For I am arm'd so strong in honesty,
That they pass by me, as the idle wind,
Which I respect not. I did send to you
For certain sums of gold, which you denied me;
For I can raise no money by vile means:
By heaven, I had rather coin my heart,

And drop my blood for drachmas,* than to wring
From the hard hands of peasants their vile trash,
By any indirection. I did send

Το you for gold to pay my legions,

Which you denied me: Was that done like Cassius?
Should I have answer'd Caius Cassius so?
When Marcus Brutus grows so covetous,
To lock such rascal counters from his friends,
Be ready, gods, with all your thunder bolts,
Dash him to pieces!

Cas

Bru. You did.

Cas.

I denied you not.

I did not:-he was but a fool, That brought my answer back.-Brutus hath riv'dt my heart:

A friend should bear his friend's infirmities,
But Brutus makes mine greater than they are.
Bru. I do not, till you practice them on me.
Cas. You love me not.

Bru.

I do not like your faults. Cas. A friendly eye could never see such faults. Bru. A flatterer's would not, though they do appear As huge as high Olympus.

Cas. Come, Antony, and young Octavius, come, Revenge yourselves alone on Cassius,

For Cassius is aweary of the world:

Hated by one he loves: brav'd by his brother:
Check'd like a bondman; all his faults observ'd,
Set in a note-book, learn'd, and conn'd by rote,
To cast into my teeth. O, I could weep
My spirit from mine eyes!-There is my dagger,
And here my naked breast; within, a heart
Dearer than Plutus' mine, richer than gold:
If that thou be'st a Roman, take it forth;
I, that deny'd thee gold, will give my heart:
* Coin.
+ Split.

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

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

better

Than ever thou lov'dst Cassius.

Bru.
Sheath your dagger:
Be angry when you will, it shall have scope;
Do what you will, dishonour shall be humour.
O Cassius, you are yoked with a lamb
That carries anger as the flint bears fire;
Who, much enforced, shows a hasty spark,
And straight is cold again.

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

Cas.

Bru.

O Brutus!

What is the matter?

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

Bru.

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

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

Cas. Of your philosophy you make no use,

If you give place to accidental evils.

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

Bru. She is dead.

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

O insupportable and touching loss!—
Upon what sickness?

Bru.

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

Cas. And died so?

Bru. Even so.

Cas. O ye immortal gods!

Enter LUCIUS with Wine and Tapers.

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

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

I cannot drink too much of Brutus' love. [Drinks.
OPPORTUNITY TO BE SEIZED ON ALL OCCASIONS OF
LIFE.

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

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

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

ACT V.

THE PARTING OF BRUTUS AND CASSIUS.

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

man,

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

If we do meet again, we'll smile indeed:
If not, 'tis true, this parting was well made.

Bru. Why, then, lead on.-O, that a man might know

The end of this day's business, ere it come!

But it sufficeth, that the day will end,

And then the end is known.

MELANCHOLY THE PARENT OF ERROR.
O hateful error, melancholy's child;

Why dost thou show to the apt thoughts of men
The things that are not! O error soon conceiv'd,
Thou never com'st unto a happy birth,
But kill'st the mother that engender'd thee.

ANTONY'S CHARACTER OF BRUTUS.

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

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

KING LEAR.

ACT I.

A FATHER'S ANGER.

LET it be so,--Thy truth then be thy dower: For, by the sacred radiance of the sun;

The mysteries of Hecate, and the night:

By all the operations of the orbs,

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

Propinquity* and property of blood,

And as a stranger to my heart and me

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

thian,

Or he that makes his generation‡ messes

Το

gorge his appetite, shall to my bosom Be as well neighbour'd, pitied, and reliev'd, As thou my sometime daughter.

BASTARDY.

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

The curiosity of nations to deprive me,

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

ASTROLOGY RIDICULED.

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

FILIAL INGRATITUDE.

Ingratitude! thou marble-hearted fiend,

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

A FATHER'S CURSE ON HIS CHILD.

Hear, nature, hear;

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

Dry up in her the organs of increase;

* The nicety of civil institution.

+ Traitors.

Great Bear, the constellation so named.