Слике страница
PDF
ePub

Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation,

[ocr errors]

Even in the cannon's mouth: and then, the justice,
In fair round belly, with good capon lin❜d,
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 slipper'd pantaloon ;
With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side;
His youthful hose well sav'd, 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 every thing.
As you like it. Act ii. Scene 7.

1st Lord. The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together: our virtues would be proud, if our faults whipped them not; and our crimes would despair, were they not cherish'd by our virtues.

All's well that ends well. Act iv. Scene 3.

Macbeth. 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 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. Act v. Scene 5.

Lewis. Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale,

Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.

King John. Act iii. Scene 4.

Hotspur. Oh, Harry, thou hast robb'd me of my youth; I better brook the loss of brittle life,

'Than those proud titles thou hast won of me:

They wound my thoughts, worse than thy sword my flesh :But, thought's the slave of life, and life time's fool;

And time, that takes survey of all the world,

Must have a stop.

1st part King Henry IV. Act v. Scene 4.

ITS HAPPINESS UNSATISFYING.

York. Comfort's in heaven: and we are on the earth, Where nothing lives, but crosses, care and grief.

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

Nor I, nor any man, that but man is,

With nothing shall be pleas'd, till he be eas'd
With being nothing.

Ibid. Act v. Scene 5.

COMPRISES MINGLED JOYS AND SORROWS.

Gloster. Thus, sometimes, hath the brightest day a cloud; And, after summer, evermore succeeds

Barren winter, with his wrathful nipping cold:

So cares and joys abound, as seasons fleet.

2nd part King Henry VI. Act ii, Scene 4.

Wolsey. This is the state of man: to-day he puts forth The tender leaves of hope, 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.

King Henry VIII. Act iii. Scene 2.

VICISSITUDES RECONCILE US TO DECLINE OF LIFE.

Edgar.

[ocr errors]

World, world, oh, world! But that thy strange mutations make us hate thee, Life would not yield to age.

King Lear. Act iv. Scene 1.

THE sum of Shakspere's indescribably beautiful meditations on human life, must have the good effect of turning us to the contemplation of this state of existence as merely a sort of vestibule to a bright palace beyond. Unhappy those who look upon its chequer'd scenes as comprising the whole of man's being!

HYPOCRISY.

Claudio. Oh, what authority and show of truth Can cunning sin cover itself withal!

Much ado about Nothing Act iv. Scene 1.

Antonio. The devil can cite scripture for his purpose.

An evil soul, producing holy witness,

Is like a villain with a smiling cheek;

A goodly apple rotten at the heart:

Oh what a goodly outside falsehood hath !

Polonius.

Merchant of Venice. Acti. Scene 3,

We are oft to blame in this,

'Tis too much prov'd,* that, with devotion's visage,

And pious action, we do sugar o'er

The devil himself.

Hamlet. Actñi. Scene 1.

*Too often experienced.

IMAGINATION.

ITS POWER.

Theseus. Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,

Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend

More than cool reason ever comprehends.

The lunatic, the lover, and the poet,

Are of imagination all compàct:

One sees more devils than vast hell can hold ;

That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,

Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt:

The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,

Doth glance from heav'n to earth, from earth to heav'n; 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.

Such tricks hath strong imagination;
That, if it would but apprehend some joy,
It comprehends some bringer of that joy;
Or, in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush suppos'd a bear!

Midsummer Night's Dream. Act v. Scene 1.

« ПретходнаНастави »