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Bru. Even so.

Cas. O ye immortal gods!

[Enter Boy with Wine and Tapers. Bru. Speak no more of her-Give me a bowl of wine:

In this I bury all unkindness, Cassius. [Drinks.
Cas. Myheart is thirsty for that noble pledge.
Fill, Lucius, till the wine o'erswell the cup;
I cannot drink too much of Brutus' love.

Opportunity to be seized on all Affairs.
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 full sea are we now afloat;
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.

The Parting of Brutus and Cassius.
Bru. No, Cassius, no; think not, thou no-
ble Roman,

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 began:
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 Cæsar; He, only, in a general honest thought, And common good to all, made one of them. His life was gentle; and the elements

So mixt in him, that nature might stand up, And say to all the world, "This was a man!"

§ 28. KING LEAR. SHAKSPEARE.
An alienated Child.

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 whom 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 barb'rous
Scythian,

Or he that makes his generation messes
To 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
The curiosity of nations to deprive me, [shines
For that I am some twelve or fourteen moon-
Lag of a brother? Why bastard! Wherefore
base?

When my dimensions are as well compact,
My mind as gen'rous, 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?

A Father cursing his Child.
Hear, Nature, hear;
Dear goddess, hear! Suspend thy purpose,
if
Thou didst intend tomake 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 honor her! If she must teem,
Create her child of spleen; that it may live,
And be a thwart disnatur'd torment to her!
Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth;
With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks;
Turn all her mother's pains and benefits
To laughter and contempt; that she may feel
How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
To have a thankless child!

Ingratitude in a Child. Ingratitude! thou marble-hearted fiend, More hideous, when thou show'st thee in a child, Than the sea-monster!

Flattering Sycophants. That such a slave as this should wear a sword, Who wears no honesty. Such smiling rogues as these,

Like rats, oft bite the holy cords in twain Which are too intrinse t'unloose: smooth ev'ry

passion,

That in the nature of their lords rebels:
Bring oil to fire, snow to their colder moods.
Renege, affirm, and turn their halcyon beaks
With ev'ry gale and vary of their masters;
As knowing nought, like dogs, but following.
Plain, blunt Men.
-This is some fellow,
[affect
Who, having been prais'd for bluntness, doth
A saucy roughness; and constrains the garb
Quite from his nature: He cannot flatter, he!—
An honest mind and plain-he must speak truth:
An they will take it, so: if not, he's plain.
These kind of knaves I know, which in this
plainness

Harbor more craft, and more corrupter ends,
Than twenty silly ducking observants,
That stretch their duties nicely.

Description of Bedlam Beggars.
While I may scape,

I will reserve myself: and am bethought
To take the basest and most poorest shape,

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That ever penury, in contempt of man, [filth;
Brought near to beast: my face I'll grime with
Blanket my loins; elf all my hair in knots;
And with presented nakedness out-face
The winds and persecutions of the sky.
The country gives me proof and precedent
Of Bedlam beggars, who, with roaring voices,
Strike in their numb'd and mortified bare arms,
Pins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs of rosemary,
And with this horrible object, from low farms,
Poor pelting villages, sheep-cotes and mills,
Sometime with lunatic bans, sometime with

Enforce their charity.

[pray'rs,

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Rising Passion.

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white hair,

Which the impetuous blasts, with eyeless rage,
Catch in their fury, and make nothing of:
Strive in his little world of man to out-scorn
The to-and-fro conflicting wind and rain.
This night, wherein the cub-drawn bear would
The lion, and the belly-pinched wolf [couch,
Keep their fur dry, unbonneted he runs,
And bids what will take all.

Lear's passionate Exclamation amidst the
Tempest.

Blow, wind! and crack your cheeks! rage!
You cataracts, and hurricanoes, spout [blow!
Till you
have drench'd our steeples, drown'd
the cocks!

You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking
thunder,

Strike flat the thick rotundity o' the world!
Crack nature's moulds, all germens spill at once
That make ingrateful man!

I pr'ythee, daughter, do not make me mad; I will not trouble thee, my child; farewell: Rumble thy belly-full! spit, fire! spout, rain! We'll no more meet, no more see one another. Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters: But yet thou art my flesh, my blood, my daugh-I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness, Or, rather, a disease that's in my flesh, [ter, Which I must needs call mine; thou art a bile, A plague-sore, an imbossed carbuncle, In my corrupted blood; but I'll not chide thee; Let shame come when it will, I do not call it; I do not bid the thunder-bearer shoot, Nor tell tales of thee to high-judging Jove. The Necessaries of Life few.

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.

Lear on the Ingratitude of his Daughters.
You see me here, you gods, a poor old man,
As full of grief as age; wretched in both!
If it be you that stir these daughters' hearts
Against their father, fool me not so much
To bear it tamely; touch me with noble anger!
O let not women's weapons, water-drops,
Stain my man's cheeks! No, you unnat' ral hags,
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. You think I'll weep;
No, I'll not weep:

I have full cause of weeping; but this heart
Shall break into a hundred thousand Aaws,
Or e'er I weep. O fool, I shall go mad.

I never gave you kingdom, call'd you children,
You owe me no subscription. Why then let fall
Your horrible pleasure; here I stand, your slave,
A poor, infirm, weak, and despis'd old man :-
But yet I call you servile ministers,
That have with two pernicious daughters join'd
Your high-engender'd battles, 'gainst a head
So old and white as this. O! O! 'tis foul!

Kent. Alas, Sir! are you here? Things that

love night,

Love not such nights as these; the wrathful skies
Gallow the very wanderers of the dark, [man,
And make them keep their caves: since I was
Such sheets of fire, such bursts of horrid thunder,
Such groans of roaring wind and rain, I never
Remember to have heard: man's nature can-
The affliction nor the fear.
[not carry

Lear. Let the great gods,
That keep this dreadful pother o'er our heads,
Find out their enemies now. Tremble, thou
wretch,

That hast within thee undivulged crimes,
Unwhipp'd-of justice: hide thee, thou bloody
hand;

Thou perjur'd, and thou simular man of virtue,
That art incestuous: caitiff, to pieces shake,
That under covert and convenient seeming
Hast practis'd on man's life! Close pent-up
guilts,

Rive your concealing continents, and cry

These dreadful summoners grace. I am a man | So distribution should undo excess,
More sinn'd against than sinning.

Kent. Alack, bare-headed!

Gracious my lord, hard by here is a hovel;
Some friendship will it fend you 'gainst the

tempest,

And each man have enough.

Patience and Sorrow.
Patience and sorrow strove

Which should express her goodliest. You have

seen

Lear. Thou think'st 'tis much, that this Were like a better day: those happy smiles,

Sun-shine and rain at once; her smiles and tears

contentious storm

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own ease;

This tempest will not give me leave to ponder
On things would hurt ne more-but I'll go in:
In, boy; go first. You houseless poverty-
Nay, get thee in. I'll pray, and then I'll sleep
Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall your houseless heads, and unfed
sides,
[you
Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend
From seasons such as these?O, I have ta'en
Too little care of this!-Take physic, pomp;
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel!
That thou mayst shake the superflux to them,
And show the heavens more just.

That play'd on her ripe lip, seem'd not to know
What guests were in her eyes; which parted
thence,

As pearls from diamonds dropp'd.-In brief,
Sorrow would be a rarity most belov'd, if all

Could so become it.

Description of Lear distracted.

Alack, 'tis he! why, he was met even now
As mad as the vex'd sea; singing aloud;
Crown'd with rank fumiter, and furrow weeds,
With harlocks, hemlock, nettles, cuckoo-
flowers:

Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow
In our sustaining corn.

Description of Dover Cliff.
Come on, Sir; here's the place :-stand
still-how fearful

And dizzy 'tis, to cast one's eyes so low! [air,
The crows and choughs, that wing the midway
Show scarce so gross as beetles: half-way 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 bark
Diminish'd to her cock; her cock, a buoy
Almost too small for sight: the murmuring

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Glo'ster's Farewell to the World. O you mighty gods! This world I do renounce; and in your sights, Shake patiently my great affliction off: If I could bear it longer, and not fall My snuff, and loathed part of nature, should To quarrel with your great opposeless wills, Burn itself out. If Edgar live, O bless him! On the Abuse of Power. Hang fated o'er men's faults, light on thy Why dost thou lash that whore? strip thine Thou rascal beadle, hold thy bloody hand:

Enter Edgar disguised like a Madman. Lear. Hast thou given all to thy two daugh[ters?

And art thou come to this?

Didst thou give them all?
Now, all the plagues that in the pendulous air

daughters!

Kent. He hath no daughters, Sir,
Lear. Death, traitor! nothing could have

subdued nature

To such a lowness, but his unkind daughters.

Is it the fashion, that discarded fathers
Should have thus little mercy on their flesh?
Judicious punishment! 'twas this flesh begot
Those pelican daughters.

The Justice of Providence.
That I am wretched, [still;
Makes thee the happier :-heavens, deal so
Let the superfluous and lust-dieted man,
That slaves your ordinance, that will not see
Because he does not feel, feel your pow'r
quickly;

own back;

For which thou whipp'st her. The usurer
Thou hotly lust'st to use her in that kind

Through tatter'd clothes small vices do appear;
hangs the cozener.
Robes and furr'd gowns hide all. Plate sin
And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks:
with gold,
Arm it in rags, a pigmy's straw doth pierce it.
None does offend, none, I say, none; I'll able

'em:

Take that of me, my friend, who have the

pow'r

To seal th' accuser's lips. Get thee glass eyes;
And, like a scurvy politician, seem
To see the things thou dost not.

Cordelia on the Ingratitude of her Sisters. O, my dear father! Restoration, hang Thy medicine on my lips; and let this kiss Repair those violent harms, that my two sisters Have in thy reverence made!

Had you not been their father, these white flakes
Had challeng'd pity of them. Was this a face
To be expos'd against the warring winds?
To stand against the deep, dread-bolted thunder?
In the most terrible and nimble stroke
Of quick cross lightning? to watch (poor perdu!)
Within this thin helm? Mine enemy's dog
Though he had bit me, should have stood that
night

Against my fire; and wast thou fain, poor father,
To hovel thee with swine, and rogues forlorn,
In short and musty straw? Alack! alack!
"Tis wonder that thy life and wits at once
Had not concluded all.

Scene between Lear and Cordelia.

Cord. How does my royal lord? how fares your majesty?

Lear. 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.

Cord. Sir, do you know me?

Lear. You are a spirit, I know; when did you die?

Cord. Still, still far wide!
[a while.
Phys. He's scarce awake, let him alone
Lear. Where have I been? where am I?-
Fair day-light!

[pity

I am mightily abus'd.—I should even die with
To see another thus.-I will not swear
These are my hands.

Cord. O look upon me, Sir,

And hold your hands in benediction o'er me: No, Sir, you must not kneel.

Lear. Pray, do not mock me : I am a very foolish fond old man, Fourscore and upward: and, to deal plainly, I fear I am not in my perfect mind. Methinks I should know you, and know this

man;

Yet I am doubtful, for I am mainly ignorant What place this is; and all the skill I have Remembers not these garments; nor I know [me,

not

Where I did lodge last night. Do not laugh at
For, as I am a man, I think this lady
To be my child Cordelia.

Cord. And so I am, I am.

Lear. Be your tears wet? Yes, faith. I pray weep not:

If you have poison for me, I will drink it.
I know you do not love me; for your sisters
Have, as I do remember, done me wrong:
You have some cause, they have not.
Cord. No cause, no cause.

Lear. Am I in France?

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Who loses, and who wins; who's in, who's
As if we were God's spies; and we'll wear out,
And take upon us the mystery of things,
In a wall'd prison, packs and sects of great ones,
That ebb and flow by the moon.

Edm. Take them away.

Lear. Upon such sacrifices, my Cordelia, The gods themselves throw incense.

The Justice of the Gods.

The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices Make instruments to scourge us. Edgar's Account of his discovering himself to his Father, &c. List a brief tale :And, when 'tis told, O that

burst!

my heart would

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That with the pain of death we'd hourly die,
Rather than die at once!), taught me to shift
Into a madman's rags; to assume a semblance
That very dogs disdain'd: and in this habit
Met 1 my father, with his bleeding rings,
Their precious stones new lost; became his
guide,
[spair;
Led him, begg'd for him, sav'd him from de-
Never (O fault!) reveal'd myself unto him,
Until some half-hour past, when I was arm'd,
Not sure, though hoping, of this good success,
I ask'd his blessing, and from first to last
Told him my pilgrimage: but his flaw'd heart
(Alack, too weak the conflict to support!)
"Twixt two extremes of passion, joy and grief,
Burst smilingly.

Bast. This speech of yours hath mov'd me, And shall, perchance, do good: but speak you

on;

You look as you had something more to say. All. If there be more, more woful, hold For I am almost ready to dissolve, [it in; Hearing of this.

Edg. This would have seem'd a period To such as love not sorrow: but another,

Phys. Be comforted, good madam: the great To amplify too much, would make much more

rage,

And top extremity.

Whilst I was big in clamor, came there a Lady Macbeth, on the News of Duncan's

man,

Who having seen me in my worst estate, Shunn'd my abhorr'd society; but, then, finding Who 'twas that so endur'd, with his strong

arms

He fasten'd on my neck, and bellow'd out
As he'd burst heaven; threw him on my father:
Told the most piteous tale of Lear and him,
That ever ear receiv'd; which, in recounting,
His grief grew puissant, and the strings of life
Began to crack:-twice then the trumpet
sounded,

And there I left him tranc'd.

Lear on the Death of Cordelia. 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.-O, she is gone for ever!

I know when one is dead, and when one lives;
She's dead as earth: lend me a looking-glass;
If that her breath will mist or stain the stone,
Why, then she lives.

This feather stirs; she lives! If it be so,
It is a chance which does redeem all sorrows,
That ever I have felt.

Kent. O, my good master!
Lear. Pr'ythee away

A plague upon you, murderers, traitors all!
I might have sav'd her; now she's gone for

ever!

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Approach.

That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan Under my battlements. Come, 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! make thick my blood, Stop up th' access and passage to remorse; That no compunctious visitings of nature The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts, Shake my fell purpose, nor keep pace between And take my milk for gall, you murd'ring ministers,

The raven himself is hoarse,

Wherever in your sightless substances [night, You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, That my keen knife see not the wound it makes; Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the "Hold! hold !"[dark,

To cry,

Macbeth's Irresolution.

cases,

It were done quickly: if the assassination [well
If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch,
With his surcease, success; that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all here,
But here upon this bank and shoal of time,
We'd jump the life to come. But, in these
[teach
We still have judgement here; that we but
Bloody instructions, which being taught, return
To plague the inventor: this even-handed
justice
[chalice
Commends the ingredients of our poison'd
To our own lips. He's here in double trust:
First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,
Strong both against the deed; then as his host,
Who should against his murderer shut the door,
Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of his taking-off:
And pity, like a naked new-born babe,
Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubin, hors'd
Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
Shall blow the horrid deed in ev'ry eye, [spur
That tears shall drown the wind.-I have no
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself,
And falls on the other.

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