Enter LUCIUS, 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. 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, ACT V. THE PARTING OF BRUTUS AND CASSIUS. Bru. No, Cassius, no: think not, thou noble RoThat ever Brutus will go bound to Rome; [man, 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 The end of this day's business, ere it come! [know But it sufficeth, that the day will end, And then the end is known. MELANCHOLY, THE PARENT OF ERROR. 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: Did that they did in envy of great Cæsar; So mix'd in him, that Nature might stand up, LET King Lear. ACT I. A FATHER'S ANGER. ET it be so,-Thy truth then be thy dower: From whom we do exist, and cease to be; [an, Hold thee, from thist, forever. The barbarous Scythi- * Kindred. † From this time. + His children. BASTARDY. Thou, nature, art my goddess; to thy law For that I am some twelve or fourteen moon-shines 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 charge of a 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 on my bastardizing. FILIAL INGRATITUDE. Ingratitude! thou marble-hearted fiend, More hideous, when thou show'st thee in a child, Than the sea-monster! *The injustice. + Traitors. †The nicety of civil institution. § Great bear, the constellation so named. A FATHER'S CURSE ON HIS CHILD. Hear, nature, hear; Dear goddess, hear! Suspend thy purpose, if Dry up in her the organs of increase; ACT II. 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 atwain sion Which are too intrinse ‡ t'unloose: smooth every pas- PLAIN BLUNT MEN. This is some fellow, Who, having been prais'd for bluntness, doth affect * Degraded. + Falling. + Perplexed. § Disowned. The bird called the king-fisher, which, when dried and hung up by a thread, is supposed to turn his bill to the point from whence the wind blows. A saucy roughness, and constrains the garb, These kind of knaves I know, which in this plainness BEDLAM BEGGARS. While I may scape, I will preserve myself: and am bethought Brought near to beast: my face I'll grime with filth; THE FAULTS OF INFIRMITY PARDONABLE. Fiery? the fiery duke?—Tell the hot duke, that→ No, but not yet:-may be, he is not well: Infirmity doth still neglect all office, Whereto our health is bound; we are not ourselves, And am fallen out with my more headier will, For the sound man. *Simple or rustic. + Hair thus knotted was supposed to be the work of elves and fairies in the night. Skewers. § Curses. |