4.1.10-19, JAQUES TO ROSALIND
4 There's something in his soul
O'er which his melancholy sits on brood.
Hamlet 3.1.165-6, CLAUDIUS TO POLONIUS
5 As melancholy as a lodge in a warren.
Much Ado About Nothing 2.1.202-3, BENEDICK TO DON PEDRO, of Claudio
See also DEPRESSION; MUSIC
MEMORY AND REMEMBERING
6 Praising what is lost
Makes the remembrance dear.
All's Well That Ends Well 5.3.19-20, KING OF FRANCE TO HIS FRIENDS
7 Heaven and earth,
Must I remember?
Hamlet 1.2.142-3, HAMLET
8 'Tis in my memory locked.
Hamlet 1.3.85, OPHELIA'S response to her brother's advice
9 GHOST Remember me . . .
HAMLET Remember thee?
Yea, from the table of my memory
I'll wipe away all trivial fond records,...
MEN I 177
And thy commandment all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain.
Hamlet 1.5.91, 97-9,102-3
1 There's rosemary, that's for remembrance.
Hamlet 4.5.173, OPHELIA, in her madness; more at FLOWERS AND PLANTS
2 Memory, the warder of the brain.
Macbeth 1.7.66, LADY MACBETH TO MACBETH
3 I cannot but remember such things were,
That were most precious to me.
Macbeth 4.3.22-3; MACDUFF TO MALCOLM
4 Men are men, the best sometimes forget.
Othello 2.3.233, IAGO TO MONTANO
5 That I could forget what I have been!
Or not remember what I must be now!
Richard II 3.3.138-9, RICHARD TO AUMERLE
6 ULYSSES All's done, my lord.
TROILUS It is.
ULYSSES Why stay we then?
TROILUS TO make a recordation to my soul
Of every syllable that here was spoke.
Troilus and Cressida 5.2.113-15
See also FORGETFULNESS; NEW BEGINNINGS; OLD AGE; PAST, the
MEN
7 Think you there was or might be such a man
As this I dreamt of?
Antony and Cleopatra 5.2.92-3, CLEOPATRA TO DOLABELLA
8 We'll have a swashing and a martial outside,
As many other mannish cowards have
That do outface it with their semblances.
As You Like It 1.3.117-19, ROSALIND TO CELIA, deciding to adopt male disguise
9 He's proud, and yet his pride becomes him.
He'll make a proper man.
As You Like Jt 3.5.114-15, PHEBE TO SILVIUS
10 Men have died from time to time and worms have eaten them, but not
for love.
As You Like It 4.1.101-2, ROSALIND TO ORLANDO
178 I MEN
1 Good sister let us dine, and never fret;
A man is master of his liberty;
Time is their master, and when they see time,
They'll go or come.
Comedy of Errors 2.1.6-9, LUCIANA TO ADRIANA
2 A was a man, take him for all in all:
I shall not look upon his like again.
Hamlet 1.2.187-8, HAMLET TO HORATIO ('a' here means 'he')
3 Percy . . . the Hotspur of the north, he that kills me some six or seven
dozen of Scots at a breakfast, washes his hands, and says to his wife,
4Fie upon this quiet life, I want work'. fO my sweet Harry', says she,
'how many hast thou killed today?' 'Give my roan horse a drench', says
he, and answers, 'Some fourteen', an hour after; 'a trifle, a trifle'.
1 Henry IV 2.4.100-7, PRINCE HAL TO POINS, mocking his rival for manliest young
man in Britain
4 Men are merriest when they are from home.
Henry V 1.2.273, HENRY TO EXETER
5 His life was gentle, and the elements
So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world, 'This was a man!'
Julius Caesar 5.5.73-5, MARK ANTONY, of Brutus
6 I am ashamed
That thou hast power to shake my manhood so.
King Lear 1.5.288-9, LEAR, brought to tears, to GONERIL
7 O, the difference of man and man!
King Lear 4.2.26; GONERIL compares her husband with Edmund
8 Lust-breathed Tarquin.
Lucrèce 3
9 In men as in a rough-grown grove remain
Cave-keeping evils that obscurely sleep.
Lucrèce 1249-50
10 When you durst do it, then you were a man.
Macbeth 1.7.49, LADY MACBETH TO MACBETH
11 God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man.
Merchant of Venice 1.2.54-5, PORTIA TO NERISSA on her French suitor, Monsieur Le Bon
MEN AND WOMEN | 179
1 A kind heart he hath: a woman would run through fire and water for
such a kind heart.
Merry Wives of Windsor 3.4.100-1, MISTRESS QUICKLY
2 Manhood is melted into curtsies, valour into compliment, and men
are only turned into tongue, and trim ones too: he is now as valiant as
Hercules that only tells a lie and swears it.
Much Ado About Nothing 4.1.316-20, BEATRICE TO BENEDICK
3 BENVOLIO Why, what is Tybalt?
MERCUTIO More than Prince of Cats. O, he's the courageous captain
of compliments: he fights as you sing pricksong, keeps time, distance
and proportion. He rests his minim rests, one, two, and the third in
your bosom: the very butcher of a silk button - a duellist, a duellist, a
gentleman of the very first house, of the first and second cause. Ah, the
immortal passado, the punto reverso, the hay!
Romeo and Juliet 2.3.19-27
4 It is a holiday to look on them. Lord, the difference of men!
Two Noble Kinsmen 2.1.55-6, JAILER'S DAUGHTER TO THE JAILER, referring to Arcite and
Palamon
5 Rose-cheeked Adonis.
Venus and Adonis 3
See also MEN AND WOMEN; YOUTH
MEN AND WOMEN
6 ROSALIND NOW tell me how long you would have her, after you have
possessed her?
ORLANDO For ever, and a day.
ROSALIND Say a day, without the ever. No, no, Orlando, men are April
when they woo, December when they wed. Maids are May when they
are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives.
As You Like It 4.1.136-42
7 I knew what you would prove. My friends told me as much, and I
thought no less.
As You Like It 4.1.174-6, ROSALIND TO ORLANDO
8 Man, more divine, the master of all these,
Lord of the wide world and wild wat'ry seas,
Indued with intellectual sense and souls,
180 J MEN AND WOMEN
Of more pre-eminence than fish and fowls,
Are masters to their females, and their lords.
Comedy of Errors 2.1.20-4, a conventional view expressed by LUCIANA to her sceptical
married sister ADRIANA
1 Men's vows are women's traitors.
Cymbeline 3.4.53, IMOGEN TO PISANIO
2 He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard
is less than a man; and he that is more than a youth is not for me; and
he that is less than a man I am not for him.
Much Ado About Nothing 2.1.32-5, BEATRICE TO LEONATO
3 Would it not grieve a woman to be over-mastered with a piece of
valiant dust, to make an account of her life to a clod of wayward marl?
Much Ado About Nothing 2.1.55-7, BEATRICE TO LEONATO
4 Rich she shall be, that's certain; wise, or I'll none; virtuous, or I'll never
cheapen her; fair, or I'll never look on her; mild, or come not near me;
noble, or not I for an angel; of good discourse, an excellent musician,
and her hair shall be - of what colour it please God.
Much Ado About Nothing 2.3.29-34, BENEDICK, on the only kind of woman he would
submit to marrying
5 They are all but stomachs, and we all but food:
They eat us hungerly, and when they are full
They belch us.
Othello 3.4.105-7, EMILIA TO DESDEMONA, of men
6 Men prize the thing ungained more than it is.
Troilus and Cressida 1.2.289, CRESSIDA TO PANDARUS
7 Prithee, tarry.
You men will never tarry.
O foolish Cressid, I might have still held off,
And then you would have tarried.
Troilus and Cressida 4.2.15-18, CRESSIDA TO TROILUS, on playing hard-to-get
8 We men may say more, swear more, but indeed
Our shows are more than will: for still we prove
Much in our vows, but little in our love.
Twelfth Night 2.4.117-19, VIOLA, as Cesario, to ORSINO
9 That man that hath a tongue, I say is no man,
If with his tongue he cannot win a woman.
Two Gentlemen of Verona 3.1.104-5, VALENTINE TO THE DUKE
See also GENDER; HUSBANDS AND WIVES; INFIDELITY; MARRIAGE; MEN; WOMEN
MERCY I l8l
MENDING AND IMPROVING
1 Patches set upon a little breach
Discredit more in hiding of the fault
Than did the fault before it was so patched.
King John 4.2.32-4, PEMBROKE TO SALISBURY
2 Striving to better, oft we mar what's well.
King Lear 1.4.342, ALBANY TO GONERIL
3 This is like the mending of highways
In summer, where the ways are fair enough!
Merchant of Venice 5.1.263-4, GRATIANO TO NERISSA AND PORTIA, describing an
unnecessary action (in this case taking a lover when your husband is still young and
amorous)
4 Why so large cost, having so short a lease,
Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?
Sonnet 146.5-6; Shakespeare addresses his soul; the fading mansion is the body
MERCY
5 No ceremony that to great ones longs,
Not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword,
The marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe,
Become them with one half so good a grace
As mercy does.
Measure for Measure 2.2.59-63, ISABELLA TO ANGELO
6 Lawful mercy
Is nothing kin to foul redemption.
Measure for Measure 2.4.112-13, ISABELLA TO ANGELO; by 'foul redemption' she means
a corrupt or cruel bargain
7 How shalt thou hope for mercy, rendering none?
Merchant of Venice 4.1.88, DUKE OF VENICE TO SHYLOCK
8 The quality of mercy is not strained,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest,
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes,
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest, it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown.
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings:
182 I MERCY
But mercy is above this sceptred sway,
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice.
Merchant of Venice 4.1.182-95, PORTIA'S celebrated speech on mercy
1 Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge.
Titus Andronicus 1.1.121, TAMORA TO TITUS; perhaps the formality of phrasing here
indicates that this does not come from the heart
See also JUSTICE; PITY
MERIT
2 Let none presume
To wear an undeserved dignity:
O that estates, degrees, and offices,
Were not derived corruptly, and that clear honour
Were purchased by the merit of the wearer!
Merchant of Venice 2.9.39-43, PRINCE OF ARRAGON
MERRIMENT
3 I shall never laugh but in that maid's company.
Merry Wives of Windsor 1.4.143, MISTRESS QUICKLY TO FENTON, of Anne Page
4 There is either liquor in his pate or money in his purse when he looks
so merrily.
Merry Wives of Windsor 2.1.178-9, PAGE TO FORD, of the host of the Garter
5 From the crown of his head to the sole of his foot he is all mirth.
Much Ado About Nothing 3.2.8-9, DON PEDRO TO CLAUDIO, of Benedick
6 I am not merry, but I do beguile
The thing I am by seeming otherwise.
Othello 2.1.122-3, DESDEMONA TO IAGO
7 If you will. . . laugh yourselves into stitches, follow me.
Twelfth Night 3.2.66-7, MARIA TO SIR TOBY BELCH AND FABIAN
See also HAPPINESS; JOY
MIDDLE AGE
8 At your age
The heyday in the blood is tame, it's humble,
And waits upon the judgement.
Hamlet 3.4.68-70, HAMLET TO GERTRUDE; a case of wishful thinking
MISANTHROPY | 183
1 Your lordship, though not clean past your youth, have yet some smack
of age in you, some relish of the saltness of time.
2 Henry IV 1.2.96-8, FALSTAFF making fun of the LORD CHIEF JUSTICE
2 Not so young to love a woman for singing, nor so old to dote on her
for anything. I have years on my back forty-eight.
King Lear 1.4.37-9, KENT TO LEAR
3 Though we are justices, and doctors, and churchmen, Master Page, we
have some salt of our youth in us.
Merry Wives of Windsor 2.3.42-4, SHALLOW TO PAGE
4 Our loves and comforts should increase
Even as our days do grow.
Othello 2.1.192-3, DESDEMONA TO OTHELLO
5 I am declined
Into the vale of years.
Othello 3.3.269-70, OTHELLO, desperately jealous
6 When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,
Thy youth's proud livery, so gazed on now,
Will be a tattered weed of small worth held.
Sonnet 2.1-4
MIND, the
7 A mote it is to trouble the mind's eye.
Hamlet 1.1.115, HORATIO TO BARNARDO
8 Methinks I see my father . . .
In my mind's eye.
Hamlet 1.2.183,185, HAMLET TO HORATIO
9 All things are ready, if our minds be so.
Henry V 4.3.71, HENRY TO LORDS
10 'Tis the mind that makes the body rich.
Taming of the Shrew 4.3.170, PETRUCHIO TO KATE
See also BODY, the; MADNESS
MISANTHROPY
11 Live loathed, and long,
Most smiling, smooth, detested parasites,
Courteous destroyers, affable wolves, meek bears,
184 I MISANTHROPY
You fools of fortune, trencher-friends, time's flies,
Cap-and-knee slaves, vapours, and minute-jacks!
Timon of Athens 3.6.90-4, TIMON TO FORMER FRIENDS
1 I am Misanthropos, and hate mankind.
Timon of Athens 4.3.54, TIMON TO ALCIBIADES
MISCHIEF
2 Marry, this is miching malicho. It means mischief.
Hamlet 3.2.139-40, HAMLET TO OPHELIA, of the dumb show play
3 Mischief, thou art afoot.
Julius Caesar 3.2.261; MARK ANTONY, gratified, surveys the effect of his speeches on
the plebeians
4 You have beaten my men, killed my deer, and broke open my lodge.
Merry Wives of Windsor 1.1.106-7, SHALLOW TO FALSTAFF
5 My thoughts are ripe in mischief.
Twelfth Night 5.1.126, ORSINO TO VIOLA as Cesario
See also TROUBLE; WILD BEHAVIOUR
MISFORTUNE
6 One woe doth tread upon another's heel.
Hamlet 4.7.163, GERTRUDE TO LAERTES
7 Death and destruction dogs thee at thy heels.
Richard III 4.1.39, QUEEN ELIZABETH TO DORSET
8 Thou art wedded to calamity.
Romeo and Juliet 3.3.3, FRIAR LAURENCE TO ROMEO
9 When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes . . .
Sonnet 29.1
MISGIVINGS
10 Thou wouldst not think how ill all's here about my heart; but it is no
matter.
Hamlet 5.2.211-12, HAMLET TO HORATIO
11 My mind misgives
Some consequence yet hanging in the stars.
Romeo and Juliet 1.4.106-7, ROMEO TO BENVOLIO AND MERCUTIO
See also ANXIETY; CARES; FEAR; FOREBODING; FORTUNE
MODESTY I 185
MISTAKES
1 I have shot my arrow o'er the house
And hurt my brother.
Hamlet 5.2.242-3, HAMLET TO LAERTES
2 O negligence!
Fit for a fool to fall by.
Henry VIII 3.2.213-14, CARDINAL WOLSEY, foreseeing his ruin
3 I stumbled when I saw.
King Lear 4.1.21, GLOUCESTER, blinded, to an OLD MAN
MODERATION
4 Like to the time o'th' year between the extremes
Of hot and cold, he was nor sad nor merry.
Antony and Cleopatra 1.5.54-5, ALEXAS TO CLEOPATRA
5 Though you can guess what temperance should be,
You know not what it is.
Antony and Cleopatra 3.13.126-7, ANTONY TO CLEOPATRA
6 Rather rejoicing to see another merry, than merry at anything which
professed to make him rejoice.
Measure for Measure 3.2.229-31, ESCALUS TO THE DUKE, disguised as a friar
7 Why tell you me of moderation?
Troilus and Cressida 4.4.2, CRESSIDA TO PANDARUS, who tries to persuade her to
moderate her grief at the loss of Troilus
MODESTY
8 An ill-favoured thing sir, but mine own.
As You Like It 5.4.56-7, TOUCHSTONE TO DUKE SENIOR
9 'Twere a concealment
Worse than a theft, no less than a traducement,
To hide your doings, and to silence that
Which, to the spire and top of praises vouched,
Would seem but modest.
Coriolanus 1.9.21-5, COMINIUS TO CORIOLANUS
10 You see me Lord Bassanio where I stand,
Such as I am.
Merchant of Venice 3.2.149-50, PORTIA
11 I will not praise, that purpose not to sell.
Sonnet 21.14
186 I MODESTY
1 A thing slipped idly from me.
Timon of Athens 1.1.20, POET TO OTHERS, describing his work
MONEY
2 'Tis gold
Which buys admittance.
Cymbeline 2.3.68-9, CLOTEN
3 Neither a borrower nor a lender be.
Hamlet 1.3.74, POLONIUS TO LAERTES; more at ADVICE
4 Bell, book and candle shall not drive me back
When gold and silver becks me to come on.
King John 3.2.22-3, PHILIP THE BASTARD TO JOHN; 'bell, book and candle' was a form
of words for excommunication
5 Remuneration! O that's the Latin word for three farthings.
Love's Labour's Lost 3.1.137-8, MOTH
6 You take my life
When you do take the means whereby I live.
Merchant of Venice 4.1.374-5, SHYLOCK TO PORTIA
7 If money go before, all ways do lie open.
Merry Wives of Windsor 2.2.163-4, FORD TO FALSTAFF
8 O, what a world of vile ill-favoured faults
Looks handsome in three hundred pounds a year!
Merry Wives of Windsor 3.4.32-3, ANNE PAGE
9 Put money in thy purse.
Othello 1.3.343; IAGO urges RODERIGO to get his priorities right
10 Saint-seducing gold.
Romeo and Juliet 1.1.214, ROMEO TO BENVOLIO
11 This yellow slave
Will knit and break religions* bless th'accursed,
Make the hoar leprosy adored, place thieves,
And give them title, knee and approbation
With senators on the bench.
Timon of Athens 4.3.34-8, TIMON
See also DAUGHTERS; GREED; POVERTY; RICHES
MOON, the
12 How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
Merchant of Venice 5.1.54, LORENZO TO JESSICA
MORNING I 187
1 Peace! - how the moon sleeps with Endymion!
Merchant of Venice 5.1.109, PORTIA TO NERISSA
2 111 met by moonlight, proud Titania.
Midsummer Night's Dream 2.1.60, OBERON TO TITANIA
3 A calendar, a calendar! Look in the almanac; find out moonshine, find
out moonshine!
Midsummer Night's Dream 3.1.49-50, BOTTOM TO HIS COMPANIONS
4 All that I have to say is, to tell you that the lantern is the moon; I the
Man i'th' Moon; this thorn-bush my thorn-bush; and this dog my dog.
Midsummer Nighfs Dream 5.1.247-9, ROBIN STARVELING as Moonshine, getting
irritated at audience interruptions
5 It is the very error of the moon,
She comes more nearer earth than she was wont
And makes men mad.
Othello 5.2.109-11, OTHELLO TO EMILIA
See also MUSIC; NIGHT; VOWS
MORNING
6 Hark, hark, the lark at heaven's gate sings,
And Phoebus gins arise,
His steeds to water at those springs
On chaliced flowers that lies;
And winking Mary-buds begin to ope their golden eyes;
With every thing that pretty is, my lady sweet arise:
Arise, arise!
Cymbeline 2.3.20-6, song
7 But look, the morn in russet mantle clad
Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastward hill.
Hamlet 1.1.171-2, HORATIO TO MARCELLUS
8 But soft, methinks I scent the morning air.
Hamlet 1.5.58, GHOST TO HAMLET
9 The glow-worm shows the matin to be near
And gins to pale his uneffectual fire.
Hamlet 1.5.89-90, GHOST TO HAMLET
10 The country cocks do crow, the clocks do toll.
Henry V 4.2.15, CHORUS, describing the morning of the battle of Agincourt
188 J MORNING
1 The morning's war,
When dying clouds contend with growing light,
What time the shepherd, blowing of his nails,
Can neither call it perfect day nor night.
3 Henry VI 2.5.1-4, HENRY
2 MACBETH What is the night?
LADY MACBETH Almost at odds with morning, which is which.
Macbeth 3.4.125-6
3 Fairy king, attend and mark:
I do hear the morning lark.
Midsummer Night's Dream 4.1.92-3, PUCK TO OBERON
4 The grey-eyed morn smiles on the frowning night,
Chequering the eastern clouds with streaks of light;
And darkness fleckled like a drunkard reels
From forth day's pathway, made by Titan's wheels.
Romeo and Juliet 2.2.188-91, ROMEO
5 JULIET Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day.
It was the nightingale and not the lark
That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear.
Nightly she sings on yond pomegranate tree.
Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.
ROMEO It was the lark, the herald of the morn,
No nightingale. Look, love, what envious streaks
Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east.
Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.
Romeo and Juliet 3.5.1-10
6 Full many a glorious morning have I seen
Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye,
Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;
Anon permit the basest clouds to ride
With ugly rack on his celestial face.
Sonnet 33.1-6
7 The golden sun salutes the morn,
And, having gilt the ocean with his beams,
Gallops the zodiac in his glistering coach,
And overlooks the highest-peering hills.
Titus Andronicus 1.1.504-7, AARON
MORTALITY | 189
1 Like a red morn that ever yet betokened
Wrack to the seaman, tempest to the field,
Sorrow to shepherds, woe unto the birds,
Gusts and foul flaws to herdmen and to herds.
Venus and Adonis 453-6
2 The morning, from whose silver breast
The sun ariseth in his majesty;
Who doth the world so gloriously behold
That cedar tops and hills seem burnished gold.
Venus and Adonis 855-8
MORTALITY
3 Fear no more the heat oW sun,
Nor the furious winter's rages,
Thou thy worldly task has done,
Home art gone and ta'en thy wages.
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to d u s t . ..
The sceptre, learning, physic, must
All follow this and come to dust.
Cymbeline 4.2.258-63, 268-9, GUIDERIUS' AND ARVIRAGUS' song; more at DEATH
4 All that lives must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.
Hamlet 1.2.72-3, GERTRUDE TO HAMLET
5 Get you to my lady's chamber and tell her, let her paint an inch thick,
to this favour she must come.
Hamlet 5.1.190-2, HAMLET TO HORATIO, examining skulls in the graveyard
6 To what base uses we may return, Horatio! Why, may not imagination
trace the noble dust of Alexander till a find it stopping a bung-hole?
Hamlet 5.1.200-1, HAMLET TO HORATIO in the graveyard
7 Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away.
Hamlet 5.1.211-12, HAMLET TO HORATIO
8 When wilt thou leave fighting a-days, and foining a-nights, and begin
to patch up thine old body for heaven?
2 Henry IV 2.4.231-3, DOLL TEARSHEET TO FALSTAFF
190 I MORTALITY
1 Methinks it were a happy life
To be no better than a homely swain;
To sit upon a hill, as I do now,
To carve out dials quaintly, point by point,
Thereby to see the minutes how they run -
How many makes the hour full complete,
How many hours brings about the day,
How many days will finish up the year,
How many years a mortal man may live.
3 Henry VI 2.5.21-9, HENRY, during a battle in which he takes no part
2 But yesterday the word of Caesar might
Have stood against the world; now he lies there,
And none so poor to do him reverence.
Julius Caesar 3.2.119-21, MARK ANTONY TO PLEBEIANS
3 We cannot hold mortality's strong hand.
King John 4.2.82, JOHN TO PEMBROKE
4 What surety of the world, what hope, what stay,
When this was now a king, and now is clay?
King John 5.7.68-9, PRINCE HENRY, after his father's death, to COMPANIONS
5 GLOUCESTER O, let me kiss that hand!
LEAR Let me wipe it first, it smells of mortality.
King Lear 4.6.128-9
6 A man that apprehends death no more dreadfully but as a drunken
sleep; careless, reckless, and fearless of what's past, present, or to come:
insensible of mortality, and desperately mortal.
Measure for Measure 4.2.142-5, PROVOST'S description, to the DUKE disguised as a
friar, of Barnadine
7 Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
But sad mortality o'er-sways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
Sonnet 65.1-4
8 Is this thy body's end?
Sonnet 146.8
9 The vine shall grow but we shall never see it.
Two Noble Kinsmen 2.2.43, ARCITE TO PALAMON
See also DEATH; TIME; TRANSIENCE
MURDER I 191
MOTHERS
1 My mother told me just how he would woo
As if she sat in's heart.
All's Well That Ends Well 4.2.69-70, DIANA, of Bertram
2 He did it to please his mother.
Coriolanus 1.1.37-8, TWO CITIZENS discussing Coriolanus
3 Nature makes them partial.
Hamlet 3.3.32, POLONIUS TO CLAUDIUS, of mothers
4 Bring forth men-children only!
For thy undaunted mettle should compose
Nothing but males.
Macbeth 1.7.73-5, MACBETH TO LADY MACBETH
5 My heart
Leaps to be gone into my mother's bosom.
Pericles 5.3.44-5, MARINA to her long-lost mother THAISA
MURDER
6 Murder most foul.
Hamlet 1.5.27, GHOST TO HAMLET
7 How now? A rat! Dead for a ducat, dead.
Hamlet 3.4.23, HAMLET, on murdering an unknown person, who might be Claudius
8 No place indeed should murder sanctuarize.
Hamlet 4.7.127, CLAUDIUS TO LAERTES
9 Let's carve him as a dish fit for the gods,
Not hew him as a carcass fit for hounds.
Julius Caesar 2.1.173-4, BRUTUS; see also SACRIFICES AND SCAPEGOATS
10 There is no sure foundation set on blood,
No certain life achieved by others' death.
King John 4.2.104-5, JOHN, repenting his crimes
11 Most sacrilegious Murther hath broke ope
The Lord's anointed Temple, and stole thence
The life o'th' building!
Macbeth 2.3.66-8, MACDUFF TO MACBETH AND LENOX, at the discovery of Duncan's
murder
12 Truth will come to light, murder cannot be hid long.
Merchant of Venice 2.2.76, LAUNCELOT GOBBO TO OLD GOBBO
192 I MURDER
1 O ill-starred wench,
Pale as thy smock. When we shall meet at compt
This look of thine will hurl my soul from heaven
And fiends will snatch at it.
Othello 5.2.272-5, OTHELLO, of the dead Desdemona
2 The object poisons sight,
Let it be hid.
Othello 5.2.364-5, LODOVICO, of the corpses at the end of the play
3 Murder's as near to lust as flame to smoke.
Pericles 1.1.139, PERICLES
4 Go, tread the path that thou shalt ne'er return.
Richard III 1.1.117, RICHARD, seeing off Clarence
5 I do love thee so
That I will shortly send thy soul to Heaven -
If Heaven will take the present at our hands.
Richard III 1.1.118-20, RICHARD, of Clarence
6 Murder, stern murder, in the direst degree.
Richard III 5.3.198, RICHARD, finally a prey to guilt
7 I do begin to have bloody thoughts.
Tempest 4.1.220-1, STEPHANO, with Caliban and Trinculo
8 A deed of death done on the innocent.
Titus Andronicus 3.1.56, TITUS TO MARCUS
See also BLOOD; CRIMES; GUILT
MUSIC
9 Give me some music - music, moody food
Of us that trade in love.
Antony and Cleopatra 2.5.1-2, CLEOPATRA TO HER COMPANIONS
10 For my voice, I have lost it with hallooing, and singing of anthems.
2 Henry IV 1.2.188-9, FALSTAFF TO THE LORD CHIEF JUSTICE; hallooing refers to
hunting
11 Sneak's noise.
2 Henry /V 2.4.10, FRANCIS TO A DRAWER, referring to a company of musicians
12 A French song and a fiddle has no fellow.
Henry VIII 1.3.41, LOVEL TO SANDS
MUSIC
1 Orpheus with his lute made trees,
And the mountain tops that freeze,
Bow themselves when he did sing . . .
In sweet music is such art,
Killing care and grief of heart.
Henry VIII 3.1.3-5,12-13, song
2 As sweet and musical
As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair.
Love's Labour's Lost 4.3.338-9, BEROWNE TO HIS FRIENDS
3 The words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo.
Love's Labour's Lost 5.2.923, the closing words of the play
4 Let music sound while he doth make his choice,
Then if he lose he makes a swan-like end,
Fading in music.
Merchant of Venice 3.2.43-5, PORTIA, while Bassanio chooses a casket that will
lose him her hand in marriage
5 How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears - soft stillness and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony:
Sit Jessica, - look how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patens of bright gold,
There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed chérubins;
Such harmony is in immortal souls,
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.
Merchant of Venice 5.1.54-65, LORENZO TO JESSICA
6 I am never merry when I hear sweet music.
Merchant of Venice 5.1.69, JESSICA TO LORENZO
7 The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils,
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus:
Let no such man be trusted.
Merchant of Venice 5.1.83-8, LORENZO TO JESSICA
194 I MUSIC
1 Once I sat upon a promontory,
And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath
That the rude sea grew civil at her song
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres
To hear the sea-maid's music.
Midsummer Night's Dream 2.1.149-54, OBERON TO PUCK
2 I have a reasonable good ear in music. Let's have the tongs and the
bones.
Midsummer Night's Dream 4.1.28-9, BOTTOM TO TITANIA
3 Music ho, music, such as charmeth sleep!
Midsummer Night's Dream 4.1.82, TITANIA, with Oberon
4 Now, divine air! Now is his soul ravished! Is it not strange that sheep's
guts should hale souls out of men's bodies?
Much Ado About Nothing 2.3.57-9, BENEDICK
5 She had a song of 'willow',
An old thing 'twas, but it expressed her fortune
And she died singing it. That song tonight
Will not go from my mind.
Othello 4.3.26-9, DESDEMONA TO EMILIA; for the song, see SORROW
6 I will play the swan
And die in music.
Othello 5.2.247-8, EMILIA, stabbed by lago, singing to the dead DESDEMONA
7 How sour sweet music is
When time is broke and no proportion kept!
So is it in the music of men's lives.
Richard II 5.5.42-4, RICHARD
8 This music mads me. Let it sound no more.
Richard II 5.5.61, RICHARD
9 The true concord of well-tuned sounds.
Sonnet 8.5
10 Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,
Strikes each in each by mutual ordering.
Sonnet 8.9-10
11 Where should this music be? i'th' air or the 'arth?
It sounds no more: and, sure, it waits upon
NAMES I 195
Some god o'th' island. Sitting on a bank,
Weeping again the King my father's wrack,
This music crept by me upon the waters,
Allaying both their fury and my passion
With its sweet air.
Tempest 1.2.390-6, FERDINAND, listening to Ariel's song; for the song, see SEA, the
1 Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears; and sometime voices.
Tempest 3.2.137-40, CALIBAN TO STEPHANO AND TRINCULO
2 If music be the food of love, play on,
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
That strain again, it had a dying fall:
O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odour.
Twelfth Night 1.1.1-7, ORSINO TO CURIO
See also DEATH; MELANCHOLY
MYSTERY
3 I cannot delve him to the root.
Cymbeline 1.1.28, TWO GENTLEMEN discussing Posthumus
4 [We'll] take upon's the mystery of things
As if we were God's spies.
King Lear 5.3.16-17, LEAR TO CORDELIA
!*%^%^%^%^ NI X I fc%^%^*%^%^
NAMES
5 There was no thought of pleasing you when she was christened.
As You Like It 3.2.263-4, ORLANDO TO JAQUES, of Rosalind
196 I NAMES
1 I cannot tell what the dickens his name is.
Merry Wives of Windsor 3.2.17-18, MISTRESS PAGE TO FORD; the origin of this phrase
is uncertain, but it is certainly long-lived
2 What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other word would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo called,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title.
Romeo and Juliet 2.2.43-7, JULIET
3 Make but my name thy love, and love that still;
And then thou lov'st me, for my name is Will.
Sonnet 136.13-14
4 Kate of Kate Hall, my super-dainty Kate.
Taming of the Shrew 2.1.189, PETRUCHIO TO KATHERINA
NATURE
5 In nature's infinite book of secrecy
A little I can read.
Antony and Cleopatra 1.2.9-10, SOOTHSAYER TO CHARMIAN
6 This most excellent canopy the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging
firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire.
Hamlet 2.2.301-3, HAMLET TO ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN
7 Thou, Nature, art my goddess.
King Lear 1.2.1, EDMUND, a 'natural' son; see also ILLEGITIMACY
8 The earth that's nature's mother is her tomb.
Romeo and Juliet 2.3.5, FRIAR LAURENCE
9 Mickle is the powerful grace that lies
In plants, herbs, stones, and their true qualities.
Romeo and Juliet 2.3.11-12, FRIAR LAURENCE
10 What fine chisel
Could ever yet cut breath?
Winter's Tale 5.3.78-9, LEONTES TO PAULINA
NECESSITY
11 Necessity so bowed the state
That I and greatness were compelled to kiss.
2 Henry 1^3.1.73-4, HENRY TO WARWICK AND SURREY
NEW BEGINNINGS | 197
1 Are these things then necessities?
Then let us meet them like necessities.
2 Henry iV 3.1.92-3, HENRY TO WARWICK AND SURREY
2 Necessity's sharp pinch.
King Lear 2.2.403, LEAR TO REGAN
3 The art of our necessities is strange,
And can make vile things precious.
King Lear 3.2.70-1, LEAR TO KENT, looking for straw to sleep on
4 There is no virtue like necessity.
Richard II 1.3.278, JOHN OF GAUNT TO BOLINGBROKE, who has just been sentenced to
exile
5 For do we must what force will have us do.
Richard II 3.3.207, RICHARD TO BOLINGBROKE
6 I am sworn brother . . .
To grim Necessity, and he and I
Will keep a league till death.
Richard II 5.1.20-2, RICHARD TO QUEEN ISABEL
7 Are you content...
To make a virtue of necessity?
Two Gentlemen of Verona 4.1.61-2, OUTLAW TO VALENTINE
NEW BEGINNINGS
8 There is a world elsewhere!
Coriolanus 3.3.135, CORIOLANUS' farewell to the people, who have rejected
him
9 O brave new world,
That has such people in 't!
Tempest 5.1.183-4, MIRANDA TO HER FRIENDS
10 Let us not burthen our remembrance with
A heaviness that's gone.
Tempest 5.1.199-200, PROSPERO TO HIS FRIENDS
11 Thou met'st with things dying, I with things new-born.
Winter's Tale 3.3.111-12, SHEPHERD, who has discovered the abandoned
infant Perdita, to His SON, who has just witnessed Antigonus being killed
by a bear
198 I NEWNESS
NEWNESS
1 New honours come upon him,
Like our strange garments, cleave not to their mould,
But with the aid of use.
Macbeth 1.3.145-7, BANQUO, of Macbeth
2 The fault and glimpse of newness.
Measure for Measure 1.2.155, CLAUDIO TO LUCIO
NEWS
3 What's the news in Rome?
Coriolanus 4.3.9-10, VOLSCE TO A ROMAN
4 Horatio, I am dead,
Thou livest. Report me and my cause aright
To the unsatisfied.
Hamlet 5.2.345-7, HAMLET TO HORATIO
5 Absent thee from felicity awhile,
And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain
To tell my story.
Hamlet 5.2.354-6, HAMLET TO HORATIO
6 Let me tell the world.
1 Henry IV 5.2.65, VERNON TO HOTSPUR
7 What news on the Rialto?
Merchant of Venice 1.3.37, SHYLOCK TO BASSANIO
NEWS, bad
8 The nature of bad news infects the teller.
Antony and Cleopatra 1.2.99, MESSENGER TO ANTONY
9 Though it be honest, it is never good
To bring bad news.
Antony and Cleopatra 2.5.85-6, CLEOPATRA TO A MESSENGER
10 The first bringer of unwelcome news
Hath but a losing office, and his tongue
Sounds ever after as a sullen bell,
Remembered tolling a departing friend.
2 Henry IV 1.1.100-3, NORTHUMBERLAND TO MORTON AND LORD BARDOLPH
11 Let the Angel, whom thou still hast served,
Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother's womb
NIGHT I 199
Untimely ripped.
Macbeth 5.8.14-16; MACDUFF tells MACBETH that he was not 'of woman born' (he was
delivered by Caesarian section), and that the safety the witches promised means
nothing.
See also LETTERS
NEWS, good
1 Thou still hast been the father of good news.
Hamlet 2.2.42, CLAUDIUS TO POLONIUS
NIGHT
2 Swift, swift, you dragons of the night.
Cymbeline 2.2.48, IACHIMO
3 In the dead waste and middle of the night.
Hamlet 1.2.198, HORATIO TO HAMLET
4 Tis now the very witching time of night.
When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world.
Hamlet 3.2.389-91, HAMLET
5 Let us be Diana's foresters, gentlemen of the shade, minions of the
moon.
1 Henry IV 1.1.25-6, FALSTAFF TO PRINCE HAL
6 Now entertain conjecture of a time
When creeping murmur and the poring dark
Fills the wide vessel of the universe.
Henry V 4.0.1-3, CHORUS
7 Deep night, dark night, the silent of the night,. . .
The time when screech-owls cry, and ban-dogs howl,
And spirits walk, and ghosts break up their graves.
2 Henry VI 1.4.18, 20-1, BOLINGBROKE TO THE DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER
8 The gaudy, blabbing, and remorseful day
Is crept into the bosom of the sea,
And now loud-howling wolves arouse the jades
That drag the tragic melancholy night;
Who with their drowsy, slow, and flagging wings
Clip dead men's graves, and from their misty jaws
Breathe foul contagious darkness in the air.
2 Henry VI 4.1.1-7, LIEUTENANT TO SAILORS AND OTHERS
200 I NIGHT
1 Things that love night
Love not such nights as these. The wrathful skies
Gallow the very wanderers of the dark,
And make them keep their caves.
King Lear 3.2.42-5, LEAR in the storm
2 O comfort-killing night, image of hell,
Dim register and notary of shame,
Black stage for tragedies and murders fell,
Vast sin-concealing Chaos, nurse of blame!
Blind muffled bawd, dark harbour for defame,
Grim cave of death, whisp'ring conspirator
With close-tongued treason and the ravisher!
Lucrèce 764-70
3 There's husbandry in heaven;
Their candles are all out.
Macbeth 2.1.4-5, BANQUO TO FLEANCE
4 Come, seeling Night,
Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful Day,
And, with thy bloody and invisible hand,
Cancel, and tear to pieces, that great bond
Which keeps me pale! - Light thickens; and the crow
Makes wing to th' rooky wood;
Good things of Day begin to droop and drowse,
Whiles Night's black agents to their preys do rouse.
Macbeth 3.2.46-53, MACBETH TO LADY MACBETH
5 The west yet glimmers with some streaks of day;
Now spurs the lated traveller apace,
To gain the timely inn.
Macbeth 3.3.5-7, MURDERER TO HIS COMPANIONS
6 This will last out a night in Russia
When nights are longest there.
Measure for Measure 2.1.132-3, ANGELO TO ESCALUS, POMPEY AND FROTH
7 The moon shines bright. In such a night as this,
When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees,
And they did make no noise, in such a night
Troilus methinks mounted the Trojan walls,
NIGHT I 201
And sighed his soul toward the Grecian tents
Where Cressid lay that night.
Merchant of Venice 5.1.1-6, LORENZO TO JESSICA
1 Night and silence - Who is here?
Midsummer Night's Dream 2.2.69, PUCK
2 The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve.
Lovers, to bed; 'tis almost fairy time.
Midsummer Night's Dream 5.1.348-9, THESEUS TO HIS FRIENDS
3 Now the hungry lion roars,
And the wolf behowis the moon;
Whilst the heavy ploughman snores,
All with weary task fordone.
Now the wasted brands do glow,
Whilst the screech-owl, screeching loud,
Puts the wretch that lies in woe
In remembrance of a shroud.
Now it is the time of night
That the graves, all gaping wide,
Every one lets forth his sprite
In the church-way paths to glide.
Midsummer Night's Dream 5.1.365-76, PUCK; see also FAIRIES
4 How silver-sweet sound lovers' tongues by night,
Like softest music to attending ears.
Romeo and Juliet 2.2.165-6, ROMEO TO JULIET
5 Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night,
That runaway's eyes may wink, and Romeo
Leap to these arms untalked-of and unseen.
Romeo and Juliet 3.2.5-7, JULIET
6 Come, civil night,
Thou sober-suited matron, all in black,
And learn me how to lose a winning match
Played for a pair of stainless maidenhoods.
Romeo and Juliet 3.2.10-13, JULIET; see also LOVERS; ROMEO AND JULIET
7 [Night] flies the grasps of love
With wings more momentary-swift than thought.
Troilus and Cressida 4.2.13-14, TROILUS
202 I NIGHT
1 'In night', quoth she, 'desire sees best of all.'
Venus and Adonis 720, VENUS
NOBILITY
2 His nature is too noble for the world.
Coriolanus 3.1.255, MENENIUS TO A PATRICIAN, of Coriolanus
3 This was the noblest Roman of them all.
Julius Caesar 5.5.68, MARK ANTONY, of Brutus
4 For he was great of heart.
Othello 5.2.357, CASSIO TO OTHERS at Othello's death
të&Q&^*?&Q££* O1 I fc%^5«*5*?^^
OATHS
5 When a gentleman is disposed to swear, it is not for any standers-by to
curtail his oaths.
Cymbeline 2.1.11-12, CLOTEN TO TWO LORDS
6 Swear me, Kate, like a lady as thou art,
A good mouth-filling oath, and leave 'In sooth',
And such protest of pepper-gingerbread,
To velvet-guards, and Sunday citizens.
1 Henry IV 3.1.247-50, HOTSPUR TO HIS WIFE
ODDS
7 Hercules himself must yield to odds;
And many strokes, though with a little axe,
Hews down and fells the hardest-timbered oak.
3 Henry VI 2.1.53-5, A MESSENGER TO EDWARD AND RICHARD, sons of Richard of York,
telling them of their father's death
OLD AGE
8 For we are old, and on our quick'st decrees
Th'inaudible and noiseless foot of time
Steals ere we can effect them.
All's Well That Ends Well 5.3.40-2, KING OF FRANCE TO BERTRAM
OLD AGE | 203
1 Unregarded age in corners thrown.
As You Like It 2.3.42, ADAM TO ORLANDO
2 He that doth the ravens feed,
Yea providently caters for the sparrow,
Be comfort to my age.
As You Like It 2.3.43-5, ADAM TO ORLANDO
3 My age is as a lusty winter,
Frosty but kindly.
As You Like It 2.3.52-3, ADAM TO ORLANDO
4 The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side,
His youthful hose well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound.
As You Like It 2.7.157-63, from JAQUES'S 'Seven Ages of Man' speech
5 Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
As You Like It 2.7.163-66, from JAQUES'S 'Seven Ages of Man' speech
6 These tedious old fools.
Hamlet 2.2.219, HAMLET, referring to Polonius
7 What doth gravity out of his bed at midnight?
1 Henry IV 2.4.290-1, FALSTAFF TO HOSTESS QUICKLY
8 If to be old and merry be a sin, then many an old host that I know is
damned.
1 Henry IV 2.4.465-6, FALSTAFF TO PRINCE HAL
9 Have you not a moist eye, a dry hand, a yellow cheek, a white beard, a
decreasing leg, an increasing belly? Is not your voice broken, your wind
short, your chin double, your wit single, and every part about you
blasted with antiquity?
2 Henry IV 1.2.180-4, LORD CHIEF JUSTICE TO FALSTAFF
10 I am old, I am old.
2 Henry IV 2.4.271, FALSTAFF TO DOLL TEARSHEET
204 I OLD ACE
1 How ill white hairs becomes a fool and jester!
2 Henry 1^*5.5.48, the new KING HENRY V in his rejection of FALSTAFF
2 Old men forget.
Henry V 4.3.49, HENRY TO WESTMORLAND; see WAR for more of this speech
3 His silver hairs
Will purchase us a good opinion.
Julius Caesar 2.1.144-5; METELLUS proposes approaching Cicero to join the
conspiracy
4 >rTis the infirmity of his age.
King Lear 1.1.294, REGAN TO GONERIL, of Lear
5 I am too old to learn.
King Lear 2.2.128, KENT TO CORNWALL, scornfully ironic, on being threatened with
the stocks
6 You are old:
Nature in you stands on the very verge
Of her confine. You should be ruled and led
By some discretion that discerns your state
Better than you yourself.
King Lear 2.2.338-42; REGAN insults her father LEAR
7 Age is unnecessary.
King Lear i.i.^y; LEAR'S humbled reply
8 Here I stand your slave,
A poor, infirm, weak and despised old man.
King Lear 3.2.19-20, LEAR to the elements
9 Pray do not mock me.
I am a very foolish, fond old man,
Fourscore and upward, not an hour more nor less;
And to deal plainly,
I fear I am not in my perfect mind.
King Lear 4.7.59-63, LEAR TO CORDELIA
10 Ripeness is all.
King Lear 5.2.11, EDGAR TO GLOUCESTER; more at DEATH
11 Why art thou old and not yet wise?
Lucrèce 1550, addressed to PRIAM
12 I have lived long enough: my way of life
Is falPn into the sere, the yellow leaf.
Macbeth 5.3.22-3, MACBETH
OLD AGE | 205
1 That which should accompany old age,
As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends.
Macbeth 5.3.24-5, MACBETH, regretting what he foresees he will not have
2 With mirth and laughter let the wrinkles come.
Merchant of Venice 1.1.80, GRATIANO TO ANTONIO
3 A good old man, sir, he will be talking; as they say, 'When the age is in,
the wit is out/
Much Ado About Nothing 3.5.32-3, DOGBERRY TO LEONATO, of his colleague Verges
4 You shall more command with years
Than with your weapons.
Othello 1.2.60-1, OTHELLO TO BRABANTIO
5 Crabbed age and youth cannot live together.
Passionate Pilgrim 12.1; more at YOUTH
6 Old John of Gaunt, time-honoured Lancaster.
Richard II 1.1.1, RICHARD TO JOHN OF GAUNT
7 Thou canst help time to furrow me with age,
But stop no wrinkle in his pilgrimage.
Richard II 1.3.229-30, JOHN OF GAUNT TO RICHARD, who has just banished his son
8 Old folks...
Unwieldy, slow, heavy, and pale as lead.
Romeo and Juliet 2.5.16-17, JULIET
9 That time of year thou mayst in me behold,
When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang;
In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self that seals up all in rest.
Sonnet 72.1-8
10 In me thou seest the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie.
Sonnet 72.9-10
11 To me, fair friend, you never can be old;
For as you were when first your eye I eyed,
Such seems your beauty still.
Sonnet 104.1-3
206 I OLD ACE
1 Eternal love . . .
Weights not the dust and injury of age.
Sonnet 108.9-10
2 My old bones ache.
Tempest 3.3.2, GONZALO TO HIS COMPANIONS
3 Sir, I am vexed;
Bear with my weakness; my old brain is troubled:
Be not disturbed with my infirmity.
Tempest 4.1.158-60, PROSPERO TO FERDINAND
4 Give me a staff of honour for mine age,
But not a sceptre to control the world.
Titus Andronicus 1.1.201-2, TITUS TO THE TRIBUNES
See also LOYALTY; MIDDLE AGE; POVERTY; TIME; YOUTH
OLD TIMES
5 Jesu, Jesu, the mad days that I have spent! And to see how many of my
old acquaintance are dead!
2 Henry IV 3.2.33-5, SHALLOW TO SILENCE
6 We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow.
2 Henry IV3.2.214-15, FALSTAFF TO SHALLOW
7 Where is the life that late I led?
2 Henry JV 5.3.141, a song quoted by PISTOL
8 This is enough to be the decay of lust and late-walking through the
realm.
Merry Wives of Windsor 5.5.143-5, FALSTAFF, in disgust at his humiliation
9 Hear this, thou age unbred.
Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead.
Sonnet 104.13-14
See also BETTER DAYS; GOOD TIMES
OMENS AND PORTENTS
10 This bodes some strange eruption to our state.
Hamlet 1.1.72, HORATIO TO MARCELLUS on the appearance of the ghost
11 In the most high and palmy state of Rome,
A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,
The graves stood tenantless and the sheeted dead
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets;
OMENS AND PORTENTS | 207
As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,
Disasters in the sun; and the moist star,
Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands,
Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse.
Hamlet 1.1.116-23, HORATIO TO BARNARDO
1 GLENDOWER At my nativity
The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes,
Of burning cressets, and at my birth
The frame and huge foundation of the earth
Shaked like a coward.
HOTSPUR Why, so it would have done
At the same season if your mother's cat
Had but kittened, though yourself had never been born.
1 Henry /V3.1.11-17; for more mockery of Glendower see SUPERNATURAL, the
2 Yesterday the bird of night did sit,
Even at noon-day, upon the market-place,
Hooting and shrieking.
Julius Caesar 1.3.26-8, CASCA TO CICERO
3 The noise of battle hurtled in the air,
Horses did neigh, and dying men did groan,
And ghosts did shriek and squeal about the streets.
Julius Caesar 2.2.22-4, CALPHURNIA warning JULIUS CAESAR
4 These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend no good to us.
King Lear 1.2.103-4, GLOUCESTER TO EDMUND
5 The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements.
Macbeth 1.5.37-9, LADY MACBETH
6 The night has been unruly: where we lay,
Our chimneys were blown down; and, as they say,
Lamentings heard i'th' air; strange screams of death,
And, prophesying with accents terrible
Of dire combustion, and confused events,
New hatched to th' woeful time, the obscure bird
Clamoured the livelong night: some say, the earth
Was feverous, and did shake.
Macbeth 2.3.54-61, LENOX TO MACBETH; this was the night of Duncan's murder
208 I OMENS AND PORTENTS
1 By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.
Macbeth 4.1.44-5, SECOND WITCH
2 The bay-trees in our country are all withered,
And meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven,
The pale-faced moon looks bloody on the earth.
Richard II 2.4.8-10, CAPTAIN TO SALISBURY
See also BIRDS; SUPERNATURAL, the; WITCHES
OPHELIA
3 Soft you now,
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remembered.
Hamlet 3.1.88-90, HAMLET
4 O rose of May!
Dear maid - kind sister - sweet Ophelia.
Hamlet 4.5.157-8, LAERTES, of the mad Ophelia
OPPORTUNITY
5 Who seeks and will not take, when once 'tis offered,
Shall never find it more.
Antony and Cleopatra 2.7.83-4, MENAS
6 Now might I do it pat.
Hamlet 3.3.73, HAMLET finding Claudius at prayer, and seeing a chance to kill him
7 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.
Julius Caesar 4.3.217-20, BRUTUS TO CASSIUS
8 How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds
Makes deeds ill done!
King John 4.2.219-20, JOHN TO HUBERT
9 O opportunity, thy guilt is great!
Lucrèce 876
10 On the wing of all occasions.
Merry Wives of Windsor 2.2.195-6, FORD, in disguise, to FALSTAFF
PARENTS AND CHILDREN | 209
ORDER
1 The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre
Observe degree, priority, and place,
Insisture, course, proportion, season, form,
Office, and custom, in all line of order.
Troilus and Cressida 1.3.85-8, ULYSSES TO THE GREEK PRINCES
2 O, when degree is shaked,
Which is the ladder of all high designs,
The enterprise is sick.
Troilus and Cressida 1.3.101-3, ULYSSES TO THE GREEK PRINCES
3 Take but degree away, untune that string,
And hark what discord follows.
Troilus and Cressida 1.3.109-10, ULYSSES TO THE GREEK PRINCES
OUTRAGE
4 They durst not do't:
They could not, would not do't.
King Lear 2.2.215-16, LEAR TO KENT, whom Regan has had put in the stocks
>^^%^%^%^ I fc%^%^*%^%^
PARENTS AND CHILDREN
5 PRINCE HAL I never thought to hear you speak again.
KING HENRY Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought.
2 Henry /V 4.5.91-2
6 How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
To have a thankless child.
King Lear 1.4.280-1, LEAR TO ALBANY, angered by Goneril
7 I have another daughter.
King Lear 1.4.297, LEAR TO GONERIL, misguidedly hoping for better from Regan
8 I prithee, daughter, do not make me mad.
King Lear 2.2.410, LEAR TO GONERIL
210 I PARENTS AND CHILDREN
1 O dear father,
It is thy business that I go about.
King Lear 4.4.23-4, CORDELIA; an echo of Jesus' words in Luke 2.49: 'Knew ye not
that I must be about my father's business?'
2 Had doting Priam checked his son's desire,
Troy had been bright with fame and not with fire.
Lucrèce 1490-1
3 The boy was the very staff of my age, my very prop.
Merchant of Venice 2.2.63-4, LAUNCELOT GOBBO TO OLD GOBBO
4 It is a wise father that knows his own child.
Merchant of Venice 2.2.73-4, LAUNCELOT GOBBO TO OLD GOBBO; proverbial, though
usually the other way round
5 Alack, what heinous sin is it in me
To be ashamed to be my father's child!
Merchant of Venice 2.3.16-17, JESSICA
6 The sins of the father are to be laid upon the children.
Merchant of Venice 3.5.1-2, LAUNCELOT GOBBO TO JESSICA, quoting the law of Moses
7 I would my father looked but with my eyes.
Midsummer Night's Dream 1.1.56, HERMIA TO THESEUS; more at FATHERS
8 DON PEDRO I think this is your daughter.
LEONATO Her mother hath many times told me so.
Much Ado About Nothing 1.1.99-101
9 Hang! Beg! Starve! Die in the streets!
For by my soul I'll ne'er acknowledge thee.
Romeo and Juliet 3.5.192-3, CAPULET TO JULIET
10 I have done nothing but in care of thee.
Tempest 1.2.16, PROSPERO TO MIRANDA
11 Good wombs have borne bad sons.
Tempest 1.2.119, MIRANDA TO PROSPERO
See also CHILDREN; DAUGHTERS; FAMILY; FATHERS; MOTHERS
PARTINGS
12 There cannot be a pinch in death
More sharp than this is.
Cymbeline 1.2.61-2, IMOGEN TO CYMBELINE
1 Good night, good night. Parting is such sweet sorrow
That I shall say good night till it be morrow.
Romeo and Juliet 2.2.184-5, JULIET TO ROMEO
See also FAREWELLS
PAST, the
2 Things that are past are done with me.
Antony and Cleopatra 1.2.101, ANTONY
3 When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past. . .
Sonnet 30.1-2
See also BETTER DAYS; DECLINE AND FALL; OLD TIMES
PATIENCE
4 Patience is for poltroons.
3 Henry VI 1.1.62, CLIFFORD TO HENRY
5 To climb steep hills
Requires slow pace at first.
Henry VIII 1.1.131-2, NORFOLK TO BUCKINGHAM
6 Some time I shall sleep out, the rest Til whistle.
King Lear 2.2.157, KENT TO GLOUCESTER
7 Like Patience gazing on kings' graves, and smiling
Extremity out of act.
Pericles 5.1.139-40, PERICLES TO MARINA
8 That which in mean men we intitle patience
Is pale cold cowardice in noble breasts.
Richard II 1.2.33-4, DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER TO JOHN OF GAUNT
9 Patience is stale, and I am weary of it.
Richard II 5.5.103, RICHARD TO THE KEEPER OF HIS PRISON
10 Be patient, for the world is broad and wide.
Romeo and Juliet 3.3.16, FRIAR LAURENCE TO ROMEO
11 She sat like Patience on a monument,
Smiling at grief.
Twelfth Night 2.4.115-16, VIOLA, as Cesario, to ORSINO
See also DESPAIR; STOICISM
212 I PATRIOTISM
PATRIOTISM
1 Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more.
Julius Caesar 3.2.21-2, BRUTUS' answer to the hypothesised question as to why he had
conspired against Julius Caesar
2 Bleed, bleed, poor country!
Macbeth 4.3.31, MACDUFF TO MALCOLM; see also SCOTLAND AND THE SCOTS
3 Dear earth, I do salute thee with my hand.
Richard II 3.2.6, RICHARD
PEACE
4 The time of universal peace is near.
Antony and Cleopatra 4.6.5, OCTAVIUS CAESAR TO AGRIPPA
5 Why, then we shall have a stirring world again. This peace is nothing
but to rust iron, increase tailors, and breed ballad-makers.
Coriolanus 4.5.225-7, ONE SERVANT TO ANOTHER
6 We have made peace
With no less honour to the Antiates
Than shame to th' Romans.
Coriolanus 5.6.79-81, CORIOLANUS TO LORDS
7 The naked, poor, and mangled peace,
Dear nurse of arts, plenties and joyful births.
Henry V 5.2.34-5, BURGUNDY TO THE FRENCH KING AND QUEEN
8 Expect Saint Martin's summer, halcyon's days.
1 Henry VI 1.2.131, PUCELLE (JOAN OF ARC) TO CHARLES, DAUPHIN OF FRANCE
9 Blessed are the peacemakers on earth.
2 Henry VI 2.1.34, HENRY TO HIS COURT; a reference to Matthew 5.9
10 In her days every man shall eat in safety
Under his own vine what he plants, and sing
The merry songs of peace to all his neighbours.
Henry VIII 5.4.33-5, CRANMER TO HENRY, of the future reign of the infant Elizabeth
11 The grappling vigour and rough frown of war
Is cold in amity, and painted peace.
King John 3.1.30-1, CONSTANCE TO PHILIP, KING OF FRANCE, AND THE DUKE OF AUSTRIA
12 Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will rust them.
Othello 1.2.59, OTHELLO TO IAGO AND BRABANTIO
PERCEPTION I 213
1 Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this son of York.
Richard III 1.1.1-2, RICHARD
2 Grim-visaged War hath smoothed his wrinkled front.
Richard III 1.1.9, RICHARD
3 This weak piping time of peace.
Richard III 1.1.24, RICHARD
4 To reap the harvest of perpetual peace.
Richard III 5.2.15, RICHMOND TO COMPANIONS IN ARMS
5 Now civil wounds are stopped; peace lives again.
Richard HI 5.4.40, RICHMOND TO LORDS
6 Uncertainties now crown themselves assured,
And peace proclaims olives of endless age.
Sonnet 107.7-8
PEOPLE, the
7 The many-headed multitude.
Coriolanus 2.3.16-17, ONE CITIZEN TO ANOTHER
8 STAFFORD Villain! thy father was a plasterer;
And thou thyself a shearman, art thou not?
JACK CADE And Adam was a gardener.
2 Henry VI 4.2.128-30
9 The common people swarm like summer flies.
3 Henry VI 2.6.8, CLIFFORD
10 The body public [is]
A horse whereon the governor doth ride.
Measure for Measure 1.2.156-7, CLAUDIO TO Lucio
See also CLASS, social; DEMOCRACY; EQUALITY; POLITICS AND POLITICIANS;
PUBLIC OPINION; WORKING PEOPLE
PERCEPTION
11 That which is now a horse, even with a thought
The rack dislimns and makes it indistinct
As water is in water.
Antony and Cleopatra 4.14.9-11, ANTONY TO EROS, in defeat
See also MADNESS (170.9)
214 I PERMISSION
PERMISSION
1 He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave
By laboursome petition.
Hamlet 1.2.58-9, POLONIUS TO CLAUDIUS
PERSEVERANCE
2 Stand fast.
We have as many friends as enemies.
Coriolanus 3.1.231-2, CORIOLANUS TO HIS ALLIES
3 Fight till the last gasp.
1 Henry VI 1.2.127, PUCELLE (JOAN OF ARC) TO REIGNIER AND THE BASTARD OF ORLEANS
4 Much rain wears the marble.
3 Henry VI 3.2.50, RICHARD, commenting on his brother King Edward IV's wooing
of Lady Grey; a commonplace, with a number of variations through Shakespeare's
work
5 I am a kind of burr, I shall stick.
Measure for Measure 4.3.176, Lucio TO THE FRIAR
6 Perseverance, dear my lord,
Keeps honour bright.
Troilus and Cressida 3.3.150-1, ULYSSES TO ACHILLES
PERSUASION
7 Three parts of him
Is ours already, and the man entire
Upon the next encounter yields him ours.
Julius Caesar 1.3.154-6, CASSIUS TO CASCA
8 A still soliciting eye.
King Lear 1.1.233, CORDELIA describing to LEAR what she does not have
PHILOSOPHY
9 There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Hamlet 1.5.174-5, HAMLET TO HORATIO
10 Preach some philosophy to make me mad.
King John 3.3.51, CONSTANCE TO CARDINAL PANDULPH
11 Adversity's sweet milk, philosophy.
Romeo and Juliet 3.3.55, FRIAR LAURENCE TO ROMEO
PLACES I 215
1 Young men, whom Aristotle thought
Unfit to hear moral philosophy.
Troilus and Cressida 2.2.167-8, HECTOR TO TROJAN PRINCES
2 FESTE What is the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wildfowl?
MALVOLIO That the soul of our grandam might haply inhabit a bird.
Twelfth Night 4.2.49-52; Feste is pretending to ascertain whether Malvolio is mad.
For more on this concept see ANIMALS.
PITY
3 As small a drop of pity
As a wren's eye.
Cymbeline 4.2.304-5, IMOGEN
4 He hath a tear for pity, and a hand
Open as day for melting charity.
2 Henry IV 4.4.31, HENRY to his son THOMAS, DUKE OF CLARENCE, of Prince Hal; he
adds, 'Notwithstanding, being incensed, he's flint.'
5 Mine enemy's dog
Though he had bit me should have stood that night
Against my fire.
King Lear 4.7.36-8, CORDELIA TO A GENTLEMAN
6 Yet do I fear thy nature:
It is too full o'th' milk of human kindness,
To catch the nearest way.
Macbeth 1.5.15-17, LADY MACBETH, of Macbeth; more at AMBITION
7 Pity, like a naked new-born babe,
Striding the blast.
Macbeth 1.7.21-2, MACBETH
8 A stony adversary, an inhuman wretch,
Uncapable of pity, void, and empty
From any dram of mercy.
Merchant of Venice 4.1.4-6, DUKE OF VENICE TO ANTONIO, of Shylock
9 But yet the pity of it, Iago - O, Iago, the pity of it, Iago!
Othello 4.1.192-3, OTHELLO TO IAGO
PLACES
10 This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air
Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself
Unto our gentle senses.
Macbeth 1.6.1-3, DUNCAN, misjudging as usual, to BANQUO
216 PLANNING
PLANNING
1 When we mean to build,
We first survey the plot, then draw the model,
And when we see the figure of the house,
Then must we rate the cost of the erection,
Which if we find outweighs ability,
What do we then but draw anew the model
In fewer offices, or at least desist
To build at all?
2 Henry IV 1.3.41-8, LORD BARDOLPH TO HASTINGS
PLAYS, PLAYERS AND PLAYHOUSES
2 The king's a beggar now the play is done.
AWs Well That Ends Well Epilogue 1, KING OF FRANCE
3 Saucy lictors
Will catch at us like strumpets, and scald rhymers
Ballad us out o' tune. The quick comedians
Extemporally will stage us, and present
Our Alexandrian revels: Antony
Shall be brought drunken forth, and I shall see
Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness
I'th' posture of a whore.
Antony and Cleopatra 5.2.213-20, CLEOPATRA, before her suicide
4 All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
As You Like It 2.7.129-30, from JAQUES'S 'Seven Ages of Man' speech; more at LIFE
5 Like a dull actor now
I have forgot my part.
Coriolanus 5.3.40-1, CORIOLANUS TO HIS WIFE AND MOTHER
6 Let them be well used, for they are the abstract and brief chronicles of
the time.
Hamlet 2.2.524-5, HAMLET TO POLONIUS, of the players
7 And all for nothing!
For Hecuba!
What's Hecuba to him, or he to her,
That he should weep for her?
Hamlet 2.2.557-60, HAMLET, of a player
PLAYS, PLAYERS AND PLAYHOUSES | 217
1 The play's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King.
Hamlet 2.2.606-7, HAMLET
2 He would drown the stage with tears,
And cleave the general ear with horrid speech,
Make mad the guilty and appal the free,
Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed
The very faculties of eyes and ears.
Hamlet 2.2.562-6, HAMLET, of a player
3 Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on
the tongue; but if you mouth it as many of your players do, I had as lief
the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with
your hand, thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest,
and, as I may say, whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and
beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to
the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to
tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the
most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows and
noise. I would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant. It
out-Herods Herod. Pray you avoid i t . ..
Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor. Suit
the action to the word, the word to the action, with this special
observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature. For anything
so o'erdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first
and now, was and is to hold as 'twere the mirror up to nature; to show
virtue her feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of
the time his form and pressure. Now this overdone or come tardy off,
though it makes the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious
grieve, the censure of the which one must in your allowance o'erweigh
a whole theatre of others . . .
And let those that play your clowns speak no more than is set down
for them - for there be of them that will themselves laugh, to set on
some quantity of barren spectators to laugh too, though in the
meantime some necessary question of the play be then to be
considered.
Hamlet 3.2.1-15,17-29, 39-44, HAMLET TO THE FIRST PLAYER
218 I PLAYS, PLAYERS AND PLAYHOUSES
1 O, for a muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention,
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act,
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!
Henry V Prologue 1-4, CHORUS
2 Within this wooden O.
Henry V Prologue 13, CHORUS; the 'wooden O' refers to the shape of the Elizabethan
theatre
3 The scene
Is now transported, gentles, to Southampton.
There is the playhouse now, there must you sit,
And thence to France shall we convey you safe
And bring you back, charming the narrow seas
To give you gentle pass.
Henry V 2.0.34-9, CHORUS
4 Thus with imagined wing our swift scene flies
In motion of no less celerity
Than that of thought.
Henry V 3.0.1-3, CHORUS
5 'Tis ten to one this play can never please
All that are here.
Henry VIII Epilogue 1-2
6 How many ages hence
Shall this our lofty scene be acted over,
In states unborn, and accents yet unknown?
Julius Caesar 3.1.101-3, CASSIUS TO BRUTUS
7 Two truths are told
As happy prologues to the swelling act
Of the imperial theme.
Macbeth 1.3.127-9, MACBETH; two of the witches' prophecies have been fulfilled,
which promises well for the third - his kingship
8 Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more.
Macbeth 5.5.24-6, MACBETH TO SEYTON
9 QUINCE Marry, our play is 'The most lamentable comedy, and most
cruel death of Pyramus and Thisbe'.
BOTTOM A very good piece of work, I assure you, and a merry.
Midsummer Night's Dream 1.2.11-15
PLAYS, PLAYERS AND PLAYHOUSES | 219
1 I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to tear a cat in, to make all split
. . . This is Ercles' vein, a tyrant's vein: a lover is more condoling.
Midsummer Night's Dream 1.2.26-7,37-8» BOTTOM TO PETER QUINCE, showing off his
acting skills; 'Ercles' is Hercules
2 Let me play the lion too. I will roar, that I will do any man's heart good
to hear me . . . I will aggravate my voice so, that I will roar you as gently
as any sucking dove; I will roar you and 'twere any nightingale.
Midsummer Night's Dream 1.2.67-8, 77-9, BOTTOM, longing to play the lion full
throttle, and then dealing with objections from his fellow players
3 We will meet, and there we may rehearse most obscenely and
courageously. Take pains, be perfect: adieu.
Midsummer Night's Dream 1.2.101-3, PETER QUINCE addressing his cast
4 You can never bring in a wall.
Midsummer Night's Dream 3.1.61, the pragmatic TOM SNOUT
5 What hempen homespuns have we swaggering here?
Midsummer Night's Dream 3.1.72, PUCK
6 And most dear actors, eat no onions nor garlic, for we are to utter
sweet breath.
Midsummer Night's Dream 4.2.39-41, BOTTOM TO HIS FRIENDS
7 Come now; what masques, what dances shall we have,
To wear away this long age of three hours
Between our after-supper and bed-time?
Where is our usual manager of mirth?
What revels are in hand? Is there no play
To ease the anguish of a torturing hour?
Midsummer Night's Dream 5.1.32-7, THESEUS TO HIS COMPANIONS
8 Merry and tragical? Tedious and brief?
That is hot ice, and wondrous strange snow!
Midsummer Night's Dream 5.1.58-9, THESEUS, commenting on the mechanicals'
description of their play
9 HIPPOLYTA This is the silliest stuff that ever I heard.
THESEUS The best in this kind are but shadows; and the worst are no
worse, if imagination amend them.
Midsummer Night's Dream 5.1.207-9
10 This passion, and the death of a dear friend, would go near to make a
man look sad.
Midsummer Night's Dream 5.1.277-8; THESEUS comments with sophisticated
cynicism on Bottom's performance as Pyramus
220 I PLAYS, PLAYERS AND PLAYHOUSES
1 Here she comes, and her passion ends the play.
Midsummer Night's Dream 5.1.303, THESEUS, commenting on the return to the stage
of Thisbe
2 No epilogue, I pray you; for your play needs no excuse.
Midsummer Night's Dream 5.1.340-1, THESEUS TO BOTTOM
3 If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumbered here
While these visions did appear.
Midsummer Night's Dream 5.1.408-11; PUCK addresses the audience
4 The eyes of men,
After a well-graced actor leaves the stage,
Are idly bent on him that enters next,
Thinking his prattle to be tedious.
Richard II 5.2.23-6, YORK TO THE DUCHESS OF YORK, comparing Bolingbroke's
reception to Richard's
5 I can counterfeit the deep tragedian,
Speak, and look back, and pry on every side.
Richard III 3.5.5-6, BUCKINGHAM TO RICHARD
6 The two hours' traffic of our stage.
Romeo and Juliet Prologue 12, CHORUS
7 Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind.
Tempest 4.1.148-56, PROSPERO TO MIRANDA AND FERDINAND; see also LIFE
8 Like a strutting player, whose conceit
Lies in his hamstring and doth think it rich
To hear the wooden dialogue and sound
'Twixt his stretched footing and the scaffoldage.
Troilus and Cressida 1.3.153-6, ULYSSES TO THE GREEK PRINCES, describing Achilles
See also SPECTATORS
POETRY 221
PLEASURE
1 There's not a minute of our lives should stretch
Without some pleasure now.
Antony and Cleopatra 1.1.47-8, ANTONY TO CLEOPATRA; see also EAST, the
2 No profit grows where is no pleasure ta'en.
Taming of the Shrew 1.1.39, TRANIO TO LUCENTIO
PLOTS
3 That's the way
To fool their preparation and to conquer
Their most absurd intents.
Antony and Cleopatra 5.2.223-5, CLEOPATRA, at her suicide
4 The plot is laid.
1 Henry VI 2.3.4, COUNTESS OF AUVERGNE TO HER PORTER
5 My brain, more busy than the labouring spider,
Weaves tedious snares to trap mine enemies.
2 Henry V7 3.1.339-40, RICHARD OF YORK
6 Their hats are plucked about their ears,
And half their faces buried in their cloaks.
Julius Caesar 2.1.73-4, Lucius describing the conspirators
7 Work on,
My medicine, work!
Othello 4.1.44-5, IAGO, witnessing the effects on Othello of his scheming
8 I have a young conception in m y brain.
Troilus and Cressida 1.3.311, ULYSSES TO NESTOR
9 Excellent, I smell a device.
Twelfth Night 2.3.158, SIR TOBY BELCH TO SIR ANDREW AGUECHEEK, who replies, T
have't in my nose too.'
See also TRAPS AND TRICKS
POETRY
10 When a man's verses cannot be understood, nor a man's good wit
seconded with the forward child, understanding, it strikes a man more
dead than a great reckoning in a little room.
As You Like It 3.3.11-14, TOUCHSTONE TO AUDREY; the last phrase in this passage may
reflect Shakespeare's feelings about the violent early death of his admired
contemporary, the poet and playwright Christopher Marlowe
222 I POETRY
1 Truly, I would the gods had made thee poetical.
As You Like It 3.3.14-15, TOUCHSTONE TO AUDREY
2 Assist me some extemporal god of rhyme, for I am sure I shall turn
sonnet.
Love's Labour's Lost 1.2.178-9, ARMADO
3 By heaven, I do love, and it hath taught me to rhyme, and to be
melancholy.
Love's Labour's Lost 4.3.11-13, BEROWNE
4 I was not born under a rhyming planet.
Much Ado About Nothing 5.2.39-40, BENEDICK TO MARGARET
5 Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st.
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Sonnet 18.11-14
6 Not marble, nor the gilded monuments
Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme.
Sonnet 55.1-2
7 When wasteful war shall statues overturn
And broils root out the work of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword, nor war's quick fire, shall burn
The living record of your memory.
Sonnet 55.5-8
POETS
8 The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
Midsummer Night's Dream 5.1.12-17, THESEUS TO COMPANIONS
POISON
9 The leperous distilment, whose effect
Holds such an enmity with blood of man
That swift as quicksilver it courses through
The natural gates and alleys of the body,
POLITENESS I 223
And with a sudden vigour it doth posset
And curd, like eager droppings into milk,
The thin and wholesome blood. So did it mine,
And a most instant tetter barked about,
Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust
All my smooth body.
Hamlet 1.5.64-73, GHOST TO HAMLET
POLICE
1 One whose hard heart is buttoned up with steel;
A fiend, a fury, pitiless and rough,
A wolf, nay worse, a fellow all in buff.
Comedy of Errors 4.2.34-6, DROMIO OF SYRACUSE TO ADRIANA, of the policeman who
has just arrested his master
2 You filthy famished correctioner.
2 Henry IV 5.4.21, DOLL TEARSHEET TO A BEADLE
3 CONRADE Away! You are an ###, you are an ###.
DOGBERRY Dost thou not suspect my place? Dost thou not suspect my
years? O that he were here to write me down an ###! But masters,
remember that I am an ###: though it be not written down, yet forget
not that I am an ###. No, thou villain, thou art full of piety, as shall be
proved upon thee by good witness. I am a wise fellow, and which is
more, an officer, and which is more, a householder, and . . . one that
knows the law.
Much Ado About Nothing 4.2.72-82
4 Marry, sir, they have committed false report, moreover they have
spoken untruths, secondarily they are slanders, sixth and lastly they
have belied a lady, thirdly they have verified unjust things, and to
conclude, they are lying knaves.
Much Ado About Nothing 5.1.208-12, DOGBERRY'S report on the reasons for
apprehending two suspects
POLITENESS
5 The price is, to ask it kindly.
Coriolanus 2.3.74, A CITIZEN TO CORIOLANUS
6 The very pink of courtesy.
Romeo and Juliet 2.4.57, MERCUTIO'S description of himself, to ROMEO
224 I POLITICS AND POLITICIANS
POLITICS AND POLITICIANS
1 Your dishonour
Mangles true judgement, and bereaves the state
Of that integrity which should become it.
Coriolanus 3.1.157-9, CORIOLANUS TO BRUTUS AND MENENIUS
2 Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth;
And thus do we of wisdom and of reach,...
By indirections find directions out.
Hamlet 2.1.64-5, 67, POLONIUS TO REYNALDO
3 I do think - or else this brain of mine
Hunts not the trail of policy so sure
As it hath used to do - that I have found
The very cause.
Hamlet 2.2.46-9, POLONIUS TO CLAUDIUS
4 This counsellor
Is now most still, most secret, and most grave,
Who was in life a foolish prating knave.
Hamlet 3.4.215-17, HAMLET TO GERTRUDE, of Polonius
5 This might be the pate of a politician . . . , one that would circumvent
God, might it not?
Hamlet 5.1.77-9, HAMLET TO HORATIO, examining skulls in the graveyard
6 This vile politician.
1 Henry IV1.3.238, HOTSPUR TO NORTHUMBERLAND, of Bolingbroke (Henry IV)
7 I stole all courtesy from heaven,
And dressed myself in such humility
That I did pluck allegiance from men's hearts . . .
Even in the presence of the crowned King . . .
The skipping King,...
being daily swallowed by men's eyes,
They surfeited with honey, and began
To loathe the taste of sweetness, whereof a little
More than a little is by much too much.
So, when he had occasion to be seen,
He was but as the cuckoo is in June,
Heard, not regarded.
1 Henry IV 3.2.50-2, 54, 60, 70-6; HENRY describes to his son PRINCE HAL his tactics
for winning popularity during the reign of his predecessor, Richard II
POLITICS AND POLITICIANS | 225
1 Be it thy course to busy giddy minds
With foreign quarrels.
2 Henry JV 4.5.213-14, HENRY TO PRINCE HAL
2 With silence . . . be thou politic.
1 Henry VI 2.5.101, MORTIMER TO RICHARD PLANTAGENET
3 The commons, like an angry hive of bees
That want their leader, scatter up and down,
And care not who they sting in his revenge.
2 Henry VI 3.2.124-6, WARWICK TO HENRY AND LORDS
4 Thou setter up and plucker down of kings.
3 Henry VI 2.3.37, EDWARD, son of Richard of York, to WARWICK 'the Kingmaker'
5 I know his sword
Hath a sharp edge: it's long, and't may be said
It reaches far, and where 'twill not extend,
Thither he darts it.
Henry VIII 1.1.109-12, NORFOLK TO BUCKINGHAM, of Cardinal Wolsey
6 Those that with haste will make a mighty fire
Begin it with weak straws.
Julius Caesar 1.3.107-8, CASSIUS TO CASCA
7 Like a scurvy politician seem
To see the things thou dost not.
King Lear 4.6.167-8, LEAR TO GLOUCESTER
8 Who loses and who wins, who's in, who's out.
King Lear 5.3.15, LEAR TO CORDELIA
9 The caterpillars of the commonwealth,
Which I have sworn to weed and pluck away.
Richard II 2.3.165-6, BOLINGBROKE TO LORDS, of 'Bushy, Bagot, and their complices'
10 Policy,. . .
Which works on leases of short-numbered hours.
Sonnet 124.9-10
11 Troy in our weakness stands, not in her strength.
Troilus and Cressida 1.3.137, ULYSSES TO THE GREEK PRINCES
12 They tax our policy and call it cowardice.
Troilus and Cressida 1.3.197, ULYSSES TO THE GREEK PRINCES
226 I POLITICS AND POLITICIANS
1 Let thy tongue tang arguments of state.
Twelfth Night 2.5.145-6, MALVOLIO reads the anonymous letter which he believes is
from Olivia
POSSESSION
2 Have is have, however men do catch.
King John 1.1.173, PHILIP THE BASTARD TO JOHN
POVERTY
3 Oppressed with two weak evils, age and hunger.
As You Like It 2.7.132, ORLANDO TO DUKE SENIOR, of Adam
4 I am as poor as Job, my lord, but not so patient.
2 Henry IV 1.2.126-7, FALSTAFF TO THE LORD CHIEF JUSTICE
5 LORD CHIEF JUSTICE Your means are very slender, and your waste is
great.
FALSTAFF I would it were otherwise, I would my means were greater
and my waist slenderer.
2 Henry IV 1.2.140-3
6 I can get no remedy against this consumption of the purse; borrowing
only lingers and lingers it out, but the disease is incurable.
2 Henry JV 1.2.236-8, FALSTAFF TO THE LORD CHIEF JUSTICE
7 Prayers and wishes
Are all I can return.
Henry VIII 2.3.69-70, ANNE BULLEN (BOLEYN) TO THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN, who has
just detailed the gifts Henry proposes to give her
8 Whiles I am a beggar, I will rail
And say there is no sin but to be rich;
And being rich, my virtue then shall be
To say there is no vice but beggary.
King John 2.1.593-6, PHILIP THE BASTARD
9 O, reason not the need! Our basest beggars
Are in the poorest thing superfluous;
Allow not nature more than nature needs,
Man's life is cheap as beast's.
King Lear 2.2.456-9, LEAR TO REGAN
10 A most poor man, made tame to fortune's blows.
King Lear 4.6.217, EDGAR, of himself, to GLOUCESTER
POWER I 227
1 The naked truth of it is, I have no shirt.
Love's Labour's Lost 5.2.703, ARMADO TO BEROWNE
2 Famine is in thy cheeks,
Need and oppression starveth in thy eyes,
Contempt and beggary hangs upon thy back.
Romeo and Juliet 5.1.69-71, ROMEO TO THE APOTHECARY
3 What an alteration of honour has desp'rate want made!
Timon of Athens 4.3.464, STEWARD, of Timon
See also BEGGARS; THRIFT; WORLD, the
POWER
4 Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch
Of the ranged empire fall! Here is my space!
Kingdoms are clay!
Antony and Cleopatra 1.1.34-6, ANTONY TO CLEOPATRA
5 [I] who
With half the bulk oW world played as I pleased,
Making and marring fortunes.
Antony and Cleopatra 3.11.63-5, ANTONY TO CLEOPATRA
6 Great men tremble when the lion roars.
2 Henry VI 3.1.19, QUEEN MARGARET TO HENRY - the lion she has in mind is
Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester
7 Great men have reaching hands.
2 Henry VI 4.7.77, LORD SAY TO JACK CADE; he says that he has been responsible for
the deaths of people he has never met, without having struck a blow himself
8 A sceptre snatched with an unruly hand
Must be as boisterously maintained as gained.
King John 3.3.135-6, CARDINAL PANDULPH TO LEWIS, DAUPHIN OF FRANCE
9 When Caesar says, 'Do this/ it is performed.
Julius Caesar 1.2.10, MARK ANTONY TO JULIUS CAESAR
10 Ye gods, it doth amaze me
A man of such a feeble temper should . . .
. . . bear the palm alone.
Julius Caesar 1.2.127-8,130, CASSIUS' description of Julius Caesar's power
11 We shall see
If power change purpose, what our seemers be.
Measure for Measure 1.3.53-4, DUKE TO FRIAR THOMAS; he means to test whether his
deputy Angelo is as virtuous as he seems by giving him greater power
228 I POWER
1 It is excellent
To have a giant's strength, but it is tyrannous
To use it like a giant.
Measure for Measure 2.2.108-10, ISABELLA TO ANGELO
See also SELF-CONTROL
PRAYER
2 My words fly up, my thoughts remain below.
Words without thoughts never to heaven go.
Hamlet 3.3.97-8, CLAUDIUS
3 But wherefore could not I pronounce 'Amen'?
1 had most need of blessing, and 'Amen'
Stuck in my throat.
Macbeth 2.2.30-2, MACBETH TO LADY MACBETH
4 When I would pray and think, I think and pray
To several subjects: Heaven hath my empty words,
Whilst my invention, hearing not my tongue,
Anchors on Isabel.
Measure for Measure 2.4.1-4, ANGELO
5 His worst fault is that he is given to prayer; he is something peevish
that way.
Merry Wives of Windsor 1.4.11-12, MISTRESS QUICKLY TO SIMPLE, of a servant
6 Now I want
Spirits to enforce, Art to enchant;
And my ending is despair,
Unless I be relieved by prayer,
Which pierces so, that it assaults
Mercy itself, and frees all faults.
Tempest Epilogue 14-19, PROSPERO
PREPAREDNESS
7 The readiness is all.
Hamlet 5.2.221, HAMLET TO HORATIO
8 Our legions are brim-full, our cause is ripe.
Julius Caesar 4.3-214, BRUTUS TO CASSIUS
PRESENT, the
9 Past and to come seems best; things present, worst.
2 Henry IV 1.3.108, ARCHBISHOP OF YORK TO HASTINGS AND LORD BARDOLPH
1 What is love? 'Tis not hereafter,
Present mirth hath present laughter:
What's to come is still unsure.
In delay there lies no plenty,
Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty:
Youth's a stuff will not endure.
Twelfth Night 2.3.47-52, FESTE'S song; more at LOVE
PRIDE
2 My pride fell with my fortunes.
As You Like It 1.2.242, ROSALIND TO ORLANDO
3 You speak o'th' people
As if you were a god to punish, not
A man of their infirmity.
Coriolanus 3.1.80-2, BRUTUS TO CORIOLANUS
4 I can see his pride
Peep through each part of him.
Henry VIII 1.1.68-9, ABERGAVENNY TO BUCKINGHAM, of Cardinal Wolsey
5 You sign your place and calling, in full seeming,
With meekness and humility: but your heart
Is crammed with arrogancy, spleen and pride.
Henry VIII 2.4.107-9, KATHERINE OF ARAGON TO CARDINAL WOLSEY
6 New-made honour doth forget men's names.
King John 1.1.183, PHILIP THE BASTARD
7 Take physic, pomp
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel.
King Lear 3.4.33-4, LEAR, in the storm
8 I will not jump with common spirits,
And rank me with the barbarous multitudes.
Merchant of Venice 2.9.31-2, PRINCE OF ARRAGON
9 Being so great, I have no need to beg.
Richard II 4.1.309, RICHARD TO BOLINGBROKE
10 I have a touch of your condition,
That cannot brook the accent of reproof.
Richard HI 4.4.158-9, RICHARD TO THE DUCHESS OF YORK, his mother
11 Some glory in their birth, some in their skill,
Some in their wealth, some in their body's force,
230 I PRIDE
Some in their garments, though new-fangled ill,
Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse.
Sonnet 91.1-4
1 He that is proud eats up himself: pride is his own glass, his own
trumpet, his own chronicle.
Troilus and Cressida 2.3.156-8, AGAMEMNON TO AJAX
2 I do hate a proud man as I do hate the engendering of toads.
Troilus and Cressida 2.3.160-1, AJAX'S contribution to the discussion of pride
3 Things small as nothing, for request's sake only,
He makes important; possessed he is with greatness.
Troilus and Cressida 2.3.170-1, ULYSSES TO AJAX, of Achilles
4 He'll answer nobody: he professes not answering; speaking is for
beggars, he wears his tongue in's arms.
Troilus and Cressida 3.3.266-8, THERSITES TO ACHILLES, of Ajax
5 Be opposite with a kinsman, surly with servants.
Twelfth Night 2.5.144-5, MALVOLIO reads the anonymous letter which he believes is
from Olivia
See also SCORN
PRIESTS
6 Out, scarlet hypocrite!
1 Henry VI 1.3.56, GLOUCESTER TO THE BISHOP OF WINCHESTER
7 This meddling priest.
King John 3.1.89, JOHN TO PHILIP, KING OF FRANCE, of Cardinal Pandulph
See also RELIGION
PRISON
8 Come, let's away to prison;
We two alone will sing like birds i'the cage.
When thou dost ask me blessing I'll kneel down
And ask of thee forgiveness. So we'll live
And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh
At gilded butterflies.
King Lear 5.3.8-13, LEAR TO CORDELIA
9 I have been studying how I may compare
This prison where I live unto the world.
Richard II 5.1.1-2, RICHARD
PROPHECIES 231
PROMISES
1 Tis not the many oaths that makes the truth,
But the plain single vow that is vowed true.
All's Well That Ends Well 4.2.21-2, DIANA TO BERTRAM
2 I have not kept my square, but that to come
Shall all be done by th' rule.
Antony and Cleopatra 2.3.6-7, MARK ANTONY TO OCTAVIA
3 His promises were as he then was, mighty,
But his performance, as he is now, nothing.
Henry VIII 4.2.41-2, KATHERINE OF ARAGON TO GRIFFITH, an usher, of Cardinal
Wolsey
4 If thou swear'st,
Thou mayst prove false.
Romeo and Juliet 2.2.91-2, JULIET TO ROMEO
5 To promise is most courtly and fashionable; performance is a kind of
will or testament which argues a great sickness in his judgment that
makes it.
Timon of Athens 5.1.27-9, PAINTER TO A POET
6 It is the purpose that makes strong the vow.
Troilus and Cressida 5.3.23, CASSANDRA TO HECTOR
7 Stuffed with protestations,
And full of new-found oaths.
Two Gentlemen of Verona 4.4.126-7, JULIA TO SILVIA
PROPHECIES
8 The time will come that foul sin, gathering head,
Shall break into corruption.
2 Henry IV3.1.76-7, HENRY TO WARWICK AND SURREY, quoting Richard II
9 Beware the ides of March.
Julius Caesar 1.2.19, SOOTHSAYER TO JULIUS CAESAR
10 Be Kent unmannerly
When Lear is mad.
King Lear 1.1.146-7, KENT TO LEAR
11 Jesters do oft prove prophets.
King Lear 5.3.72, REGAN TO ALBANY AND GONERIL
232 I PROPHECIES
1 If you can look into the seeds of time,
And say which grain will grow, and which will not,
Speak then to me.
Macbeth 1.3.58-60, BANQUO TO THE WITCHES
2 Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth! beware Macduff;
Beware the Thane of Fife . . .
None of woman born
Shall harm Macbeth . . .
Macbeth shall never vanquished be, until
Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill
Shall come against him.
Macbeth 4.1.71-2, 80-1, 92-4, THREE APPARITIONS TO MACBETH
3 I see, as in a map, the end of all.
Richard III 2.4.54, QUEEN ELIZABETH TO THE DUCHESS OF YORK
4 Bloody thou art; bloody will be thy end.
Richard III 4.4.195, DUCHESS OF YORK TO RICHARD, her son
5 Cry, Trojans, cry.
Troilus and Cressida 2.2.98, CASSANDRA, foreseeing Troy's fate
See also OMENS AND PORTENTS
PROSPERITY
6 No day without a deed to crown it.
Henry VIII 5.4.58, CRANMER TO HENRY, foreseeing the reign of Elizabeth I
PROVIDENCE
7 There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow.
Hamlet 5.2.218-19, HAMLET TO HORATIO; more at FATE
PRUDENCE
8 His noble hand
Did win what he did spend, and spent not that
Which his triumphant father's hand had won.
Richard II 2.1.179-80, YORK TO RICHARD, of Edward, Richard's grandfather
PUBLIC OPINION
9 This common body,
Like to a vagabond flag upon the stream,
Goes to, and back, lackeying the varying tide,
To rot itself with motion.
Antony and Cleopatra 1.3.44-7, OCTAVIUS CAESAR
PUNISHMENT | 233
1 There hath been many great men that have flattered the people, who
ne'er loved them; and there be many that they have loved, they know
not wherefore.
Coriolanus 2.2.7-10, ONE OFFICER TO ANOTHER
2 The play, I remember, pleased not the million, 'twas caviare to the
general.
Hamlet 2.2.436-8, HAMLET TO THE PLAYERS
3 He's loved of the distracted multitude,
Who like not in their judgment but their eyes.
Hamlet 4.3.4-5, CLAUDIUS TO LORDS
4 An habitation giddy and unsure
Hath he that buildeth on the vulgar heart.
2 Henry IV 1.3.89-90, ARCHBISHOP OF YORK TO HASTINGS AND LORD BARDOLPH
5 I love the people,
But do not like to stage me to their eyes:
Though it do well, I do not relish well
Their loud applause and Aves vehement;
Nor do I think the man of safe discretion
That does affect it.
Measure for Measure 1.1.67-72, DUKE TO ANGELO
6 The fool multitude that choose by show.
Merchant of Venice 2.9.26, PRINCE OF ARRAGON TO PORTIA
PUNISHMENT
7 Where th'offence is, let the great axe fall.
Hamlet 4.5.215, CLAUDIUS TO LAERTES
8 It was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answered it.
Julius Caesar 3.2.80-1, MARK ANTONY'S oration on the death of Julius Caesar
9 All sects, all ages smack of this vice, and he
To die for't!
Measure for Measure 2.2.5-6, PROVOST TO A SERVANT; the vice is sex outside marriage
10 He who the sword of heaven will bear
Should be as holy as severe.
Measure for Measure 3.2.254-5, DUKE
234 I PUNISHMENT
1 You must prepare your bosom for his knife.
Merchant of Venice 4.1.243, PORTIA TO ANTONIO
2 A punishment more in policy than in malice.
Othello 2.3.265, IAGO TO CASSIO
3 Off with his head!
Richard III 3.4.75, RICHARD TO HASTINGS
See also DEATH; GUILT; JUDGES AND JUDGEMENT; JUSTICE
fc%^%^t%^%^ I I fc%^%^3*%^%^
QUARRELS
4 To be put to the arbitrement of swords.
Cymheline 1.5.49-50, A FRENCHMAN TO IACHIMO
5 Gentlemen, enough of this, it came in too suddenly, let it die as it was
born, and I pray you be better acquainted.
Cymheline 1.5.121-3, PHILARIO TO POSTHUMUS AND IACHIMO
6 Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,
Bear't that th'opposed may beware of thee.
Hamlet 1.3.55-7, POLONIUS TO LAERTES; more at ADVICE
7 In a false quarrel there is no true valour.
Much Ado About Nothing 5.1.121, BENEDICK TO DON PEDRO
8 Thou? Why, thou wilt quarrel with a man that hath a hair more or a
hair less in his beard than thou hast. Thou wilt quarrel with a man for
cracking nuts, having no other reason but because thou hast hazel eyes.
What eye but such an eye would spy out such a quarrel? Thy head is as
full of quarrels as an egg is full of meat, and yet thy head hath been
beaten as addle as an egg for quarrelling.
Romeo and Juliet 3.1.16-24, MERCUTIO TO BENVOLIO
QUESTIONS
9 To be, or not to be, that is the question.
Hamlet 3.1.56, HAMLET; for the rest of this speech see SUICIDE
REASON AND UNREASON | 235
1 Ask me what question thou canst possible,
And I will answer unpremeditated.
1 Henry VI 1.2.87-8, PUCELLE (JOAN OF ARC) TO CHARLES, DAUPHIN OF FRANCE, AND
REIGNIER
2 Demand me nothing. What you know, you know.
Othello 5.2.302, IAGO, to those assembled round the body of Desdemona
QUIET
3 Not a mouse stirring.
Hamlet 1.1.11, FRANCISCO TO BARNARDO, on the night watch
4 No tongue! all eyes! be silent.
Tempest 4.1.59, PROSPERO, introducing a masque
5 Pray you, tread softly, that the blind mole may not
Hear a foot fall.
Tempest 4.1.194-5, CALIBAN TO STEPHANO AND TRINCULO
>^^$t%^%^%:< Krx *%^%^%^%^
READING
6 POLONIUS What do you read, my lord?
HAMLET Words, words, words.
Hamlet 2.2.191-2
See also BOOKS; EDUCATION; WORDS
REASON AND UNREASON
7 You cannot speak of reason to the Dane
And lose your voice.
Hamlet 1.2.44-5, CLAUDIUS claims his accessibility
8 He that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and godlike reason
To fust in us unused.
Hamlet 4.4.36-9, HAMLET
236 I REASON AND UNREASON
1 O judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.
Julius Caesar 3.2.105-6, MARK ANTONY'S oration on the death of Julius Caesar
2 The will of man is by his reason swayed.
Midsummer Night's Dream 2.2.114, LYSANDER TO HELENA
3 We have reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal stings, our
unbitted lusts.
Othello 1.3.331-3, IAGO TO RODERIGO
4 My reason, the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
Hath left me.
Sonnet 147.5-7
5 Past cure I am, now reason is past care.
Sonnet 147.9
6 Pleasure and revenge
Have ears more deaf than adders to the voice
Of any true decision.
Troilus and Cressida 2.2.172-4, HECTOR TO TROJAN PRINCES
REASONS
7 Every why hath a wherefore.
Comedy of Errors 2.2.43-4, DROMIO OF SYRACUSE TO ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
8 If reasons were as plentiful as blackberries, I would give no man a
reason upon compulsion.
1 Henry IV2.4.235-7, FALSTAFF TO POINS; this joke puns on 'reasons' and the similarly
pronounced 'raisins'
9 It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul!
Othello 5.2.1, OTHELLO contemplating the sleeping Desdemona
10 My reasons are too deep and dead:
Too deep and dead, poor infants, in their graves.
Richard HI 4.4.262-3, QUEEN ELIZABETH TO RICHARD
11 I have no other but a woman's reason:
I think him so, because I think him so.
Two Gentlemen of Verona 1.2.23-4, LUCETTA TO JULIA
REBELLION AND REVOLUTION | 237
REBELLION AND REVOLUTION
1 There was a time, when all the body's members
Rebelled against the belly; thus accused it:
That only like a gulf it did remain
I'th' midst o'th' body, idle and unactive,
Still cupboarding the viand.
Coriolanus 1.1.95-9, MENENIUS TO CITIZENS; a well-known fable about the role of the
governing class; the body replies to its critics (129-38):
'True is it, my incorporate friends/ quoth he,
'That I receive the general food at first
Which you do live upon; and fit it is,
Because I am the store-house and the shop
Of the whole body. But, if you do remember,
I send it through the rivers of your blood
Even to the court, the heart, to th' seat o'th' brain;
And through the cranks and offices of man,
The strongest nerves and small inferior veins
From me receive that natural competency
Whereby they live/
2 WORCESTER I protest
1 have not sought the day of this dislike.
HENRY YOU have not sought it? How comes it, then?
FALSTAFF Rebellion lay in his way, and he found it.
i Henry IV 5.1.25-8
3 The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.
2 Henry VI 4.2.74, BUTCHER TO JACK CADE, leader of a popular rebellion
4 The smallest worm will turn being trodden on.
3 Henry VI 2.2.17, CLIFFORD TO HENRY AND QUEEN MARGARET
5 We shall be called purgers, not murderers.
Julius Caesar 2.1.180, BRUTUS TO CASSIUS
6 Liberty! Freedom! Tyranny is dead!
Julius Caesar 3.1.78, CINNA'S cry on the death of Julius Caesar
7 Rebellion, flat rebellion!
King John 3.1.224, DUKE OF AUSTRIA to assembled nobility
238 I REBELLION AND REVOLUTION
1 Flout 'em and cout 'em,
And scout 'em and flout 'em;
Thought is free.
Tempest 3.2.123-5, STEPHANO, singing
REGRET
2 What our contempts doth often hurl from us
We wish it ours again.
Antony and Cleopatra 1.2.128-9, ANTONY
3 Let him have time to mark how slow time goes
In time of sorrow, and how swift and short
His time of folly and his time of sport.
Lucrèce 990-2
4 Wake Duncan with thy knocking: I would thou couldst!
Macbeth 2.2.73, MACBETH
5 Things without all remedy
Should be without regard: what's done is done.
Macbeth 3.2.11-12, LADY MACBETH TO MACBETH
6 What's done cannot be undone.
Macbeth 5.1.69-70, LADY MACBETH, mad
7 Things past redress are now with me past care.
Richard II 2.3.170, YORK TO BOLINGBROKE
8 After-hours gives leisure to repent.
Richard III 4.4.293, RICHARD TO QUEEN ELIZABETH
9 Th'offender's sorrow lends but weak relief
To him that bears the strong offence's loss.
Sonnet 34.11-12
REJECTION
10 Am I so round with you, as you with me,
That like a football you do spurn me thus?
Comedy of Errors 2.1.85-6, DROMIO OF EPHESUS TO ADRIANA, who thinks he is her
servant
11 Get thee to a nunnery.
Hamlet 3.1.121, HAMLET TO OPHELIA; for fuller context see CHILDREN, having or not
having
RENUNCIATION | 239
1 Stand not upon the order of your going,
But go at once.
Macbeth 3.4.118-19, LADY MACBETH TO HER GUESTS
2 She sent him away as cold as a snowball.
Pericles 4.6.137-8, BOULT TO THE BAWD
3 The door is open, sir, there lies your way.
Taming of the Shrew 3.2.208, KATHERINA TO PETRUCHIO
RELIGION
4 Am I Rome's slave?
King John 5.2.97, LEWIS, DAUPHIN OF FRANCE, TO CARDINAL PANDULPH, the papal
legate
5 I will buy with you, sell with you, talk with you, walk with you, and so
following: but I will not eat with you, drink with you, nor pray with
you.
Merchant of Venice 1.3.34-6, SHYLOCK TO BASSANIO
6 In religion,
What damned error but some sober brow
Will bless it, and approve it with a text?
Merchant of Venice, 3.2.JJ-9, BASSANIO
7 For aye to be in shady cloister mewed,
To live a barren sister all your life,
Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon.
Midsummer Nighfs Dream 1.1.71-3, THESEUS TO HERMIA, threatening her with the
prospect of being a nun
8 'Tis mad idolatry
To make the service greater than the god.
Troilus and Cressida 2.2.57-8, HECTOR TO TROILUS
9 It is an heretic that makes the fire,
Not she which burns in 't.
Winter's Tale 2.3.114-15, PAULINA TO LEONTES
See also CHRISTIANS; GOD; JEWS AND JEWISHNESS; PRIESTS
RENUNCIATION
10 I'll give my jewels for a set of beads;
My gorgeous palace for a hermitage;
My gay apparel for an almsman's gown;
My figured goblets for a dish of wood;
240 I RENUNCIATION
My sceptre for a palmer's walking staff;
My subjects for a pair of carved saints,
And my large kingdom for a little grave,
A little little grave, an obscure grave.
Richard II 3.3.147-54, RICHARD TO AUMERLE
1 With mine own tears I wash away my balm,
With mine own hands I give away my crown,
With mine own tongue deny my sacred state,
With mine own breath release all duteous oaths;
All pomp and majesty I do forswear.
Richard II 4.1.207-11, RICHARD TO BOLINGBROKE
REPUTATION
2 The bubble reputation
As You Like It 2.7.152, from JAQUES'S 'Seven Ages of Man' speech
3 I have bought
Golden opinions from all sorts of people
Which would be worn now in their newest gloss.
Macbeth 1.7.32-4, MACBETH TO LADY MACBETH
4 The purest treasure mortal times afford
Is spotless reputation.
Richard II 1.1.177-8, MOWBRAY TO RICHARD
5 Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost my reputation, I
have lost the immortal part of myself.
Othello 2.3.254-6, CASSIO TO IAGO
6 Reputation is an idle and most false imposition, oft got without merit
and lost without deserving.
Othello 2.3.260-2, IAGO TO CASSIO, in reply to the above
7 Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls:...
He that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him
And makes me poor indeed.
Othello 3.3.158-9,162-4, IAGO TO OTHELLO
8 The painful warrior famoused for worth,
After a thousand victories once foiled,
Is from the book of honour razed quite.
Sonnet 25.9-11
RESOLVE I 241
1 I see my reputation is at stake.
Troilus and Cressida 3.3.226, ACHILLES TO PATROCLUS
2 Never dream on infamy, but go.
Two Gentlemen of Verona 2.7.64, LUCETTA TO JULIA, 'infamy' meaning getting a bad
name
RESENTMENT
3 Under him
My Genius is rebuked; as, it is said,
Mark Antony's was by Caesar.
Macbeth 3.1.54-6, MACBETH, of Banquo
4 They hailed him father to a line of kings:
Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown,
And put a barren sceptre in my gripe.
Macbeth 3.1.59-61, MACBETH, of Banquo
5 I had rather be a canker in a hedge than a rose in his grace.
Much Ado About Nothing 1.3.25-6, DON JOHN TO CONRADE, of his brother Don Pedro
6 He hath a daily beauty in his life
That makes me ugly.
Othello 5.1.19-20, IAGO TO RODERIGO, of Cassio
RESIGNATION
7 We lose it not so long as we can smile.
Othello 1.3.212, BRABANTIO TO THE DUKE OF VENICE
RESOLVE
8 My resolution's placed, and I have nothing
Of woman in me. Now from head to foot
I am marble-constant. Now the fleeting moon
No planet is of mine.
Antony and Cleopatra 5.2.237-40, CLEOPATRA
9 I will set this foot of mine as far
As who goes furthest.
Julius Caesar 1.3.119-20, CASCA TO CASSIUS; see also STARS
10 How high a pitch his resolution soars!
Richard II 1.1.109, RICHARD, of Bolingbroke
11 [We are] metal,... steel to the very back.
Titus Andronicus 4.3.48, TITUS TO MARCUS
242 I RESPECT
RESPECT
1 I hold you as a thing enskied and sainted.
Measure for Measure 1.4.34, Lucio TO ISABELLA
RESPONSIBILITY
2 Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie
Which we ascribe to heaven.
All's Well That Ends Well 1.1.216-17, HELENA TO PAROLLES
3 The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.
Julius Caesar 1.2.138-9, CASSIUS TO BRUTUS
4 When we are sick in fortune, often the surfeits of our own behaviour,
we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon and the stars, as if
we were villains on necessity, fools by heavenly compulsion.
King Lear 1.2.120-3, EDMUND
5 Ebbing men . . .
Most often do so near the bottom run
By their own fear or sloth.
Tempest 2.1.227-9, ANTONIO TO SEBASTIAN
See also FATE; FORTUNE
RETIREMENT
6 'Tis our fast intent
To shake all cares and business from our age,
Conferring them on younger strengths, while we
Unburdened crawl toward death.
King Lear 1.1.37-40, LEAR TO GLOUCESTER
7 The life removed.
Measure for Measure 1.3.8, DUKE TO FRIAR THOMAS, expressing his preference for a
quiet life
8 This rough magic
I here abjure; and, when I have required
Some heavenly music, - which even now I do, -
To work mine end upon their senses, that
This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff,
Bury it certain fadoms in the earth,
REVENGE I 243
And deeper than did ever plummet sound
I'll drown my book.
Tempest 5.1.50-7, PROSPERO TO ARIEL, a great gesture of renunciation near the end of
the last play Shakespeare wrote single-handedly; also, probably, a recollection of
Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, vowing at the close of the play to burn his
books
REVENGE
1 He was a kind of nothing, titleless,
Till he had forged himself a name o'th' fire
Of burning Rome.
Coriolanus 5.1.13-15, COMINIUS TO MENENIUS, of Coriolanus
2 The croaking raven doth bellow for revenge.
Hamlet 3.2.256, HAMLET, encouraging the dumb show
3 How all occasions do inform against me,
And spur my dull revenge.
Hamlet 4.4.32-3, HAMLET
4 O, from this time forth
My thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth.
Hamlet 4.4.65-6, HAMLET
5 Revenge should have no bounds.
Hamlet 4.7.128, CLAUDIUS TO LAERTES (with unknowing irony)
6 If I digged up thy forefathers' graves
And hung their rotten coffins up in chains,
It could not slake mine ire nor ease my heart.
3 Henry VI 1.3.27-9, CLIFFORD TO EDMUND, EARL OF RUTLAND, whom he is about to
murder
7 Thy father slew my father; therefore die.
3 Henry VI 1.3.46, CLIFFORD'S farewell to EDMUND, EARL OF RUTLAND - see previous
entry
8 Caesar, thou art revenged
Even with the sword that killed thee.
Julius Caesar 5.2.45-6; CASSIUS kills himself with the sword with which he struck
Julius Caesar
9 I will have such revenges on you both
That all the world shall - I will do such things -
What they are yet I know not, but they shall be
The terrors of the earth!
King Lear 2.2.471-4, LEAR TO GONERIL AND REGAN
244 I REVENGE
1 Then kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill!
King Lear 4.6.183, LEAR expressing his hatred of his son-in-laws to GLOUCESTER
2 Blood will have blood.
Macbeth 3.4.121, MACBETH TO LADY MACBETH
3 Kill Claudio!
Much Ado About Nothing 4.1.287, BEATRICE TO BENEDICK
4 O God that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the market-place.
Much Ado About Nothing 4.1.304-5, BEATRICE TO BENEDICK, of Claudio
5 Like to the Pontic sea
Whose icy current and compulsive course
Ne'er keeps retiring ebb but keeps due on
To the Propontic and the Hellespont:
Even so my bloody thoughts with violent pace
Shall ne'er look back, ne'er ebb to humble love
Till that a capable and wide revenge
Swallow them up.
Othello 3.3.456-63, OTHELLO TO IAGO
6 For those that were, it is not square to take
On those that are, revenge: crimes, like lands,
Are not inherited.
Timon of Athens 5.1.36-8, ONE SENATOR TO ANOTHER
7 Vengeance is in my heart, death in my hand,
Blood and revenge are hammering in my head.
Titus Andronicus 2.2.38-9, AARON TO TAMORA
8 I'll be revenged on the whole pack of you.
Twelfth Night 5.1.370, MALVOLIO
RICHARD III
9 Sin, death, and hell have set their marks on him.
Richard III 1.3.293, QUEEN MARGARET TO BUCKINGHAM
10 A cockatrice hast thou hatched to the world
Whose unavoided eye is murderous.
Richard III 4.1.54-5, DUCHESS OF YORK, Richard's mother, blaming herself
11 From forth the kennel of thy womb hath crept
A hell-hound that doth hunt us all to death.
Richard HI 4.4.47-8, QUEEN MARGARET TO THE DUCHESS OF YORK
RIVALRY I 245
1 HelPs black intelligencer.
Richard III 4.4.71, QUEEN MARGARET TO THE DUCHESS OF YORK AND QUEEN ELIZABETH
2 That bottled spider, that foul bunch-backed toad.
Richard III 4.4.81, QUEEN ELIZABETH TO QUEEN MARGARET; these epithets appear in
an earlier conversation between the two women, at 1.3.242 and 246
RICHES
3 She bears a duke's revenues on her back,
And in her heart she scorns our poverty.
2 Henry VI 1.3.80-1, QUEEN MARGARET, of the Duchess of Gloucester
4 How i'th' name of thrift
Does he rake this together?
Henry VIII 3.2.108-9, HENRY TO LORDS, of Cardinal Wolsey
5 Through tattered clothes great vices do appear;
Robes and furred gowns hide all.
King Lear 4.6.160-1, LEAR TO GLOUCESTER
6 Honour for wealth; and oft that wealth doth cost
The death of all, and all together lost.
Lucrèce 146-7
See also MONEY
RISK
7 Men that hazard all
Do it in hope of fair advantages.
Merchant of Venice 2.7.18-19, PRINCE OF MOROCCO
8 I have set my life upon a cast,
And I will stand the hazard of the die.
Richard III 5.4.9-10, RICHARD TO CATESBY AND NORFOLK, at the battle of Bosworth
RIVALRY
9 Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere.
1 Henry IV 5.4.64, PRINCE HAL TO HOTSPUR
10 Such men as he be never at heart's ease
Whiles they behold a greater than themselves,
And therefore are they very dangerous.
Julius Caesar 1.2.205-7, JULIUS CAESAR TO MARK ANTONY, of Cassius; more at
DANGEROUS PEOPLE
246 I RIVALRY
1 Nay, I'll go with thee, cheek by jowl.
Midsummer Night's Dream 3.2.338, DEMETRIUS TO LYSANDER
2 Ajax employed plucks down Achilles' plumes.
Troilus and Cressida 1.3.385, ULYSSES TO NESTOR
3 Emulation hath a thousand sons
That one by one pursue; if you give way,
Or hedge aside from the direct forthright,
Like to an entered tide they all rush by
And leave you hindmost.
Troilus and Cressida 3.3.156-60, ULYSSES TO ACHILLES
4 I saw her first.
Two Noble Kinsmen 2.2.160, PALAMON TO ARCITE
ROME AND THE ROMANS
5 He was disposed to mirth, but on the sudden
A Roman thought hath struck him.
Antony and Cleopatra 1.2.85-6, CLEOPATRA TO HER COMPANIONS
6 I am more an antique Roman than a Dane.
Hamlet 5.2.349, HORATIO TO HAMLET
7 The sun of Rome is set. Our day is gone.
Julius Caesar 5.3.63, TITINIUS TO MESSALA
8 Rome is but a wilderness of tigers.
Timon of Athens 3.1.54, TITUS TO LUCIUS
See also NOBILITY; SERIOUSNESS
ROMEO AND JULIET
9 My only love sprung from my only hate.
Too early seen unknown, and known too late.
Romeo and Juliet 1.5.138-9, JULIET TO HER NURSE
10 Romeo! Humours! Madman! Passion! Lover!
Appear thou in the likeness of a sigh.
Romeo and Juliet 2.1.7-8, MERCUTIO, with Benvolio
11 But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east and Juliet is the sun!
Romeo and Juliet 2.2.2-3, ROMEO
12 O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?
Romeo and Juliet 2.2.33, JULIET TO ROMEO; more at NAMES
RUMOUR I 247
1 My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep: the more I give to thee
The more I have, for both are infinite.
Romeo and Juliet 2.2.133-5, JULIET TO ROMEO
2 Come night, come Romeo, come thou day in night,...
Come gentle night, come loving black-browed night,
Give me my Romeo; and when I shall die
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night,
And pay no worship to the garish sun.
Romeo and Juliet3.2.17, 20-5, JULIET
3 Heaven is here
Where Juliet lives.
Romeo and Juliet 3.3.29-30, ROMEO TO FRIAR LAURENCE
4 O my love, my wife,
Death that hath sucked the honey of thy breath
Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty.
Thou art not conquered. Beauty's ensign yet
Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,
And Death's pale flag is not advanced there.
Romeo and Juliet 5.3.91-6, ROMEO
5 Never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.
Romeo and Juliet 5.3.310-11, PRINCE OF VERONA, closing the play
RUMOUR
6 They say!
They'll sit by th' fire, and presume to know
What's done i'th' Capitol: who's like to rise,
Who thrives, and who declines; side factions, and give out
Conjectural marriages; making parties strong,
And feebling such as stand not in their liking.
Coriolanus 1.1.189-94, CAIUS MARTIUS TO MENENIUS
7 Open your ears; for which of you will stop
The vent of hearing when loud Rumour speaks?
2 Henry IV Induction 1-2, RUMOUR
248 J RUMOUR
1 Rumour is a pipe
Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures,
And of so easy and so plain a stop
That the blunt monster with uncounted heads,
The still-discordant wav'ring multitude,
Can play upon it.
2 Henry IV Induction 15-20, RUMOUR
2 Rumour doth double, like the voice and echo,
The numbers of the feared.
2 Henry IV 3.1.97-8, WARWICK TO HENRY
3 I find the people strangely fantasied;
Possessed with rumours, full of idle dreams,
Not knowing what they fear, but full of fear.
King John 4.2.144-6, PHILIP THE BASTARD TO JOHN
4 Foul whisp'rings are abroad. Unnatural deeds
Do breed unnatural troubles.
Macbeth 5.1.73-4, LADY MACBETH'S DOCTOR TO HER GENTLEWOMAN
5 Pitchers have ears.
Taming of the Shrew 4.4.52, BAPTISTA TO TRANIO, referring to servants; see also
CHILDREN
i)^%^%^%:^%:< ^V ^o$^^$t%^^
SACRIFICES AND SCAPEGOATS
6 Let's be sacrificers, but not butchers.
Julius Caesar 2.1.166, BRUTUS TO THE CONSPIRATORS
7 Upon such sacrifices . . .
The gods themselves throw incense.
King Lear 5.3.20-1, LEAR TO CORDELIA
8 I am a tainted wether of the flock,
Meetest for death.
Merchant of Venice 4.1.114-15, ANTONIO TO BASSANIO AND THE DUKE
SEA, the | 249
SADNESS
1 In sooth I know not why I am so sad.
Merchant of Venice 1.1.1, ANTONIO TO SALERIO
See also GRIEF; SORROW
SCORN
2 What, my dear Lady Disdain! Are you yet living?
Much Ado About Nothing 1.1.113-14, BENEDICK TO BEATRICE
3 Disdain and scorn ride sparkling in her eyes.
Much Ado About Nothing 3.1.51, HERO TO URSULA, of Beatrice
4 If I should speak,
She would mock me into air. O, she would laugh me
Out of myself, press me to death with wit!
Much Ado About Nothing 3.1.74-6, HERO TO URSULA, of Beatrice
5 What a deal of scorn looks beautiful
In the contempt and anger of his lip!
Twelfth Night 3.1.146-7, OLIVIA, of Viola as Cesario
SCOTLAND AND THE SCOTS
6 That sprightly Scot of Scots, Douglas, that runs a-horseback up a hill
perpendicular.
1 Henry IV 2.4.338-40, FALSTAFF TO PRINCE HAL AND POINS
7 Alas, poor country! / . . . It cannot .
Be called our mother, but our grave.
Macbeth 4.3.164-6, ROSSE TO MACDUFF; see also PATRIOTISM
SEA, the
8 How fearful
And dizzy 'tis to cast one's eyes so low.
The crows and choughs that wing the midway air
Show scarce so gross as beetles. Halfway down
Hangs one that gathers samphire, dreadful trade;
Methinks he seems no bigger than his head.
The fishermen that walk upon the beach
Appear like mice, and yon tall anchoring barque
Diminished to her cock, her cock a buoy
Almost too small for sight. The murmuring surge
That on th'unnumbered idle pebble chafes,
Cannot be heard so high. I'll look no more,
250 I SEA, the
Lest my brain turn and the deficient sight
Topple down headlong.
King Lear 4.6.11-24, EDGAR to the blind GLOUCESTER, standing on an imaginary
clifftop
1 If after every tempest come such calms
May the winds blow till they have wakened death,
And let the labouring bark climb hills of seas,
Olympus-high, and duck again as low
As hell's from heaven.
Othello 2.1.183-7, OTHELLO TO DESDEMONA
2 The belching whale
And humming water must o'erwhelm thy corpse,
Lying with simple shells.
Pericles 3.1.62-4, PERICLES, committing his wife's corpse to the waves
3 What pain it was to drown:
What dreadful noise of waters in my ears;
What sights of ugly death within my eyes!
Richard III 1.4.21-3, CLARENCE recounting his dream to the KEEPER OF THE TOWER
4 What cares these roarers for the name of King?
Tempest 1.1.16-17, BOATSWAIN TO GONZALO, of the waves
5 Come unto these yellow sands,
And then take hands.
Tempest 1.2.377-8, ARIEL'S song
6 Full fadom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
Burthen: Ding-dong.
ARIEL Hark! now I hear them, - Ding-dong, bell.
Tempest 1.2.399-407, ARIEL'S song
See also SHIPS; SWIMMING
SEASONS, the
7 [The labourer] follows so the ever-running year
With profitable labour to his grave.
Henry V 4.1.272-3, HENRY
SECRECY I 251
1 At Christmas I no more desire a rose
Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled shows;
But like of each thing that in season grows.
Love's Labour's Lost 1.1.105-7, BEROWNE TO THE KING OF NAVARRE
2 How many things by season, seasoned are
To their right praise, and true perfection.
Merchant of Venice 5.1.107-8, PORTIA TO NERISSA
3 The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts
Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose;
And on old Hiems' thin and icy crown,
An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds
Is, as in mockery, set; the spring, the summer,
The childing autumn, angry winter, change
Their wonted liveries.
Midsummer Night's Dream 2.1.107-13, TITANIA TO OBERON, describing the effects of
their quarrel; see also DISORDER; FAIRIES
4 Three winters cold
Have from the forests shook three summers' pride;
Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turned
In process of the seasons have I seen;
Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burned,
Since first I saw you.
Sonnet 104.3-8
SECRECY
5 We have done but greenly
In hugger-mugger to inter him.
Hamlet 4.5.83-4, CLAUDIUS TO GERTRUDE
6 Here walk I in the black brow of night
To find you out.
King John 5.6.17-18, HUBERT TO PHILIP THE BASTARD
7 He, his own affections' counsellor,
Is to himself... / so secret and so close,
So far from sounding and discovery,
As is the bud bit with an envious worm
Ere he can spread his sweet leaves to the air
Or dedicate his beauty to the sun.
Romeo and Juliet 1.1.147-53, MONTAGUE TO BENVOLIO, of Romeo
252 I SECRECY
1 I see thou wilt not trust the air
With secrets.
Titus Andronicus 4.2.171-2, CHIRON TO AARON
2 What I am, and what I would, are as secret as maidenhead.
Twelfth Night 1.5.209-10, VIOLA, as Cesario, to OLIVIA
SECURITY
3 Fast bind, fast find. -
A proverb never stale in thrifty mind.
Merchant of Venice 2.5.53-4, SHYLOCK TO JESSICA
SELF-CONTROL
4 Lord Angelo is precise;
Stands at a guard with Envy; scarce confesses
That his blood flows; or that his appetite
Is more to bread than stone.
Measure for Measure 1.3.50-3, DUKE TO FRIAR THOMAS
5 They that have power to hurt, and will do none,
That do not do the thing they most do show,
Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,
Unmoved, cold and to temptation slow:
They rightly do inherit heaven's graces,
And husband nature's riches from expense;
They are the lords and owners of their faces.
Sonnet 94.1-7
SELF-DOUBT
6 Our doubts are traitors,
And makes us lose the good we oft might win
By fearing to attempt.
Measure for Measure 1.4.77-9, Lucio TO ISABELLA
SELF-INTEREST
7 In following him, I follow but myself.
Othello 1.1.57, IAGO TO RODERIGO, speaking of why he follows Othello
SELF-KNOWLEDGE
8 The knowledge of mine own desert.
Sonnet 49.10
9 With mine own weakness being best acquainted.
Sonnet 88.5
SEX AND LUST | 253
1 Be that thou know'st thou art, and then thou art
As great as that thou fear'st.
Twelfth Night 5.1.146-7, OLIVIA TO VIOLA, as Cesario
SELF-LOATHING
2 O what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
Hamlet 2.2.550, HAMLET
3 I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offences at my beck
than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape,
or time to act them in.
Hamlet 3.1.124-8, HAMLET TO OPHELIA
4 Thou turn'st my eyes into my very soul,
And there I see such black and grained spots
As will not leave their tinct.
Hamlet 3.4.89-91, GERTRUDE TO HAMLET
5 Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin
As self-neglecting.
Henry V 2.4.74-5, DAUPHIN OF FRANCE TO THE KING OF FRANCE
SELF-PROTECTION
6 The single and peculiar life is bound
With all the strength and armour of the mind
To keep itself from noyance.
Hamlet 3.3.11-13, ROSENCRANTZ TO CLAUDIUS
SERIOUSNESS
7 He was disposed to mirth, but on the sudden
A Roman thought hath struck him.
Antony and Cleopatra 1.2.85-6, CLEOPATRA TO HER COMPANIONS, of Antony
8 Octavia is of a holy, cold and still conversation.
Antony and Cleopatra 2.6.122-3, ENOBARBUS TO MENAS
SEX AND LUST
9 COUNTESS Tell me the reason why thou wilt marry.
CLOWN My poor body, madam, requires it; I am driven on by the flesh,
and he must needs go that the devil drives.
All's Well That Ends Well 1.3.27-30
10 The triple pillar of the world transformed
Into a strumpet's fool.
Antony and Cleopatra 1.1.12-13, PHILO TO DEMETRIUS, of Antony
254 I SEX AND LUST
1 The nobleness of life
Is to do thus, when such a mutual pair
And such a twain can do't.
Antony and Cleopatra 1.1.37-9, ANTONY embracing CLEOPATRA
2 Cleopatra hath
Nodded him to her.
Antony and Cleopatra 3.6.66-7, OCTAVIUS CAESAR TO OCTAVIA, his sister and
Antony's wife
3 The stroke of death is as a lover's pinch
Which hurts and is desired.
Antony and Cleopatra 5.2.293-4, CLEOPATRA
4 They are in the very wrath of love, and they will together. Clubs cannot
part them.
As You Like It 5.2.40-1, ROSALIND TO ORLANDO
5 She would hang on him
As if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on.
Hamlet 1.2.143-5, HAMLET, of his parents; see also HUSBANDS AND WIVES
6 The primrose path of dalliance.
Hamlet 1.3.50, HAMLET; more at HYPOCRISY
7 So lust, though to a radiant angel linked,
Will sate itself in a celestial bed
And prey on garbage.
Hamlet 1.5.55-7, GHOST TO HAMLET
8 Here's metal more attractive.
Hamlet 3.2.111, HAMLET TO GERTRUDE, of Ophelia
9 Do you think I meant country matters?
Hamlet 3.2.118, HAMLET TO OPHELIA (country meaning rural and basic, but with an
additional sexual pun)
10 O shame, where is thy blush?
Rebellious hell,
If thou canst mutine in a matron's bones,
To flaming youth let virtue be as wax
And melt in her own fire; proclaim no shame
When the compulsive ardour gives the charge,
Since frost itself as actively doth burn
And reason panders will.
Hamlet 3.4.81-8, HAMLET TO GERTRUDE
SEX AND LUST | 255
1 To live
In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed,
Stewed in corruption, honeying and making love
Over the nasty sty!
Hamlet 3.4.91-4, HAMLET, overwhelmed by disgust at his mother's infidelity
2 Is it not strange that desire should so many years outlive performance?
2 Henry IV 2.4.260-1, POINS TO PRINCE HAL, of Falstaff
3 [I] did the act of darkness with her.
King Lear 3.4.86-7, EDGAR, disguised as Poor Tom, to LEAR
4 The wren goes to't and the small gilded fly
Does lecher in my sight. Let copulation thrive.
King Lear 4.6.111-12, LEAR TO GLOUCESTER
5 Thou, rascal beadle, hold thy bloody hand;
Why dost thou lash that whore? Strip thine own back,
Thou hotly lusts to use her in that kind
For which thou whipp'st her.
King Lear 4.6.156-9, LEAR TO GLOUCESTER
6 Desire my pilot is, beauty my prize.
Lucrèce 279, TARQUIN
7 This momentary joy breeds months of pain;
This hot desire converts to cold disdain.
Lucrèce 690-1
8 There's no bottom, none,
In my voluptuousness: your wives, your daughters,
Your matrons, and your maids, could not fill up
The cistern of my lust.
Macbeth 4.3.60-3, MALCOLM, feigning a bad character to MACDUFF to test him
9 Groping for trouts in a peculiar river.
Measure for Measure 1.2.89, POMPEY explains to MISTRESS OVERDONE the offence for
which Claudio is being imprisoned.
10 Even now, now, very now, an old black ram
Is tupping your white ewe.
Othello 1.1.87-8, IAGO TO BRABANTIO, speaking of Othello and Desdemona, expert as
always in goading
11 The beast with two backs.
Othello 1.1.115, IAGO TO BRABANTIO
256 SEX AND LUST
1 She is sport for Jove.
Othello 2.3.16-17, IAGO TO CASSIO, of Desdemona
2 I know a lady in Venice would have walked barefoot to Palestine for a
touch of his nether lip.
Othello 4.3.37-8, EMILIA TO DESDEMONA, of Lodovico
3 Will you not go the way of womenkind?
Pericles 4.6.147-8, BAWD TO MARINA
4 Th'expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and till action, lust
Is perjured, murd'rous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;
Enjoyed no sooner but despised straight;
Past reason hunted, and no sooner had,
Past reason hated as a swallowed bait,
On purpose laid to make the taker mad;
Mad in pursuit, and in possession so,
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
All this the world well knows, yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.
Sonnet 129
5 Do not give dalliance
Too much the rein. The strongest oaths are straw
To th> fire in th' blood.
Tempest 4.1.51-3, PROSPERO TO FERDINAND
6 Worse-than-killing lust.
Timon of Athens 2.2.175, LAVINIA TO TAMORA
7 Is this the generation of love? Hot blood, hot thoughts, and hot deeds?
Why, they are vipers. Is love a generation of vipers?
Troilus and Cressida 3.1.127-9, PANDARUS TO PARIS AND HELEN
8 This is the monstruosity in love . . . : that the will is infinite, and the
execution confined: that the desire is boundless, and the act a slave to
limit.
Troilus and Cressida 3.2.78-81, TROILUS TO CRESSIDA
SEX AND LUST | 257
1 They say all lovers swear more performance than they are able, and yet
reserve an ability that they never perform.
Troilus and Cressida 3.2.82-4, CRESSIDA TO TROILUS
2 How now, how go maidenheads?
Troilus and Cressida 4.2.23, PANDARUS TO CRESSIDA AND TROILUS
3 The devil Luxury, with his fat rump and potato finger.
Troilus and Cressida 5.2.55-6, THERSITES TO CRESSIDA, TROILUS, DIOMEDES AND OTHERS
4 Fry, lechery, fry.
Troilus and Cressida 5.2.56, THERSITES TO DIOMEDES
5 Lechery, lechery, still wars and lechery!
Troilus and Cressida 5.2.192-3, THERSITES
6 An oven that is stopped, or river stayed
Burneth more hotly, swelleth with more rage.
Venus and Adonis 331-2
7 The sea hath bounds, but deep desire hath none.
Venus and Adonis 389, VENUS
8 Careless lust stirs up a desperate courage,
Planting oblivion, beating reason back.
Venus and Adonis 556-7
9 Now is she in the very lists of love,
Her champion mounted for the hot encounter.
Venus and Adonis 595-6, of Venus
10 Love comforteth like sunshine after rain,
But lust's effect is tempest after sun;
Love's gentle spring doth always fresh remain,
Lust's winter comes ere summer half be done;
Love surfeits not, lust like a glutton dies;
Love is all truth, lust full of forged lies.
Venus and Adonis 799-804, ADONIS
11 Paddling palms, and pinching fingers,. . .
And making practised smiles.
Winter's Tale 1.2.115-16, LEONTES, suspecting Hermione and Polixenes
12 It is a bawdy planet.
Winter's Tale 1.2.201, LEONTES
258 I SEX AND LUST
1 No barricado for a belly . . .
It will let in and out the enemy,
With bag and baggage.
Winter's Tale 1.2.204-6, LEONTES
2 He . . . wears her like her medal, hanging
About his neck.
Winter's Tale 1.2.307-8, LEONTES TO CAMILLO
3 This has been some stair-work, some trunk-work, some behind-doorwork.
Winter's Tale 3.3.73-4, SHEPHERD
SEXUAL ABUSE
4 The fault is thine,. . .
Thy beauty hath ensnared thee to this night.
Lucrèce 482, 485, TARQUIN TO LUCRÈCE
5 Tears harden lust.
Lucrèce 560
6 O unseen shame, invisible disgrace!
Lucrèce 827
7 You are a fair viol, and your sense the strings,
Who, fingered to make man his lawful music,
Would draw heaven down and all the gods to hearken;
But being played upon before your time,
Hell only danceth at so harsh a chime.
Pericles 1.1.82-6, PERICLES TO ANTIOCHUS' DAUGHTER
8 Crack the glass of her virginity, and make the rest malleable.
Pericles 4.6.140-1, BAWD TO BOULT, of Marina
SHAME
9 What, must I hold a candle to my shames?
Merchant of Venice 2.6.41, JESSICA TO LORENZO
SHIPS
10 Behold
Upon the hempen tackle ship-boys climbing;
Hear the shrill whistle which doth order give
To sounds confused; behold the threaden sails,
Borne with th'invisible and creeping wind,
Draw the huge bottoms through the furrowed sea,
SIDEKICKS I 259
Breasting the lofty surge. O, do but think
You stand upon the rivage and behold
A city on th'inconstant billows dancing;
For so appears this fleet majestical,
Holding due course to Harfleur.
Henry V3.0.8-18, CHORUS
1 Ships are but boards, sailors but men, there be land-rats, and waterrats,
water-thieves, and land-thieves, and then there is the peril of
waters, winds and rocks.
Merchant of Venice 1.3.21-4, SHYLOCK TO BASSANIO
2 How like a younger or a prodigal
The scarfed bark puts from her native bay -
Hugged and embraced by the strumpet wind!
How like the prodigal doth she return
With over-weathered ribs and ragged sails -
Lean, rent, and beggared by the strumpet wind!
Merchant of Venice 2.6.14-19, GRATIANO TO SALERIO
3 The seaman's whistle
Is as a whisper in the ears of death,
Unheard.
Pericles 3.1.8-10, PERICLES, on board ship
4 The sea works high, the wind is loud, and will not lie till the ship be
cleared of the dead.
Pericles 3.1.47-9, SAILOR TO PERICLES
5 A rotten carcass of a butt, not rigged,
Nor tackle, sail, nor mast; the very rats
Instinctively have quit it.
Tempest 1.2.146-8, PROSPERO TO MIRANDA
6 O, the most piteous cry of the poor souls! sometimes to see 'em, and
not to see 'em: now the ship boring the moon with her main-mast, and
anon swallowed with yest and froth, as you'd thrust a cork into a hogshead.
Winter's Tale 3.3.89-93, SHEPHERD'S SON TO THE SHEPHERD
SIDEKICKS
7 Thou ladder wherewithal
The mounting Bolingbroke ascends my throne.
Richard II 5.1.55-6, RICHARD TO NORTHUMBERLAND
260 I SIN
SIN
1 No reckoning made, but sent to my account
With all my imperfections on my head.
Hamlet 1.5.78-9, GHOST TO HAMLET
2 Commit
The oldest sins the newest kind of ways.
2 Henry 1^4.5.125-6, HENRY TO PRINCE HAL, inveighing against his companions
3 I am stifled with this smell of sin.
King John 4.3.113, SALISBURY TO HUBERT AND OTHERS
4 Few love to hear the sins they love to act.
Pericles 1.1.92, PERICLES TO ANTIOCHUS
5 The time shall not be many hours of age
More than it is, ere foul sin gathering head
Shall break into corruption.
Richard II 5.1.57-9, RICHARD TO NORTHUMBERLAND
SINGLE LIFE, the
6 Shall I never see a bachelor of threescore years again?
Much Ado About Nothing 1.1.189-90, BENEDICK TO CLAUDIO; see also ENNUI
7 Saint Peter . . . shows me where the bachelors sit, and there live we as
merry as the day is long.
Much Ado About Nothing 2.1.43-5, BEATRICE'S view of heaven
8 I may sit in a corner and cry cHeigh-ho for a husband!'
Much Ado About Nothing 2.1.300-1, BEATRICE TO CLAUDIO
9 When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I
were married.
Much Ado About Nothing 2.3.233-4, BENEDICK
10 Contempt, farewell, and maiden pride, adieu!
Much Ado About Nothing 3.1.109, BEATRICE
11 Where is the life that late I led?
Taming of the Shrew 4.1.128, PETRUCHIO singing to KATHERINA
SLANDER
12 Slander lives upon succession,
For e'er housed where it gets possession.
Comedy of Errors 3.1.105-6, BALTHASAR TO ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS
SLEEP AND SLEEPLESSNESS | 261
1 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.
Cymbeline 3.4.32-6, PISANIO TO IMOGEN
2 Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape
calumny.
Hamlet 3.1.137-8, HAMLET TO OPHELIA
3 Back-wounding calumny
The whitest virtue strikes.
Measure for Measure 3.2.179-80, DUKE, disguised as a friar, to Lucio
4 Done to death by slanderous tongues.
Much Ado About Nothing 5.3.3, CLAUDIO, of Hero
5 Slander's mark was ever yet the fair.
Sonnet 70.2
6 He's truly valiant that can wisely suffer
The worst that man can breathe.
Timon of Athens 3.5.31-2, SENATOR TO ALCIBIADES
7 Slander,
Whose sting is sharper than the sword's.
Winter's Tale 2.3.85-6, PAULINA TO ANTIGONUS AND LEONTES
See also REPUTATION
SLAVERY
8 For I am all the subjects that you have,
Which first was mine own King: and here you sty me
In this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me
The rest o'th' island.
Tempest 1.2.343-6, CALIBAN TO PROSPERO
9 A plague upon the tyrant that I serve!
Tempest 2.2.161, CALIBAN TO TRINCULO AND STEPHANO
SLEEP AND SLEEPLESSNESS
10 O sleep, thou ape of death.
Cymbeline 2.2.31, IACHIMO
262 I SLEEP AND SLEEPLESSNESS
1 Since I received command to do this business
1 have not slept one wink.
Cymbeline 3.4.99-100, PISANIO TO IMOGEN
2 Weariness
Can snore upon the flint, when resty sloth
Finds the down-pillow hard.
Cymbeline 3.7.6-8, BELARIUS TO GUIDERIUS AND ARVIRAGUS
3 O sleep, O gentle sleep,
Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down,
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?
2 Henry IV 4.1.5-8, HENRY
4 Not all these, thrice-gorgeous ceremony,
Not all these, laid in bed majestical,
Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave,
Who with a body filled and vacant mind
Gets him to rest, crammed with distressful bread:
Never sees horrid night, the child of hell,
But like a lackey from the rise to set
Sweats in the eye of Phoebus, and all night
Sleeps in Elysium.
Henry V 4.1.262-70, HENRY; more at CEREMONY
5 Enjoy the honey-heavy dew of slumber:
Thou hast no figures nor no fantasies
Which busy care draws in the brains of men.
Julius Caesar 2.1.230-2, BRUTUS
6 Nature must obey necessity.
Julius Caesar 4.3.226, BRUTUS TO CASSIUS, advising sleep
7 Methought, I heard a voice cry, 'Sleep no more!
Macbeth does murther Sleep.'
Macbeth 2.2.34-5, MACBETH TO LADY MACBETH
8 Sleep, that knits up the ravelled sleave of care,
The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great Nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast.
Macbeth 2.2.36-9, MACBETH TO LADY MACBETH
SOLDIERS I
1 'Glamis hath murthered Sleep, and therefore Cawdor
Shall sleep no more, Macbeth shall sleep no more!'
Macbeth 2.2.41-2, MACBETH TO LADY MACBETH, continuing the passage above
2 You lack the season of all natures, sleep.
Macbeth 3.4.140, LADY MACBETH TO MACBETH
3 I have an exposition of sleep come upon me.
Midsummer Night's Dream 4.1.38, BOTTOM TO TITANIA
4 Are you sure
That we are awake? It seems to me
That yet we sleep, we dream.
Midsummer Night's Dream 4.1.191-3, DEMETRIUS TO HIS FRIENDS
5 Care keeps his watch in every old man's eye,
And where care lodges sleep will never lie,
But where unbruised youth with unstuffed brain
Doth couch his limbs, there golden sleep doth reign.
Romeo and Juliet 2.3.31-4, FRIAR LAURENCE TO ROMEO
6 Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,
The dear repose for limbs with travail tired;
But then begins a journey in my head
To work my mind, when body's work's expired.
Sonnet 27.1-4
7 How can I then return in happy plight
That am debarred the benefit of rest?
When day's oppression is not eased by night
But day by night and night by day oppressed.
Sonnet 28.1-4
See also DREAMS
SOLDIERS
8 Thou, the greatest soldier of the world.
Antony and Cleopatra 1.3.39, CLEOPATRA TO ANTONY
9 ANTONY Thou art a soldier only. Speak no more.
ENOBARBUS That truth should be silent, I had almost forgot.
Antony and Cleopatra 2.2.113-14
10 Then, a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
264 I SOLDIERS
Jealous in honour, sudden, and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth.
As You Like It 2.7.149-53, from JAQUES'S 'Seven Ages of Man' speech
1 Before him he carries noise, and behind him he leaves tears: Death,
that dark spirit, in's nervy arm doth lie.
Coriolanus 2.1.158-60, VOLUMNIA TO MENENIUS, of Coriolanus
2 From face to foot
He was a thing of blood, whose every motion
Was timed with dying cries.
Coriolanus 2.2.108-10, COMINIUS TO MENENIUS, of Coriolanus
3 Not to be other than one thing, not moving
From th' casque to th' cushion, but commanding peace
Even with the same austerity and garb
As he controlled the war.
Coriolanus 4.7.42-5, AUFIDIUS TO HIS LIEUTENANT, of Coriolanus
4 All furnished, all in arms;
Ail plumed like estridges that with the wind
Bated, like eagles having lately bathed,
Glittering in golden coats like images,
As full of spirit as the month of May,
And gorgeous as the sun at midsummer.
1 Henry IV 4.1.97-102, VERNON TO HOTSPUR, of Prince Hal and his companions in
arms
5 They come like sacrifices in their trim
And to the fire-eyed maid of smoky war
All hot and bleeding will we offer them.
1 Henry IV 4.1.113-15, HOTSPUR TO VERNON
6 My whole charge consists of ancients, corporals, lieutenants,
gentlemen of companies - slaves as ragged as Lazarus: and such as
indeed were never soldiers, but discarded unjust servingmen, younger
sons to younger brothers, revolted tapsters, and ostlers trade-fallen,
the cankers of a calm world and a long peace.
1 Henry IV 4.2.23-30, FALSTAFF'S contrasting unheroic view of his soldiery
7 O God of battles, steel my soldiers' hearts;
Possess them not with fear.
Henry V 4.1.285-6, HENRY before the battle of Agincourt
SOLITUDE AND SOLITARINESS | 265
1 They have said their prayers, and they stay for death.
Henry V 4.2.55, CONSTABLE OF FRANCE TO GRANDPRE
2 What bloody man is this?
Macbeth 1.2.1, DUNCAN TO MALCOLM, of a captain coming from battle
3 Fie, my lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard?
Macbeth 5.1.37-8, LADY MACBETH, mad
4 Your son, my Lord, has paid a soldier's debt.
Macbeth 5.9.5, ROSSE TO OLD SIWARD; he has paid with his life
5 Rude am I in my speech,
And little blest with the set phrase of peace,. ..
And little of this great world can I speak,
More than pertains to feats of broil, and battle.
Othello 1.3.82-3, 87-8, OTHELLO TO BRABANTIO
6 Soft you, a word or two before you go.
I have done the state some service, and they know't:
No more of that.
Othello 5.2.338-40, OTHELLO TO HIS COLLEAGUES, before killing himself
7 Sleep in peace, slain in your country's wars.
Titus Andronicus 1.1.94, TITUS over the coffin of his sons
8 Th'unconsidered soldier.
Two Noble Kinsmen 1.2.31, ARCITE TO PALAMON
See also ARMIES; FIGHTING; WAR
SOLITUDE AND SOLITARINESS
9 Antony,
Enthroned i'th' market-place, did sit alone,
Whistling to th'air, which, but for vacancy,
Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra, too,
And made a gap in nature.
Antony and Cleopatra 2.2.224-8, ENOBARBUS describing Antony while Cleopatra
triumphs on her golden barge
10 Society is no comfort
To one not sociable.
Cymbeline 4.2.12-13, IMOGEN TO GUIDERIUS AND ARVIRAGUS at a low point in her
fortunes
11 A poor lone woman.
2 Henry IV 2.1.31, HOSTESS QUICKLY TO FANG, referring to herself
266 I SOLITUDE AND SOLITARINESS
1 Who alone suffers, suffers most i'the mind.
King Lear 3.6.102, EDGAR
2 I myself am best
When least in company.
Twelfth Night 1.4.37-8, ORSINO TO VIOLA, as Cesario
3 I am all the daughters of my father's house,
And all the brothers too.
Twelfth Night 2.4.121-2, VIOLA, as Cesario, to ORSINO, thinking about the loss of her
brother as well as riddling about herself
SORROW
4 More in sorrow than in anger.
Hamlet 1.2.231, HORATIO TO HAMLET, describing the ghost's expression
5 When sorrows come, they come not single spies,
But in battalions.
Hamlet 4.5.78-9, CLAUDIUS TO GERTRUDE
6 A plague of sighing and grief, it blows a man up like a bladder.
1 Henry IV 2.4.237-8, FALSTAFF TO PRINCE HAL AND POINS
7 What private griefs they have, alas, I know not.
Julius Caesar 3.2.214, MARK ANTONY TO PLEBEIANS, of the conspirators
8 It easeth some, though none it ever cured,
To think their dolour others have endured.
Lucrèce 1581-2
9 Give sorrow words; the grief, that does not speak,
Whispers the o'er-fraught heart, and bids it break.
Macbeth 4.3.209-10, MALCOLM TO MACDUFF
10 What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely charged.
Macbeth 5.1.54-5, LADY MACBETH'S DOCTOR TO HER GENTLEWOMAN
11 The poor soul sat sighing by a sycamore tree,
Sing all a green willow:
Her hand on her bosom, her head on her knee,
Sing willow, willow, willow. . .
Sing all a green willow must be my garland.
Othello 4.3.39-42, 50, DESDEMONA, singing Barbara's song
12 Gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite
The man that mocks at it.
Richard II 1.3.292-3, JOHN OF GAUNT TO BOLINGBROKE
SPEECHES I 267
1 Hath sorrow struck
So many blows upon this face of mine
And made no deeper wounds?
Richard II 4.1.277-9, RICHARD TO NORTHUMBERLAND AND BOLINGBROKE
2 How soon my sorrow hath destroyed my face.
Richard II 4.1.291, RICHARD TO NORTHUMBERLAND
3 Sorrow breaks seasons and reposing hours,
Makes the night morning, and the noontide night.
Richard HI 1.4.76-7, BRAKENBURY
4 My grief lies onward and my joy behind.
Sonnet 50.14
5 To weep with them that weep doth ease some deal,
But sorrow flouted at is double death.
Titus Andronicus 3.1.244-5, MARCUS TO LUCIUS AND TITUS
SOUL, the
6 I do not set my life at a pin's fee,
And for my soul, what can it do to that,
Being a thing immortal as itself?
Hamlet 1.4.65-7, HAMLET TO HORATIO
7 O my prophetic soul! My uncle!
Hamlet 1.5.41, HAMLET TO THE GHOST, who has revealed that he was murdered
8 Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth.
Sonnet 146.1; the soul struggles within while trying to keep up bodily appearances in
time of trouble
SPECTATORS
9 These are the youths that thunder at a playhouse, and fight for bitten
apples.
Henry VIII 4.3.58-60, PORTER TO HIS MAN
10 These scroyles of Angiers flout you, kings,
And stand securely on their battlements,
As in a theatre, whence they gape and point
At your industrious scenes and acts of death.
King John 2.1.373-6, PHILIP THE BASTARD TO JOHN
SPEECHES
11 I am no orator, as Brutus is,
But (as you know me all) a plain blunt man . . .
268 I SPEECHES
For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth
Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech
To stir men's blood.
Julius Caesar 3.2.218-19, 222-4, MARK ANTONY on the death of Julius Caesar; an
overwhelming piece of false modesty, coming from a man who has just made a
sequence of some of the most highly rhetorical speeches in Shakespeare
1 I would be loath to cast away my speech: for besides that it is
excellently well penned, I have taken great pains to con it.
Twelfth Night 1.5.167-9, VIOLA, as Cesario, to OLIVIA
SPEED
2 Celerity is never more admired
Than by the negligent.
Antony and Cleopatra 3.7.24-5, CLEOPATRA TO ANTONY
3 O, for a horse with wings!
Cymbeline 3.2.47', IMOGEN, on receiving a letter from her husband asking her to come
to him
4 That I with wings as swift
As meditation or the thoughts of love
May sweep to my revenge.
Hamlet 1.5.29-31, HAMLET TO THE GHOST
5 The rogue fled from me like quicksilver.
2 Henry IV 2.2.227-8, FALSTAFF TO DOLL TEARSHEET
6 OBERON Be thou here again
Ere the leviathan can swim a league.
PUCK I'll put a girdle round about the earth
In forty minutes.
Midsummer Night's Dream 2.1.173-6
7 I go, I go, look how I go!
Swifter than arrow from the Tartar's bow.
Midsummer Night's Dream 3.2.100-1, PUCK TO OBERON
8 Be swift like lightning in the execution.
Richard II 1.3.79, JOHN OF GAUNT TO BOLINGBROKE
See also HASTE
SPIRITS
9 How now, mad spirit?
Midsummer Night's Dream 3.2.4, OBERON TO PUCK
SPRING I 269
1 Approach, my Ariel, come.
Tempest 1.2.188, PROSPERO, calling ARIEL
2 Tolly,
To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride
On the curled clouds.
Tempest 1.2.190-2, ARIEL TO PROSPERO
3 My brave spirit!
Tempest 1.2.206, PROSPERO TO ARIEL
SPORT
4 HENRY What treasure, uncle?
EXETER Tennis-balls, my liege.
Henry V 1.2.259
5 When we have matched our rackets to these balls,
We will in France, by God's grace, play a set
Shall strike his father's crown into the hazard.
Henry V 1.2.262-4, HENRY TO EXETER
6 You base football player.
King Lear 1.4.84-5, KENT TO OSWALD, Goneril's steward
See also SWIMMING
SPRING
7 It was a lover and his lass,
With a hey and a ho and a hey nonino,
That o'er the green corn-field did pass,
In spring-time, the only pretty ring-time,
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding,
Sweet lovers love the spring.
As You Like It 5.3.15-20, song for TWO PAGES
8 Love, whose month is ever May.
Love's Labour's Lost 4.3.99, DUMAIN, reading his sonnet
9 From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud pied April, dressed in all his trim,
Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing.
Sonnet 98.1-3
10 When daffodils begin to peer,
With heigh! the doxy over the dale,
270 I SPRING
Why then comes in the sweet o'the year,
For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale.
The white sheet bleaching on the hedge,
With hey! the sweet birds, O how they sing!
Winter's Tale 4.3.1-6, AUTOLYCUS' song
See also FLOWERS AND PLANTS
STARS
1 I am constant as the northern star,
Of whose true-fixed and resting quality
There is no fellow in the firmament.
The skies are painted with unnumbered sparks,
They are all fire, and every one doth shine;
But there's but one in all doth hold his place.
Julius Caesar 3.1.60-5, JULIUS CAESAR TO CASSIUS
2 There's husbandry in heaven;
Their candles are all out.
Macbeth 2.1.4-5, BANQUO TO FLEANCE
3 Look how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patens of bright gold.
Merchant of Venice 5.1.58-9, LORENZO TO JESSICA
4 These blessed candles of the night.
Merchant of Venice 5.1.220, BASSANIO TO PORTIA
5 Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night.
Romeo and Juliet 3.2.21-3, JULIET; more at LOVERS; ROMEO AND JULIET
6 Night's candles are burnt out.
Romeo and Juliet 3.5.9, ROMEO; more at MORNING
See also FATE for stars that govern our lives
STOICISM
7 BRUTUS With meditating that she must die once,
I have the patience to endure it now.
MESSALA Even so great men great losses should endure.
Julius Caesar 4.3.190-2; Brutus' reaction to the death of his wife
STORIES I 271
1 Let's reason with the worst that may befall.
Julius Caesar 5.1.97, CASSIUS TO BRUTUS
2 Henceforth I'll bear
Affliction till it do cry out itself
'Enough, enough' and die.
King Lear 4.6.75-7, GLOUCESTER TO LEAR
3 Have patience and endure.
Much Ado About Nothing 4.1.253, FRIAR TO LEONATO
STORIES
4 Thereby hangs a tale.
As You Like It 2.7.28, JAQUES; and a number of other locations through Shakespeare's
plays
5 I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,
Make thy two eyes like stars start from their spheres,
Thy knotted and combined locks to part,
And each particular hair to stand an end
Like quills upon the fretful porpentine.
Hamlet 1.5.15-20, GHOST TO HAMLET
6 Childe Rowland to the dark tower came,
His word was still 'Fie, foh and fum,
I smell the blood of a British man.'
King Lear 3.4.178-80, EDGAR, disguised as Poor Tom, to GLOUCESTER; this is probably
gleaned from a lost ballad
7 A tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Macbeth 5.5.26-8, MACBETH TO SEYTON; more at LIFE
8 I spake of most disastrous chances,
Of moving accidents by flood and field,
Of hair-breadth scapes i'th' imminent deadly breach,
Of being taken by the insolent foe
And sold to slavery; and my redemption thence
And portance in my travailous history;
Wherein of antres vast and deserts idle,
Rough quarries, rocks and hills whose heads touch heaven
It was my hint to speak - such was my process -
272 I STORIES
And of the cannibals that each other eat,
The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads
Do grow beneath their shoulders.
Othello 1.3.135-46, OTHELLO TO THE DUKE OF VENICE, describing how he wooed
Desdemona
1 My story being done,
She gave me for my pains a world of sighs.
Othello 1.3.159-60, OTHELLO TO THE DUKE OF VENICE, describing Desdemona's
response
2 >rTis a chronicle of day by day.
Tempest 5.1.163, PROSPERO TO ALONSO
3 If this were played upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an
improbable fiction.
Twelfth Night 3.4.127-8, FABIAN TO SIR TOBY BELCH AND MARIA
4 A sad tale's best for winter. I have one
Of sprites and goblins.
Winter's Tale 2.1.25-6, MAMILLIUS, a little boy, to his mother HERMIONE
STRATEGY
5 In cases of defence 'tis best to weigh
The enemy more mighty than he seems.
Henry V 2.4.43-4, DAUPHIN OF FRANCE TO FRENCH LORDS
6 Advantage is a better soldier than rashness.
Henry V 3.6.120, MONTJOY TO HENRY
SUCCESS
7 Upon your sword
Sit laurel victory, and smooth success
Be strewed before your feet.
Antony and Cleopatra 1.3.101-3, CLEOPATRA TO ANTONY
8 I have lived
To see inherited my very wishes,
And the buildings of my fancy.
Coriolanus 2.1.198-200, VOLUMNIA TO CORIOLANUS
9 A hit, a very palpable hit.
Hamlet 5.2.285, OSRIC commenting on the duel between Hamlet and Laertes
10 They well deserve to have
That know the strong'st and surest way to get.
Richard II 3.3.200-1, RICHARD TO BOLINGBROKE
SUICIDE I 273
1 Now does my project gather to a head:
My charms crack not; my spirits obey; and time
Goes upright with his carriage.
Tempest 5.1.1-3, PROSPERO TO ARIEL
2 You're a made old man.
Winter's Tale 3.3.118, SHEPHERD'S SON TO THE SHEPHERD, on the finding of the infant
Perdita, obviously the child of rich parents
See also AMBITION; VICTORY
SUFFERING
3 O ye gods, ye gods! Must I endure all this?
Julius Caesar 4.3.41, CASSIUS TO BRUTUS
4 You do me wrong to take me out o'the grave.
Thou art a soul in bliss, but I am bound
Upon a wheel of fire that mine own tears
Do scald like molten lead.
King Lear 4.7.45-8, LEAR TO CORDELIA
SUICIDE
5 Then is it sin
To rush into the secret house of death
Ere death dare come to us?
Antony and Cleopatra 4.15.84-6, CLEOPATRA
6 Let's do't after the high Roman fashion
And make death proud to take us.
Antony and Cleopatra 4.15.91-2, CLEOPATRA
7 We have no friend
But resolution and the briefest end.
Antony and Cleopatra 4.15.94-5, CLEOPATRA
8 I am fire and air; my other elements
I give to baser life.
Antony and Cleopatra 5.2.287-8, CLEOPATRA
9 She hath pursued conclusions infinite
Of easy ways to die.
Antony and Cleopatra 5.2.353-4, OCTAVIUS CAESAR, of Cleopatra
10 O that this too too sullied flesh would melt,
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew,
274 I SUICIDE
Or that the Everlasting had not fixed
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter.
Hamlet 1.2.129-32, HAMLET
1 To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. To die - to sleep,
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to: 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep;
To sleep, perchance to dream - ay, there's the rub:
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause - there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th'oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of disprized love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th'unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all.
Hamlet 3.1.56-83, HAMLET
2 Life, being weary of these worldly bars,
Never lacks power to dismiss itself.
Julius Caesar 1.3.96-7, CASSIUS TO CASCA
3 Every bondman in his own hand bears
The power to cancel his captivity.
Julius Caesar 1.3.101-2, CASCA TO CASSIUS
SUPERNATURAL, the | 275
1 Brutus only overcame himself,
And no man else hath honour by his death.
Julius Caesar 5.5.56-7, STRATO TO MESSALA AND OCTAVIUS
2 Why should I play the Roman fool, and die
On mine own sword?
Macbeth 5.8.1, MACBETH
SUMMER
3 Now these hot days is the mad blood stirring.
Romeo and Juliet 3.1.4, BENVOLIO TO MERCUTIO
4 Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimmed:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade.
Sonnet 18.1-9; more at POETRY
5 This is very midsummer madness.
Twelfth Night 3.4.56, OLIVIA TO MALVOLIO
6 More matter for a May morning!
Twelfth Night 3.4.142, FABIAN TO SIR ANDREW AGUECHEEK AND SIR TOBY BELCH; May
is definitely summer here
SUPERNATURAL, the
7 They say miracles are past; and we have our philosophical persons to
make modern and familiar, things supernatural and causeless.
All's Well That Ends Well 2.3.1-3, LAFEW TO PAROLLES
8 In nature's infinite book of secrecy
A little I can read.
Antony and Cleopatra 1.2.10-11, SOOTHSAYER
9 GLENDOWER I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
HOTSPUR Why, so can I, or so can any man,
But will they come when you do call for them?
1 Henry JV 3.1.50-2; for more mockery of Glendower see OMENS AND PORTENTS
276 I SUPERNATURAL, the
1 Miracles are ceased,
And therefore we must needs admit the means
How things are perfected.
Henry V 1.1.67-9, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY TO THE BISHOP OF ELY
2 Descend to darkness and the burning lake:
False fiend, avoid!
2 Henry VI 1.4.40-1, BOLINGBROKE TO A SPIRIT
3 The foul fiend bites my back.
King Lear 3.6.17, EDGAR, disguised as Poor Tom, to LEAR
4 Night's swift dragons cut the clouds full fast;
And yonder shines Aurora's harbinger,
At whose approach, ghosts wandering here and there
Troop home to churchyards. Damned spirits all,
That in cross-ways and floods have burial,
Already to their wormy beds are gone.
Midsummer Night's Dream 3.2.379-84, PUCK TO OBERON
See also APPARITIONS; FAIRIES; OMENS AND PORTENTS; SPIRITS; WITCHES
SUPERSTITION see LUCK
SUSPICION
5 See what a ready tongue suspicion hath!
He that but fears the thing he would not know
Hath by instinct knowledge from others' eyes
That what he feared is chanced.
2 Henry IV 1.1.84-7, NORTHUMBERLAND TO MORTON
6 Thou echo'st me
As if there were some monster in thy thought
Too hideous to be shown.
Othello 3.3.109-11, OTHELLO TO IAGO
7 You smell this business with a sense as cold
As is a dead man's nose.
Winter's Tale 2.1.151-2, the suspicious LEONTES accusing ANTIGONUS of being
unobservant
SWIMMING
8 I saw him beat the surges under him,
And ride upon their backs; he trod the water,
Whose enmity he flung aside, and breasted
TALK 277
The surge most swoln that met him; his bold head
'Bove the contentious waves he kept, and oared
Himself with his good arms in lusty stroke
To th' shore.
Tempest 2.1.116-22, FRANCISCO TO ALONSO, of Ferdinand
1 Swam ashore, man, like a duck.
Tempest 2.2.127', TRINCULO, in reply to STEPHANO who asked him how he escaped the
shipwreck
2 Like Arion on the dolphin's back.
I saw him hold acquaintance with the waves.
Twelfth Night 1.2.15-16, CAPTAIN TO VIOLA, describing her brother after a shipwreck
T TALK
3 He words me, girls, he words me, that I should not
Be noble to myself.
Antony and Cleopatra 5.2.190-1, CLEOPATRA TO HER COMPANIONS
4 What I think, I utter, and spend my malice in my breath.
Coriolanus 2.1.53-4, MENENIUS TO SICINIUS
5 QUEEN More matter with less art.
POLONIUS Madam, I swear I use no art at all.
That he is mad, 'tis true; 'tis true 'tis pity;
And pity 'tis 'tis true. A foolish figure -
But farewell it, for I will use no art.
Hamlet 2.2.95-9
6 GUILDENSTERN Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you.
HAMLET Sir, a whole history.
Hamlet 3.2.297-9
7 HAMLET Who is to be buried in't?
GRAVEDIGGER One that was a woman, sir; but rest her soul, she's dead.
HAMLET HOW absolute the knave is. We must speak by the card or
equivocation will undo us.
Hamlet 5.1.33-7
278 I TALK
1 His sweet and honeyed sentences.
Henry V 1.1.50, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY TO THE BISHOP OF ELY, of Henry
2 Men of few words are the best men.
Henry V3.2.37-8, BOY
3 I cannot heave
My heart into my mouth.
King Lear 1.1.92-3, CORDELIA TO LEAR
4 Mend your speech a little,
Lest you may mar your fortunes.
King Lear 1.1.94-5, LEAR'S reply
5 Your large speeches may your deeds approve.
King Lear 1.1.185, KENT TO GONERIL AND REGAN; the implication is of doubt that they
will live up to their professions of love for their father. (The phrase is more easily
understood if the two halves are reversed.)
6 That glib and oily art
To speak and purpose not.
King Lear 1.1.226-7, CORDELIA TO LEAR
7 A man . . .
That hath a mint of phrases in his brain.
Love's Labour's Lost 1.1.164-5, KING OF NAVARRE TO BEROWNE, of Armado
8 I praise God for you, sir: your reasons at dinner have been sharp and
sententious; pleasant without scurrility, witty without affection,
audacious without impudency, learned without opinion, and strange
without heresy.
Love's Labour's Lost 5.1.2-6, NATHANIEL TO HOLOFERNES
9 They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps.
Love's Labour's Lost 5.1.35-6, MOTH TO HIS COMPANIONS
10 Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing.
Merchant of Venice 1.1.114, BASSANIO TO ANTONIO
11 Have I lived to stand at the taunt of one that makes fritters of English?
Merry Wives of Windsor 5.5.142-3, FALSTAFF, in disgust at Evans's mangling of the
language
12 I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior Benedick: nobody
marks you.
Much Ado About Nothing 1.1.111-12, BEATRICE TO BENEDICK
TEARS AND WEEPING | 279
1 She speaks poniards, and every word stabs.
Much Ado About Nothing 2.1.232-3, BENEDICK TO DON PEDRO, of Beatrice
2 O God, sir, here's a dish I love not! I cannot endure my Lady Tongue.
Much Ado About Nothing 2.1.257-8, BENEDICK TO DON PEDRO, on the arrival of
Beatrice
3 His words are a very fantastical banquet, just so many strange dishes.
Much Ado About Nothing 2.3.20-1, BENEDICK, of Claudio in love
4 Demand me nothing. What you know, you know.
From this time forth I never will speak word.
Othello 5.2.302-3, IAGO, to those assembled round the body of Desdemona
5 Talkers are no good doers.
Richard HI 1.3.351, MURDERER TO RICHARD
6 A gentleman that loves to hear himself talk, and will speak more in a
minute than he will stand to in a month.
Romeo and Juliet 2.4.146-8, ROMEO TO JULIET'S NURSE, of Mercutio
See also WORDS
TAXATION
7 That's the wavering commons, for their love
Lies in their purses, and whoso empties them,
By so much fills their hearts with deadly hate.
Richard II 2.2.128-30, BAGOT TO GREENE
TEARS AND WEEPING
8 Mine eyes smell onions; I shall weep anon.
All's Well That Ends Well, 5.3.319, LAFEW
9 Fall not a tear, I say, one of them rates
All that is won and lost.
Antony and Cleopatra 3.11.69-70, ANTONY TO CLEOPATRA
10 Like Niobe, all tears.
Hamlet 1.2.149, HAMLET'S description of his mother at his father's funeral
11 He has strangled
His language in his tears.
Henry VIII 5.1.156-7, HENRY, of Cranmer
12 If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.
Julius Caesar3.2.170, MARK ANTONY'S oration on the death of Julius Caesar
280 I TEARS AND WEEPING
1 Let not women's weapons, water-drops,
Stain my man's cheeks.
King Lear 2.2.469-70, LEAR TO REGAN
2 No, I'll not weep.
I have full cause of weeping, but this heart
Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws
Or e'er I'll weep.
King Lear 2.2.475-8, LEAR TO REGAN AND GONERIL
3 Mine eyes do itch,
Doth that bode weeping?
Othello 4.3.57-8, DESDEMONA TO EMILIA
4 What store of parting tears were shed?
Richard II 1.4.5, RICHARD TO AUMERLE
5 I am not prone to weeping, as our sex
Commonly are:... / but I have
That honourable grief lodged here which burns
Worse than tears drown.
Winter's Tale 2.1.108-12, HERMIONE TO LEONTES
TEMPTATION
6 Thou . . . art indeed able to corrupt a saint.
1 Henry IV 1.2.89-90, FALSTAFF TO PRINCE HAL
7 Why do I yield to that suggestion
Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair,
And make my seated heart knock at my ribs,
Against the use of nature?
Macbeth 1.3.134-7, MACBETH, tempted to murder
8 'Tis one thing to be tempted,...
Another thing to fall.
Measure for Measure 2.1.17-18, ANGELO TO ESCALUS
9 Can it be
That modesty may more betray our sense
Than woman's lightness? Having waste ground enough,
Shall we desire to raze the sanctuary
And pitch our evils there?
Measure for Measure 2.2.168-72, ANGELO
THOUGHTS I 28l
1 O cunning enemy, that, to catch a saint,
With saints dost bait thy hook!
Measure for Measure 2.2.180-1, ANGELO
2 Tempt not a desperate man.
Romeo and Juliet 5.3.59, ROMEO TO PARIS
THANKS
3 For this relief much thanks.
Hamlet 1.1.8, FRANCISCO TO BARNARDO
THIEVES
4 These pickers and stealers.
Hamlet3.2.337, HAMLET TO ROSENCRANTZ (refers to the Church catechism: 'To keep
my hands from picking and stealing')
5 Who, I rob? I a thief? Not I, by my faith.
1 Henry IV 1.2.135, FALSTAFF TO PRINCE HAL
6 I'll starve ere I'll rob a foot further.
1 Henry IV 2.2.21, FALSTAFF
7 A plague upon it when thieves cannot be true to one another.
1 Henry IV 2.2.26-7> FALSTAFF
8 Flat burglary as ever was committed.
Much Ado About Nothing 4.2.49, DOGBERRY TO HIS COLLEAGUES
9 We are not thieves, but men that much do want.
Timon of Athens 4.3.417, BANDIT TO TIMON
10 Every lane's end, every shop, church, session, hanging, yields a careful
man work.
Winter's Tale 4.4.687-8, AUTOLYCUS
See also CRIMES; TRIFLES
THOUGHTS
11 ROSALIND A woman's thought runs before her actions.
ORLANDO SO do all thoughts, they are winged.
As You Like It 4.1.133-5
12 There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.
Hamlet 2.2.250-1, HAMLET TO ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN
13 Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.
Hamlet 3.2.215, PLAYER KING
282 I THOUGHTS
1 Cudgel thy brains no more about it.
Hamlet 5.1.56, GRAVEDIGGER TO HIS MATE
2 Faster than spring-time showers comes thought on thought.
2 Henry VI 3.1.337, RICHARD OF YORK, the schemer
3 Thoughts of great value, worthy cogitations.
Julius Caesar 1.2.49, CASSIUS TO BRUTUS
4 Dive, thoughts, down to my soul.
Richard III 1.1.41, RICHARD
5 Love's heralds should be thoughts
Which ten times faster glides than the sun's beams
Driving back shadows over lowering hills.
Romeo and Juliet 2.5.4-6, JULIET
6 Slight air, and purging fire,. . .
The first my thought, the other my desire.
Sonnet 45.1, 3
7 I think good thoughts, whilst other write good words.
Sonnet 85.5
THREATS
8 There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats;
For I am armed so strong in honesty
That they pass by me as the idle wind,
Which I respect not.
Julius Caesar 4.3.66-9, BRUTUS TO CASSIUS
THRIFT
9 Thrift, thrift, Horatio. The funeral baked meats
Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.
Hamlet 1.2.180-1, HAMLET TO HORATIO
10 Howi'th' name of thrift
Does he rake this together?
Henry VIII 3.2.108-9, HENRY TO LORDS, of Cardinal Wolsey
11 Our purses shall be proud, our garments poor.
Taming of the Shrew 4.3.169, PETRUCHIO TO KATHERINA, frightening her with the
prospect of a poor but honest future; the phrase 'poor but honest' is itself used by
Helena in All's Well That Ends Well (1.3.197), to describe her friends and family
TIME I 283
TIME
1 Th'inaudible and noiseless foot of time.
All's Well That Ends Well 5.3.41, KING OF FRANCE TO BERTRAM
2 Every time
Serves for the matter that is then born in't.
Antony and Cleopatra 2.2.9-10, ENOBARBUS TO LEPIDUS
3 'Thus we may see', quoth he, 'how the world wags:
'Tis but an hour ago since it was nine,
And after one hour more 'twill be eleven;
And so from hour to hour, we ripe, and ripe,
And then from hour to hour, we rot, and rot,
And thereby hangs a tale.'
As You Like It 2.7.23-8, JAQUES reports his conversation with a fool in the Forest of
Arden
4 Time travels in divers paces with divers persons. I'll tell you who Time
ambles withal, who Time trots withal, who Time gallops withal, and
who he stands still withal.
As You Like It 2.7.303-6, ROSALIND TO ORLANDO
5 Let the time run on,
To good or bad.
Cymbeline 5.5.128-9, PISANIO
6 Take thy fair hour, Laertes, time be thine,
And thy best graces spend it at thy will.
Hamlet 1.2.62-3, CLAUDIUS TO LAERTES
7 What a devil hast thou to do with the time of the day? Unless hours
were cups of sack, and minutes capons, and clocks the tongues of
bawds, and dials the signs of leaping-houses, and the blessed sun
himself a fair hot wench in flame-coloured taffeta, I see no reason why
thou shouldst be so superfluous to demand the time of the day.
1 Henry IV 1.2.6-12, PRINCE HAL TO FALSTAFF
8 The dust of old oblivion.
Henry V 2.4.88, EXETER TO THE KING OF FRANCE
9 He weighs time
Even to the utmost grain.
Henry V 2.4.138-9, EXETER TO THE DAUPHIN AND THE KING OF FRANCE, of Henry
10 Cormorant devouring Time.
Love's Labour's Lost 1.1.4, KING OF NAVARRE TO HIS FRIENDS
284 I TIME
1 The seeds of time.
Macbeth 1.3.58, BANQUO TO THE WITCHES
2 Come what come may,
Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.
Macbeth 1.3.147-8, MACBETH
3 This bank and shoal of time.
Macbeth 1.7.6, MACBETH
4 Pleasure and action make the hours seem short.
Othello 2.3.367, IAGO TO RODERIGO
5 Time's the king of men;
He's both their parent, and he is their grave,
And gives them what he will, not what they crave.
Pericles 2.3.45-7, PERICLES
6 Devouring time.
Sonnet 19.1
7 Do thy worst, old Time.
Sonnet 19.13
8 My glass shall not persuade me I am old
So long as youth and thou are of one date;
But when in thee time's furrows I behold,
Then look I death my days should expiate.
Sonnet 22.1-4
9 Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end.
Sonnet 60.1-2
10 Time, that gave, doth now his gift confound.
Sonnet 60.8
11 Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth
And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,
Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow.
Sonnet 60.9-12
12 Time's injurious hand.
Sonnet 63.2
TIME I 285
1 Time decays.
O fearful meditation!
Sonnet 65.8-9
2 Time's thievish progress to eternity.
Sonnet 77.8
3 Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
Sonnet 116.9-12
4 When time is old and hath forgot itself,
When water-drops have worn the stones of Troy,
And blind oblivion swallowed cities up.
Troilus and Cressida 3.2.182-4, CRESSIDA TO TROILUS
5 Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back
Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,
A great-sized monster of ingratitudes.
Those scraps are good deeds past, which are devoured
As fast as they are made, forgot as soon
As done.
Troilus and Cressida 3.3.145-50, ULYSSES TO ACHILLES
6 Time is like a fashionable host
That slightly shakes his parting guest by th' hand,
And with his arms out-stretched, as he would fly,
Grasps in the comer. Welcome ever smiles,
And farewell goes out sighing. O let not virtue seek
Remuneration for the thing it was;
For beauty, wit,
High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service,
Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all
To envious and calumniating Time.
Troilus and Cressida 3.3.165-74, ULYSSES; more at HONOUR; PERSEVERANCE;
RIVALRY
7 Injurious Time now with a robber's haste
Crams his rich thiev'ry up, he knows not how.
Troilus and Cressida 4.4.41-2, TROILUS TO CRESSIDA
286 J TIME
1 What's past and what's to come is strewed with husks
And formless ruin of oblivion.
Troilus and Cressida 4.5.165-6, AGAMEMNON TO THE GREEK PRINCES
2 And thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges.
Twelfth Night 5.1.368-9, FESTE TO OLIVIA
See also FUTURE, the; TIME, wasting; TIMELINESS; TOMORROW; TRANSIENCE
TIME, wasting
3 By heaven, Poins, I feel me much to blame,
So idly to profane the precious time.
2 Henry IV 2.4.361-2, PRINCE HAL
4 We burn daylight.
Merry Wives of Windsor 2.1.49, MISTRESS FORD TO MISTRESS PAGE; also in Romeo Juliet 1.4.43, MERCUTIO TO ROMEO
5 I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.
Richard II 5.5.49, RICHARD, in prison
6 I would I had bestowed that time in the tongues that I have in fencing,
dancing, and bear-baiting. O, had I but followed the arts!
Twelfth Night 1.3.90-3, SIR ANDREW AGUECHEEK TO SIR TOBY BELCH
See also DELAY; TIME
TIMELINESS
7 You come most carefully upon your hour.
Hamlet 1.1.6, FRANCISCO TO BARNARDO
8 Think him as a serpent's egg,
Which, hatched, would, as his kind, grow mischievous,
And kill him in the shell.
Julius Caesar 2.1.32-4, BRUTUS TO LUCIUS, of Julius Caesar
9 Make use of time, let not advantage slip.
Venus and Adonis 129; more at FLOWERS AND PLANTS
See also ACTION, immediate; TIME
TOMORROW
10 Tomorrow is a busy day!
Richard III 5.3.18, RICHARD before the battle of Bosworth
11 Stir with the lark tomorrow.
Richard 1115.5.57, RICHARD before the battle of Bosworth
TRAPS AND TRICKS | 287
TRANSIENCE
1 Packs and sects of great ones
That ebb and flow by the moon.
King Lear 5.3.18-19, LEAR TO CORDELIA, in prison
2 Everything that grows
Holds in perfection but a little moment.
Sonnet 15.1-2
3 The summer's flower is to the summer sweet,
Though to itself it only live and die.
Sonnet 94.9-10
4 Yet doth beauty, like a dial hand,
Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived.
Sonnet 104.9-10
5 Youth's a stuff will not endure.
Twelfth Night 2.3.52, FESTE'S song
6 Women are as roses, whose fair flower
Being once displayed, doth fall that very hour.
Twelfth Night 2.4.38-9, ORSINO TO VIOLA, rather conventionally
TRAPS AND TRICKS
7 Ay, springes to catch woodcocks.
Hamlet 1.3.115, POLONIUS TO OPHELIA, describing young men's seduction techniques
8 The Mousetrap.
Hamlet 3.2.239; HAMLET names the dumb show which mirrors the crimes of
Claudius and Gertrude
9 I know a trick worth two of that.
1 Henry /V 2.1.35-6, CARRIER TO GADSHILL
10 My purpose is indeed a horse of that colour.
Twelfth Night 2.3.164, MARIA TO SIR TOBY BELCH AND SIR ANDREW AGUECHEEK,
planning a trick on Malvolio
11 Here comes the trout that must be caught with tickling.
Twelfth Night 2.5.21-2, MARIA TO SIR TOBY BELCH, of Malvolio
12 Remember who commended thy yellow stockings, and wished to see
thee ever cross-gartered.
Twelfth Night 2.5.148-9, MALVOLIO reads the anonymous letter which he believes is
from Olivia
288 I TRAPS AND TRICKS
See also PLOTS; POLITICS AND POLITICIANS
TRAVEL
1 Ay, now am I in Arden, the more fool I; when I was at home I was in a
better place, but travellers must be content.
As You Like It 2.4.14-16, TOUCHSTONE TO ROSALIND
2 I had rather have a fool to make me merry than experience to make me
sad, and to travel for it too!
As You Like It 4.1.25-7, ROSALIND TO JAQUES
3 Farewell Monsieur Traveller. Look you lisp, and wear strange suits;
disable all the benefits of your own country; be out of love with your
nativity, and almost chide God for making you that countenance you
are; or I will scarce think you have swam in a gondola.
As You Like It 4.1.31-6, ROSALIND TO JAQUES
4 Five summers have I spent in farthest Greece,
Roaming clean through the bounds of Asia.
Comedy of Errors 1.1.132-3, EGEON TO THE DUKE OF EPHESUS
5 Till that I'll view the manners of the town,
Peruse the traders, gaze upon the buildings.
Comedy of Errors 1.2.12-13, ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE TO A MERCHANT
6 I hope to see London once ere I die.
2 Henry IV 5.3.60, DAVY TO FALSTAFF AND COMPANIONS
7 Now spurs the lated traveller apace,
To gain the timely inn.
Macbeth 3.3.6-7, ONE MURDERER TO ANOTHER
8 I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the furthest inch of Asia; bring
you the length of Prester John's foot; fetch you a hair off the great
Cham's beard.
Much Ado About Nothing 2.1.249-52, BENEDICK TO DON PEDRO, asking for any
challenge rather than having to talk to Beatrice
9 I am a stranger here in Gloucestershire.
These high wild hills and rough uneven ways
Draws out our miles and makes them wearisome.
Richard II 2.3.3-5, NORTHUMBERLAND TO BOLINGBROKE
10 Journeys end in lovers meeting.
Twelfth Night 2.3.43, FESTE'S song
TRIFLES I 289
1 Then westward ho!
Twelfth Night 3.1.135, VIOLA TO OLIVIA
2 [He] did request me to importune you
To let him spend his time no more at home;
Which would be great impeachment to his age,
Having known no travel in his youth.
Two Gentlemen of Verona 1.3.13-16, PANTHINO TO ANTONIO; the young man is
Antonio's son Proteus.
3 Thou art perfect, then, our ship hath touched upon
The deserts of Bohemia?
Winter's Tale 3.3.1-2, ANTIGONUS TO A MARINER; an unlikely landing, unless they have
arrived by river
4 Jog on, jog on, the foot-path way,
And merrily hent the stile-a:
A merry heart goes all the day,
Your sad tires in a mile-a.
Winter's Tale 4.3.121-4, AUTOLYCUS' song
TREASON AND TREACHERY
5 Treachery! Seek it out.
Hamlet 5.2.321, HAMLET
6 What a brood of traitors have we here!
2 Henry VI 5.1.141, CLIFFORD TO RICHARD OF YORK
7 When the fox hath once got in his nose,
Hell soon find means to make the body follow.
3 Henry VI 4.7.25, RICHARD OF GLOUCESTER
8 A nest of traitors!
Winter's Tale 2.3.81, LEONTES TO PAULINA; he is referring to his children, since he
believes his wife to be unfaithful
See also MUSIC (1937)
TRIFLES
9 Small things make base men proud.
2 Henry VI 4.1.105, SUFFOLK TO HIS MURDERERS
10 Dispense with trifles.
Merry Wives of Windsor 2.1.43, MISTRESS PAGE TO MISTRESS FORD
11 Small winds shake him.
Two Noble Kinsmen 1.2.88, PALAMON TO VALERIUS, of Theseus
290 I TRIFLES
1 A snapper-up of unconsidered trifles.
Winter's Tale 4.3.25-6, light-fingered AUTOLYCUS' description of his father, and himself
TROJAN WAR, the
2 All the argument is a whore and a cuckold.
Troilus and Cressida 2.3.74-5, THERSITES TO ACHILLES; the unheroic view
TROUBLE
3 There is strange things toward . . . pray you, be careful.
King Lear 3.3.19-20, GLOUCESTER TO EDMUND
4 How cam'st thou in this pickle?
Tempest 5.1.281, ALONSO TO SEBASTIAN AND TRINCULO
5 O time, thou must untangle this, not I,
It is too hard a knot for me to untie.
Twelfth Night 2.2.40-1, VIOLA
TRUANCY
6 A truant disposition.
Hamlet 1.2.169, HORATIO TO HAMLET, describing his own character
TRUST
7 Love all, trust a few
All's Well That Ends Well 1.1.63, COUNTESS OF ROSSILLION TO BERTRAM; more at
ADVICE
8 What trust is in these times?
2 Henry IV 1.3.100, ARCHBISHOP OF YORK TO HASTINGS AND LORD BARDOLPH
9 He's mad that trusts in the tameness of a wolf, a horse's health, a boy's
love or a whore's oath.
King Lear 3.6.18-19, FOOL TO EDGAR AND LEAR
10 He was a gentleman on whom I built
An absolute trust.
Macbeth 1.4.13-14, DUNCAN TO MALCOLM, of the Thane of Cawdor - a title which
ironically will now be given to Macbeth
TRUTH
11 Tell truth, and shame the devil.
1 Henry IV 3.1.55, HOTSPUR TO GLENDOWER
12 Truth's a dog that must to kennel; he must be whipped out, when the
Lady Brach may stand by the fire and stink.
King Lear 1.4.109-11, FOOL TO LEAR
TYRANNY | 291
1 Truth is truth
To th'end of reck'ning.
Measure for Measure 5.1.48-9, ISABELLA TO THE DUKE
2 Truth will come to l i g h t . . . in the end truth will out.
Merchant of Venice 2.2.76, 77 y LAUNCELOT GOBBO TO OLD GOBBO
3 I will a round unvarnished tale deliver.
Othello 1.3.91, OTHELLO TO BRABANTIO AND THE DUKE OF VENICE
4 Speak of me as I am. Nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice
Othello 5.2.342-3, OTHELLO TO HIS COLLEAGUES, before killing himself
5 Truth hath a quiet breast.
Richard II 1.3.96, MOWBRAY TO BOLINGBROKE AND RICHARD
6 An honest tale speeds best being plainly told.
Richard III 4.4.358, QUEEN ELIZABETH TO RICHARD
7 Simple truth miscalled simplicity.
Sonnet 66.11
TYRANNY
8 Th'abuse of greatness is when it disjoins
Remorse from power.
Julius Caesar 2.1.18-19, BRUTUS TO LUCIUS
9 The foot
That leaves the print of blood where'er it walks.
King John 4.3.25-6, SALISBURY TO PHILIP THE BASTARD AND PEMBROKE
10 The laws are mine, not thine.
Who can arraign me for't?
King Lear 5.3.156-7, GONERIL TO ALBANY
11 'Tis safer to be that which we destroy,
Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.
Macbeth 3.2.6-7, LADY MACBETH TO A SERVANT
12 Each new morn,
New widows howl, new orphans cry; new sorrows
Strike heaven on the face.
Macbeth 4.3.4-6, MACDUFF TO MALCOLM
13 Our country sinks beneath the yoke;
It weeps, it bleeds; and each new day a gash
292 I TYRANNY
Is added to her wounds.
Macbeth 4.3.39-41, MALCOLM TO MACDUFF
1 There is pretty orders beginning, I can tell you. It is but heading and
hanging.
Measure for Measure 2.1.232-3, ESCALUS TO POMPEY
2 'Tis time to fear when tyrants seem to kiss.
Pericles 1.2.79, PERICLES TO HELICANUS
3 Think what you will, we seize into our hands
His plate, his goods, his money and his lands.
Richard II 2.1.209-10, RICHARD TO YORK
4 They that set you on
To do this deed will hate you for the deed.
Richard HI 1.4.251-2, CLARENCE tries to dissuade his MURDERERS from their task
5 I will converse with iron-witted fools
And unrespective boys; none are for me
That look into me with considerate eyes.
Richard III 4.2.28-30, RICHARD, describing appropriate companions for a tyrant
6 Mine eyes are cloyed with view of tyranny.
Titus Andronicus 3.1.55, TITUS TO MARCUS, who has just killed a fly
7 Power into will, will into appetite,
And appetite, an universal wolf.
Troilus and Cressida 1.3.120-1, ULYSSES TO THE GREEK PRINCES
>^$t%^%^%^ UI I S)t%^%^^?0^«
UNCERTAINTY
8 O, that a man might know
The end of this day's business ere it come!
Julius Caesar 5.1.123-4, BRUTUS TO CASSIUS
USURY
9 Neither a borrower nor a lender be.
Hamlet 1.3.75, POLONIUS TO LAERTES; more at ADVICE
VANITY I 293
1 'Twas never merry world since, of two usuries, the merriest was put
down, and the worser allowed by order of law.
Measure for Measure 3.2.5-7, POMPEY TO THE DUKE, disguised as a friar; the first
'usury' is sex
2 In low simplicity
He lends out money gratis.
Merchant of Venice 1.3.41-2, SHYLOCK, of Antonio
3 This is the fool that lent out money gratis.
Merchant of Venice 3.3.2, SHYLOCK, of Antonio on his imprisonment
•*%^%^*%^%^ V\ / fc%^%^%^*%^
VALUE
4 All that glisters is not gold.
Merchant of Venice 2.7.65, PRINCE OF MOROCCO
5 What we have we prize not to the worth
Whiles we enjoy it, but being lacked and lost,
Why then we rack the value, then we find
The virtue that possession would not show us
Whiles it was ours.
Much Ado About Nothing 4.1.217-21, FRIAR TO HERO AND LEONATO
6 What's aught but as 'tis valued?
Troilus and Cressida 2.2.53, TROILUS TO HECTOR
7 Value dwells not in particular will:
It holds his estimate and dignity
As well wherein 'tis precious of itself
As in the prizer.
Troilus and Cressida 2.2.54-7, HECTOR'S reply
See also WORTH
VANITY
8 God hath given you one face and you make yourselves another.
Hamlet 3.1.144-5, HAMLET TO OPHELIA, inveighing against make-up
294 I VANITY
1 There was never yet fair woman but she made mouths in a glass.
King Lear 3.2.35-6, FOOL TO LEAR
2 What a sweep of vanity comes this way.
Timon of Athens 1.2.133, APEMANTUS watching a masque of ladies dressed as Amazons
See also PRIDE
VICTORY
3 'I came, saw, and overcame.'
2 Henry iV 4.3.42, FALSTAFF quoting Julius Caesar to PRINCE JOHN OF LANCASTER
4 A victory is twice itself when the achiever brings home full numbers.
Much Ado About Nothing 1.1.8-9, LEONATO TO A MESSENGER
5 They laugh that win.
Othello 4.1.123, OTHELLO TO CASSIO AND IAGO
See also SUCCESS
VIOLENCE
6 Let's beat him before his whore.
2 Henry IV 2.4.257, POINS TO PRINCE HAL, of Falstaff
7 All pity choked with custom of fell deeds.
Julius Caesar 3.1.269, MARK ANTONY
8 It is a damned and a bloody work;
The graceless action of a heavy hand.
King John 4.3.57-8, PHILIP THE BASTARD TO LORDS
9 He unseamed him from the nave to th' chops,
And fixed his head upon our battlements.
Macbeth 1.2.22-3, CAPTAIN TO DUNCAN AND MALCOLM, describing Macbeth's
desperate energy in battle
10 O horror! horror! horror!
Tongue nor heart cannot conceive, nor name thee!
Macbeth 2.3.63-4, MACDUFF, at the discovery of Duncan's murder
11 Bloody thou art; bloody will be thy end.
Richard III 4.4.195, DUCHESS OF YORK TO RICHARD, her son
VIRTUE
12 O infinite virtue! Cornet thou smiling from
The world's great snare uncaught?
Antony and Cleopatra 4.8.17-18, CLEOPATRA TO ANTONY
VIRTUE I 295
1 If she be furnished with a mind so rare,
She is alone th'Arabian bird.
Cymbeline 1.7.16-17, IACHIMO, of Imogen
2 Virtue itself scapes not calumnious strokes.
Hamlet 1.3.38, LAERTES TO OPHELIA
3 Assume a virtue if you have it not.
Hamlet 3.4.162, HAMLET TO GERTRUDE, suggesting that assuming a virtue is the first
step towards possessing it
4 There lives not three good men unhanged in England, and one of them
is fat, and grows old.
1 Henry IV 2.4.128-9, FALSTAFF TO PRINCE HAL AND POINS; the old, fat one is, of
course, himself
5 Virtue finds no friends.
Henry VIII 3.1.126, KATHERINE OF ARAGON TO CARDINALS CAMPEIUS AND WOLSEY
6 His virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued.
Macbeth 1.7.18-19, MACBETH, of Duncan
7 Never anything can be amiss
When simpleness and duty tender it.
Midsummer Night's Dream 5.1.82-3, THESEUS TO PHILOSTRATE AND HIS COMPANIONS
8 Are you good men and true?
Much Ado About Nothing 3.3.1, DOGBERRY TO THE WATCH
9 While we do admire
This virtue and this moral discipline,
Let's be no stoics nor no stocks, I pray.
Taming of the Shrew 1.1.29-31, TRANIO TO LUCENTIO
10 'Tis the mind that makes the body rich,
And as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds,
So honour peereth in the meanest habit.
Taming of the Shrew 4.3.170-2, PETRUCHIO TO KATE
11 Dost thou think because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more
cakes and ale?
Twelfth Night 2.3.113-14, SIR TOBY BELCH TO FESTE
12 In nature there's no blemish but the mind:
None can be called deformed but the unkind.
Virtue is beauty.
Twelfth Night 3.4.366-8, ANTONIO TO SEBASTIAN
296 I VIRTUE
See also COMMUNICATION; ELEGIES; GOOD AND GOODNESS; HONESTY;
HONOUR; TIME
VOWS
1 Yours in the ranks of death.
King Lear 4.2.24, EDMUND TO GONERIL
2 I swear to thee by Cupid's strongest bow,
By his best arrow with the golden head,
By the simplicity of Venus' doves,
By that which knitteth souls and prospers loves,...
By all the vows that ever men have broke
(In number more than ever women spoke).
Midsummer Night's Dream 1.1.169-72,175-6, HERMIA TO LYSANDER
3 I am your own for ever.
Othello 3.3.482, IAGO TO OTHELLO
4 Swear not by the moon, th'inconstant moon,
That monthly changes in her circled orb,
Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.
Romeo and Juliet 2.2.109-11, JULIET TO ROMEO
fc%^%^%^*%^ \ A / fc%^%^*%^%^
WAITING
5 I am to wait, though waiting so be hell.
Sonnet 58.13
WALES AND THE WELSH
6 I think there's no man speaks better Welsh.
1 Henry JV3.1.47, HOTSPUR'S ironic compliment to his ally GLENDOWER, who has just
been boasting
7 Thy tongue
Makes Welsh as sweet as ditties highly penned,
Sung by a fair queen in a summer's bow'r
With ravishing division to her lute.
1 Henry iV 3.1.201-4, MORTIMER TO HIS WIFE
WAR I 297
1 The devil understands Welsh.
1 Henry IV 3.1.224, HOTSPUR TO HIS WIFE
2 LADY PERCY Lie still, ye thief, and hear the lady sing in Welsh.
HOTSPUR I had rather hear Lady my brach howl in Irish.
1 Henry IV3.1.229-30
3 I tell you, Captain, if you look in the maps of the world, I warrant you
shall find, in the comparisons between Macedon and Monmouth, that
the situations, look you, is both alike. There is a river in Macedon, and
there is also moreover a river at Monmouth.
Henry V 4.7.23-8, FLUELLEN TO GOWER
4 FLUELLEN I do believe your majesty takes no scorn to wear the leek
upon Saint Tavy's day.
KING HENRY I wear it for a memorable honour,
For I am Welsh, you know, good countryman.
Henry V 4.7.100-4
5 If you can mock a leek you can eat a leek.
Henry V* 5.1.37, FLUELLEN gets his revenge on PISTOL
6 Heavens defend me from that Welsh fairy!
Merry Wives of Windsor 5.5.81, FALSTAFF, of Evans disguised as a fairy
WAR
7 The end of war's uncertain.
Coriolanus 5.3.143, VOLUMNIA TO HER FAMILY
8 We go to gain a little patch of ground
That hath in it no profit but the name.
Hamlet 4.4.18-19, CAPTAIN in Fortinbras's army, to HAMLET
9 I see
The imminent death of twenty thousand men
That, for a fantasy and trick of fame,
Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot
Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,
Which is not tomb enough and continent
To hide the slain.
Hamlet 4.4.59-65, HAMLET
10 We must all to the wars.
1 Henry IV 2.4.536-7, PRINCE HAL TO PETO
298 J WAR
1 FALSTAFF I would 'twere bedtime, Hal, and all well.
PRINCE Why, thou owest God a death.
i Henry IV 5.1.125-6
2 Full bravely hast thou fleshed
Thy maiden sword.
j Henry IV 5.4.128-9, PRINCE HAL to his brother LORD JOHN OF LANCASTER
3 For God's sake, go not to these wars!
2 Henry IV 2.3.9, LADY PERCY TO THE NORTHUMBERLANDS
4 I have in equal balance justly weighed
What wrongs our arms may do, what wrongs we suffer,
And find our griefs heavier than our offences.
2 Henry IV 4.1.67-9, ARCHBISHOP OF YORK TO WESTMORELAND
5 God, and not we, hath safely fought today.
2 Henry IV 4.2.121, PRINCE JOHN OF LANCASTER TO HIS COMPANIONS
6 Now all the youth of England are on fire,
And silken dalliance in the wardrobe lies.
Henry V 2.0.1-2, CHORUS
7 Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility;
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger:
Stiffen the sinews, conjure up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favoured rage.
Henry V 3.1.1-8, HENRY TO HIS FORCES
8 I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot.
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry 'God for Harry! England and Saint George!'
Henry V 3.1.32-5, HENRY TO HIS FORCES
9 Would I were in an alehouse in London! I would give all my fame for
a pot of ale and safety.
Henry V 3.2.14-15, BOY TO PISTOL, on the battlefields of France
10 I know the disciplines of war.
Henry V3.2.141, FLUELLEN TO MACMORRIS
WAR J 299
1 The gates of mercy shall be all shut up,
And the fleshed soldier, rough and hard of heart,
In liberty of bloody hand shall range
With conscience wide as hell.
Henry V 3.3.10-13, HENRY TO HIS COMPANIONS IN WAR
2 We see yonder the beginning of the day, but I think we shall never see
the end of it.
Henry V 4.1.89-90, MICHAEL WILLIAMS, a soldier, to HENRY incognito
3 There are few die well that die in a battle.
Henry V 4.1.139-40, MICHAEL WILLIAMS, a soldier, to HENRY incognito
4 This day is called th