Eno. Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides,
So many mermaids, tended her i' the eyes,
And made their bends adornings: at the helm
A seeming Mermaid steers; the silken tackle
Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands,
That yarely frame 1) the office. From the barge
A strange invisible perfume hits the sense
Of the adjacent wharfs. The city cast
Her people out upon her; and Antony,
Enthroned in the market-place, did sit alone,
Whistling to the air; which, but for vacancy,
Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too,
And make a gap in nature.
(Antony and Cleopatra. Act. II.)
Whose edge is sharper than the sword; whose tongue
Outvenoms all the worms of Nile; whose breath
Rides on the posting winds, and doth belie
All corners of the world kings, queens, and states,
Maids, matrons, nay, the secrets of the grave
This viperous slander enters.
The Reverence paid to Christmas Time.
It faded on the crowing of the cock.
Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes
I Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
This bird of dawning singeth all night long:
And then they say no spirit dares stir abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.
Advice to a Son going to travel.
Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportion'd thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel;
But do not dull thy palm 2) with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledged comrade.
Of entrance to a quarrel: but, being in,
Bear it, that the opposer may beware of thee.
Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice:
Take each man's censure 3), but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy:
For the apparel oft proclaims the man;
1) Readily perform. 2) Palm of the hand. 3) Opinion.
And they in France, of the best rank and station,
Are most select and generous 1), chief2) in that.
Neither a borrower, nor a lender be:
For loan oft loses both itself and friend;
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry 3).
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.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
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 dusky 4) 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 ideot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing. -
Your words have took such pains, as if they labour'd
To bring manslaughter into form, set quarrelling
Upon the head of valour; which, indeed,
Is valour misbegot, and came into the world
When sects and factions were but newly born:
He's truly valiant that can wisely suffer
The worst that man can breathe; and make his wrongs
His outsides; wear them like his raiment, carelessly;
And ne'er prefer his injuries to his heart,
(Timon of Athens. Act III.)
Lo, by thy side where Rape and Murder stands;
Now give some 'surance that thou art Revenge,
Stab them, or tear them on thy chariot wheels;
And then I'll come and be thy waggoner,
And whirl along with thee about the globes.
Provide the proper palfries, black as jet,
To hale thy vengeful waggon swift away,
And find out murderers in their guilty caves:
And, when thy car is loaden with their heads,
I will dismount, and by the waggon wheel
Trot, like a servile footman, all day long;
Even from Hyperion's rising in the east,
Until his very downfall in the sea.
(Titus Andronicus. Act V.)
1) Noble. 2) Chiefly. 3) Economy. 4) Auch dusty.
Take but degree away, untune that string,
And, hark, what discord follows! each thing meets
In mere 1) oppugnancy: the bounded waters
Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores,
And make a sop of all this solid globe:
Strength should be lord of imbecility,
And the rude son should strike his father dead:
Force should be right; or, rather, right and wrong
(Between whose endless jar justice resides)
Should lose their names, and so should justice too.
Then every thing includes itself in power,
Power into will, will into appetite;
And appetite, an universal wolf
So doubly seconded with will and power,
Must make perforce an universal prey,
And, last, eat up himself.
(Troilus and Cressida. Act I.)
Hohenlinden.
On Linden, when the sun was low,
All bloodless lay th'untrodden snow;
And dark as winter was the flow
Of Iser, rolling rapidly.
But Linden saw another sight,
When the drum beat, at dead of night,
Commanding fires of death to light
The darkness of her scenery.
By torch and trumpet fast array'd,
Each horseman drew his battle blade,
And furious every charger neigh'd,
To join the dreadful revelry.
Then shook the hills with thunder riv'n,
Then rush'd the steed to battle driv'n,
And louder than the bolts of heaven,
Far flash'd the red artillery.
But redder yet that light shall glow,
On Linden's hills of stained snow,
And bloodier yet the torrent flow
Of Iser, rolling rapidly.
'Tis morn, but scarce yon level sun
Can pierce the war-clouds, rolling dun,
Where furious Frank, and fiery Hun,
Shout in their sulph'rous canopy.
The combat deepens. On, ye brave,
Who rush to glory, or the grave!
Wave, Munich, all thy banners wave!
And charge with all thy chivalry!
But the might of England flush'd
To anticipate the scene;
And her van the fleeter rush'd
O'er the deadly space between.
<< Hearts of oak,» our captains cried! when each gun
From its adamantine lips
Spread a death - shade round the ships.
Like the hurricane eclipse
1) Captain Riou, justly entitled the gallant and the good, by Lord Nelson, when he wrote home his dispatches. 2) This is partly composed on the plan of an old song known by the same name.
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